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EPUB ISBN: 978-0-908327-55-3
PDF ISBN: 978-0-908330-51-5
The original publication details are as follows:
Title: The whalers
Author: Maynard, Felix
Published: Hutchinson, London, England, 1937
THE WHALERS
By DR. FELIX MAYNARD AND ALEXANDRE DUMAS
AUTHOR OF “THE THREE MUSKETEERS,” “THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO,” ETC.
The translation by F. W. REED
AUTHOR OF “ A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS P&RE *'
HUTCHINSON & CO.
( Publishers) Ltd.
LONDON
Made and Printed in Great Britain at Ttu Mayflower Press, Plymouth. William Brendou & Son, Ltd. *937
TO MY FATHER
“In all your years —not few — Ne’er courage failed, Nor purpose quailed, Nor any claimed he lacked his due.’
7
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction, by Johannes Andersen 9
Alexandre Dumas and Dr. Felix Maynard 17
CHAPTER
I. Van Diemen’s Land 2 5
II. Merveilleux 3 2
III. Government Men 4 2
IV. The Regions of the Antipodes 52
V. A Chance Cachalot 62
VI. The Cask of Rum 70
VII. Fantassin 77
VIII. The Antipodes 89
IX. Whale Fishing 95
X. Taillevent 10 4
XI. Superstitions 114
XII. Scurvy 12 3
XIII. The Lost Captain 1 37
XIV. New Zealand 144
XV. The Chatham Islands 153
XVI. The Massacre 1 59
XVII. King Thy-ga-rit 170
XVIII. The Colleagues of King Thy-ga-rit 179
XIX. Taillevent on his Feet 182
XX. Port Olive (Port Levy) 190
XXL A Night of Anguish 19 6
XXII. A New Zealand Legend 208
XXIII. Taraboulo 21 5
XXIV. Cannibalism 225
XXV. In the Fashion 247
XXVI. A Chance Whale 2 5 6
8
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
XXVII. Fishing in Partnership 262
XXVIII. The Great Whaler of Sag Harbour 272
XXIX. The Carbine Whale-boat and the Mother Whale 293
XXX. Taboo 309
XXXI. The Greenstone Lake 323
XXXII. Thirteen at Table 351
XXXIII. Ducks and Dentistry 360
XXXIV. The Last Whale 381
Notes
9
INTRODUCTION
By JOHANNES ANDERSEN,
Chief Librarian. Turnbull Library , Wellington , New Zealand
WE are always curious about the past; and the further the early days of New Zealand recede, the greater is the interest aroused by anything new that can be told about them.
Every newly-found journal or diary that comes to light, any letter or document belonging to those days, is scanned with interest; and so well worth the scanning are occasional “discoveries” that they live a new and wider life in publication.
Neglect may be due to the writings having been put away, forgotten or disregarded, or they may have been written in a foreign language.
The present publication is of the second kind. The journal was written by Dr. Maynard, a French surgeon in the wild days when New Zealand had come into some prominence as a centre for sealing and whaling, and was slowly coming into greater prominence as a new field for emigration;—an Ultima Thule of adventure and of adventurous settlement.
Apart from the beautifully produced accounts of French voyages and explorations in the Pacific, such as the volumes of D’Urville, Freycinet, and others, there were many private journals and narratives, some of which were printed—some are still in private hands and
THE WHALERS
17
unpublished. No one knows the interesting material that may yet be opened to our ken.
The present volume gives us such material. Les Baleiniers (The Whalers) was published in three small volumes, edited by Dumas, in ißyB. So far as English readers are concerned Dumas is known as a writer of thrilling romances; as the creator of somewhat flamboyant characters among whom the Three Musketeers stalk immortally, ever ready for rapier-play or rapierrepartee. Who would think that Dumas could find interest in the journal of a surgeon of a whaler in the South Seas? —but it is just this journal which to us in New Zealand is almost as much of a romance as is the story of those three musketeers; it tells us new things about those old days which some of us fancy we know from dawn to dusk. I had used Les Baleiniers when writing of the place-names of Banks Peninsula; but Mr. F. W. Reed, our New Zealand Dumas enthusiast (and better known and appreciated in France than in New Zealand), has seen the romance of the story where I saw only the romance of the place-names, and has translated it—the first time it has appeared in English—and who will not acknowledge the grace of its debut?
The life on board a whaler, its monotony alternating with utmost excitement, its dangers, the beauty and the terror of the sea, are well described by Dr. Maynard through that literary craftsman Dumas. He brings into full light, too, a phase of the life which is usually left in the dusk—the mercilessness, the dehumanizing cruelty, of the chase; and the light is almost too vivid when he describes the maternal solicitude of a mother-whale pursued by her human destroyers while attended with her calf. This incident will interest users of the
INTRODUCTION
18
Wellington-Lyttelton steamer service, for it took place at the heads of Lyttelton Harbour.
The story starts in Van Diemen’s Land, a name which gradually gave place to Tasmania; he describes a hunt, then a hanging which has so powerful an effect on the hardened whaler captain, Captain Jay, that he swallows his quid and has to be treated for poison! They leave Van Diemen’s Land, and when nearing New Zealand a penguin is got aboard. It at once makes itself at home, visits the galley, recognizes the signals for meals, and acts generally as if it were a reincarnated whaler, so that it becomes one of the crew, is placed on the ship’s roll as from March 17th under the name of Fantassin, and becomes the theme of a narrative as interesting as any indulged in by Levick of the Antarctic. Some of the outlying islands are visited and described, the time on the wastes out of sight of land being enlivened with tales of sailor superstitions, experiences with the dreaded scourge of scurvy, descriptions of whaling gear and whaling ways, until one day our familiar Banks Peninsula lifts from the sea, an oasis in a desert of waters.
The chief scene of the story is at the entrance to Lyttelton Harbour, the ship, the Asia , lying at anchor in Little Port Cooper, while the whale-boats scouted up and down Pegasus Bay seeking, like epic heroes of old, an encounter with Leviathan. The surgeon’s place was on the ship; once he did share in the excitement of a chase, but that was by accident. When the boats were away he relieved the inevitable ennui by visiting the Maori settlement in Port Levy by roaming in the bush and over the hills of Banks Peninsula, recording what he saw of the strange plants, the strange birds, and the stranger people of this cannibal land. When detained on board
19
THE WHALERS
he prepared and arranged his specimens of plant and bird and Maori artifact.
Captain Cook’s description of the before-dawn-song of the New Zealand birds is well known, and has been quoted repeatedly. The present volume contains a description of the chorus as heard at Port Levy which in the future will be quoted oftener than Captain Cook’s. It is written by one who must himself have been a musician; and he describes the different kinds of birds taking part in the chorus as well as the quality of their song so admirably that there is little difficulty in recognizing most of them. One realizes what New Zealand has lost since his day; for not only is this morning-song reduced in number of performers, but several of the singing birds have become extinct, and will never again lift their voices in inspiring song.
Not always, however, can Dr. Maynard’s birds be identified; some of those he (or his embellisher Dumas) describes never existed in New Zealand. The same must be said of his plants; he gives some that have no scent, or very little, the airs of Araby; he makes queens of orchids that are no more than beautiful little sweet-breathed and beloved princesses. Nevertheless, he reveals a love of nature and natural history, and his colourful descriptions recreate for us the glorious bush which at one time, easily within the memory of man, covered three-fourths of Banks Peninsula from sea to summits, and the unique bird-life and plant-life that enlivened the open parts of the hills and the extensive plains at their foot.
The savage appearance of the Maori, an appearance which was no doubt made more savage by imagination, filled him with alarm. The aping of the European by
INTRODUCTION
20
the savage, in modes and in manners, inspired him with disgust. He could not conceal either feeling, and he failed to understand the Maori fully, and therefore failed to appreciate the finer side of his character. He, however, does justice to the Maori in one respect. Most early writers in describing the Maori law of tapu (which in the first place they did not in the least understand and so could not possibly describe truly) denounce it as unreasonable superstition, forgetting its parallels amongst ourselves. They abuse the Maori for visiting punishment on those Europeans who in ignorance (many in arrogance) infringed it. Dr. Maynard exonerated the Maori. He states that on the first breach the Maori did no more than draw particular attention to the breach, forbidding its recurrence; —should this be disregarded, then punishment followed, and rightly. We as well as our late enemies impose our “ Verboten,” nor do we admit ignorance as an excuse for nonobservance.
Much has been written from time to time about whaler songs, which are credited with being as lurid to the full as sailor songs, even if they do not pale their ineffectual fires; —how many writers have attempted to record examples even of the less virulent among them? Maynard does this, and Mr. Reed indulges a genuine lyric gift in his rendering of them. To be sure, these are like the modest violet; they might have graced a lady’s bower; and it is almost to be wished that Mr. Reed had had one or two examples of the real Simon Pure on which to exercise his lyric gift and puissant vocabulary,—to the delight, or the affright, of his readers.
There is a whaling song extant in connection with the barque Magnet , wrecked in the bay named
21
THE WHALERS
after it on Banks Peninsula. The first two stanzas follow:
Along the coast the Magnet came.
With Captain Bruce—a man of fame,
But in his face there is no shame—
On the beautiful coast of New Zealand.
Mr. Wiltshire sold to “Bloody Jack”
Two hundred of flour tied up in a sack:
And a Maori carried it all on his back —
On the beautiful coast of New Zealand.
Most of the names in this song refer to characters on the Otago whaling stations, and such songs embalm history—as whaling captains were at times embalmed in rum; with shuddering sequels. There are a few songs in A. Hood’s Dickey Barrett —but what is half a dozen to rescue from the scores that must have echoed along the beautiful coasts of New Zealand? And those which have been rescued are, as suggested, such as might be heard even in a lady’s bower.
Again, it has always been a question of interest as to what tunes the whalers brought to the Maori, and whether any of these tunes were adopted and adapted in the way that certain hymn-tunes undoubtedly were. But what book on whaling mentions a single tune?—l do not know of one. I do not refer to chanties. Dr. Maynard gives the names of three, all from French operas popular in his time. These were ground out by a hurdy-gurdy to the astonished Maori of Little Port Cooper. Mr. Reed has secured the tunes, and I have seen them; they are too quick in tempo, on the whole, and too wide in intervals, to appeal to the Maori.
The journal palpably belongs to two or more voyages. The first part refers to the years 1837 and 1838, whereas
ALEXANDRE DUMAS AND DR. FELIX MAYNARD
EVERYONE knows the Alexandre Dumas of the romances: The Three Musketeers , Queen Margot , and the rest, but by no means everyone is familiar with his entertaining books of travel. A tremendous toiler at his desk—it has been stated by his secretaries that he worked, sometimes during days at a stretch, for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four—there came, from time to time, need for relaxation; the strain became too great, and the brilliant and imaginative mind was forced to relax. When this befell, if he had not taxed his powers too greatly, he was very probably satisfied with two or three days shooting in or around his beloved forest of Villers Cotterets, the scene of his birth and boyhood. There the keepers were through life his friends, just as they had been of his father the general before him. Should some more lengthy recuperation prove needful, he might cross to England for a week, to see the Derby, or run down to Marseilles and amuse himself by being shown the imaginary cells of Dantes or the Abbd Faria in the Chateau d’lf, and even be offered pens made by the latter from fish-bones! There came times, however, when a week or ten days were not sufficient, when that six feet of strenuous mind and muscle needed the great open expanses of earth, the mountains or the seas, with which to fill its lungs and sweep clear its fertile and ever-active brain. Perhaps he
*7
B
23
THE WHALERS
had found the exaction of keeping six serials running simultaneously in the Paris newspapers too much even for him; or it might be that some great romance in many volumes and two or three plays had left him feeling the need of unknown peoples and places as a refreshing stimulus to further toils. Then he would fling down his pen and prepare to leave, it might be in a week, as in his Spanish and Algerian journey of three months; or in four days, as on his departure for Russia and the Caucasus, where he travelled during ten months; or in the middle of a pleasure cruise in his yacht, as when he suddenly flung over the tiller and went immediately to join Garibaldi in Sicily, working tirelessly and enthusiastically for four years to assist in winning the freedom and unity of Italy. Whatever the circumstance, and wherever he wended, his pen and his big sheets of blue paper would accompany him, and he would send back reams of delightful matter to the eager editors: travel, history, poetry, romance, it mattered little what, for it was all vital with charm and wit, with life and variety.
In this way we have that long series of Impressions of Travel , which fill some five-and-thirty volumes of his collected works, volumes on Switzerland, the Rhine, Italy, Sicily, Southern France, Spain, Algeria, Russia, Finland, and the Caucasus. Glowing and impressive they are each one; he does not hamper himself in any way, he will intersperse his pages, thickly with stories, personal incidents, legends, historical happenings most picturesquely told, tragedy or comedy which has come into the lives of persons of all kinds who cross his path: boatmen, fishermen, innkeepers, hermits, beggars, schoolmasters, travellers, mountain guides, sailors, coachdrivers, brigands, in fact every class of man or woman.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS & DR. MAYNARD
24
In addition, and this serves to illumine and make sparkle the whole, there is Alexandre Dumas himself, speaking to you, witty, unforgettable, great-hearted, generous, kindly, a man you needs must love. So much for his own travels and the cheery record he has bequeathed to us thereof. Added to this he has said how much he was always, even from boyhood, enamoured of similar works written by others, always provided they were well and briskly narrated, and the incidents were alive and vivid.
Dumas, who wrote so much and for so many papers published by others, longed to possess one of his own, just as he desired a theatre under his own management where he could present his own plays, staged with the exactitude of dress and background which were his ideals. Thus, in 1853, he began to issue what became the most famous of his literary journals, he Mousquetaire. This consisted of four pages, each of three columns and 19 by 14 inches in size ; it appeared seven days a week, and was devoted to romances, literary and dramatic articles and reviews, a little poetry, memoirs, picturesque history occasionally, translations and, most famous of all, Dumas’ frequent “chats” on every variety of topic: himself, his friends, his dogs, his books, and plays, the literary and theatrical men of the day, new stage pieces, in fact everything save politics. To fill the amount of space described each day with new matter, which must be sparkling, interesting, and witty, was regarded as impossible. It is true Dumas wrote much of it himself, especially at first, while his friends, those enthusiastic romantics of 1830, who were now middle-aged, came splendidly to his aid, and a crowd of younger men, beginners, some wholly unknown, others already mounting the ladder of fame, were proud to see their names on
THE WHALERS
25
the sheets of he Mousquetaire. It was exacting, none the less, and its creator and editor-in-chief tells us that he regularly spent the hours between midnight and two o’clock in the morning, after retiring to his bed, in reading the numerous manuscripts which came to him from every part of France, and sometimes from even farther afield. Alas! this was a wearisome job. So many were heavy, uninteresting, lacking grip and charm and “tang”; but, once in a while, a jewel would shine among the pebbles, now and again the first few pages of some roll of sheets would reveal a treasure. Then what was most often a dreary task became a joy and a relaxation. It was one of these finds, a parcel of disconnected articles dealing with voyages and experiences on all the seas and oceans of the world, which pleased Dumas so that he turned to note the signature: “Dr. Felix Maynard.”
Our editor requested his contributor to come and see him. He has described the man who appeared, and his is the only pen-portrait of Dr. Maynard which I have been able to discover:
“A man of forty, with vivacious eyes, prominent temples, and sternly resolute features. Unless I deceive myself, when Dr. Maynard desires a thing he will have it.” Elsewhere Dumas says: “Though of severe aspect, almost sombre, an aspect peculiar to men who have overhung the abysses of life or of the ocean, the doctor attracted me at first sight.”
This interview took place at the end of 1854 or within the first days of 1855. Dr. Maynard was then fortyone. He had been greatly attracted by travel since boyhood. After leaving school he studied medicine, applied for and obtained the post of surgeon in the mercantile marine. He had also marked literary leanings,
ALEXANDRE DUMAS & DR. MAYNARD
26
and his first publications were verse. In all he spent seven years on whaling ships, a harsh and rugged existence in those days. As Dumas says: “He had ploughed the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans, he had visited all the straits, from that of Magellan to that of Behring; he had rounded all the capes from Finisterre to Good Hope and the Horn. Then he had had two years on mail-boats running to the Near East, the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Dardanelles, the Black Sea, and the Crimea. He knew all these as he did the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans. He had written upon them all; he had manuscripts on papers of all colours, grey, yellow, blue; of all textures, fine, coarse, thick, according to what he could find on board the vessel upon which he had embarked, when his own provision was exhausted.”
Said Dumas to him then: “Collect all this for me, co-ordinate it all, my dear doctor, and I promise you that it shall all be printed.”
At the same time the manager of Le Mousqueiaire wrote for his journal one of those delightful “chats,” which Dr. Maynard must have had the pleasure of reading, since some of his own articles were then appearing in the same sheet. Dumas said:
“We wrote out together five or six volumes which I sent to my friend Emile de Girardin. This latter announced them next day in La Presse. . . . Such was the employment of one portion of my three weeks’ silence. I produced something like 4500 lines with Dr. Maynard.”
These 4500 lines were part of what to-day may be read as The Whalers. Call Dumas’ share of the work what you prefer, revision, editing, selection, it was done
27
THE WHALERS
to good purpose. It is not difficult to find in places clear traces of that ability to visualize—and enable his readers to do so also—some striking incident or dangerous adventure. It may be that only once did he take up his pen for a lengthy stretch of narrative on his own account, for at least something much more than editorial pencilling can be discovered in the cook’s amusing story of “ The Great Whaler of Sag Harbour,” the conversational form of which, it will be noticed, is the only lengthy example of such in Dr. Maynard’s work. Dumas, it is well known, was a past master of this species of narration. Further, it was Dumas’ custom frequently to insert short stories in his travel volume; indeed his best work of that nature requires to be dug out of his Impressions oj Travel.
To those familiar with his method and style, his turns of phrase and vivid pen-pictures, there is no lack of signs that Dumas’ pen had been at work. Other indications are the judicious pruning; no writer was more careful than the author of The Three Musketeers to avoid wearying his readers. Thus we find promises of matters to be described later, or references to previous statements, which cannot be discovered; these surely point to Dr. Maynard’s original record afterwards being omitted as not sufficiently attractive. Dumas never made lapses of that nature in his own writings. There is, too, an occasional appeal direct to the reader as such, a most characteristic habit of Dumas. It seems just to claim that in none of the works which our romancer professed to “introduce” to the public without accepting greater responsibility, in other words which he edited, is the work better done. Yet though Dumas is easily identifiable, the individuality and the material of Dr. Maynard
ALEXANDRE DUMAS & DR. MAYNARD
28
are not in the least obscured or overclouded, and the man himself is continually and recognizably prominent.
Dr. Maynard’s health, it seems, had suffered much from the hardships of his experiences at sea. He died in 1858, at the age of forty-five, “with incredible calmness,” says a biographical work of the time, “expiring much regretted by all who had known his rare qualities.”
The reader will form his own opinion of the quality of the descriptive gifts possessed by the doctor; they certainly present to us a succession of clear and definite pictures. If sometimes the observer—and Dr. Maynard was assuredly that—was mistaken, we can plainly perceive that he took pains to be accurate, precise, and informative, as well as attractive and interesting, to the best of his ability. If we do not feel for him the warmth of affection which Dumas so generally aroused, we cannot but experience for him, before we leave his company, a real and appreciative esteem, as for a man reliable, truthful, and sympathetic to strange customs and races, and to unfamiliar experience.
My personal attraction being to the work of Dumas, I was incapable of doing justice to the narrative from the point of view of the old New Zealand interest. To be fair to both the traveller and his editor, it seemed imperative that there should be some reliable notes added to portions of the writing. Thus when Mr. Andersen suggested that my translation—made originally for my own pleasure—would possess interest and perhaps value for readers who find a charm in the early records of and the first visitors to our islands, I replied that I was prepared to completely revise my work if he would
THE WHALERS
29
equip it with such notes as he thought necessary or desirable, and, perhaps, with an introduction. If I had thought thus to escape a task, I should have been thoroughly at fault. Mr. Andersen at once generously expressed his willingness, nor did he delay in carrying out what he had undertaken.
I provide the plain fare of the translation, but for the embellishments which enlighten it and the occasional corrections which enhance its worth, the reader, as well as I, must thank Mr. Andersen. Had it not been for his willingness to provide these, I doubt if I should have ventured to introduce the work to the public. I wish also to thank him for a number of valuable suggestions relative to the translation itself, which help I greatly appreciate and of which, needless to remark, I very gladly took advantage, to the benefit of the work.
F. W. Reed.
Whangarei,
New Zealand.
30
THE WHALERS
CHAPTER I
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND
FOR a long six months we had been fishing for whales off the coast of New Holland, after which, for a month, we had remained in harbour at Hobart Town, the chief port of Tasmania. Then the captain came to inform us that our departure had been fixed for March 4th or sth, that is to say in three days. This gave me just sufficient time to carry out a promise I had made.
It is known that Van Diemen’s Land was discovered on November 24th, 1642, by Abel Jansen Tasman (from whom it derives the name of Tasmania, given it by the English) and that it is now a penal colony. It is divided into the two large counties of Buckingham and Cornwall. The mother land, which is certainly sometimes a harsh parent, transports her criminals there; but, its soil being exceedingly fertile, most of the convicts (as they call those transported), and in particular the Irish, instead of returning to die of hunger in their own land, prefer, after recovering their liberty, to establish themselves in the colony upon lands granted them by the Government. These Irish, prisoners or free, rich or
31
THE WHALERS
poor, entertain a great friendship for the French. They are proud to clasp a Frenchman’s hand, and our most brazen ship’s boys or our most squalid sailors are superior beings to these worthy folks, not only because they are French, but especially because they are Catholics.
An Irish colonist, who had settled on a creek at Double Bay, came every week to sell vegetables, fruit and fodder at Hobart Town. Fie took his meals at the Victoria Tavern, an eating-house customarily frequented by the officers of the ships in harbour. When he met us he was extremely friendly, making us promise to go and see him and to hunt in the neighbourhood of his farm, assuring us of a hearty welcome to his home. We determined to sample the hospitality of the worthy O’Neil—so was our Irishman named—and, on the morning of March 2nd, the steamer which crossed from Hobart Town to Kangaroo Point in half an hour conveyed my friend Merveilleux and me towards the object of our journey.
Four years earlier we had met each other to the south of Saint Helena, I on board the Pallas, and Merveilleux on the Cachalot. The vessels spoke to each other; there were interchanges of compliments, 1 as the English say, in other words the captains met, each paying a visit to the other. Merveilleux, as a confrere, came to pay me a visit, having heard that I was not very well; from this sprang our acquaintance and our friendship. On that day we exchanged books. This is a good custom, for in this manner one renews one’s library at sea. He gave me a Montaigne in four volumes, the charming edition of Crapelet, while I passed over to him twelve volumes of
1 “ II y eut ‘ game,’ comme disent les Anglais, c’est-a-dire reunion des capitaines et visites mutuelles,” says Maynard.
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND
32
the Private Memoirs of Louis XIV , and the Memoirs of Dangeau, after which we parted.
We did not see each other again until we found ourselves at Sullivan Cove, in the stream at Hobart Town, he on board the Salamandre and I on the Asia.
I there returned him his three volumes, the fourth having been lost; as for him, he did not even know what he had done with mine. It was then with this former comrade that our projected shooting expedition at O’Neil’s was to be undertaken.
At Kangaroo Point was a pretty village, built of red bricks and a splendid stone resembling our Portland stone, which gave it, in spite of its newness, a certain air of fraternity with houses of the period of Henri IV (about 1600). This town of the future commands the head of the main road leading to the cleared lands on the east coast. According to the directions given us, we soon left this thoroughfare and, guiding our route by the sun, proceeded as the crow flies towards O’Neil’s farm, which we had been told was about three and three-quarter miles away. At five hundred paces from the road we already found ourselves lost amid the forests which axe and fire had as yet scarcely commenced to clear. Their appearance is beyond description: the pencil could not depict it, and the brush would supply but the faintest idea of it. How could the effects of light and shade, of vegetation and of upturned earth be represented? How could one arouse appreciation of those tree trunks recently torn up, of those stumps blackened by fire, of those emerald-hued mosses and those fantastic shrubs and colossal ferns? There is no longer here the appearance presented by the woods of Europe or the virgin forests of America; in places the hand of man has spared impenetrable jungles, specimens
33
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of what these solitudes were fifty years ago. Our great naturalist Peron, who visited them (a little over thirty years ago) while they were still inhabited by the natives, in spite of all the poetry of his descriptions, could give but a faint idea of them, and one far below the actual facts. I refer you to him, being unable myself to hope to do better.
I certainly wished to meet some members of these black tribes, which the English have expelled from the island and deported to the islets of Bass Strait, where they seek forcibly to inculcate in them the benefits of civilization. As time passes this race of the blacks of Oceania is steadily disappearing. A slender arm of the sea separates Tasmania from New Holland, and yet, if one may believe the naturalist Lesson, the two peoples, though so close to each other, have a different origin. At the same latitude, four or five hundred leagues to the east, the New Zealand tribes are comparatively white. Further north one again finds the negro species, red, copper-coloured and Malay. This fifth part of the world, composed perhaps of the fragments of an immense continent shattered by some geological revolution, offers in its children every human type of the ancient four quarters of the globe.
Not having met any Tasmanians I was not able to verify what P£ron said. “The women,” he relates, "have so hard a skull that, when they wish to light a fire, they break the branches of a tree over their heads instead of across their knees, as do our thrifty housewives.”
The Tasmanian aborigines are steadily disappearing, not, like the Indians of North America, by sickness and the strife of their race with ours, but as the result of a method determined by the English Government. They
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND
34
are continually hunted and tracked down like fallow deer, and, once captured, they are deported, singly or in parties, to the islands in Bass Strait. They are clothed, fed, and made to cultivate the soil or taught handicrafts. In spite of all these advantages, whenever they are able to escape, they fling off their clothes and return naked to their native forests, bidding adieu to that little compulsory township and asking an asylum from their great woods, where they are again tracked down, that they may be restored to the paradise which they have the bad taste not to appreciate at its just value.
The English have shown such obstinacy in this that there remains, now, scarcely more than a single tribe of these unfortunates in a wooded district of the northwest, and to-day the survivors of this tribe have probably gone to join their companions in the mutual school of the islands in Bass Strait.
I return to our hunting. The game was scarce: no kangaroos, no opossums, no dasyures ( Thylacinus cynocephalus), no phasoolomys; neither Australian ant-eaters, nor phalangers, nor squirrels, nor wombats, nor Tasmanian Devils, a species of hyena-wolf indigenous to Van Diemen’s Land, and which is no more to be found upon the other side of Bass Strait than the lyre-bird (Menura superba ), indigenous to Australia, may be met on the soil of Van Diemen’s Land.
Moreover, having no dogs, our hunting could hardly be very successful in a land where, at every step, the flowers, the grasses and the trees appeared to our eyes under strange aspects, provoking our astonishment and our investigation. In France the ferns are scarcely higher than the waist, but in Tasmania, under the name of Alsophila dicksonia, they grow to nearly a hundred feet.
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35
The axe had littered the earth with Eucalyptus globulus and Eucalyptus resinifers , magnificent building woods. The Leptospermu are no longer species of broom, but gigantic trees, and we constantly paused before mighty shrubs to pluck the Glycida , the Eimodorum , the Richea glauca , and incredible species of sensitive plants, far more sensitive than those of Europe, since they not only close at a touch, but at the mere sound of a passing insect or of a fluttering butterfly.
The first travellers to visit this land were unable to penetrate its forests, where, thanks to the axe, we now hunted. “They were then so dense,” says Peron, “that their shade was deadly, and in some places the rays of the sun had never reached the soil.”
Occasionally I fired uselessly at some of those pretty Cateitas paroquets, which are sold to-day in Paris for a hundred francs each, and which at the period of the navigator Flinders, crossed Storm Bay in such long and dense flocks that, one day, he assures us, they prevented him from taking the altitude of the sun at midday. The lack of skill I showed this day was certainly somewhat my own fault. At length I succeeded in gliding within range of one of these charming birds, which was pecking at the spores of a Dicksonia. I fired, and it fell at my feet, upon its back, lying brilliant, coquettish and gracious still, writhing its feet and its sky-blue neck upon its carmine breast.
I was stretching out my hand to pick it up when I saw a movement in the moss which covered the ground, and out from beneath this green carpet came the hideous head of a black snake.
To spring backward and strike this head with the butt of my gun was but a momentary action; the body of the
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND
36
reptile contracted convulsively: I had broken the back without injuring the head, and I prudently kept it pressed against the soil for at least five minutes. When it was dead I examined it: it certainly was the terrible black snake, of which the bite is considered to be inevitably mortal. It was only three feet long, and an inch in diameter at its thickest part. Ido not know to what family of ophidians it belonged; I merely noticed that it possessed below each eye a gland filled with viscous serum, and that two mobile and hollow fangs, connected with these by canals, were embedded in its upper jaw. This arrangement is similar to that of the viper, though this reptile may not be such.
I wrapped it in my handkerchief and placed it in my game-bag, beside the paroquet. This latter, impregnated with corrosive sublimate, to-day sleeps, and will continue to sleep, rolled in a sheet of vellum, until, with wings extended, head raised, eyes illuminated by two beads, and its feet clinging to an ebony mount, it reawakens in France.
As for the black snake, it is no less preciously preserved. Plunged in its phial full of alcohol, it forms one of the chief ornaments of my cabin, and, now and again, it causes me a shudder when my glance unexpectedly falls upon it, and I remember that my hand and its head were once within two or three inches of each other.
CHAPTER II
MERVEILLEUX
THESE two exploits had detained me while my companion had continued his way, so that, when I had carefully finished wrapping up the paroquet, and prudently done the same for the black snake, upon giving a good look round me I could no longer see Merveilleux.
Though certainly a better marksman than I, he had missed two or three fine shots. I confess that I had not been sparing in the pleasantries which sportsmen exchange; but these should have wounded him the less since, in the matter of skill, I remained his inferior. In spite of this, however, I thought I perceived that my jesting had wounded him, and I suspected he had left me purposely.
This doubly annoyed me; firstly because it was evident he took a hunter’s banter seriously; secondly because, neither of us knowing our road, we might become lost and make, separately, a long journey which, after all, it would be far pleasanter to travel in company.
I shouted at the top of my voice, but he did not reply. This did not greatly disquiet me; he might quite likely have heard and not desired to answer. At any moment he might find occasion to discharge his gun, and then fire it he would. That is what happened. A shot resounded at five hundred paces distance, and I hastened in the direction of the sound. Just as I arrived Mer-
37
MERVEILLEUX
38
veilleux reloaded and fired again. Once more he missed, but on seeing me he wished at least to appear to have wounded a paroquet which was flying off as fast as its wings could carry it; consequently he proceeded to follow it rapidly. As he did so he tripped over a root, fell and tore his breeches.
This final accident exasperated him, and, as I was sufficiently indiscreet to laugh, being delighted to find another as unskilful as myself, which I had thought impossible, he turned towards me, pale with rage, and, in a fit of madness, aimed his gun at me. I took this for a jest and raised my own weapon to my shoulder also. He made two or three steps towards me. I took as many in his direction. Suddenly he flung his gun to a distance as though he would not yield to a cursed temptation, came to me and convulsively grasped my hand. He was livid and trembling.
“What is the matter then?” I asked.
“Nothing,” said he, “only that, in a moment of anger, I believe I was about to kill you. Forgive me.”
It had been no joke on his part, as could be easily seen by the pallor of his face and his contracted muscles, as well as by his short and strained speech.
Clearly those who have spent the fine years of youth between sky and water, those whose characters have become soured by the long and monotonous existence at sea, those whose blood has been fired by living on salt meat and sea biscuits, will understand how, four thousand five hundred leagues from one’s native land, in a Tasmanian forest, such a thing could happen, not only between two fellow-countrymen, but even between two friends.
Three years later I had returned to Paris and resumed
c
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39
my studies. In my quality as a student, I was one evening drinking my coffee and smoking a cigar at the Cafe de la Rotonde in the Rue de I’Ecole de Medecine, and I related this incident in my life to two or three friends. While describing it my cigar went out.
“Oh! that is a likely yarn!” said one of my hearers as I rose and, in the half-darkness, went towards the lamp burning for smokers on the altar of Vesta.
“Do you really mean that?” asked another.
“Why not, since it is true?” replied I.
“Come now,” said a third, “do you wish to make me believe that a man exists who would kill another because he missed a paroquet and tore his breeches?”
“What do you expect! That is what did happen.”
At this moment a stranger, who, however, as we shall see, was not to remain a stranger for long, rose, and, to spare me the trouble of going to the lamp, did what is often done between smokers, held out to me his lighted cigar. We brought our heads close together, simultaneously drawing at our cigars, and the glow illumined the features of us both. I uttered an exclamation ot astonishment.
“What! Merveilleux!” I cried.
“Heavens! Yes, Merveilleux himself! Introduce me to these gentlemen, my dear fellow, so that I may assert to them that what you have related is the exact truth, and that never, in all your adventurous life, have you been so near death as during that second when I held you covered by my gun.”
In fact, it was my comrade Merveilleux, who confirmed every detail of the incident I have just described.
Let us leap back over those three years and return from
MERVEILLEUX
40
France to Tasmania, from the Cafe de la Rotonde to that forest in Van Diemen’s Land. There we may perceive Merveilleux, very ashamed, pick up his gun, and, without knowing where he is, take his bearings, to the best of his ability, in order to reach the farm of our friend O’Neil.
For a long time we walked without exchanging a single word, botanizing to keep ourselves in countenance. We each felt the need of a third to intervene and break the ice between us, and bring in a little pleasantness; yet who the devil could we meet off the main road, which we had been imprudent enough to leave in order to experience some tedious sport? Who could we meet, unless it were a party of convicts toiling beneath the lash of a warder? We had not even that distraction.
We had another, however, as will be seen.
While continuing our way through the forest, I found a little beaten track, indicating traces of civilization. Merveilleux followed me. The pathway took a turn, towards which I hastened, to perceive, three hundred steps before me, a gentleman in a blue coat walking ahead of us. Hearing the noise of our footsteps he turned round, saw us, guessed that it was to him we were proceeding, and stopped to wait for us.
When we were ten paces distant he recognized us as Frenchmen, saying: “Good day, messieurs, has the sport been good?” He mangled our language with an assurance which proved his desire to be friendly.
Merveilleux, still ashamed of what had passed between us, kept silence. Thus it was I who took up the conversation as we proceeded along the path.
I answered that the hunting had been execrable, for reasons that will be readily understood attributing the
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THE WHALERS
emptiness of our game-bags, not to our lack of skill, but to the scarcity of game.
“Ah!” said he, still torturing our language as pitilessly as ever, “Ah! yes, there are no more opossums, no more kangaroos, no more dasyures, no more Tasmanian Devils. The clearing of the land has made them fly to the still unexplored forests of the north-west. In return, if you had dogs, you would put up rabbits at every step. These were originally tame, but have become wild, and in twenty years they will have developed into marsupials.” His meaning was that the rabbits would grow a pouch beneath the belly, like the opossums, the red-bellied rats, and, generally speaking, all the mammals of Australia and Tasmania. This was perhaps to exaggerate that power for transformation which a new land exerts upon imported animals. Thus I give this opinion, not as my own, but as that of the gentleman of the blue coat.
I was about to dispute with him about this biological exaggeration, which he intended me to swallow, when he drew from his pocket a charming little bird, less brilliant perhaps, but more delicate and more tiny than the hum-ming-bird of the tropics, being about as large as that perfumed bean which snuff-takers carry in their snuffboxes.
“Stay,” said he, “to console you, here is the Tasmanian diamond; pass a thread through its nostrils, fasten a small shot to the end of the thread and suspend the bird by its feet in a phial of alcohol. The weight of the lead wijl keep it in an upright position in the spirit, which will lave its plumage without ruffling it or staining it; then, when you reach Paris, a skilful craftsman will make of it a wonderful specimen. Do not clean it; that is needless. It was killed this morning by one of my men.”
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“One of your men?"
“Yes, one of my men; and now, a pleasant journey! Follow this path, you will soon see Doubtless Bay, and, since you are going to O’Neil’s, you will only need to turn to the left, a quarter of a league from here, and in a few steps you will again be on the main road, which you will then follow as far as the farm.” Saying this he disappeared in a thicket of eucalyptus trees.
I turned towards Merveilleux to question him with my glance. Who was this gentleman, so complaisant, so gracious, so amiable, but whose behaviour yet seemed to possess a certain constraint? He was not one of the transported, a convict, as they say, because he did not wear their garb. In all probability he was a wealthy settler of the district, since he spoke of his men. With his polished manners he constantly used a certain scientific language of good quality, seeing that, in some of the expressions he used when employing a tongue not his own, and which he spoke badly enough, he had outlined in broad strokes the geological formation of Van Diemen’s Land.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon when we saw the water of Doubtless Bay, furrowed by sloops and the longboats of the whalers. For six hours we had wandered in the forest; the heat was overpowering, and it was impossible to go further without first resting.
We sat down some hundred paces from the shore, beneath the shade of a Podocarpus aspleniifolius , and soon, in spite of my recollection of the terrible black snake, sleep overcame me.
Merveilleux speedily joined me in the land of dreams, into which I had launched myself headlong. I believe I should have slept until the next day had not my
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companion awakened me. Night had fallen, and we were both famished with hunger, having eaten nothing since seven o’clock in the morning. We had no time to lose if we wished to obtain supper and a lodging. We shook ourselves and turned to the left, as the gentleman in the blue coat had bidden us, hoping to find the high road a few paces away, in accordance with the topographical information he had supplied.
It was our unlucky day; the road seemed to move away before us. If only I had possessed a ship’s biscuit I would have preferred to await the return of the sun, rather than proceed on an unknown and uneven soil where each step risked a fall. The air was fresh and mild and the soil covered with a soft carpet of moss, and I was able to consider whether the noises which echoed in the silence of the Tasmanian night differed from those of the old world. Were the tones of the breeze the same? Did the sea, foaming on the basalt rocks of Tasman Head, roar as does the ocean on the shores of America or against the cliffs of Etretat? Were the birds silent, like ours, throughout the entire night, to awaken again at daybreak? Finally, were there no voices, no songs, no melodies which resounded in this land alone, the last promontory of the continents towards the Antarctic pole?
Even to-day, when flung once more into the tumult of cities, I retain the memories of more than one beautiful night passed in the open air, without sleep, in different latitudes.
In Brazil there are the mysterious sounds coming from the depths of the virgin forests surrounding Saint Catherine’s Bay; there is the blowing of the sea-cows, blundering on the waves, mingling with the howling
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44
of the jaguars descending at night to the shore to devour the fish abandoned by the ebbing tide.
In the Falkland Isles, destitute alike of hills and trees, the wind is only rhythmical: blustering and monotonous, it passes, bearing afar the melancholy and plaintive cries of the penguins.
In the Gulf of Talcahuano, in Chile, one hears the wailing of the seals of La Quirine, the eddies of La Mocha, and the flight of the great nocturnal birds of prey.
In New Zealand one is seized by an involuntary terror when the innumerable wild dogs howl on the crags of Port Cooper (Lyttelton Harbour) 1 . More than once I have slept in the huts of the natives of Tavai-Pounamou, and have shuddered when I heard the strident voice of some old woman who, when the moon rose, left her tarala 2 to address a long prayer to the Big Man , the Great Being, to God.
It is also in New Zealand, on the edges of the forests at Port Olive (Port Levy), that I have heard those melodious concerts given by the birds, two hours before the coming of the day. When the sky is blue and the breeze caressing, the cravatted philidon, the marvellous tut, the king of the nightingales of every land, causes to burst forth from his throat, squandering and scattering them, thousands of more flexible, more quavering, more sonorous roulades than those of La Persian! 3 ; and the kukupa , the great wood-pigeon, cooing in deeper tones; the sea-pie, the mocking-bird, the kaka, accompany the song, while the green bell-bird keeps time with a tin, tin,
1 See Note I, on page 395
2 A bed of rushes.—Note by the Author.
3 A famous Italian cantatrice (1818—1867). —Note : F. W. R.
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45
tin-like sound of a triangle. This concert continues until the sun lights the summits of the Kaikouras 1 like a beacon.
Such were my thoughts as I walked pensively beside Merveilleux. Suddenly a bright fire, like that of a bivouac, revealed itself a hundred steps away. We were proceeding quickly towards it when We heard a wellknown voice. It was that of our gentleman of the blue coat, who was also making for the fire. He laughed much at our over-lengthy sleep, and offered himself to put us on our right road if we would wait a moment.
“We will follow you,” I said, “it is simple enough.”
“No,” said he, “that is impossible; I am going to visit my men.”
“Why is it impossible, and who are your men?”
“The fire you see is that of a convict post; they are busy clearing this land. They are Canadians, and the warders have instructions to allow no Frenchman to approach them. Wait here for me, and in silence; being a doctor, I have several posts to visit regularly.”
This was splendid. “Ah! confrere,” said Ito myself, “why did you not tell me that sooner?”
Already he was at a distance. In a quarter of an hour he returned.
“All the men of the clearing gangs enjoy excellent health,” he remarked as he rejoined us. “If you are hungry, follow me.”
Some minutes later we were upon the road.
“Good evening, messieurs,” he then said, “I am obliged to turn my back on you. In an hour you will reach O’Neil’s house; it is the first you come to upon the left.”
1 See Note 11, on page 395
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Once more he disappeared without our entreaties being successful in detaining him for another moment. He was, indeed, a confrere, and one who, in spite of bold air and trenchant tones, had an air of timidity, of embarrassment, and of shame about him. Later we were told that he was himself a convict. He had been unfortunate in London; but, having arrived in the colony, his talents were made use of; furnished with a ticket of leave, he made the rounds of the clearing posts of the island.
CHAPTER 111
GOVERNMENT MEN
IT was ten o’clock at night when we reached O’Neil’s farm. The buildings bordered the road; the door and windows were protected by an iron railing forming a small court, in which two large greyhounds, of the breed which the English in New South Wales have perfected and trained to hunt the kangaroo, kept guard, barking at each unusual noise. They greeted us with such fury that they alarmed the house, so that even before we knocked a small orifice was opened in one of the shutters on the first floor.
It was necessary to parley with Mistress O’Neil
These precautions are not needless in a land still halfcovered with forests in which roam bushrangers who have escaped from the prison at Hobart Town, the penitentiary at Macquarie, or from other correctional workshops of the colony.
At length, upon receiving an order from her mistress, a servant came to open the door for us. The dogs, first appeased by the servant’s voice, and then recognizing us as hunters, followed us to the front of an enormous fire-place, where an old stump of red oak was burning. Mistress O’Neil descended to do the honours of the house in the absence of her husband, wh6 had not yet returned from an excursion to the Uppaf flDerwent.
A charming young woman was Mistress O’Neil, but
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48
she had one great defect in my eyes: she knew not one word of French. Fortunately, by our pantomime, as expressive as that of the Romans in the ballet of The Babbles , she understood that we were perishing of hunger, and soon an immense joint of roast beef, a large jug of ale, and a bread of that day’s baking appeared on the table.
Probably this was all that Merveilleux required to remove the last of the ill-humour he had retained. He became once more the good comrade, and supper commenced with all the gaiety imaginable, until the barking of the dogs announced a fresh arrival.
“It is the master of the house returning,” said Mistress O’Neil, “the dogs are joyful.”
In fact, a few minutes later, the door opened and O’Neil entered. His welcome was at first as cordial as we could have desired; but, suddenly, having noticed the roast beef on the table, he assumed a severe air:
“Friday!” cried he, “meat on a Friday!” and rushing upon the dish, despite our efforts he bore it off, placed it in a cupboard, which he locked, and then, for greater security, placed the key in his pocket. It is true he ordered the servant to make an omelette. “A Catholic! Roast beef! A Catholic!” he muttered, pacing the room with great strides.
Mr. O’Neil lost much of our esteem that evening. I do not know whether it was from prejudice, but we found the omelette execrable, and as we were tired out we went to bed immediately.
My own room communicated, by a little back staircase, with the dining-room in which we had commenced our unfortunate supper so well and finished it so badly. From this room I heard very animated conversation
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proceeding between the colonist and his wife. I had the curiosity, not to listen to what was said, for I did not know sufficient English for that, but to see what they were doing. I was puzzled by a noise of forks accompanying their talk. I therefore got out of bed and looked through the key-hole. Our Irish brigand was at close quarters with his roast beef, attacking the juicy flesh with eager teeth.
For a moment I thought of returning to the room, as though I had forgotten something, but those hypocrites revolted me and made me ashamed. I went back to my room and told Merveilleux what I had seen, and we resolved, so much did our host’s behaviour disgust us, to depart next morning before it was light and without bidding him adieu. At five o’clock in the morning, then, we left the house without waking anyone, save one of the greyhounds which came to conduct us as far as the door.
There was no time to hunt; we needed to regain the wharf from which the steamboat left as speedily as possible. This time we simply followed the main road, so that after an hour’s walk we arrived back at Kangaroo Point. In fifty minutes we had covered the distance which, on the previous evening, had taken us fourteen hours.
At seven o’clock we disembarked at Custom House Quay, where we perceived a great crowd of people, all proceeding in the direction of the prison. We sought information and learned that four government men —out of politeness they never speak of a convict or of one transported—were to be hanged.
As we were only to weigh anchor at eleven o’clock we had plenty of time to attend the execution. I had been present at a hanging in Brazil, and was not sorry to study
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the difference which must naturally exist between a Portuguese and an English gallows. In Brazil they hang, as was formerly done in France, with the ladder and the classical gibbet. I will not enlarge upon this form of punishment; I should instruct no one.
In the English colonies the apparatus is different. We are in fact going to endeavour to describe what we saw. The impression was sufficiently lively for no detail of the execution to have escaped my memory, even to this day. If the incident of the roast beef of the previous evening was not forgotten, what occurred on the Saturday morning will certainly be remembered.
The scaffold had been erected during the night. What astonished me upon arriving at the place was that it was reared in the prison yard, though the height was so calculated that half the bodies of the condemned appeared above the summit of the wall. I questioned my neighbour.
“Why,” asked I, “instead of erecting the scaffold on the public square, do they build it in the yard of the prison?”
“Oh!” said he, “you will lose nothing by that. You will see the hanging above, but death will occur behind the curtain of the wall.” The agony here takes place in the wings, which is certainly more becoming than by the old method, according to which, in Spain, Brazil, or Portugal, the condemned is launched into eternity in full view. “Moreover,” added my neighbour, “do you not think it may be more prudent, amid a population such as ours, and when the military forces are so small, to place a wall between the punishment and the public?”
Actually a beam, supported on two posts placed inside the wall of the prison, came into sight, ranged parallel to
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the top of the wall and a little back from it, and raised about five feet above it. To this beam we noticed were separately attached four ends of new rope, well soaped and gleaming in the sunlight.
Of the four condemned men three were bushrangers, escaped prisoners who had pillaged and burnt isolated farms and cottages. The fourth worked at Port Arthur, and had murdered a keeper for taking a little tobacco from him.
This deprivation of tobacco had already caused several serious affrays, but not previously any murders, and it was said that once this punishment had been carried out, the governor, fearing to see a repetition of such a crime, would henceforth supply a certain amount of tobacco as a recompense, to all prisoners who rendered themselves worthy of it by their conduct.
My obliging neighbour, who had already supplied these details, was good enough, at my request, to continue his office of cicerone. He explained to me that, behind the wall and concealed by it, there was a trapped platform upon which the condemned mounted, so that the top of the parapet served them as a balustrade; then, when the ropes were round their necks, the platform would be tripped.
“Thus you understand what will happen,” my neighbour concluded.
I understood perfectly.
However, there was some delay. The execution had been announced for nine o’clock, and it was now five minutes past. The crowd began to grumble in an ignoble manner noticeable only in English mobs.
Finally, at ten minutes past nine, the drums beat. Thirty red-coats, thirty colossal Irishmen, commanded
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by a frail gentleman in a blue tunic, debouched from David Street and ranged themselves in line on the square at the foot of the prison wall and below the gallows. The officer yelled a command; the Irishmen carried arms, and a gentleman in a yellow great-coat and a grey hat appeared on the scaffold and bowed gracefully to the crowd. He was the executioner.
He placed his hat on the parapet, passed his hand through his hair in order to throw it coquettishly to one side of his face, drew from his pocket a little bundle of white linen, which he placed in his hat, bent towards the interior of the prison and made a sign.
At this moment I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned round; it was Captain Jay, my captain, who had also experienced a curiosity to view an Australian execution. He had in his mouth an enormous quid of tobacco, which was an indication that he expected to experience some powerful emotions. In a tempest the sailors usually recognized Captain Jay’s opinion regarding the extent of the danger by the size of his quid. This might be larger or smaller, but it would be as difficult to find him without a quid as to discover a scholar unprovided with fresh leaves when playing at the game of the green in
May. 1 However we certainly shall presently make the acquaintance of Captain Jay more fully.
A murmur arose, for the sign just made by the executioner was intended to inform the governor of the prison that all was ready and that they were only waiting for the condemned. The result was that these latter appeared slowly, one after the other, behind the wall. They were four young men, the oldest of whom might
1 An old French game played in May, wherein a penalty is exacted for being caught without green leaves.—Note ; F. W. R.
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THE WHALERS
be thirty. Their hands were free, but their elbows were fastened behind their backs.
The executioner stationed them one after another beneath the length of rope destined for each. Around each neck he passed the end of the rope, at the extremity of which was a large knot shaped like a fir-cone; this knot he fixed beneath the right ear, so that, when the platform was tripped and the unsupported body was left to its own gravity, the knot would be forced violently against the mastoid process, and the head be wrenched to one side, causing the first cervical vertebra to be dislocated, the spinal cord ruptured, and death to follow instantaneously, without the convulsions and contortions resulting from strangulation by hanging. This is a perfection which does honour to the English genius. It is comfort introduced into the conditions of the death penalty.
The executioner made a fresh sign in the direction of the prison. Immediately there arrived, murmuring prayers, a Presbyterian minister, who placed himself behind the first two culprits; a Methodist, who was concerned with the third; and, for the fourth, a Catholic priest in a white surplice.
After the persons in black came the sheriff with his large wig and the legal documents.
The Irish officer raised his sword, the drums beat, the noise of the crowd was hushed, and the magistrate read the sentence in a loud voice. At the conclusion of each his strident utterance slowly repeated this English formula:
“And the condemned shall be hanged until he be dead.”
In the intervals between the readings one could hear the prayers of the priests.
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54
The first of those about to die was already as pale as death. The other three forced themselves to smile, but it was a hideous smile, which gave them physiognomies resembling that of Hogarth’s Idle Thomas. They bent their heads as though in reply to those who, from the crowd, called out to them: “Bravo, Peter! . . . Bravo, John! . . . Bravo, Tom! . . . Good-bye! good-bye! . . .”
Meanwhile the executioner, a terrible automaton, accomplished his task with a mechanical insensibility. He picked up the white linen and unfolded it. It consisted of four serviettes having cords stitched at each corner. He placed one of these serviettes beneath the chin of each man, as though he were about to shave him. Then he raised it over the face and fastened it at the nape of the neck so that it enveloped the head of the culprit. The four heads thus resembled four white, shapeless balls.
Now the exhortations of the priests became more urgent, and regret for life or repentance seemed to awaken in the hearts of the condemned. Sobs stirred the veils, tears stained them in the neighbourhood of the eyes, and the Catholic attempted, but vainly, to raise his hand to his forehead in order to make the sign of the cross.
I looked at Captain Jay; he was as white as the serviettes covering the faces of the condemned men.
The crowd began to grow irritated at the slowness of the execution; this parody of death was hideous and made the most hardened shudder. It lasted for more than a quarter of an hour. The executioner understood the murmur; he examined the ropes, dismissed the sheriff and the priests, bowed, and resumed his hat. Then, seizing one of the posts between his arms, he stamped his
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foot and everything disappeared. For a second the ropes swayed to and fro, but, almost immediately, they strained and became stiff and motionless like the cord of the sounding lead.
Among the cries uttered in the crowd I recognized that of Captain Jay. I turned towards him. He appeared to be suffocating.
“What is the matter then, captain?” I asked.
“Great thunder!” said he, “I have swallowed my quid.”
I thought he was joking.
The jailer opened the great doors of the prison, so that the spectators might assure themselves of the death of the criminals.
“Are you coming to see them, captain?” I asked Jay.
“No, thanks! I have had enough of this. I am returning on board. Do not keep us waiting.”
“I shall be there in ten minutes, captain.
Captain Jay went off in the direction of the harbour with long strides, while I followed the crowd. I then saw those who had been hanged, straight and stiff, with their feet about a yard from the ground. The gentleman executioner stood beside them, like the head of the file, seeming to say to the curious:
“That was an easy send off now! ... I reckon that could be called a handsome job!”
No signs of convulsions were to be seen, only the head was powerfully bent towards the left shoulder as a result of the action of the famous fir-cone knot. The tongue protruded half an inch from the corner of the mouth.
As I left the prison yard, I passed near a woman and four children who were weeping, crouched at the foot of a spur-post. Beside them, on a tin plate, gleamed some pieces of copper money. Someone said it was the family
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56
of one of the men who had been hanged. Another remarked: “It is pay-day!”
I bade adieu to my friend Merveilleux, whom this spectacle had greatly impressed. Perhaps he thought that, if he had fired his gun at me on the previous evening, it might have happened to him as to the four government gentlemen. Ten minutes later, as I had promised, I was on board the Asia.
CHAPTER IV
THE REGIONS OF THE ANTIPODES
IT was no joke; Captain Jay had really swallowed his quid of tobacco. When I arrived on board I found him very ill. It requires but a little nicotine to poison a man, and Captain Jay was without doubt poisoned. I began by giving him an emetic to expel the cause, and I counteracted the effects with milk and coffee. Two hours after our return on board he had sufficiently recovered to be able to superintend the weighing of the anchor.
We descended the Derwent, that stream which was first named the French River, upon its discovery by Bruni d’Entrecasteaux.
Our pilot was a colossus who would never be forgotten by those who had once seen him. For I know not what motive, he one day had the idea of taking his own life with a pistol. The discharge carried away his lower jaw, leaving a frightful depressed scar which disfigured that enormous head and made his smile terrifying.
The shores of the Derwent are everywhere cleared and under cultivation. Cottages such as the English alone know how to build made the plantations cheerful. Each cottage was a village in embryo.
The current carried us rapidly towards Bruni Island,
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the northern point of which fell gently away in a sandy slope towards the middle of the river’s mouth. The gigantic trunk of a dead tree indicated it far to our right, almost opposite Rabbit Island, upon which rose a lofty tower with an intermittent light of fifty-nine seconds.
Having passed these islands we entered Storm Bay. Let us mention, in passing, that never was a bay more correctly named. As the pitching commenced, I cast a look over the land we had just left, taking in with one glance the contours, bays, and mountains of this new England.
Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania (the two names are used indifferently), is to the great Australian continent what England is to the continent of Europe: Bass Strait is the Dover Strait of the southern hemisphere. We left upon our right the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. This passage is difficult and needs a good pilot. The first French frigate which dared to traverse it was commanded by Captain Laplace and piloted by the same human giant who took us out to sea.
Our pilot left us abreast of Adventure Bay, that inlet where Furneaux was to rejoin Cook when their two vessels were separated in a storm, at the time when the great navigator had assumed the task of revealing to the world, with his own discoveries, those of Tasman, discoveries which the narrow, egotistical, and ambitious minds of the merchants of the (Dutch East) India Company wished to shroud in the deepest secrecy, as though fearing that rival companies might succeed in enriching themselves to its detriment.
We sailed close to Penguin Island, and, with the aid of the telescope, could see simultaneously Cape Fluted
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and Cape Frederick Hendrick, its northern and southern limits. 1
The waters of the strait 2 and those of Storm Bay compress the centre of Bruni Island to form a narrow isthmus, yet one which has a length of six miles, and which connects the two large portions of the island.
Cape Fluted obtains its name from an agglomeration of rocks, of which the strata, instead of being horizontal, are vertical and channelled. One gigantic rock, grooved like the preceding, and plainly separated from the shore, serves as an outpost to Cape Frederick Hendrick. Fourteen leagues distant from us, to port, on the other side of Storm Bay 3 appeared the basalt of Cape Raoul and of Tasman Isle. This island was the first land discovered by Tasman In these latitudes. Cape Raoul, with its curious basaltic masses, carved into colonnades, resembles from a distance a Greek temple which has lost its walls and roof, that of Cape Sunium, for example. Evil Bay, the rival of Storm Bay, extends from Tasman Head to Bruni Island.
Having arrived here the pilot left us, and we gained the open sea, losing sight of Pedra Blanca and the Eddystone Rock, the first two outposts which indicate the approach to Van Diemen’s Land.
It is time, I think, to say a word here about the Asia 4 and her crew.
1 He here refers to Forestier’s or Tasman’s Peninsula, at first, and with cause, thought to be an island. Its north-easterly point is still known as Cape Frederick Hendrick, but the south-easterly is now Cape Pillar.— Note; F.W.R.
2 That is, D’Entrecasteaux Channel.—Note : F. W. R.
a He must be referring to the side of Storm Bay opposite that which laves Bruni Island, for both Cape Raoul and Tasman Isle are on the south of Forestier’s Peninsula.—Note ; F. W. R.
4 See Note 111, on page 395.
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The vessel is a three-master, without mizzen-topsail, what is called a three-masted pieu> She is of six hundred tons burden, with a crew of thirty-six, including the ship’s boys.
To-day we build elegant vessels and swift sailers, but, after fifteen or twenty years of voyaging they are worn out, cast aside, botched, and at best only suitable for hulks or to be broken up that the copper and scrap-iron may be sold.
Our Asia was unconscious of any such danger, and would not meet with it for long enough. On the day when she ceases to “hoist a full press of canvas,” as they say in seafaring language, it will be because she has foundered under sail, or been dashed to pieces on some reef. She is built of teak; that Indian wood which the teredo or shipworm cannot pierce, and never will, has been employed in the construction of her ribs, her knees, and her keel.
It is more than sixty years since she was on the stocks in America; she has been a naturalized French vessel since 1815, and our great-grandchildren will still see her in some dock in one of our ports, just as we admire at Marseilles, on its return from its cruises, the old barque Indus, a venerable three-master built about the year 1600. The Asia has been fitted out for fishing these many years. Previously she voyaged to the North American Colonies, and to the Indies. She has thus returned to her owner, Winslow, of Havre, ten times the amount of her purchase money, and she will probably double or treble what she has already brought him, provided nothing sinister interrupts her progress. She is a medium
1 A pattern of vessel common apparently to Havre, in which one of the masts is shorter than usual.—Note ; P'. W. R.
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sailer; but she bears herself admirably in rough weather, and we have never feared that any whale, dead or living, could injure her by battering her sides. Yet what a number of vessels less slenderly built have been damaged by blows from cetaceans in a rage!
In 1836 the Lydia , a Nantucket vessel, sank from a leak sprung some feet below the water-line, as the result of a cachalot striking her one day with its broad, square snout.
The ship Ann Alexander , Captain John de Blois, of New Bedford, was staved in by a wounded whale. This rushed headlong upon it amidships, near the mizzenmast. As a result there was a great inrush of water, and the vessel sank on April 30th, 1851. You notice the disaster was quite recent. The crew, having taken to the boats, were picked up two days later by a vessel cruising in those latitudes, and conveyed to Payta, on the coast of Peru. The newspaper which related this fact had no doubt been badly translated; it should have written “cachalot” instead of “whale,” because the accident occurred about the fifth degree of south latitude, and the cachalots alone inhabit the tropical seas; whales frequent only the temperate, cold and frozen zones.
In 1850 the whaler Essex, commanded by Captain Parker Cook, had its cutwater carried away by a cetacean.
I remember, when on a cruise in the Pallas , in the neighbourhood of Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe’s Island, a right whale, seeking for its young, which had been harpooned, and becoming maddened by grief on recognizing traces of the blood lost from the wound, gave a blow with its tail to our planking; at the shock the vessel quivered from keel to masts, and it was later discovered, on the casks of oil being discharged, that a
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plank had been shattered, fortunately without any leak having revealed itself.
The Journal du Havre records, in its number for July 3rd, 1852, that the brig Pauline , x of Havre, foundered under sail, having received several blows from the tail of a whale on the starboard bow. The vessel was then running at a speed of seven and a half knots before a good breeze from the west-south-west. The crew of nine men and a passenger drifted for three days at the mercy of the winds and waves, and were picked up completely exhausted by the Crusader. Yet the Pauline was a perfectly new vessel, and was returning from her first voyage.
I pass over in silence many other sinister happenings; but, I repeat, we had no such fears on board the Asia.
New and very substantial vessels are usually chosen for the whale fishing. As I remarked above, the crew varies from thirty-six to forty-six men, according to whether they are to man four boats or five.
Captain Jay, who commanded us, and about whom I said two words concerning the execution of the four bushrangers, was of the number of those perfect fishers whom the Havre owners invite to France to serve as leaders to our sailors. Young, vigorous, fearless, and skilful, he had made his way step by step. From ship’s boy he had become harpooner; then he had commanded a skiff; then become captain; yet at the price of what fatigues, miseries, and dangers!
Later I will tell you how many of those I knew died at their work. If I could obtain information concerning all my old fellow-voyagers, I believe that of the hundred
1 The Pauline here referred to must be a different ship from the one referred to in Note 111, on page 395 —Note ; J. C. A.
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and twenty-six or hundred and thirty men I have known in the course of three cruises lasting seven years, there are perhaps not a dozen survivors among them who have continued their calling.
Captain Jay spared no pains; he really put his whole heart into his whale fishing. It is true that a whale killed was worth from eight to ten thousand francs (then £320 to and that he had the best share. We each had our own allotment from the profits of the expedition. Even when he remained on board while the others followed the cetaceans, he none the less had his tenth of the oil and the whalebone. It was therefore necessary for him to expose himself like the least of his crew.
We have passed from ship to captain; let us now go from captain to crew. We equipped four boats for hunting our prey. Each boat was manned by six men, the harpooner in the bow, the officer at the stern, and the four rowers between them. The officer steered the boat, which was twenty-six feet in length, with a beam of four feet ten inches, and planks of the thickness of one’s little finger. He steered it with an oar astern, of the same length as the boat, and this helm had the advantage of causing the skiff to turn by pivoting upon its centre without losing way, as it would do in veering with the ordinary rudder.
The men handled an oar fifteen feet long, except that of one in the centre, which was of eighteen feet, and the harpooner only left his rower’s bench when he was ordered to seize his harpoon to attack the whale. These boats, so light, so thin, as pointed at the stern as at the prow, and curved like an opera hat, leapt from wave to wave, cutting their crests without touching the hollows,
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and flying like a javelin launched by a machine, or like a pebble richochetting over the water of a lake.
The bottom of the boat is pierced with a hole, which is closed by a cork furnished with a piece of cloth, the plug. When the skiff is hoisted by its tackle, the plug is removed and the water taken on board runs out.
Yet these boats are heavily loaded, as you will see. First, between the two centre seats, is placed a round tub containing four hundred feet of rope. This is the fishing-line, as thick as the thumb, very flexible, well tarred, and in particular very strong, because formed of three strands composed of sixteen threads of rope-yarn, made of the best Norwegian or North American hemp. The American fishing-line was, in my day, esteemed to be the best; but it seems that, since then, the rope makers of Normandy have made great progress, and can compete advantageously with all others in the world.
Near to the tub containing the line is placed a grappling anchor weighing about fifty pounds, then a drag of square oak planks strongly covered with iron, which is lashed to the end of the line when the whale, in escaping, has exhausted its entire length. This drag serves to moderate the speed of the whale or cachalot by the resistance it offers in cutting perpendicularly the wake left by the flying animal. Next comes a closed barrel containing thirty or even more pounds of biscuit, and a ship’s lantern equipped with candles, flint, steel, tinder, touch-wood and spills, placed in an hermetically closed tin case. The crew of a boat, losing sight of the ship and astray at night, has more than once owed its safety to this precautionary barrel and the little keg of water which accompanies it. Add to all this apparatus then a can of fresh water, one or two little buckets, a sail with
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its small mast and its sprit, an axe, a sheath-knife, two small wooden bowls for baling out any water shipped, and in addition harpoons, lances, and flat spades, all fitted with handles and ready for use.
The harpoon is an iron dart in the shape of an obtuse angle of about 120°, two sides of which are three inches long, with sharp edges. The third side forms a reentrant angle, from the apex of which springs an iron shaft three or four feet long, ending in a socket to which is fitted the handle which serves for throwing it. The iron of this socket must be malleable and capable of being twisted without breaking.
The lance is of spatulate shape, resembling a laurel leaf; it is an inch and a half in breadth at its greatest diameter, and two and a half inches long. It is delicately sharpened and can be easily withdrawn from the wound it has made, thus being quite the reverse of the harpoon. Like this latter, it is fitted with a handle by means of a socket.
The spade has the shape of a trapezium; it Is sharpened on three sides and has its socket on the shortest.
It may be reckoned that the furnishings of each boat weigh about a thousand kilograms (slightly less than a ton).
The captain’s boat is placed on the stern, to starboard. It is carried above some nettings by aid of boomkins, davits or brackets furnished with blocks and tackle.
The second in command has charge of the second boat placed to larboard, by the shrouds of the mizzen-mast.
The third skiff, under the orders of the lieutenant or third in command, has its suspending davits between the main and fore-masts, to larboard.
Finally, the last officer directs the fourth boat, which
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is hoisted above the movable waist-cloths to starboard, where the strips of blubber removed from the carcases of the whales reach the deck.
As you will see later, when a whale is signalled and the boats are lowered to hunt it, twenty-four men are absent from the ship, and scarcely a dozen of us lubbers remain to keep the vessel to windward of the hunters. Sad bunglers! a doctor, some sick men, a ship’s boy, a novice, a steward, and a cook.
So now, all having been described regarding the Asia , her captain, and her crew, forward, in the name of Providence!
CHAPTER V
A CHANCE CACHALOT
IT sometimes happens that in seeking whales one finds cachalots. Let us describe in a few words the difference between them. The cachalot is a cetacean, like the whale, but of a different species.
The whale has a pointed snout, the cachalot a square one. The lower jaw of the cachalot is garnished with teeth, and their extremities are implanted in hollows in the arch of the palate, each tooth having its corresponding orifice, as a knife has its sheath or a poignard its scabbard. The opening of the throat of the cachalot is large; its double vent-holes are placed in the upper angle of the snout; its tongue is flat like a sole. The tongue of the whale is thick, plump, and fat; its double vents open in the nape of the neck; one’s little finger would scarcely penetrate the opening of the throat; baleen plates, from one to ten feet long and bearded on their inner edge, are embedded in the palate and enclosed by two immense lips which spring from either side of the inferior maxillaries. Briefly, the whale has the shape of a shuttle, seventy or eighty feet long, and ending in a nimble tail with two horizontal lobes.
The cachalot is even longer. It, too, possesses a bilobate tail, but one which is almost inactive. Its body is flattened, except for irregular humps connected with the reservoir which surmounts its skull; this reservoir
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and these humps contain the spermaceti, incorrectly, since the whale does not produce it, called whale-white. This does not prevent the latest regulation, that of the February 14th, 1855, from fixing the customs duty to be paid for the importation of spermaceti in the following terms: “The white of the whale and the cachalot.”
Perhaps this regulation intends to refer to the cetin which chemists extract from whale oil.
Later, wdien I relate my sojourn in New Zealand, I shall give you some information concerning the anatomy of the whale and the cachalot. I shall also mention our meeting with a school of more than three hundred young cachalots on a migratory journey.
I here only wish to record our combat with an old cachalot, one of those solitary ones known as “emperors,” which travel without companions, as though the seas were not large enough for their gigantic progress. I have named this creature a chance cachalot because, customarily, these animals are only hunted in tropical latitudes. Thus it was by mere chance that we encountered one, proceeding I know not where, between Van Diemen’s Land and Auckland.
The ships engaged in this fishing have an equipment different from ours. Their cruises sometimes last four years; but if the expenses are enormous, so are the gains, because the oil of the cachalot is sold at double the price of that from the whale.
As I have said, then, we were tacking about 48° south latitude and 172 0 20' east longtiude; 1 the sea was deserted, not a vessel being in sight; all was solitude and immensity. I say immensity, thus falling into the
1 Maynard uses the meridian of Paris ; to make this conform with our maps I have added 2° 20' to his longitude.—Note : F. W. R.
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common error. Nothing is so limited, so small as the open sea! Those speak falsely who describe, with so much enthusiasm and poetry, the majesty of the immeasurable solitudes of the ocean. Artificial enthusiasm! Conventional poetry! This immensity of ocean is only relative: it enlarges for those with powerful sight, and becomes restricted for the myopic, especially when, lost between sky and water, they perceive within the horizon neither land nor stars. Yet let the look-out detect in the distance a rock, a ship, a canoe, oh! then the open sea is truly immense, sublime, when compared with the insignificance of the objects which rise into sight upon its waves!
Towards evening the blowing of a cachalot is seen. I say the blowing of a cachalot, because this is recognizable, taking as it does the form of a double aigrette, sloping forward, and less lofty than that of the right whale.
We took good care not to allow such a windfall to escape us. Our intrepid rowers, then, darted in pursuit of the animal, but it plunged at the moment they were about to come up with it. Its soundings lasted for an hour. Then the sea burst asunder and it reappeared some metres from the boat of Siegle, our third lieutenant, who immediately ordered his harpooner to send his weapon into its flank. The harpoon, vigorously launched, bit firmly, and the wounded cachalot took to flight, the boat at a distance. It was evening, and the last rays of sunlight, according to the fine expression of Lamartine, touched with manes of flame the coursers of the sea.
I he captain, still suffering from poisoning, kept his bed; he had himself constantly informed of how matters
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went, and, seeing night beginning to fall, ordered the blue flag to be hoisted to the head of the main-mast. At this signal the officer of the boat attached to the prey must cut his line and return as quickly as possible to the ship. The lieutenant and his men either did not see or pretended not to see the flag of recall, and soon a vigorous blow from the lance pierced the lungs of the cetacean, which had slackened its career and allowed itself to be approached without danger from its tail.
The stroke of the lance affected the cachalot as does the cut of a whip a spirited horse. The wounded animal resumed its course anew, vomiting blood, and the two remaining boats dared not abandon the one being towed. The ardour of the chase; the intoxication, the madness, the delirium produced by the odour of the blood with which they were sprinkled by the giant whose death wound they experienced the glory of having inflicted; the indomitable self-respect of the fisherman, wishful to accomplish at any cost the task begun; all this made our brave lads forget the simplest laws of prudence. Then, suddenly, as though night had descended as rapidly as the cachalot still fled, we lost sight of men and boats. All were sunk in the gulf of darkness.
We were but eighteen men left on board, but our arms were able to trim the sails to keep the ship in the direction in which the boats had disappeared, and this with as much heartiness and speed as would have been exerted by the hundred and fifty sailors of the watch on board a man-of-war.
Our captain roared with desperation; he was responsible for the lives of his crew; it was he who would be punished, deprived permanently of all command, if fate for ever parted us from our three boats. He ordered a
E
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light to each mast-head, and gave instructions for some oil to be placed in the boilers of the furnaces in which the whale fat is melted down. This oil was ignited, and at once the flame, like that in a bowl of punch, leapt as high as the foresail. The night, though dark and moonless, was not rendered thick by fog. One might therefore hope that our lost comrades would perceive our illumination.
For our part, some sailors, perched on the crosstrees of the top-gallant sail and of the royals, incessantly searched the obscurity to discover the lanterns of the boats.
We continued thus, making short tacks until midnight, by which hour the captain considered it time to heave to. In spite of his illness he remained on deck, every moment questioning the men on the look-out. Whalers alone can form any idea of our anxiety, our terror and our despair; while we were safe and sound on the deck we thought of our lost brothers in the open ocean, at night, half-naked, in frail skiffs, and with barely sufficient food and fresh water for one day!
If the cachalot, floundering in the last convulsions of death, shattered the boats with a blow from its head, no rescue would be possible. Our friends would be drowned; eighteen friends, eighteen brothers were in peril of death. Do you understand that? Even if the cachalot died without avenging itself, where would they be to-morrow should the atmosphere become obscured by haze, should a storm arise, or if, thinking to sail towards them, fatality carried us in an opposite direction? They would then die slowly of hunger and thirst.
These terrible preoccupations dogged us, and we aimlessly paced the deck from bow to stern, or
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ceaselessly mounted and descended the ratlines of the shrouds.
The captain, standing upon the spars above the taffrail, constantly called to the look-outs:
“Do you see the lights of the boats?”
And the watchers replied; “There is nothing! . . . We see only the darkness!”
About one o’clock in the morning the captain tacked, and trimmed the main top-sail close to the wind in order to sail against a breeze which blew from the direction in which the boats had last been seen. His inspiration bade him make way in the teeth of the wind.
The hearts of seafarers easily give place to the most foolish hopes. Not only had this manoeuvre general approval, but it even seemed to us that something resembling instinct told us we were going to see our brothers once more; so much so, in fact, that we proceeded amid the obscurity as though upon a certain path. We became gay and chatted; we spoke of the cachalot, which must be dead, and would yield more than a hundred barrels of oil; we calculated how long it would take to cut it up, melt the fat, and even, in advance, we saw our return to Havre with a load of oil fit to sink us. A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour, an hour; but the look-outs continued to reply:
“There is nothing! . . . Still nothing! . . . Always nothing!”
Again they laid the main top-sail aback; once more the ship was allowed to drift, and those who had most confidence in God, most faith in Providence, prayed silently for the poor castaways.
Suddenly, from the top of the mizzen-mast, and from the main-mast, echoed simultaneously these cries:
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“A light! Two lights! Three lights!”
Then this night, so sad, so black, so frightful, so full of grief, became bright and beautiful like a night of the tropics. Three stars shone forth, and the ship, as though it shared our impatience, proceeded towards them more rapidly than it had ever moved. The lookouts indicated the direction, and in a quarter of an hour the second officer’s boat and that of the lieutenant hailed us. But what had become of the third lieutenant’s skiff, that of Seigle? Immediately our joy was lowered a tone. Perhaps the look-out had been mistaken; no doubt he had seen only two dancing lanterns multiplied by the swell.
“What has become of Seigle?” asked the captain as the first officer hooked his boat to the falls.
“The deuce!” replied the latter, “you need not ask me that; he has remained with the cachalot.”
“Why did you not order him to return with you?”
“Come, now, there was little fear that he would abandon his catch! He consulted with his men, and they unanimously decided that if you could not find them they would await the coming of another vessel. They have food. There, you may rest easy, they will not die of hunger. The cachalot is a big one!”
“You are jesting, sir,” said the captain, beginning to grow annoyed.
“ Yes, captain,” answered the second, “and I beg your pardon. Excuse me! You will not, I hope, refuse to excuse and forgive a man who comes to announce to you that, in eight hours, there will be two hundred additional barrels of oil on board.”
“Yet, after all, why do we not see Seigle?”
“Because his lantern went out, captain; but I know
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where he is, and if you will steer towards the north-west you will find him at the distance of a mile.”
It was true. The following hours were joyful ones, and as the sun mounted above the horizon, our worthy lieutenant, found again alongside his cachalot, climbed on board.
Perhaps you think that after such a night of anguish and fatigue our fishers gave themselves up to the pleasures of sleep? Well, no; the sea was calm, the breeze scarcely raised the folds of the clewed up sails, and until noon our men, emulating one another, laboured at stripping of its coat of fat the worthy Physeter macrocephalus, which was nearly a hundred feet long. It yielded us a hundred and fifty barrels of oil and two hundred kilogrammes (nearly four hundredweight) of spermaceti.
After midday the furnaces were lighted and we steered towards New Zealand, deviating to the south in the direction of the Auckland and Macquarie Islands, where we hoped to meet with a few whales.
CHAPTER VI
THE CASK OF RUM
A WORD about my previous voyages. Before sailing on the Asia I had already made one whale k. fishing cruise. There is no need for me to mention what amorous adventure was the cause of my leaving Paris suddenly upon learning that a whaling ship was on the point of sailing, nor how I reached Havre, nor even how, before a board of health, I submitted to an examination from which I came forth with honour. This board condescended to recognize in me some skill in the great art of healing, and failing either a physician or a surgeon applying for the post on board, they supplied me with a provisional certificate as such.
Our cruise lasted for twenty-six months. The vessel returned to port loaded down with oil. This was the produce of thirty-one whales killed in the neighbourhood of the Island of Tristan d’Acunha, the Brazil Banks, the coast of Patagonia, the Chonos Archipelago, La Mocha, Juan Fernandez, and Chile, as far as Coquimbo. This voyage, which might be regarded as a fortunate one from a financial point of view, was for us merely a succession of sufferings and misery.
Our owner, Winslow, a very honourable man but a real American Puritan, revealed himself as a strong partisan for the reforms of the Reverend Father
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Matthews, and wished to enforce upon his ships the regulations of the Temperance Society.
It was agreed that our remuneration should be increased, but that no rations of wine or brandy were to be demanded by us during the voyage. The vessel left then, with supplies of fresh water, biscuit, salt beef and pork, dried vegetables and potatoes. What was the result ? Sickness, scurvy, death and desertion, but by no means what the worthy owner hoped, that is to say an improvement in the morals of the officers and men.
Never shall I forget those twenty-six months of misery, concerning which, later, I shall have occasion to relate one incident. If life at sea had not some secret attractions, such as those who voyage always experience, and which will not long permit them to remain a prisoner on terra firma, never, I confess, should I have dared to undertake the new cruise which I am going to describe.
In spite of the orders of the owner, the commander of the Fallas had made his own little provision of rum, and, as said the ship’s wag, who combined with this merry function the no less appropriate one of master cook, he took the sun’s altitude every day with a flask of cognac. In fact, to drink from the flask itself, was not this to raise it in the air as one does a quadrant when calculating the latitude?
On their part, the second in command and the lieutenant had furtively placed a barrel of rum in the cul-de-lampe. The cul-de-lampe, note well, is the little compartment of the hold, situated beneath the officers’ cabin, in which are stored the most valuable articles of the cargo.
Every day, after dinner, we noticed these gentlemen exhibit an eccentric gaiety. This merriment, pushed to
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extremes, soon took on the appearance of drunkenness, and as intoxication, especially with American sailors, is not always affectionate, there was one day an exhibition of fisticuffs.
The captain found this display of ancient sport very suitably represented on the tomb of Anchises, but very undesirable on his vessel. He made inquiries, and having learned from whence these gentlemen drew their stimulant, he ordered the carpenter to descend into the cul-de-lampe and stave in the cask of rum with his axe. The carpenter obeyed and brought on deck as proof of the performance of his task the broken end of the barrel.
To the great astonishment of the crew, however, on the following day a similar scene of gaiety, drunkenness and pugilism was repeated, but this time with the addition of a fresh actor, the carpenter. Then the captain himself descended into the cul-de-lampe to discover that the carpenter had certainly obeyed to the extent of staving in the cask of rum, but, being at liberty to smash either end, he had chosen the upper, and left the barrel standing upright. Thus, except for a halfglass of the liquor, which the carpenter had drunk as the reward of his intelligent interpretation of the captain’s orders, the barrel, or rather the liquor which it contained, was Still there. For this reason the carpenter had been given permission to dip his mug also into the cask. This he had done twice rather than once, and that is what caused the loss of the barrel of rum, for the captain flung it into the sea. Order on board was not disturbed, but at every port how great were the tumults and the drunken orgies! I have seen the crew burn the Reverend Father Matthews in effigy, in a bowl of punch containing a
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hundred litres (twenty-two gallons) of aguardiente, at Saint Catherine in Brazil.
What a life one leads upon one of these adventurous ships, which depart ballasted with fresh water, threshing the seas for three years, to return after having exchanged their water for whale oil! It is a rude trade, I swear! Each vessel is a regular school for seamen. Misery and tempests, tempests and misery, those are the daily rations of the whale fisher. This latter returns to port from his first voyage a seaman of the first quality, I answer to you for that, provided scurvy, shipwreck, or the giant of the seas has not killed him.
It is for this reason the State pays a hundred and sixty thousand francs (£6400) to every vessel equipped for the whale fishery, which returns to its port of departure after having circumnavigated the world by doubling the two great capes which seem intended as barriers to those mysterious oceans.
The cachalot being now killed, its spermaceti collected and its fat melted, it is time to resume our voyage.
Come, where were we ?
On March 9th, 18 —, in 50° 21' south latitude, and 162° 45' east longitude from Greenwich. Now unroll the map of the Pacific Ocean. We are sailing east-south-east; we have just left Van Diemen’s Land. There it is, is it not, at the southern extremity of Australia? We touched at Hobart Town, and, the day before yesterday, in fact, we lost sight of the last rock of that advanced sentinel of the fifth part of the world, of which England has made a penal colony.
We are on our way towards New Zealand in search of fortune, that is to say watching, so far as our sight will carry, in the hope of seeing a whale on the horizon.
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This evening we shall alter our course to steer north-east, for otherwise we might easily, in the obscurity, strike some outlying rock of the cluster of the Auckland Islands.
It grows cold; the antarctic pole sends us an icy breeze; the thermometer has gone down to two degrees below zero (centigrade). The sun went down in a dead calm. Since yesterday we have crossed that imaginary line which geographers have traced upon the terrestrial globe, and which separates Melanesia from Polynesia. To our south, about the latitude of 54°, rises the Macquarie group, with two rocks for watchers on the north, and two similar ones on the south. Those on the north are called the Judge and his Clerk; those to the south are known as the Bishop and his Deacon. The entire group was discovered, in 1811, by an American fisher, who gathered there eighty thousand skins of seals. It is certain that these worthy animals did not make acquaintance with the human species in a very agreeable wav.
Bellinghausen, in 1820, and Kingdon, in 1822, have supplied statements regarding the Macquaries. The main island is ten leagues long by three in width ; the anchorages, without being safe, are yet fairly good.
A charming species of little green paroquet is found there, as large as one’s thumb. These do not perch on trees, but live in flocks amid the high grasses of the meadows, just as the house sparrows do with us in the corn, and the goldfinches among the thistles. The soil is rough and hilly, but the highest summit on the island scarcely rises to three hundred metres (980 feet) above sea level. Navigators have claimed that this island entirely lacks trees, but a hunter of sea wolves affirmed
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to me that he cut some planks there for repairing his sloop. In the interior are found a number of lakes stocked with trout, and the island could be cultivated for a century without the need to proceed elsewhere in search of the necessary manure, so covered are the rocks upon the coast with thick beds of guano, which the rains wash and the sun dries and reduces to powder.
This hunter—he who had told me that he had obtained planks, and had consequently met with trees, on the island—showed me some large earthen jars which he and his companions had made from a kind of clay forming the bed of an old stream. This clay had been baked in a fire of peat, which latter is very abundant in the hollows. They had thus replaced their modest crockery, broken when the sloop stranded. Some day, in all probability, these beds of clay, a true kaolin, will furnish the tables of Sydney, Hobart Town, Victoria, and Adelaide with rival porcelains, I will not say to those of Creil or Choisy, which I hold in slight esteem, but to those of China and Japan, which I value highly.
To our north-east are the Snares and Stewart Island, which latter is separated by Foveaux Strait from TavaiPounamou, the great South Island of New Zealand. This Stewart Island is about as large as Corsica. It has numerous harbours with good anchorages, and exploitable forests of which the roots are bathed by the sea. Legions of double-furred seals formerly dragged themselves upon its shores, but these have disappeared since American adventurers and some English prisoners, escaped from the jails of New South Wales, established themselves there. These first grew vegetables, which they sold dearly enough to the whalers who came into port; the latter attempted to construct decked long-
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boats and even schooners, by means of which they hoped to regain their native lands, or else to carry on a more or less honest commerce in tropical Oceania.
It is remarkable that, close to New Zealand, where nature has planted trees suitable for the construction of ships, but too heavy for masts, one finds Stewart Island, and the Campbell and Auckland groups, which provide a species of fir, straight and light, and thus suitable for being converted into masts, so that vessels from Sydney, Hobart, and Port Nicholson repair there for the special purpose of procuring cargoes of these spars. The ftiture Australian republic will therefore be, as regards the seafarer, sufficient in itself, and will have no need to depend upon the planks of Norway and Sweden.
I had almost forgotten to say that we made all sail for Tavai-Pounamou, 1 the mainland of New Zealand, where we counted upon making our winter quarters.
1 See Note IV, on page 396.
CHAPTER VII
FANTASSIN
MARCH i sth. The same cold, the same calm as yesterday; a heavy haze without rifts; no sun at noon, and consequently no latitude taken. A northern surge drove us back. About one o’clock several whales bestirred themselves round us, one leaping entirely out of the water and rising more than a yard above the swell. We saw its belly show against the horizon. Then the enormous mass, more than eighty feet long, and as large about its middle as it was in length, fell back into the ocean with a frightful noise. The ship shook like a house in an earthquake, and the billow which the monster scattered in returning to the abyss whence it had come forth for an instant, like a vision of the Apocalypse, was flung as rain over the vessel. Since first I sailed upon whaling ships, never have I seen so strange and terrible a spectacle. Our old fishers claimed that the leap of a whale foretells a tempest, and that the height of the leap indicates the severity of the storm. In that case let us beware, and, as Bailly 1 said: “a Roman will return to his house.” Unfortunately I am more than four thousand five hundred leagues from home, and between me and it there is the entire diameter of the globe. The old fishers may be right. On consulting
1 A distinguished literary man and astronomer, mayor of Paris, guillotined in 1793. —Note ; F. W. R.
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my journal for the preceding years with regard to a dance of whales, at which I was present, in the seas south of La Plata, but where, I must say, the artists only reared themselves half out of the sea, I notice that on the day following the ballet we fell victims to a pampero d To-morrow, then, we may expect a fine tempest, concerning which those who escape it will retain the memory.
Who shall say that the tempest which bursts upon the surface of the sea has not for long already been brewing in the depths of the waters, and that the inhabitants of ocean, having the presentiment of its coming, do not rise to witness, by their disorderly movements, to their distress and fears? Every tempest is a storm, and all storms develop an immense amount of electricity. According to some physicists, fish, and especially cetaceans, are very sensitive to electric currents, and themselves evolve an incalculable amount of electricity. Hence these presages, which appear like magical predictions, are purely and simply natural effects of the organization of individuals.
That which renders our mood still more depressed is this wretched base which prevents us running south to the whales, which are passing in schools through our waters; yet, with such a mist, it would be imprudent to lower a boat. So dense is it that, two ships’ lengths away, we could not distinguish a rock, were it white and upreared like that spoken of by Horace as dominating the white Anxur. 2
Then night came, thick, cold and long; our Asia seemed to slumber heavily in the gloom; the light on the main-mast seemed to illumine us like a sepulchral
1 A violent west or south-west wind, common to those parts, and liable to do much damage.—Note : F. W. R.
2 See Note V, on page 396.
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lamp; a long swell, an invisible serpent, of which, from time to time, we perceived a whitish scale, rocked us treacherously, while everywhere, ahead of us, astern, to port, to starboard, on all sides, in fact, echoed incessantly the monotonous and plaintive cries of the penguins; one might think them souls in pain, passing, invisible, borne on the pinions of the wind, in the obscurity. The penguin is a wingless bird, but an unwearying swimmer; it is as large as a young goose.
Since I had been at sea, and that was a long time, I had never felt so sad. Fully dressed, I flung myself upon my cot; but, instead of sleeping, I dreamed. I seemed to be a miner, an indefatigable miner; I pierced the earth, passing through its centre, and came forth in that part of France where then gleamed the dawn of spring, where the leaves were sprouting, where the flowers burst forth, and where the birds, prepared to mate, sang of their coming love.
March 16th. Those old fishers speak truly; certainly leaping whales announce a great tempest. There is a stiff breeze from the east-south-east. We remain lying to before the wind, with the main top-sail close reefed, the fore-stay-sail and the mizzen alone set. More whales are in sight, and more penguins. The cold increases; no sun is visible at noon.
March 17th. The wind fell during the night, and at daybreak it veered to the north-north-east; the weather is clearing; the morning is fairly fine; we are sailing east-quarter-north-east under light sail. We are expecting to see land during the day, because we cross vast beds of seaweed and the penguins have appeared again, numerous and noisy, as on the day before yesterday. Some come and swim just beneath the vessel’s stern-post,
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and raise their heads as though to ask our permission to come on board. The sailors thereupon have the idea of catching one of these petitioners. The snare, a ring furnished with a lattice-work of thread, in the form of a hoop-net, was soon constructed and flung into the sea, baited with a piece of fat pork. A moment later a penguin snapped at it, and, caught in the lattice of the hoop, rapidly traversed the space between the surface of the sea and the deck of the ship. Scarcely was it a prisoner than, lack of wings preventing it from taking flight, finding itself upon the poop, it reared itself upon its feet, shook itself like a dog coming out of the water, and gravely made its way towards the galley, as though the various localities were perfectly well known to it. Having reached the threshold, the sight of the flame, instead of terrifying it, appeared to quite rejoice it. It approached nearer to the stove and proceeded to dry its white breast at the coal fire.
It is easy to comprehend the success which this familiarity, unexpected by all, procured for our new boarder. Captain Jay claimed to recognize, by the homely behaviour of this poor penguin, that it had already lived on board a vessel, from which some shock of the sea had driven it. Indeed, when the signal for breakfast sounded, the penguin smoothed down its breast and appeared perfectly to understand what was in question. We descended into the cabin, and the bird followed us; each took his accustomed place, and the penguin selected one between the captain’s legs, giving him from time to time little pecks on the shin, thereby to claim its share of food.
This intelligence, resembling that of the agami l of
1 See Note VI, on page 396.
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Chile, caused it to be unanimously received as a sailor, and it was placed on the ship’s roll as from March 17th. Fantassin, which was the nickname given it by the captain, now formed part of the crew; every day it received its fragment of soaked biscuit, its piece of pork, and its share of such luxuries as, by means more or less ingenious, we were able to procure on board.
Decidedly Fantassin had already served; the approach of the dinner-hour preoccupied its thoughts; at the sound of the bell it uttered a cry of joy indicating that it knew perfectly well what was toward. Then, and this indicated quite an aristocratic education, having to satisfy a natural need, it respected the quarter-deck astern, and mysteriously took shelter beneath the bitts of the bowsprit. This conduct, it will be understood, earned for it the congratulations of the officers and an ovation on the part of the sailors. As for me, this droll behaviour of Fantassin much distressed me.
“Oh! Fantassin!” I said to myself, looking at it sadly, “if you could speak, you would not contradict our captain, I am certain, when he claims that the Asia is not the first ship upon which you have served. Yes, I begin to think he speaks truly, and that some trick of the sea has carried you off from the deck of the vessel on which you lived, or, rather, are you not the sole and final survivor of some crew which perished in the last tempest? Ohl If you could speak, Fantassin, what a drama full of acute griefs and supreme anguish could you not relate to us?”
No doubt it was prejudice, and I declare that I reproached myself for it without being able to overcome it, but the sight of Fantassin saddened me; I was not in sympathy with it. It seemed to me that it had been sent
F
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like a bird of ill augury, and that its presence on board would bring us misfortune.
This sociability of the penguin, often remarked upon by naturalists, is of general notoriety among sailors. At the expiration of five minutes, the first sailor and the first penguin to meet will be as friendly as if they had known each other for twenty years. The secretary of Dumont d’Urville, Desgras, 1 says in a note:
“A stay on one of the Auckland Islands obtained for us the capture of two yellow-crested penguins, and a few of a small species of duck. At our approach, one of these penguins betrayed a disquietude which is not customary in these peaceful creatures. We captured it none the less, and, upon bringing it back with us, found an end of twine tightly bound round its left leg; the unfortunate bird had already endured the hardships of captivity, and the experience acquired no doubt inspired in it the agitation which we had noticed. It was its destiny to fall into the power of men, and, what is worse, to become the prey of natural history.”
This propriety, which I have already indicated in our penguin, with respect to its natural needs, it professes in freedom. Admiral Cecile relates, in the report on his cruise in the South Seas, that he noticed how, when the penguin moults, it becomes sad and withdraws apart, far from its female and its companions, as though it were ashamed of its nudity, and as though its modesty suffered. 2
Towards midday, Fantassin was a little forgotten. The sun showed itself at two o’clock, and the captain’s calculations placed us about 50° 14' south latitude, and
1 See Note VII, on page 396.
2 See Note VIII, on page 396,
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169° i' east longitude from the meridian of Greenwich. Thus, during the stormy weather and the haze we had passed beyond the Auckland Islands as regards longitude, and were almost ten miles to the north of their bearing. Night came, and the captain continued under light sail, heading north-by-east, half the watch aloft and a man on the cathead forward.
I remained late on deck; the weather was fine; only at about eleven o’clock did I go down to my cot. I had slept for almost three hours when I was awakened by an infernal noise. I sprang out of bed and rushed on deck. Everyone was at the ropes, and the Asia veered hastily. They were preparing the boats as though to launch them. “What the deuce has happened?” I asked the first sailor I encountered. “What has happened then?”
“Ah! Devil take it, doctor, what has happened is that we have, all nearly passed out.”
Indeed, when I cast a glance round I perceived on every side, within a very narrow circle, great, dark masses, darker still than the obscurity. These were rocks, cliffs, the land against which, in a ship’s length, we were about to dash ourselves.
How had this accident occurred? By a mistaken calculation, in spite of our captain’s skill, and because our ship’s boy, Master Pastille, sent forward into the cathead, had thought fit to go to sleep on the hoist, just at the moment when his eyes should have been wide open. Fortunately Lieutenant Seigle, the officer of the watch, perceived that Pastille, instead of watching with his eyes open, was soundly asleep. He picked up the lanyard of the standing jib and nimbly tickled the sleeper’s sides, who thereupon awakened with a jump, rubbing his eyes.
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“It is nothing,” said Seigle, “merely something to cause you to look about you.”
“Good! Lieutenant, I am looking,” replied Pastille. Indeed, in glancing round he perceived that the vessel was about to strike on the rocks.
“Land! Land!” cried he.
At this shout, which, uttered in a certain tone of voice, instead of diffusing joy sows terror, everyone awoke. The captain, first of all, sprang on deck, and with him the whole watch below, as one says of those asleep.
Not one sailor was lacking at his post, and if ever a ship came about smartly, all of a huddle, it was the Asia , at the moment I appeared on deck.
The lives of the whole crew were in fact endangered. Had we been shipwrecked on this part of the coast, no rescue was possible; all hands would have been lost. Moreover, suppose any had been saved, by some kindness of fate, I ask you, or rather I ask God, if death would not have been preferable to exile, perhaps an unending exile, upon one of these deserted islets, visited by whalers only at great intervals?
This occurred on the night between the 19th and 20th of March. With daylight, the captain steered again for the land so as to obtain precise knowledge, and in an endeavour to pass to windward. We sailed until ten o’clock in the morning without perceiving anything, because the haze was then very thick. We were pacing the deck with the captain, when suddenly we saw, at a distance of ten cables’ lengths, both to windward and to leeward, the summits of rocks rising here and there and rending the mist. A “Thunder and Lightning!” from the captain announced to all, even to Fantassin—who at
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this appalling cry, taken by him to be one of menace, fied beneath a bench—that something fresh had occurred. Once more the situation was at least as perilous as during the night.
“Prepare to wear ship,” cried the captain, “to stand out to sea.”
“But the calm prevents us.”
“Take a sounding!”
“No bottom!”
“And the current?”
“The current sets towards the land.”
And perhaps the tide also.
“Devil of a penguin, off with you! I certainly had a presentiment that it would bring us misfortune. Go! Come what may!”
Where were we? Firstly, in a bad situation, beyond all dispute. What land was this? Probably the Auckland Islands. Yet we certainly thought we were beyond them. If they were those islets, where was the entrance to Carnley Harbour? Were we to the north or south of the group?
Noon came, and, fortunately, with It a ray of sunlight, that is to say a glance from God! Ah! it is at sea, lost in the fog, taking a false direction, near to being wrecked on the first rock which comes, that one appreciates this ray of sunshine at midday, which, on shore, we allow to pass heedlessly and disdainfully! The captain had his sextant all ready. He took the altitude. . . . The crew was grouped not far from him, keeping a respectful silence. Fantassin was in the circle of officers, and appeared to take the greatest interest in what was happening.
The latitude placed us directly opposite the middle
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of the west coast of that principal island in the Auckland group. It was impossible to pass to the north and to windward of the shore; consequently we must pay off and escape towards the south.
Fortunately the breeze freshened, and in doing so bore off the mist. Everyone breathed afresh; we should pull through this time. In twenty minutes the atmosphere became as clear as upon one of our finest spring days; the sky was a magnificent blue, and about four o’clock in the evening we recognized the entrance to Carnley Harbour, situated on the south-south-west of the large island, and shielded by Adam Islet.
The west coast appeared to be completely walled by perpendicular cliffs. This is a gigantic rampart built by the Divine Engineer. The lead line did not touch bottom five miles out. Before Adam Islet the passage changes its appearance, and the last rays of the sun allowed us to catch glimpses of beaches strewn with white pebbles and stretches of sand extending to the foot of the verdant hills, here and there split asunder abruptly into sombre valleys. The captain’s intention was to continue his way without delay, by doubling Cape Bennett, to the east of Adam Islet; but, about nightfall, there came so many large and sportive whales to bid us welcome and to gambol around us, that we were ordered to heave to until daylight, so that we might tempt fortune.
It was too late to attempt anything that evening. Night fell in splendour, and alight with stars. The moon rose late. I told Master Pastille to wake me when this luminary had appeared. He was a natural jester, and at one o’clock he woke me by singing:
“Would you sec the moon, my lad ?
Would you see the moon?”
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As in fact this was my intention, I rose and went on deck. It was a quarter past one, on the morning of March 22nd. The appearance of the land was even more picturesque by moonlight than during the day. The sand on the beach resembled silver ore. On every side we heard the blowing of the whales and the cries of the penguins, to which, while asleep and dreaming perhaps, Fantassin replied.
At sunrise, our boats set out on the chase, having literally only the embarrassment of selection, so much was the sea furrowed in all parts by gigantic cetaceans. The tails of ten whales were in the air at each point of the compass. Our rowers abandoned one whale to follow another. They chose the biggest; they became disdainful, like the heron in the fable. 1
Fatality! The whales seemed literally to mock us. They appeared never to have been hunted, and yet their eyes were so quick and their hearing so sensitive that, at the noise made by our skiffs, they slyly disappeared under water; or, rather, at the moment the harpooner, standing in the bows, flourished the handle of his weapon, they sank to the bottom like the sounding lead, like inert masses. Our sailors declared that they had bellies full of flints. Then, ten fathoms distant, the sea was cleft and they reappeared, more alert and more frisky, ironically flinging from their vents, at those who pursued them, long jets of salt water, which fell back in foamy plumes.
At Tristan d’Acunha, Gough Island and on the false bank and the great bank of Brazil, off the coast of Patagonia, the Malcuine Islands, Chile, Japan, and California, everywhere in fact where, in the preceding years, the quest of whales had carried me, never have I
1 See Note IX, on page 397.
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seen such an abundance. At this time it resembled a frying of huge gudgeons in an immense pan.
Assuredly, if Captain Jay would cruise for only one month in these latitudes, the good fortune which seemed to have abandoned us would return, and the hold and the between-decks would soon be overflowing with oil.
For the moment, however, it was necessary to put on mourning; our rowers had pulled like mad, but the same manoeuvres on the part of the whales were repeated. All day the oars were thus handled; a hundred times were the harpoons raised; yet night fell without a single cetacean having been attacked.
No doubt the anger experienced by the captain influenced his determination, because, scarcely was the last boat hoisted and the last sailor aboard, than he ordered all sail to be set that we might proceed straight to New Zealand.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ANTIPODES
ON March 23rd the wind, driving us more and more towards the south-east, forced us to bid adieu to the latitude of the Aucklands. At midday we had already descended as far as the 52 0 of south latitude and 167° east of Greenwich. About one o’clock the look out signalled land; this was Campbell Island, 1 discovered in 1810 by the captain of the American whaler Perseverance. Captain Freycinet, in 1820, took its geographical bearings, as well as those of its island satellites. It is perhaps by an error of name, but one I think worth pointing out, that Make Brun’s Geography (Volume VI, fifth edition, p. 545) gives Campbell Island 2500 inhabitants, who, it says, in external appearance and by their costume, seem to have had a similar origin to the New Zealanders. I believe the editors of Make Brun have confused the principal island of the Chathams with Campbell Island, upon which neither Captain Freycinet, nor any other who visited it after him, could find any trace of human habitation.
As for us, we approached to within a short distance of it, and the telescope revealed only a great mass of rocks
1 Campbell Island was discovered by Captain Hazelburgh in 1810 and was named after the owner of the brig in which he sailed.—Note J.C.A.
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streaked with large, whitish, horizontal lines. What causes the appearance produced by these markings? Ido not know. I present the problem, leaving it for another to solve. Does this land always show not a vestige of verdure? One would think, did not some dark rocks falsify the resemblance, that one perceived the sterile and desolate strand of the He Dieu when, on entering the Loire, one loses sight of the Pointe de Noirmoutiers. Yet the editors of Malte Brun certainly place their Campbell Island at two hundred and twenty-five leagues to the south of New Zealand, though they make another mistake in saying south-east.
We had nothing to do on this shore; moreover, the breeze improving, we rapidly abandoned Campbell Island and steered north. Next day, March 24th, the wind freshened and the weather threatened to become bad; we were in south latitude 50° 36', and longitude 17 1 0 34' east of Greenwich. The barometer continued to fall during the whole evening.
On the following day we experienced a gale of wind which might pass for an amateur tempest.
Stormy weather continued on the 25th. We had become almost accustomed to this irritability of the sea. From the time we left the Cape of Good Hope until this part of the globe, not a week had passed unbroken by bad weather. The merchant vessel or the man-of-war, usually proceeding from one determined place to another, effects its passage slowly or rapidly, according to circumstances, but, upon the whole, it does proceed, while we fishers ceaselessly cross and recross, going and coming, in quest of prey. Thus our navigation is rough and dangerous because, from first to last, we suffer all the gales of these vast seas. Add to this that a tempest,
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never a very amusing thing, is still more irksome upon a whaler than upon any other vessel.
What is to be done during a storm on board such a ship? The seas inundate the deck, which is not protected from the waves by high waist-cloths or bulwarks. When one is quite useless at the ropes, it is better to remain below, all alone, without friends, passengers, play, conversation, with one’s self solely; and not even with books, because, in the two years since we left France, all those brought have been read and reread. One single volume, during those long and interminable evenings, still afforded me a little interest: this was the perusal of the French dictionary, and yet I possessed only a small pocket one.
Do not laugh, you who read this, warmly wrapped up in winter in your dressing-gown, with your feet on the fire-dogs, opposite a glowing fire, your elbow supported on a table with a green cloth and illumined by a lamp with an alabaster globe. Do not laugh, you who read me in summer, beside your open window, which permits the evening breeze to reach you, and who, between paragraphs, cease your reading to watch the successive phases of a beautiful sunset. Perhaps you read me from whim or caprice; it may be you have read all the masterpieces of antiquity, all the poems of the Middle Ages, all the stories of the eighteenth century, and all the romances of the nineteenth. Then you say to yourself:
“What interest could the doctor find in reading a dictionary?”
To-day, let me tell you, the doctor, having returned to France, no longer reads his dictionary; but I swear to you that he was very happy to have it in days of tempest, under 50° 36' south latitude, and 172 0 east of Greenwich.
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Note that it was not a dictionary of the Academy, or one by Napoleon Landais, or even one by Wailly or by Boiste, but one, I believe, by Peigne, in which the words were given simply and without comment! Those who have not experienced what I did, then, will find it difficult to comprehend that such reading could be interesting. Yet it was interesting, and very much so. There are a multitude of words unknown to us, the existence of which we do not even suspect. Well, these words are new faces as yet unfamiliar, fresh characters which we study.
On leaving Van Diemen’s Land and departing from Hobart Town, I had bought a few newspapers and pamphlets; the former supplied the general news of the colony, the latter dealt particularly with the penal settlements. In order to have something with which to occupy myself, I attempted to translate them, but it was useless; I was unable to succeed. No one is less dowered with the gift of tongues than am I; never have I been able to understand English, and I never shall be. In the course of a voyage lasting two years, which I made to the coast of Chile, I was surgeon on board a vessel of which the officers, Anglo-Americans, knew not one word of French. Well, rather than learn English, I preferred to maintain with my companions a silence which lasted two years, and when my duties compelled me to communicate with them, it was always either by signs or through an interpreter.
I have sometimes said that it was from patriotism or out of national aversion that I did not attempt to speak English; but one may judge of the degree of truth which will be met with in the course of this narration by my confession here that, if I have never spoken English,
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it is simply because I have never been able to understand it.
On the evening of the 26th the barometer rose again a little, the sea grew calmer, the waves foamed less and less, and the swell grew more lengthy. All this promised fine weather for the next day, and with the coming of the morrow these indications were fulfilled.
March 27th. Fine weather, a calm sea, a gentle breeze, and our course north-east, that is to say towards New Zealand. At noon, 47 0 37' south latitude; at two o’clock 172 0 20' east of Greenwich.
Numerous whales with dorsal fins are escorting us, but they do not deserve the thrust of a lance; they are lean and worthless.
With the first whale which we encounter, and which we harpoon, I will say a little about the difference there is between the whale and the right whale, that with pectoral fins, and that having a back without bumps and without pectoral fins.
The day was passably fine, but the following one reserved for us a first-class gale of wind. Winter is beginning; it approaches with wearisome monotony, especially at the antipodes of France, where we should shortly be. The reckoning at noon and at two o’clock gives 47 0 34' south latitude, and 178° 30' east of Greenwich. To-morrow, if the weather is clear, we shall perhaps see the island which Captain Pendleton, commander of the ship Union , visited in 1800, and upon which he left, for several months, a detachment of sailors to kill seals. He named this Antipodes Island, 1 seeing that it is the point of land nearest to the antipodes of London, in 49 0 40' south latitude, and 178° 40' east of Greenwich.
1 See Note X, on page 397.
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Cast your eyes over the map and you will find it to the north-east of Campbell Island, and to the southeast of New Zealand. No doubt fog prevented Captain Cook from obtaining knowledge of this sentinel in 1773. On the occasion of his voyage to the Antipodes he made the following observations in his journal, under the date of December, 1773, at six o’clock in the evening. l
“Each gives a tender sigh at the recollection of his native land. We were perhaps the only Europeans who had reached this spot. It is vaguely stated that Sir Francis Drake, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, passed beneath the centre arch of London Bridge; but that is a mistake, since he sailed along the west coast of North America. This false opinion results from his having crossed the perioeci, or the 180° of north longitude (from Greenwich), in the same circle of north latitude as London, off the coast of California.”
As for the point indicated on the maps as the antipodes of Paris, that is only a conventional spot: no land, no rock, not even a shoal exists there. I know something about it, since our vessel passed immediately over the place.
On March 27th, sailing slowly north, we encountered that little group of thirteen islets, discovered by Captain Bligh in 1788, and by him named the Bounty Islands, after the name of the frigate which he then commanded. We are aware of the dangers which this venturesome but inflexible captain encountered during that cruise, and some time after the discovery of these islands. His master’s mate, Christian, is one of Lord Byron’s heroes. 2
1 See Note XI, on page 397.
2 Byron celebrated the Bounty incident in The Island. —Note ; J. C. A.
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CHAPTER IX
WHALE FISHING
AT last we had reached the true fishing grounds. / % All night long we had seen flaming on the 1 JL. horizon the furnaces of the whalers. Thus from break of day sail was made and the look outs kept good watch. No longer was the sea an immeasurable solitude; seven vessels were in sight, and a host of whales were blowing on every point of the compass.
Our boats darted into the water, and the chase commenced, relentlessly, incessantly, but without result; our men rowed from morning till evening. Only one whale was harpooned, and that escaped, bearing in its flank three lines fastened one to another, in other words twelve hundred feet of rope. Our fellows returned spluttering in their fury.
That evening we spoke the American ship Mary Martha. She had been at sea for twenty-six months,' and had on board two thousand five hundred barrels of oil. We were in south latitude 44 0 50', and 177 0 28' east of Greenwich.
When we awakened next day we saw a magnificent spectacle. Eight three-masters were cruising about, with all sails set, and enveloped in clouds of smoke which rose from their boiling furnaces, while amid these fumes floated the flags by which they were recognizable. Signals were exchanged; four French flags and four American
9 6
THE WHALERS
saluted each other in turn. They promised to visit one another in the evening.
About one o’clock, as we were finishing the stowing of the oil from our big cachalot in the hold, the look out signalled the blowing of a right whale. Captain Jay, the soul of the voyage, the mainstay of the cruise, the most experienced of all fishers, speedily recognized the animal which was disporting itself, exercising its mouth and fins, three miles to leeward of us, as a true right whale. It was tranquilly fishing for its dinner amid an immense shoal of animalcules, small gelatinous organisms as large as a flea, which it received into its mouth with the surge. This latter was rejected by its vents, the insects being caught by that dense hair which forms a fringe edging the baleen plates. Gathered by the tongue, which moulds them into an alimentary bolus, this is then elongated to pass the narrow orifice of the throat. One or two thousand millions of these pucerons are needed to form each such mouthful.
The cetacean also swallows molluscs, medusae, and young calamaries; as for the larger calamaries, inert monsters, it is said, which lie at the bottom of the ocean, these are a prey reserved for the teeth of the cachalots, and I have certainly frequently seen their debris rise to the surface of the sea. We shall speak again of these giants of the abyss.
There was no doubt then, in the opinion of the captain, that man among all his crew who knew most upon the subject, that the cetacean sighted was not a humpback, nor a fin-back, a whale with a dorsal fin, nor a ground whale, a very dangerous species to attack, and usually so lean that the risk one runs in combating them surpasses any expectation of profit to be yielded by killing them.
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Thus the boats were lowered with enthusiasm. What an opportunity! Our furnaces had not yet had time to grow cold. The rowers seized their oars and exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, so that our four boats darted away like so many steamers.
The animal soon noticed the sound of the oars. Disquieted, it listened to this noise, which doubtless did not echo in its ears for the first time. It paid heed, raising its head out of the water so that these waves of sound, travelling over the rugged surface of the sea, might reach the orifice of its auditory duct, an orifice destitute of external cover, and so minute as to be barely visible and for a thread of silk to be scarcely able to enter it. Immediately instinct gave good counsel. However well filled might be the larder from which it fed, the repast was immediately abandoned and it took to flight, first in a direct line, then in zig-zags, and finally, lashing the air with its tail, by plunging into the depths. Already it was too late. The skilled fishers had recognized by the arc of the circle made by its “small” 1 in plunging, the direction of its course below the sea; they knew the monster could not remain engulfed for more than a quarter of an hour; they could calculate to within even a few yards the place at which it would appear for breath, and they separated and stationed themselves at four isolated points of a large square.
The rowers abandoned their oars, the blades of which were drying in the sun, held in the air by the extremities of the handles now thrust into holes in the sheathing. The officer watched, standing upon the stern planks, while the harpooner did the same at the bow.
1 The slightly smaller portion of the body which is just before the lobe of the tail.—Author’s Note.
G
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Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, and the whale did not reappear. No emotion felt by the hunter, unless perhaps that of Gerard 1 awaiting a lion, was as poignant as that of our sailors. Patience! The whale is equipped with the same respiratory apparatus as ourselves, and its supply of air would soon be exhausted; it would die of asphyxiation unless its blood became oxygenated once more. Patience! It is going to reappear!
Suddenly the vents roared in the centre of the four boats, and ejected to a height of twenty feet the fluid which obstructed them; as suddenly the boats darted forward, and each officer cried;
“Up, harpooner! Up!”
The harpooner was standing; he had seized the handle of his weapon, which a length of line attached to the great fishing cord by a running knot. His left hand grasped the handle at the height of the iron socket; his right hand, at the other extremity, gave the impulse to this terrible weapon. Suddenly his body stiffened against the roll; he supported himself by extending his legs, resting his left thigh against the edge of the bow, and his right foot upon his rower’s bench. Seen thus he was truly splendid, having the attitude of an ancient warrior about to fling his javelin. He was fearless, and if sometimes his body trembled, it was with impatience. He aimed ... he waited. . . . He waited till the officer, who was handling the boat with his long oar, in such a manner as to avoid the threshing of the cetacean’s tail and the caresses of its fins, approached the creature about the centre of its flank and gave the order.
“Strike!” shouted the officer in a strident voice. The freshly sharpened dart oscillated, reflecting the
1 See Note XII, on page 398.
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rays of the sun; and, from on board the Asia, where I had remained, watching, I saw, with a new anxiety each time it was played, the vicissitudes of this drama. I noted as it were a lightning flash strike the animal and bury itself in the dark skin.
Instantly the boat disappeared, enveloped by the spray flung up from the sea as the animal shook its wounded self, while from the centre of this cloud of foam rose the hurrahs of our men.
It was a well-struck blow, because already, far from the dissipating spray, I saw the boat reappear, dragged in the wake of the furious animal. The line, having been half-unwound, was twisted round a bitt in the stern, where a man, knife in hand, bent above it, ready, if necessary, to sever it.
The skiff soon reached the edge of the horizon, its oars in the air, and its men seated with folded arms; this frenzied course, surpassing that of a locomotive at full speed, greatly delighted them, and they called it the ■promenade in a waggonette.
The line was new and strong, the harpoon entered so deeply that it would break before dragging loose, and if the powerful locomotive, whose pace seemed equal to a speed of fifteen leagues an hour, continued this flight without growing weary, we might bid adieu for ever to our six men in the boat. At length its speed slackened, it felt that it was towing too heavy a drag; it paused, then turned, turned, turned, each time describing a narrower circle, while our men, hauling on the line, which the apprentice coiled in the tub, approached it little by little.
The officer changed places with the harpooner. His was the honour of giving the death blow; he straightened
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the steel of his lance in a groove of the gunwale; he looked to see if the spatula was well sharpened; then, profiting by the moment when the creature raised one of its fins, he plunged the six feet of steel lance into its body. Encountering no bone on its passage, this reached the heart, or at least the centre of the lung. Hurrah! Hurrah! The lance had penetrated straight, and straight it had come forth again, yet it was not reddened by blood. This was because the fat had wiped it clean, and one could only realize that the wound was mortal by the sudden jetting of a column of blood from the vents, instead of one of water. Yes, it was mortally wounded.
Then it fled anew, but this time madly; for some miles it sped, turning, plunging, lashing the water with its fins and its tail, and flinging to the sky a thick stream of bright red fluid, which fell back in rain upon the boats. In a few seconds the sailors had arms, hands and faces as red as their crimson wool shirts.
Sometimes the animal erected, or masted, its tail, that is the word, out of the sea to a height of more than fifteen feet, poised it like a flail about to descend upon the sheaves, and sought, in its instinct for vengeance, to crush the frail boats which hovered dangerously round it.
This was the most dangerous moment of the hunt. The man who held the steering oar must then have as much skill as coolness; he needed to handle the boat as he would a steed trained by Pellier. He drew as near as possible to the whale, advancing, retreating, darting to right and to left, hovering indeed beneath the flail which threatened to crush the skiff, as, armed with the louchet —so do they name the spade with razor-like edge
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—the officer sought to cut the tendons of the “small.”
A terrible duel! If he succeeded, the movements of the tail were no longer to be feared, since this borrowed its flexibility and its strength only from the gathering together of the tendons of all the muscles of the body. If he missed his stroke, six men, twelve men might be crushed, drowned, destroyed.
O hunter of wild boars, of lions, of panthers, and tigers, there is no scene amid all your hunting exploits so dramatic as this of the louchet , launched in the air as the harpoon is darted from below.
The lieutenant had aimed truly: the “ small” received a gash which suddenly yawned, the lobes of the tail fell heavily back en accolade , x flat on the water, and the boat, veering out a few yards of the line, stood off with a stroke of the oars, so that the dying animal might flurry at its ease.
To flurry! So the sailors, in their fishing slang, call that succession of convulsive movements by the dying animal, those twitchings, those jerkings of the body, as it utters its last sighs, while vomiting the last torrents of its blood.
Yet before this happened the dying giant disappeared once more, or rather it glided below for an instant, then reappeared, turned its open jaws towards the sun, uttered a feeble bellow which was extinguished in a rattle, turned upon its side, and died, its inert and stiffened fin out of the water.
Escape from the dangers of the chase and the combat does not always mean escape from the last death struggle of the animal. See Cooper else, that admirable depicter;
1 Like a double-curved bracket ' .—Note ; F. W. R.
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read The Pilot, and you will form an idea of what these last tremors of the whale are like. 1
If the impatient fishermen, believing it to have lost all its powers, approach imprudently, a single caress from its flippers will break or capsize a boat. Such a catastrophe came to cloud the joy we experienced at having killed a cachalot and a whale in so short a time. Suddenly, from the deck of the Asia, I saw the third lieutenant’s boat raised and flung to a height of more than two yards by one of the fins of the whale, which, having plunged for the last time, reappeared upon the surface before dying.
I had a telescope in my hand; I saw the men leap out and fall scattered into the sea, while the boat, ripped open, floated keel uppermost. Immediately the other boats leapt towards the sinister spot, like race-horses to the goal. They picked up five men. I anxiously counted them as each was rescued; but there were five only. What had become of the sixth? Someone dived in, and I saw him bring back an inert body.
A few minutes later, one of the boats, leaving the other two occupied in towing the whale, came towards the ship; it was bringing the victim of the accident. Thank God! None were injured; only one poor devil of an apprentice, a Gascon, he who had been saved by the diver, lay inanimate, cold and blue like a drowned man.
A strange thing ! An unpardonable forgetfulness! We had not on board any case of remedies for asphyxiation; but I immediately improvised the little instruments useful in such circumstances. Three or four quills from
1 Chapter XVII. J. Fenimore Cooper’s work referred to was a particular favourite with Dumas. He even wrote what he spoke of as
a sequel thereto ; Le Caf itaine Paul. —Note : F. W. R.
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the wing of an albatross formed a tube through which I forced my own breath into the bronchial tubes of the drowned man, after first freeing them from the scum of sea-water. I had him long and energetically rubbed the length of his spinal column, and then enveloped him in coverings of well-heated wool. I also made repeated titillations of the mucous membrane of the nasal cavities, and after efforts lasting a quarter of an hour and which were crowned with success, my Gascon swallowed a large glass of hot wine in which the cook, who also, but unknown to me, practised medicine, had flung two or three pinches of pepper. Accidents of the kind I have described, but sometimes ending more unfortunately, are not rare on board whalers. On every voyage some men are lost. The martyrs of the fishing are numerous. Captain Jay still lives; but these last two years he has no longer voyaged, but walks the streets of Havre, doubled up with rheumatism. Leffem, the second-in-command of the Asia, who took over the ship after Captain Jay, perished, killed by a blow from the tail of the fifth whale caught. His harpooner, gallant and thorough sailor as he was, lost his life by the same blow. Rivallon, who had control of our third boat, was drowned after having his skiff smashed. Seigle, of the fourth boat, died of scurvy.
That is the case with regard to a single vessel, and concerning my fellow-voyagers only.
O women! How dearly are the bones of your corsets paid for!
CHAPTER X
TAILLEVENT
THE appearance of night on the fishing grounds, when these are frequented by a large number of ships, is quite fairy-like. Immediately the sun sets meteors illumine every point of the horizon. One would say they were lamps to light the workers.
These lamps are the large furnaces, in the cauldrons of which bubbles the fat of the hetos; and the joyous hunters, now become Tenderers of blubber, their faces blackened by night and smoke, yet fantastically illumined by the reflection from the hearth, sing, chat, and tell stories of the fishing, sometimes leaning an elbow on the handle of a poker, while at others they belant the boiling oil, that is to say decant it, by aid of a handled can, from the cauldron into the receiver, where it will cool before being barrelled.
If one of these whalers, the deck of which, being dark and silent, proves that the day’s work has not been fortunate, happens to pass near, some ill-natured jester spills a cupful of oil on the fire, and the flame, mounting in a whirl to the height of the mainstay, announces in its own way an ironic commiseration for the gloomy voyager.
Destiny and the waves are changeable, as our immortal Bdranger says, and the time comes when the chaffers become the chaffed. These little jestings by the whalers
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have sometimes disastrous consequences. The flaming oil may set fire to that in the cauldrons, and from thence reach the masts and rigging. On this evening no vessel had yet appeared, and we were the only illuminated spot on the ocean. About a quarter of an hour before midnight I heard them come to awaken the captain. A great fire had appeared on our beam, to windward.
Curious to enjoy this spectacle, I climbed on deck and saw, in fact, a fire of quite a different intensity and energy, considering the distance separating us, from that of a furnace. There was no doubt about it being a conflagration, and in all probability it was a whaler on fire. I am surprised that these sinister events are not more frequent. At every hour of the day and night, during the fishing, fire threatens.
The men who work between decks at carving up blocks of whale fat are accustomed to make a lamp out of the extremity of the animal’s muzzle, which they hollow out and in which they burn old tow soaked in oil. This method of illumination almost always chars the cross-beams supporting the deck.
Still more dangerous is the furnace, which is built of bricks and rests upon a similarly constructed foundation, below which is contrived a reservoir about six inches deep, always kept full of water. This evaporates quickly, and if through forgetfulness it is not renewed, the planks scorch, catch fire, and will no longer support the weight of the furnace, so that both cauldron and fire may suddenly fall into the between-decks. In such a case it will be realized that only a miracle can save the vessel from destruction. No doubt such a catastrophe had befallen our confrere, which had just been discovered fifteen miles to windward of us. The fire used for rendering
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down had become transformed into a gigantic sheaf of flame. The horizon was illuminated, and at the bottom of the flames one perceived, through the telescope, an ignited mass, a colossal coal upon which sudden rendings appeared, which fed the conflagration and gave to the disaster the recurring radiance of an immense intermittent lighthouse.
Upon the surface of the sea, stretching away from us, a luminous triangle, similar to that produced by the rising or setting of the sun, displayed itself; our sails were lit up; we were experiencing dawn in the midst of the deepest night.
If only the unfortunates who were perhaps about to perish had been to leeward of us, how the Asia would have spread her sails, and, good sailor that she Is, how she would have darted to their aid; but they were to windward; we should have to tack, and for a distance of five leagues! They would have time to die ten times over before we could be near enough to aid in their rescue.
However, our captain, desiring to do everything possible for their assistance, trimmed his sails and crowded on all the canvas he could, while at the same time he ordered lanterns to be hoisted to the mast-heads. He simultaneously intensified the flames of our hearth, in the hope that if the vessel in distress launched its boats these would come in our direction. Gradually the conflagration seemed to change its position: we had gained the weather gage; the Asia sailed very well close to the wind, and all hope of saving our unknown brothers was not yet lost. Suddenly a more vivid light was diffused over the ocean; then the flames lessened in intensity little by little, and we perceived the colossal
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coal diminishing in size and becoming extinguished as it sank beneath the sea.
We continued to tack about, hoping every moment to hear ourselves hailed by the boats; but, alas, nothing happened, and with the coming of daylight we were sailing in the midst of a floating debris of charred wood. Not one human being clung to these fragments, and our look outs vainly explored the horizon during the entire day. Had all the unfortunate fishers perished? We never learned anything of the fate of this crew, unless that it was American, because only the Americans use cotton, and we picked up a half-burnt fragment of this material as we cruised among the wreckage.
On the 30th there was a fight on board.
I dressed the wound of the injured man, who had received a cut from a knife; after that the two adversaries were put in irons.
On the 31st we woke to magnificent weather. Eight ships were visible on the sea; we chased and killed another whale. We were in luck’s way; yet once again our satisfaction was modified by a serious accident.
We have mentioned that the living whale is a terrible thing; dying it is still more dangerous, and dead it may become so. Of two hundred and thirty or two hundred and forty fishers whom I have known personally, a dozen are perhaps still living, and of these more than one has lost a limb.
On April Ist they turned the whale which we had killed on the previous day. So that the reader may quite understand what the expression turning the whale means I will explain it. Immediately the whale is dead it is towed by the boats towards the ship, which, for its part, proceeds to meet it. It is then kept afloat on the
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starboard side by aid of a strong iron chain surrounding the “small,” as a rope would do by the help of a noose. This chain passes through the hawse-hole and is fastened to the bitts of the bowsprit. A section of the bulwarks which serve to enclose the deck is removed between the foremast and the mainmast, opposite the main hatchway and right above the animal.
Then the captain and his helper, supported by a belt, place themselves on a little plank suspended outside the vessel, in order to cut off with spades strips of blubber, which are afterwards removed by strong cables worked by the windlass and passing over a set of powerful pullies coupled above the main-top. The windlass is placed athwart the bowsprit; it is a heavy piece of wood bound with iron and worked by hand-spikes or wooden levers, or by means of a winch. It usually serves to raise the anchor, the chain of which coils round it as it is put in motion, and it will be understood that since it can do this it can raise other weights. The power, then, is provided by the windlass and the blocks and tackle; the fulcrum is the lower main-mast, and the whale presents the resistance.
A whale is stripped of its blubber as one peels an orange. The fruit turns in the hand, the whale turns in the water; they first seize one of the fins, which, pierced, receives an iron hook attached to the extremity of the cable of one of the pulleys. At the same time, the captain and his assistant cut the fat in circular slices about a yard in width with their spades, and, urged by the tension supplied by the pull of the windlass, this blubber is torn free and passes up in a long strip, causing the whale to revolve in proportion as the fat is detached from the body and rises. When it has reached a height
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of twenty feet, another hole is made in the lower portion, fairly close to the deck, and through this is passed the cable from the other pulley; this rope ends in an eyelet. On reaching the far side of the fat this eyelet receives a wooden pin which prevents it from slipping back through the hole. A harpooner thereupon cuts the fat above it. The first cable is unwound from the windlass, and the first thong of blubber descends by its own weight into the between-decks through the opening of the main hatch, while a second strip mounts in its turn. The same method is followed for the third time, for the fourth, and so on until the last.
When the animal has been stripped, the loop of the chain is unfastened and the shapeless mass of flesh is allowed to drift away. Upon it swoop thousands of sea birds, while below feed the carnivorous fish.
Do you now understand how a whale is turned? I much fear you do not, and I regret being unable to make you a sketch of it. This operation affords no great danger; but it is quite another matter when they wish to cut off the head of the cetacean, so as to collect the baleen plates from the upper jaw.
Let us suppose we have reached this stage; the iron hooks have successively delivered the two lips and the flooring of the lower jaw, upon which rests the tongue, and that tongue itself; that spongy tongue, as large as a medium statured elephant, and in which the circulatory system is so developed that one can recognize the vital heat therein twenty-four hours after death; that enormous tongue, of which the cellular tissue is so rich in fatty matters, that it alone furnishes oil worth more than a thousand francs (at that time about £4O). Well, it was now a question of the final operation, that is to say of the
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separation of the skull from the backbone; the upper jaw, with its baleen, will accompany the skull. If the backbone were articulated and mobile, as in man and many other animals, the spade would separate them without difficulty from the remainder of the vertebral column; but they are welded together, and can only be disunited by repeated blows from a heavy axe.
It will be realized what a misfortune it would be to lose eleven or twelve hundred fine pieces of baleen; and Taillevent, the most skilful and most intrepid of our harpooners, armed with an axe, descended upon the slippery nape of the animal’s neck. A rope was fastened round our comrade’s body and made fast to an iron
toggle. This rope, should he lose his footing, was to prevent him from disappearing between the side of the vessel and the body of the whale.
Taillevent set to work. The captain and some of the crew watched him, crying out:
“Bravo, Taillevent! Bravo! Another blow! Another good blow!”
At these encouragements, the apse, a kind of cutting crowbar resembling the wedge used for splitting wood and sharpened to a keen edge, fell, fell again, and with each blow bit sharply into the bone, while, to assist in separating the vertebras, five or six active sailors exerted pressure upon the extremity of the snout with the aid of a long pike. The exclamations redoubled:
“Bravo, Taillevent! Hurrah, Taillevent!”
Suddenly, in the midst of these shouts of encouragement, there sounded a frightful cry of anguish. I heard this scream in the stern, where I was musing of I know not what—some trifle doubtless—like Horace, whose thoughts would certainly have been different upon the
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deck of a whaler from those he had in the Forum at Rome.
I cast my glance in the direction from which the cry had come. Some of the men darted forward and seized the rope which supported the harpooner. I also rushed towards the bulwarks; I looked and saw Taillevent being drawn from between the ship and the whale. His head appeared first, as pale as though the poor fellow was already dead. This head rested upon his shoulders, and his arms hung motionless beside his body. I thought at first that he had slipped and fainted from the shock; but I was speedily undeceived. His right foot, from which poured a stream of blood, only remained attached to the leg by a strip of flesh and the tendon of Achilles. The last blow from the axe had severed the tibiotersal articulation.
To express my own grief, to describe the despair of our comrades, of the captain and officers, would not be possible. We should have been less overwhelmed, I believe, if Taillevent had lost his life in killing the whale, if in the struggle he had disappeared for ever, swallowed up by the waves. That is the fisherman’s fate, and he expects it; but to thus mutilate himself when cutting up carrion, that was horrible!
Work was suspended. Mine was now the first role on board. I placed a temporary dressing upon the wound, and Taillevent was taken down to the officers’ cabin, while I immediately prepared to perform the amputation of the leg, which could not be delayed.
We possessed an amputation case on board, and I had personally chosen the instruments. One fear assailed me, and grimly. The only amputation I had performed was upon a “specimen” in the dissecting-theatre of the
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lecture-room. Could I successfully repeat this here, upon a living patient, without competent aid or advice? The life of a man was in my hands, and I was compelled to admit my inexperience. Doubt or hesitation I must not show; such would only depress both the injured man and my companions. Thus, with an effort, I pulled myself together and made my preparations. The cook, the steward, and an old sailor were chosen to assist me. Briefly, the amputation was accomplished, and an hour later Taillevent, shaken but comfortable, rested in a cot swung from the cross-beams of our large cabin, and the crew returned to its regular duties.
Like my old master, Ambrose Pare, I can but say what he remarked to the Duke of Guise: “I dressed the wound, but God healed it!” 1
We shall meet with Taillevent again, setting foot on shore. Alas! Never was the singular person better employed than under those circumstances of setting foot on the shores of Banks Peninsula.
This happened on April ist, on which day whales and ships had alike disappeared.
On April 2nd, a tempest.
On April 3rd, a tempest.
On April 4th, a tempest.
On April sth we spoke an American ship from Nantucket, the Master.
1 Francis, Duke of Guise, was wounded in the face by a lance, in a skirmish with the English before Boulogne in 1544. The blow was a tremendous one, the shaft snapping off and leaving the iron in the wound. All the surgeons available declared the wound mortal and the removal of the weapon to be impossible. Ambrose Pard, the King’s surgeon, the “ father of modern surgery,” however succeeded and cured the injured man. This was probably the first notable operation under anything approaching modern methods. The terrible scar which was left gave the duke his best known title of “ Lc Balafre ” (the scarred). —Note ; F. W. R.
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During the morning one of our boats was crushed by the blow of a whale’s tail, and two sailors were drowned.
Those three days of tempest drove us to the southeast, into 48° 50' south latitude, and 175 0 40' west of Greenwich, almost beneath the meridian of Paris.
On crossing this meridian I struck off one day from the calendar in my journal, and wrote for the second time: April sth. No doubt, on my return to Europe, I shall find myself a day ahead. Just now I am at the greatest possible distance from all I have loved and from all I still love.
H
CHAPTER XI
SUPERSTITIONS
I SHALL long retain the impression of a mysterious adventure which has just happened to us, and which has disturbed the whole crew. Let who will believe the strange event I am about to relate; I declare that it happened, for I saw it.
When we left Havre, the officer in command of the fourth boat failed to answer the roll-call. We remained in port until evening waiting for him. He did not appear, and the owner sent us Lieutenant Seigle as a substitute. • Though this latter was an excellent seaman, the captain much regretted the young man who was missing. He had trained him, and had every confidence in him; his skill and courage, they said, were equal to any test. His name was Trelot.
Briefly, Trelot was replaced by Seigle, and nothing longer detaining us in the roadstead, we gained the open sea without knowing what would happen to Trelot later. To-day, April 6th, scarcely had the American ship passed on her way than another vessel, with the French flag at the mizzen, bore down upon us with a following wdnd. The captain ordered the main top-sail laid aback to wait for her. This vessel passed rapidly astern of our taffrail, and the speaking trumpets of the captains resounded. It was a ship from Havre, the Ville de Rennes, six months out from France. At a distance of a hundred paces
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friends have no need of glasses by which to recognize one another. From one bulwark to the other passed many salutations and compliments.
Suddenly Captain Jay cried: “Why there is Trdlot!” In fact, all those who had voyaged with the young boat
commander recognized Trelot, and, like the captain, called out; “Good day, Trelot!” and waved their caps to him.
I did not know him, but he was pointed out to me, and I saw him like the others.
“It is he,” said the captain. “Having missed us, he must have got another berth. The devil! He may think I am vexed with him, whereas it is nothing of the kind. Quick, lads, launch a boat. I wish to go and shake hands with that worthy Trelot.”
“We, too, captain,” exclaimed two or three sailors; “you will permit . . .”
“There is no need,” retorted Captain Jay; “I am going in search of him, and I shall bring him back with me.”
The captain sprang into his boat and the sailors rowed vigorously. They went on board the other vessel. The two captains bowed and exchanged the customary compliments. Then Captain Jay looked anxiously round.
“What are you seeking for?” asked the captain of the Ville de Rennes.
“I am looking for one of your men, a friend of mine.” Then, in a loud voice, he added: “Hey! Trdlot! do not hide yourself then; I am not vexed with you. Come and shake hands with your old friend. Trelot! Ahoy, Trelot!” And our captain leaned over the cabin scuttle.
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The crew of the Ville de Rennes looked at Captain Jay with an astonishment resembling terror.
“What are you looking for? Whom are you calling?” asked his confrere again.
“Why, the deuce! for Trelot, who was here with you just now, and who waved to me with his cap.”
“Trdlot was here with us just now?” asked the captain.
“Certainly.”
“He waved to you with his cap?”
“Yes.”
“You are certain of that?”
“Assuredly; I saw him, as did all my crew likewise. Is Trelot not on board with you?”
“He was.”
“What do you mean? He was?
“Yes; but yesterday, at nine o’clock in the evening, he fell into the sea; the ship passed on, and poor Trelot now sleeps in the sharks’ maws.”
Captain Jay bowed his head, held out his hand to the commander of the Ville de Rennes , and returned on board his own ship.
“Lads,” he said, “expect some misfortune; that was not Trdot’s body which you saw, but his ghost!”
It will be realized what terror these few words spread throughout the ship. No one among us was aware that Trelot had, since our departure, shipped aboard the Ville de Rennes. Naturally, no one knew of the fatal accident which, on the previous evening, had cost him his life, and yet all who had known him were prepared to affirm on oath that they had just seen him above the bulwarks of the ship which had come from France.
Can one be astonished at the superstitions of sailors?
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Very frequently, during the long tropical nights, sweet as must those of Eden have been, lying on the deck, I have heard stories of incredible imaginativeness related by the men of the watch. The great promontories of earth have each their legends, in which the Dutch mariner always plays the role of the damned.
Such, for example, is the chronicle of the Flying Dutchman , that infernal vessel which takes seven years to tack about, and which is condemned to cruise for eternity in the latitude of the Cape of Good Elope. The ship’s boy who goes to let out the royal returns a white-haired sailor. The dead among the crew are buried in charnelhouses full of salt, and the ship’s roll is recruited from sailors of other vessels who fall into the sea. When the Flying Dutchman meets a ship he hails it, asking news of the merchants of Amsterdam, dead these three hundred years; after which he sends letters on board addressed to those same merchants. The captain of the vessel hailed takes good care not to accept these letters. He bids the messenger deposit them at the foot of the maln-rnast, then no sooner has he departed than a blue flame, twining round the main-stay, descends to the deck and devours the accursed papers.
What is the origin of this and many another legend, in which Dutchmen do not play a pleasing role? It is true there was a time when they were masters of the two
oceans, where they called themselves the sweepers of the sea by hoisting a broom at the head of the main-mast instead of a flag. Having been the richest merchants and the boldest navigators in the universe, these Phoenicians of the modern world have also been the most envied and
the most hated by their rivals. Add to this that they were Huguenots, full of aversion for their Catholic
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confreres, and that, in fact, their naval history, even more than that of other peoples, offers terrible disasters and frightful adventures.
The Dutch Company having scarcely ever published any of its official communications with its agents, the narratives of their cruises remaining in a state of oral tradition, have necessarily suffered alteration in passing from mouth to mouth, and the mysterious has not always escaped being mingled with the true. 1
It was a merchant of Amsterdam who first penetrated into the Pacific Ocean by doubling the rocks of the southern point of Tierra del Fuego, and never again did he see his country, nor is it his name which those rocks bear, but that of his vessel the Horn , burnt a short while after.
Jacob I’Ermite, after having discovered and studied the lands of these high latitudes, and having given his name to one of the islands, died sixty days later, and of the eleven vessels Maurice of Orange had entrusted to him, one alone returned to the Texel.
It was at Cape Horn that the Englishman Cowley, a filibustering pilot from Virginia, discovered more than a century ago that it was dangerous to speak with mermaids. He paid with his life for his indiscretion. The woman with whom he spoke appeared to him floundering in the waves, and leaning over the ship’s side to throw her a line, he lost his balance and fell into the sea never to reappear.
This belief is retained by our sailors, but with a variation which did not exist in the time of Cowley. To-day it is only dangerous to speak to mermaids when one refers to virtuous women, while to cause a fair wind
1 See Note XIII, on page 398.
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to spring up it is sufficient, on the contrary, to speak of those who have thrown off all restraint.
It is then in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, and during the long and cold Polar nights, that those sailors who are not members of the crew appear on the deck, their presence always foretelling the death of someone, when it does not presage the loss of the ship.
On board a Dutch vessel there was an apprentice who was usually sent to loose the fore-top-gallant sail. One night when he returned from performing his customary task the officer of the watch asked him why he had not gone alone. The apprentice looked at the other in astonishment, and the question was repeated. The apprentice swore by all his gods that he had gone alone, and that no one had helped him to clew up the gasket of the sail. Simultaneously, the officer called two men, and had twenty blows from a rope’s end applied to the apprentice’s back. The officer and the members of the watch had, in fact, plainly seen two human forms on the foot-ropes of the yard. An apprentice is so insignificant a thing on board ship that they did not even ask him who the obliging sailor was who had helped him with his job.
On the following night the same youth was sent upon the same task. He had the blows from the rope’s end on his mind, poor devil, and, once bent over the yard, he looked to windward and to leeward to see if anyone had preceded .him, and if anyone was with him. He could see no one, handled the sail, and joyfully descended. But the officer and all the men of the watch had perceived the same two human forms on the foot-ropes, and the unfortunate fellow vainly cried, wept, and protested, only to receive ten cuts additional to the number bestowed on the previous night.
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In despair the apprentice addressed all the sailors, beseeching them to say which had played him this ill turn of remaining invisible to him while plainly perceived by his comrades. None answered him, and the skill of the unknown jester appeared still greater to all. Each henceforth promised himself to endeavour to discover who was this good comrade on the first occasion that at night the ship’s boy was sent aloft. This was not long delayed, but the youth, beginning to suspect that this mystery concealed something terrible, refused to obey. He was compelled to mount. The men of the watch counted themselves, thus ensuring that if the obliging sailor again appeared he could only belong to the other watch. Yet how did he mount? Everyone kept a sharp look out, that is to say, they watched both the starboard and the port ratlines, the stays and the tops. The devil alone could have climbed aloft without being seen. The astonishment of the sailors was terrible when, on turning their gaze upward towards the apprentice, who was loosening the ear to the wind, they discovered at the other end of the yard a second individual, who appeared to be working as energetically as the first. Immediately someone sprang into the top to seize as he passed him who had for the moment eluded them. Meanwhile the ship’s boy went from starboard to port, so as to loose the other ear. By his behaviour they perceived that he was still ignorant of his neighbour’s presence. This latter was of precisely the same height and figure as the apprentice. Suddenly these two individuals approached, raised themselves and looked at each other; their arms left the yard, they embraced, their breasts were pressed together, and, as though they were going to walk upon firm ground, they stepped out
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simultaneously with the left foot and fell into the sea.
The main top-sail was laid aback, ropes were flung overboard, but neither reappeared or so much as uttered a cry of distress. Immediately the captain learned of what had happened he summoned the members of the crew in order to discover who had been drowned with the apprentice. Only this latter failed to answer the roll-call.
“Boys,” said one of the oldest sea-dogs on board, “it was his mate from the other world who came to fetch
him. I know that trick! We shall each, one of these days or one of these nights, see his mate appear. Boys, let us keep our rigging well pitched, if we wish the Great Admiral who sails above the clouds to give us the ration of biscuit for the blessed, the bacon of paradise and the dried haricots of the archangels.” Another story.
A ship out of New Bedford was on her way to the cachalot fishing. One night, as they rounded Cape Horn, two men were sent out on to the bowsprit to take in the standing-jib. One of the pair fell into the sea and disappeared. The ship continued its cruise, filled up with oil, returned to its home port by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and soon after left on a new venture. It so happened that, one night, in rounding Cape Horn, a squall threatened the masts, and by chance the officer ordered the comrade of him who had been drowned there, three years before, to go and take in the standingjib. The sailor sprang on to the jib-boom and prepared to carry out the order, but he saw someone else before him about the same task.
“Who asked you to come and help me?” he shouted,
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thinking he had to do with one of the crew; “do you fancy I am not able to carry out my job alone?”
“Do not be vexed, Harry,” answered the second sailor; “I am John, your friend, who fell into the sea three years ago. Since then I have waited here for the passing of the ship in order to finish my work which I had left half done. Now, good-bye!”
Then the living sailor returned to the deck; but next day he fell into the sea and was drowned.
CHAPTER XII
SCURVY
WE are threatened with scurvy. It is time to put into port. Concerning this disease, I remember having suffered cruelly from it several years ago on the ship Pallas. We had been at sea for ten months and ten days. Our men complained of lassitude and of unusual pains in their limbs. They grumbled at the length of our continuance at sea. Their dispositions grew irritable and peevish; their work was performed without heartiness or energy. For my part I no longer had the spirit to record my observations in my journal.
No longer was there fun in the evenings after supper; there was no more conversation or the relating of terrible and fantastic stories round the main hatch during the first watch. No more would they sit side by side on the windlass, smoking and talking of their loved ones in France, of past and future pleasures, of their good families who waited for their return, praying each day that God would preserve them from shipwreck.
The ties of sociability and friendship insensibly relaxed; each individual endeavoured to keep to himself, to trace round him an impenetrable circle, to create a desert for himself. I recognized the truth of this sentence, found in an ancient book, two hundred years old, by Falconnet, a physician of Lyons: 1
1 See Note XIV, on page 398.
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“ These attacks of scurvy debar one from the conversation of others, and reduce one to a solitary existence.”
Much has been written about scurvy, its causes, its ravages, and the methods for preventing or curing it. At the conclusion of all these brilliant and profound theories, sustained and developed by the best physicians of our royal navy, the same axiom appears once more as the cure: “Land and fresh provisions.”
This is a double remedy which it is sometimes impossible to procure. Land? —we were three hundred leagues from the nearest. Fresh provisions? —no longer was there a scrap on our vessel.
The captain, moreover, sole master on board after God, did not yet wish to proceed to land. He pitilessly exploited the weakening powers of his crew in the search for whales and cachalots.
The change of temperature aggravated the progress of the disease, and the number of the sick augmented with the increase of the cold because, in the Pacific Ocean, March and April are the two first months of winter.
It was the cook who led the way along this dismal path; it was in him that I first detected the undoubted signs of scurvy.
At length the captain, seeing that more and more hands were lacking for the working of the ship each day, and that the vessel’s deck was becoming transformed into the veritable promenade of an infirmary, resolved to conclude the cruise in the open and sail for San Carlos in Chile. It was probable that, before reaching the anchorage at Punta Arenas, we should be forced to sew some of our comrades into canvas sacking and fling them into the sea.
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Our fowls and our sheep were all gone. Long since we had celebrated the death of our last pig with the final fermented dregs from our last barrel. Our ration of potatoes, that anti-scorbutic boasted as infallible by the philanthropists of the continent, was all consumed; coffee no longer existed save as a memory; the chest of tea showed four bare walls of lead adorning its interior, and more particularly that which formed the bottom; insects had hollowed habitations in our dried vegetables; every day there was measured out for each of us a litre of foetid water; our pipes, widowed of tobacco, were cold. Only the salt meat remained in abundance, unchangeable, and surrounded by rotten and greenish biscuit; and, as I have said, we were more than three hundred leagues from a refitting port, with scurvy as our voyaging companion.
Had death stayed us on our way, who would have been answerable to God? The man of the venture, the owner, and following him, the man who obeyed him and commanded us, the captain.
The wind was favourable, the ship sailed well, but how slowly the days and nights passed!
The wan faces of our sick men gradually assumed a bronze hue; the fire was extinguished in their eyes, their teeth became loose in the putrefying gums, their joints were full of swellings and nodes, their legs bent, their bones softened; no one was able to remain standing for more than five minutes, and when those who were worst wished to mount upon deck, to absorb a little of the light and breathe in the fresh air, never was a hand stretched out to aid them, because I wished them to endeavour to climb the stairway of the companion hatch alone, steep as this might seem to them. These movements, though
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difficult and painful, were for them less dangerous than a continual immobility. They ceaselessly turned their dulled and yellowish eyes towards that point of the ocean where, they were told, the desired land would soon appear, and if some motionless cloud on the rim of the sky shaped itself like a mountain, a tremor of joy agitated these living corpses, until the breeze which filled the ship’s sails also bore away the cloud into the depths of space.
I already knew that scurvy acted differently upon the mentality of the sick; but on this occasion I had the sad opportunity of verifying this for myself. With some, sensitiveness, memory, judgment were annihilated; they could no longer distinguish insult from commendation; they seemed to have lost apprehension of their condition, the realization of their being. These were the least unhappy. They suffered decomposition as heedlessly as though already dead.
In others, on the contrary, judgment, memory and sensitiveness were developed to the highest degree; these wept, smiled, dreamed of sweethearts, friends, and native land; but at the same time felt themselves to be suffering and dying.
We had with us a lad of fifteen years, a ship’s boy devoid of intelligence. This scapegrace of the vessel, this colleague of Pascareau, in fact, attacked by scurvy, rapidly wasted away. One evening I was watching beside his pallet, fearing lest he should die during the delirium of an access of fever. It chanced that a sailor, his usual comrade, had occasion to open his box in order to give me some linen for which I asked. This man first placed his hand upon a scrap of paper.
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“ Wait,” said he, “here is a letter from his grandmother.”
Anyone close beside him would have experienced difficulty in hearing those words, pronounced in a low tone; but the lad, in his delirium, caught them, raised his head and cried:
“A letter from my grandmother? . . . Oh! give it to me, give it to me!”
The sailor handed it to him, but in vain did the patient endeavour to read it. Then he begged me to do so in a loud voice. I did as requested, believing I was carrying out the last wishes of a dying person. The boy wept as he listened. When I had finished he continued to shed tears, and in fact went to sleep still sobbing. All that night, which he passed without waking, saw neither fever nor delirium. Next day the fever and delirium returned. I no longer knew what remedy to employ; I had used all which pharmacy offered me on board. Then I had an inspiration. I commenced to again read aloud to him his grandmother’s letter. Once more the lad wept, as on the previous evening, and once more he slept tranquilly. I had discovered a febrifuge, and I employed it successfully every time he had an increase of fever, until we arrived at our anchorage. I believe I thus saved his life by means of this letter, which a ship out from Havre had brought him a few months previously, and which he had flung into the bottom of his chest without troubling to read. In this simple and touching missive he was recommended to be a wise and good sailor and to be economical, so as to be able to provide new clothes for his young sister, who was waiting for his return to take her first communion. The good grandmother added that she had, for his sake,
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offered a candle to Notre-Dame de Grace of Honfleur. Unfortunately, all those on board could not pull through as happily as this boy.
The malady made frightful progress each day, and the least crippled among us had loosened teeth and decomposing gums. Several times I saw canines on the point of falling out, so much had they become exposed. One of our men plucked out two of his and showed them to me in the hollow of his hand. I immediately made him open his mouth, and I replaced them in their sockets, inserting them even more firmly than they had been previously, and advised him not to allow them to come out again, but, on the contrary, to press them home from time to time with his finger. This was so much the more easy to carry out that these two canines were those of the lower jaw. Thanks to these instructions, which were followed to the letter, I obtained a complete success which our friends the dentists will probably scarcely credit. 1 So much was this so that, after the disappearance of all effects from the scurvy, the teeth remained as firmly fixed as if they had never formed the idea of taking a voyage to foreign parts in their owner’s hand.
It will be comprehended that with such teeth it was not possible for us to masticate biscuit; as a preliminary it became necessary to soak it in water to soften it, yet the water was slimy and nauseous, having already passed through one period of putrefaction. Even this soaked biscuit appeared too hard for us, and we made turlutine from it.
1 The translator saw the same thing done many years ago, in the days when dentistry was more rough and ready, outside the towns, and painless extraction the exception.—Note : F. W. R.
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What is turlutine? Ah! you do not know, dear reader! May God preserve you from ever learning what it is, save by the description I am going to give you.
Turlutine is a thick porridge made of pounded biscuit and flavoured, not with butter (the butter casks were long since empty), but with the fat which floated on the surface of the cauldron in which were cooked the salt beef and pork. This pap was so compact that a spoon would stand upright in it without falling to the rolling of the vessel. Such food did but hasten the course of the scurvy. One potato, only one, would have been worth its weight in gold. I would have shared it among us all, yes, shared; I would have grated its raw flesh with the point of my knife; each should have received of it a piece as large as a pea; each should have rubbed his gums with this sour but beneficial tropical remedy. Old American fishers have often told me of the marvellous effects of the raw potato employed medicinally. Alas! it was not possible to verify their assertions! Yet why should they have lied? The resources of nature are infinite, and this axiom is far from being always true: “ Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.”
Another privation, and a terrible one for sailors, was that the tobacco was about to become exhausted, and tobacco is an anti-scorbutic, not when scurvy has developed, but for its prevention. Only a few sticks still remained, and the progress of the sickness had caused special economy as regards its distribution for the past month. I said that only a few sticks remained, because, at sea, tobacco is not supplied ready cut like that sold according to the regulations, but in rolls, cakes or sticks. These are about as large as sticks of chocolate. The snuff-takers grate these up; chewers cut them into
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small pieces; smokers shave them fine and rub the parings in their hands before filling their pipes.
The masticating apparatuses were in such a bad state that, to lessen the work of the molars, the tobacco was allowed to soften for a long while in the saliva. Then, to extract all possible from the little tobacco still remaining to him, the chewer dried his quid in the sun, and when this was done, cut and rubbed it, pressed it into the bowl of his pipe, and experienced one more moment of happiness, hope and forgetfulness. Pardon this detail, dear reader, and you particularly, fair reader. It is necessary to have been a sailor, and especially a whaler, to realize the worth of a quid of tobacco and a raw potato.
We had then on board neither wine, brandy, tea, coffee, nor even beer. That beer, or rather that beverage, that drink, that liquid which the English and the Americans have invented, and which they call spruce beer, was manufactured on board by the cook. A cask half full of water is filled up with a decoction of hops, which has been eked out with molasses and a kind of dark resin, clear and bitter, extracted from the berries of a species of fir, common in the Pyrenees and the forests of North America; such was the recipe. It was not difficult to make as one sees; it is true the product was not good.
Well, this frightful beverage, frightful when our water was pure, when tea and coffee were abundant, but of which, since the days of scarcity, we had learned to await the weekly distribution with impatience, well, this frightful beverage had ended by failing in its turn, and the dearth was such that we regretted it. Further, the cook had abandoned the control of his kettles.
Yet this unfortunate man was the one who had suffered
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least among us during the long cruise, because he had been able to select for himself the best morsels, to make little dishes for himself, and to warm his precious person at the galley fire, while the cold from the neighbourhood of the pole benumbed us; and this without counting that he spent the hours of the night watch, when the others were on deck, comfortably in his bed. This unfortunate fellow, I say, fell into complete dissolution. We might have sympathized with his fate, attempted to assuage his illness and have been affected by his sufferings, had not disease made us egotistical, cold, and insensible! It is thus that, without shedding a tear, one can see father, mother, brother, lover, wife or friends die. It is not only the body, but the affections themselves which are attacked by scurvy. Then, furthermore, the sailors said to one another in a whisper that the cook had only got what he deserved, and that at least the scourge should fall upon him, since he was the cause of it. 1
The poor cook not only had the bones of his limbs softened and bent, but even his abdomen was so immeasurably distended, swollen, and enlarged that it formed a hernia visible through his blue cotton pantaloons. His chest, flattened, sunk in upon itself, was barred with greenish lines along each side; they might have been taken for the braid on a Polish frock-coat. The turgidity of his face obliterated the eyes; his swollen tongue protruded from his lips; he could no longer swallow anything, either solid or liquid; he had not even strength for the death-rattle; he lay upon his pallet, an inert and infected mass; he was about to die.
We were thus enduring our agony, when one day we perceived a vessel sailing from the north. It will be
1 We shall know why later.—Author’s Note.
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understood how great our joy was; the captain steered to intercept its path and hoisted the flag at the mizzen gaff. The ship must have seen us as clearly as we saw it, yet it did not reply to our signal; even more, it appeared to wish to avoid us, continuing its way towards the southeast. Then our flag was hoisted and hauled down alternately on the mizzen mast. This asked for assistance; it was to utter a cry for “Help!” It was to announce that we were in distress. In spite of all this the vessel continued its course and speedily disappeared.
A bushel of potatoes, a fowl with which to have made some broth, a bottle of brandy, would have done so much good to our poor sick men! We, for our part, had formerly aided the unfortunate at sea! Why, then, were we abandoned on this day? We directed a thousand maledictions at the captain of this pitiless ship, and it was decided that he was an Englishman.
Seven of the crew still had sufficient strength to work the ship. At length, towards the conclusion of a beautiful day, someone shouted: “Land! Land!”
At this cry the moribund who had not yet lost all feeling roused themselves from their habitual torpor, gathered at the bulwarks and, their nostrils dilated convulsively to inhale the odour of that earth which, with their enfeebled eyes, they could not yet see, they accused the look-out of lying. This latter swore that the land was certainly there, to the east, in the direction the ship was sailing.
In fact, before long the sea lost its deep blue tint and became greenish; masses of seaweed passed alongside; no longer did the dying doubt, and these wretched pieces of vegetation were greeted with foolish acclamations. I then understood that one might die of joy!
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It was too late to enter the bay; we drew out to sea in order to wait for daylight. But during the night a terrible gale from the south-west drove us north; this lasted for three days. Three days, do you understand, and we had already reached port. Always shall I remember the fears which tortured us, but which we dissimulated one from another with a forced smile and a veneer of composure upon the features during those three days of tempest. By tacking we avoided shipwreck on the coast of Chile, but what a time it was! There was one moment when the captain said to me in a low tone:
“It must be an anchorage or shipwreck, doctor; it is no longer possible to stand off.”
It was shipwreck that was to be, or at least which appeared to be, our destiny. At one moment we were but some hundred yards from the rocks, while the ship could carry only its fore stay-sail and its main top-sail close reefed, which meant that it was almost drifting.
What was to be done? What hope of safety could we expect, with men prostrated by sickness? I here were no more than seven with a little strength in their wrists.
The sea was so high that the spray from the waves came over our taffrail, and when the ship, after dipping into one of those troughs hollowed between two billows, climbed the slope of another, the seas shipped over the bulwarks fell upon the deck. V hat was worse, tide, wind, and current were all against us and bore us shoreward. Everywhere, a few yards distant from us, we caught glimpses of rocks just awash, which seemed to groan and complain beneath the lash of the surge, and to ask, good carpenters that they were, to be allowed to labour at the carcase of our vessel.
One hope still remained; there would come a moment
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when the mainland must shelter us. In fact, when tacking at a distance of just over three yards from the breakers, we passed beyond a headland placed there like a breakwater, and prepared to let go the anchor. We were saved.
Oh! what a sensation we then experienced! It would have been thought that this was the first time we had escaped the danger of death. To be deafened for three days by the roaring of the sea and the howling of the tempest; to be pursued for three weeks by the complaints of thirty poor martyrs, whom one fejt powerless to aid, and then, suddenly, without leaving the deck of our ship, to hear no longer the sea breaking and the tempest snarling, while those who before were groaning now smiled!
So, to-morrow, our invalids would have fresh water, fresh fish, the potatoes so much desired, vegetables, and, better still, the beneficent scurvy-grass, which I would myself gather on the banks of the streamlet which I saw descending yonder from the mountain, gleaming like a silver thread in the sunlight. Then, in a fortnight, healthy, revictualled, we should proceed once more to our fighting.
It was true that the land near which we had cast anchor was bare and desolate, but it was a true paradise for eyes which had seen only the sea for three long months. Now, only one fear remained to me; it was that the very odour of the coast alone might react too powerfully upon our sick men. I had heard it said that the scorbutic who goes too quickly ashore may sometimes have a fatal return of delirium. Thus, as a precautionary measure, I had everyone detained on board.
Next day those able to walk should go with me, and
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I would see to it that they only reached the land under the strictest precautions. While waiting for them to become accustomed to the emanations from shore, I requested the captain, with two of the most robust and best preserved of the crew, to go to the bottom of the bay and fill his boat with soil, with the good, fresh, humid earth which I would spread around the beds of my worst patients. This may appear strange to you, but if you knew how good it felt, that earth upon which their feet had not trod for so long! It gave them back hope merely to see it afar, life only to smell it, and they forgot that one day they would have to be shrouded in its bosom.
I remained for a moment examining this coast, along which I had already cruised so often. Amid the clearing tempest, which was growing calmer, I soon distinguished the mountains called the Breasts of Huchupulli and the north headland of the peninsula of Lucayes. In the absence of the captain, who had already departed with those of his choice, the second in command steered straight for the Farallones of Carelmapu, and I thanked God that, despite our sufferings, He had permitted us to arrive alive at the anchorage of Punta de Arenas.
I then remembered our poor cook, whom I did not see amid all these spectres who had left their cots to contemplate with greedy eyes this beneficent land. Having myself experienced what relief could be given by the sight alone of that coast, I ordered them to go and raise his bed and carry him on deck. Immediately they summoned me with loud cries to the forecastle. I hastened there as quickly as I was able, that is to say I dragged myself to the crew’s quarters, descended and leaned over the cook’s bed. He no longer breathed; he was dead, dead not more than a quarter of an hour, being
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still warm; dead at the moment when, by a kind of miracle of the Lord, the rest of the crew were saved; dead without having seen the land, and hearing, through the daze of his agony, the cries of joy from those who could perceive it. In your turn, poor cook, take your place in the captain’s boat; you, too, shall have the honours of the flag of France.
Let my readers pardon me for this digression, but I wished to add, on my own account, a page to the collection of those sombre legends which the sailors of the watch relate to each other at night, lying or sitting around the main hatch.
In this connection it is hardly necessary to mention that the cook alone died, and that, at the expiration of a fortnight, the crew, fully cured, again put to sea.
Let us return to the Asia and to the future misfortunes with which the apparition of poor Trelot threatened us.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LOST CAPTAIN
THE day following that on which appeared the shade of poor Trelot, which gave rise to this digression, was April 10th. On waking we found ourselves making to the northward again, thanks to the wind, and with some thirty whales in sight. All day long we hunted them without succeeding in harpooning one, and our sailors consoled themselves with the remark: “April fools!”
Towards evening a vessel out of Havre, the Gange, accosted us; she was on her way to France, loaded with two thousand four hundred barrels of oil. With the captain’s permission I had one of the boats launched and went on board her to post my letters.
Chance willed that I there encountered one of my old comrades of the medical school of Rochefort; we exchanged some books, a piece of good fortune for us both, and we promised to return them in the other world, if we met on the same strand. We parted at eight o’clock and have never met since, and shall do so probably only at the last great gathering.
The following day nothing fresh occurred; that is a phrase often written in one’s journal at sea. 44 0 south latitude, and 17 1 0 40' west of Greenwich; the temperature mild, and the thermometer registering 15 0 centigrade.
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April 12th. The sea continued calm, but the day passed without sight of either a whale or a ship; we tacked about and continued on the watch.
On the following day a vessel hove in sight, carrying the American flag; she was the Good Return of New Bedford. They had two thousand barrels of oil on board and had been thirty months at sea. The crew was suffering from scurvy. I went on board to give some assistance to the sick and to take them two lean fowls, the last survivors of the cargo we had shipped on leaving Hobart Town.
Next day, the thirteenth, there was a dead calm, but of ill augury, one of those calms which grimace at one from behind a mask of good nature. The sun set in an horizon of the hue of blood, and the storm which rumbled in the distance approached rapidly.
The 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th, sent us a tempest, an infernal tempest, and everyone declared it was the shade of poor Trelot which brought us this.
During these seven days the ship tossed about almost under bare poles; she could barely keep her head to the seas with helm a-lee and under her fore stay-sail. So rudely did the waves rock us that I, who had been voyaging for six years, was seasick. What served to console me, if anything can console one for this malady, was that I was not the only sufferer; the oldest sailors no longer had any heart to chew their tobacco.
What did I do during that long week? I dragged myself from my cot to the hatchway, and from the hatchway to my cot. That was all! I cursed the sea, I cursed my fate, I vowed that never again would I embark, if once I was fortunate enough to set foot anew on firm
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ground. Then I smiled; directly there was a lull I lit my pipe once more, and my oath vanished with the smoke.
Three ships were in sight on the 21st, and a fair number of whales; but the surge was still too great for us to venture to launch the boats.
We spoke the ships Rubens from Havre and Jonas from Nantes on the 22nd.
There was a thick fog and a dead calm on the 23rd. During the night and towards one o’clock in the morning we were awakened by sounds of blowing and the hollow and prolonged rustling of innumerable cachalots passing through the water near the ship. This is a weird and unforgettable music, I can assure you, when once it has been heard. What a fine spectacle this would have been had the weather but been clear and the sea phosphorescent as upon summer nights.
On the 24th, a shred of the old blue sky appeared again, but banks of fog continued to come and go around us, every moment, harried by the breeze. For distraction, Captain Jay repaired on board an American ship which, since the morning, had sailed in company with us.
At ten o’clock the weather was clear, but scarcely had the captain left us than the mist, as though only waiting for that, swooped upon us in an enveloping girdle of vapour. Naturally the vessels profited by this to lose sight of each other. We hoped the fog would disperse. One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock passed in waiting thus, but the haze, instead of vanishing, grew more dense. Amid this mist we felt the breeze threaten, but we continued stationary, with the main top-sail to the mast, in order not to part from our consort. Yet, in spite of all our efforts to remain in the same place, we
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drifted; we could perceive this by the relative position of a half-rotten tree-trunk which floated near by. This was
a proof that we were not far from land, or certainly in the direct course of the great current which comes out from Foveaux Strait, between the Island of Tavai-Pounamou and Stewart Island.
Needless to say the opinion of the crew was that never again should we see the captain, and that it was his friend who detained him in the other world, his boat and his boatmen with him.
It was necessary, however, to be assured of this, which could be done only by rejoining the Montana; such was the name of the American vessel. How was this to be accomplished? When we lost sight of her she lay on our starboard quarter. If she had no more sail hoisted than had we, she must still be there, at least unless her build and her lading gave her a stronger or slower drift than ours.
Acting upon this possibility, Leflem, the commander of the second skiff, who, in the captain’s absence, assumed by right the charge of the ship, put about and for ten minutes ran in the presumed direction of the Montana.
While making this tack everything on board which could make any noise was put into requisition: the old, rusty cannon, usually thrust away beneath the bitts of the bowsprit, stretched out its mouth through the hunting gun-port and thundered every five minutes. The twenty-five muskets forming the armament were incessantly discharged. Ten men hammered with mallets and pieces of wood upon empty barrels; others yelled in chorus with all the power of their lungs, and whistled like a flock of New Zealand blackbirds. I took the great speaking-trumpet, three yards long, and, turning its
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large bell towards the surface of the water, I bawled, howled, roared, until breath failed me. Then I darted to the bell, which I rang with all the strength of my arm.
. . . Quasimodo 1 could have done no better.
From time to time, at a sign from Lieutenant Lcflem, the infernal uproar ceased as if by magic; there was a great silence, and we listened attentively, leaning out from the ship.
Hush! A dull and distant sound reaches us! No doubt it is the Montana replying. No! Silence again. It was only our own noise which, travelling over the surface of the water, encountered a strip of denser fog, rising like a wall from the midst of the rest, and came back to us as an echo.
We were sad; not that everyone shared this superstition that Trelot had carried off the captain and his six rowers; but suppose things had happened quite naturally, that the captain and his men were still on the Montana , which we had seen them board; suppose that, finding themselves in safety, they had not committed the imprudence of seeking to rejoin us in the midst of the haze. If we became separated from the Montana and did not find her again, the results of our voyage would be largely compromised. Six men short on board a vessel possessing a crew of only thirty-six, and which had as yet only half its cargo of oil, would be an irreparable loss. Especially was this so when among the six men was a captain such as ours, a brave, skilful, and energetic whaler.
Leflem took a decisive resolution; he announced to us that he was going to station himself in these parts for forty-eight hours, and if in that time the Montana did
1 Quasimodo. A misshapen dwarf, one of the chief characters in Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris. —Note ; J. C. A.
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not reappear, he would sail for New Zealand. No doubt the captain would have himself conveyed there, and we should rejoin him at Port Cooper, which, in course of conversation, he had frequently indicated as the station where he intended to winter.
Meanwhile night fell; all the furnaces were lighted, and oil was burned in the cauldrons, the flames from this punch rising as high as the fore-yard. Then once more the cannon, the muskets, the barrels, the speakingtrumpet, the howls, the whistles, and the bell commenced to scare away all the whales for a circumference of threequarters of a league. At the same time we retained the try-sail, while continuing to manoeuvre to counteract the drift. Already a barrel of powder had been consumed. I had turned pale and shuddered when they removed this cask of explosive from the hiding-place where it had been placed when we left Havre. Just imagine, it had been put immediately beneath my cot, and was merely separated from my mattress by the canvas forming the bottom of my bed. I was not aware of this; and, a Jean Bart all unconscious, I had calmly smoked my pipe for eighteen months over an unknown volcano. Not one spark, but a thousand; not one flaming piece of paper, but a hundred may have fallen and fluttered beneath my bed, to have likely enough commenced a conflagration—a thing not infrequent on board ship when the vessel is rocked by the waves, and a current of air, passing through the cabin companion-way to the stern windows, sets the wicks of our swinging lamps ceaselessly flickering. Then the whole ship would have blown up.
At first they had much difficulty in finding this wretched barrel of powder, which, as a matter of prudence,
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especially on a whaler, where there is always fire on deck and between decks, should have been lashed to the mizzen-top, or certainly relegated to the bottom of the cul-de-lampe. It is a strange coincidence that, a few years later, the Asia was destroyed by the explosion of a cask of powder placed in the cul-de-lampe.
The entire crew passed the night on deck, and young Pastille, the same sailor whose negligence had almost played us such a villainous turn at the time we were making land at the Auckland Islands, was placed astride the standing-jibboom. Suddenly his voice, slender, but strident, sounded shrilly amid the infernal row which we were making.
“A ship! A ship! A ship!” he cried.
“Where?” asked all voices, at the same time that the most complete silence was established on board.
“One point to windward of us!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” responded the whole crew, because, at the same moment, all eyes were turned in the direction indicated, and we perceived some ship’s lanterns rapidly rising and falling, no doubt with the assistance of halyards placed at the ends of the yards; then the toll of a bell replied to ours.
It was really the Montana. Its great, dark mass, blacker than the night, soon appeared a few fathoms to windward, and a moment later our comrades sprang on board, to be embraced as though they had not been seen for long years.
An extra distribution of rum served to moisten the happy return of the captain, and the Asia , having signalled adieu to the Montana , hoisting all sail, resumed her course to the north.
CHAPTER XIV
NEW ZEALAND
BANKS PENINSULA 1 revealed itself at the extremity of a bay; here we were to pass the winter, lying in wait for the mother whales which frequent its shores.
Banks Peninsula, which Cook himself took for an island, is an immense expanse of land, half-plain and halfmountains interspersed with valleys, indented with numerous bays, well wooded, and united with TavaiPounamou, the great South Island of New Zealand, by a narrow stretch of sand.
The English, in defiance of acquired rights, 2 took possession of this peninsula and there founded the Province of Canterbury, the prosperity of which will shortly rival that of the establishments on Ika-na-ma-vi, 3 the Northern Island, where already there have sprung up cities with populations of from five to ten thousand inhabitants, such as Auckland, Port Nicholson, Whangaroa, Kororarcka, etc. We shall have occasion to speak again of this matter, which deserves to have quite a different celebrity to that given it by Pritchard. 4
1 See Note XV, on page 399,
2 See Note XVI, on page 399,
3 Ika-na-ma-vi.—Te Ika-a-maui, the Maori name of the North Island, meaning “ the fish of Maui.”—Note : J. C. A.
4 See Note L, on page .prz.
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'45
On April 30th, at daybreak, the cry of “Land!” brought everyone on deck. The sky was so clear that at a distance of thirty leagues we recognized the snowy summits of that chain of mountains which dominates the
peninsula, and which runs from south to north, almost parallel with the Cordilleras of South America. Eighteen hundred leagues separate these great girders of the earth’s framework. The ocean has respected the base of the Andes, but almost entirely submerged that of the Kaikouras of New Zealand. From Monte Video to Mendoza, that is to say from the shores of the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes, one reckons more than four hundred leagues. It is doubtful if, in its greatest width, New Zealand measured fifty or sixty.
We progressed, impelled by a brisk and most favourable breeze. By midday the look out picked up the point of rock behind which opened out the little Bay of Martha and Pireka, 1 which the fishers first to arrive for the wintering hasten to occupy. We passed, on our left, an indentation of the coast which marked the entrance to the harbour of Akaroa, and sailed by the creeks of Pahatoupa, Wakarimoa, Kokarourou, Putakolo, Mud Bay, and Cape Crocodile, to cross the great Pegasus Bay in a west-north-west direction, preparatory to casting anchor on the morrow, at daybreak, in the little haven of Oeteta, the private parlour of Port Cooper.
That evening the breeze fell, and we hove to at set of sun. I counted this day as among the most delightful I had spent at sea; all were merry, joyful, with smiling countenances; the sky smiled, the full breeze from the north-east smiled, and this new land smiled as its hills became greener with every passing hour. During a
1 See Note XVII, on page 399.
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portion of this day, seated upon the Asia's lashed booms, I had cast out a line after large and very greedy fish, which readily swallowed hooks baited with a fragment from a red woollen shirt. This hook, without any sinker, skipped along, drawn in the wake of the ship, and the sabres —as our sailors called this fish—flat and about three feet in length, darted in pursuit. These sabres ,* which I had already seen, caught and eaten off the coast of Chile, belong, I believe, to the family of characins odoes ( salmonidte ), and their flesh is very analogous to that of the pike.
Immediately sail was shortened the sailors flung out their lines and soon cod were plentiful on the deck. These fish, smaller than those of Newfoundland, had the scales of the back very red, and they much resembled those known in Europe as whiting. Everything indicated to us that the coastal waters were rich In fish. So much the better; the diet of our winter quarters would console us for that of the high seas.
On the morrow, then, I should set foot on the land of the phormium tenax , that hemp which is more silky than silk; on the morrow, I should see those charming cannibals who drink the blood of men as we do wine. Then, dreaming of adventures, ambushes, and combats, I forgot it was time to go to sleep. It is true that I was listening to the continuation of a long discussion which had arisen among our sailors.
On the highest peak of the chain of mountains stretching before us there was a little white cloud of the size and shape of a balloon, an isolated cloud, lost in the desert of the sky. The first to see it, or rather to pay attention to it, was Father Marsouin.
1 See Note XVIII, on page 400.
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“Who was Father Marsouin?”
Ah! That is true, you do not know him. Father Marsouin was the oldest of our sailors, the oracle of the ship and of bad weather. On seeing the cloud he shook his head.
“What is the matter, Father Marsouin?” I asked.
“You certainly see that cloud, doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I need tell you no more.”
With this he cut a quid as large as a nut from his roll of tobacco, introduced it into the left side of his mouth and commenced philosophically to chew it.
Then, as I said, a discussion arose concerning this little cloud. To some it was an infallible sign of fair weather, and the more so that the moon shone without any halo, and it was consequently unjust to apply to present circumstances the meteorological quatrain:
When bright shines the moon,
Ne’er will top-mast break soon,
Yet oft may it make
It to shake.
As for the others, and at the head of these pessimists was Father Marsouin, who had first offered the opinion that this cloud presaged nothing good, they related stories of white squalls in the tropics, and of the Pamperos of La Plata, terrible hurricanes which nothing announces beforehand, unless it be some little flocculent clouds, quite of the kind of the one floating above the summit of the mountain, and seeming to hover there like an albatross. The little cloud may grow slowly, ever enlarging, enlarging continually, not like the ball of snow, which increases by accretion, but by virtue of the
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power of expansion resident in itself. Suddenly it will overspread the sky and the horizon, then it is rent into a thousand portions, scattering wind and thunder, and raising to mountains of spray the sea which, an hour before, was calm and smooth. Woe to the ship surprised by such a squall! See, then, where the discussion had arrived when the officer of the watch cried:
“Strike eight bells!”
The ship’s boy sounded upon the bell the eight strokes of midnight. It was time to settle down in one’s cot. I therefore made my way towards my cabin, but, I confess, with regret. I could hardly tear myself from the spectacle of this sea, calm and without swell, upon which our Asia rocked languidly. I could not withdraw my eyes from the shore to which mysterious influences had led me. Now that we had advanced more closely to it, it seemed to me to be it which came towards us. The cliffs and the rocks, beneath the rays of the moon, took upon themselves an incomparable grandeur which blended with that of the Southern Alps and of the Kaikouras.
I returned then to my cabin, quite enchanted at the fine day awaiting me on the morrow; because it had been determined that, at four o’clock in the morning, we should be on our way towards Oeteta. I was in such haste to set foot on this land, for so long dreamed of by me in my aspirations after the unknown, that It was only an hour after I had flung myself upon my bed that I succeeded in falling asleep. With much difficulty I had succeeded in closing my eyes for a few moments, and my mind had begun its journey into the grey land of dreams, when the noise of the footfalls of the crew hastening on deck, and the stentorian voice of the captain giving orders for the working of the ship,
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awakened me with a start. For a moment I thought that the Asia, as at the Auckland Islands, had come near running her nose against a rock, and I darted towards the cabin scuttle.
Certainly everything was changed; the night was no longer silent, the sea was no longer calm, the heavens were no longer blue. The wind whistled in vortexes, the waves were white with foam, and great black clouds soared above our masts. The hurricane, descending the gorges of the Kaikouras, flung itself furiously on Pegasus Bay. l
“Off shore, quickly! Off shore! Crowd on sail, lads, and let us use all speed to gain the open sea, lest we one and all perish on the rugged shore to the northeast, where not a ship, not a bay, not a cove can offer us any shelter, from Togolabo to Cook Strait.”
While sail was crowded on the ship, and as, luffing and steering close to the wind, we moved away from the peninsula, Daddy Marsouin, who went to take the helm, leant towards me and, making a shield for his mouth with his hand, rapidly flung these words into my ear;
“I certainly told you so, doctor.”
Yes, it was true, he certainly had told me so, the old sea dog, and this time he was not mistaken. I had forgotten Daddy Marsouin’s phrase, and he had just recalled it to me with pride, because he claimed to have foreseen the tempest. In that way the Norman pilots, when asked their opinion upon a coming storm, select one cloud among all, and, mysteriously pointing to it with the finger, say:
“You plainly see that rag—white, grey or black?”
1 See Note XIX, on page 401
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“Yes.”
“Well, I need say no more to you.”
Then, let it blow, let it rain, let it thunder, or let fine weather continue, it matters little; the elasticity of the reply, wholly Norman, has not compromised their reputation for sagacity.
For that matter, this time Father Marsouin had explained more clearly than his fellows are accustomed to do, and he was not mistaken; we were in a howling tempest.
The rising sun of May ist illumined the east with a pale, yellow hue, and by degrees, as it mounted, its rays, obscured by the spray from the sea, descended towards the water like the shrouds of a mast. The rolling of the thunder reverberated from the coast, a close and heavy rain fell, sky and water mingled into the horizon, and Tavai-Pounamou disappeared.
Our purpose was to remain sufficiently in the offing to fear no longer that the drift to, the north, and the bore, would draw us towards the rocks of the Lookers On. If we avoided approaching land, as we ran before the storm, this danger would be still more easily escaped; but, after the tempest was over, we should have to retrace about a hundred leagues of coast, and it would need long tacking to re-enter Pegasus Bay. Unfortunately we could no longer struggle close to the wind; the main top-gallant mast snapped, the fore-sail blew from the bolt-ropes, and it was necessary, in order to avoid making in shore, to repair the damage.
We succeeded in avoiding the land, but while the Asia , obedient to her helm, described a portion of a circle, and presented her side squarely to the waves, a mass of water poured over the bulwarks, tumbled and roared upon the
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deck, overthrowing everything in its way, until it was slowly drained away through the scuppers, hawse-holes, and ports.
At noon the storm, the fury of which did not cease to increase, changed its form. The clouds had fled and the sky clothed itself once more in limpid azure, vivid and stainless; the waves, dashing against one another, shattered themselves and took the form of an upward driving rain, in place of that which had fallen during the morning; and, as if in irony, the sun shone as brightly as in the most beautiful days of summer. This phenomenon of a pure sky, with brilliant sunshine, during a tempest, is not rare, and never does the wind blow so violently as when through an atmosphere destitute of clouds.
The night was long, not only to me, but, I affirm, to the old sailors also. During the night the hurricane attained its maximum intensity; all our sails were ripped and torn; only the fore stay-sail still held; two men were constantly at the wheel: these were the two best steersmen on board, and it required all their skill, and all the strength of their arms, to keep the Asia on her course. The ship laboured painfully in the ocean; the waves, like a band of sea wolves, pursued us astern, threatening to devour us if the vessel, yawing, slackened her course.
So great was the phosphorescence of the water that it might have been believed a conflagration had been ignited in our wake. The waves were as blazing as punch.
At daybreak one last blow from the sea shattered the captain’s boat; the others had been brought inboard. This effort was the last sigh of the tempest, a terrible final sigh, an agony similar to the flurry of the whale.
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Then, as suddenly as it had risen, the tempest abated, and, at noon, they were able to bend new topsails and a new fore-sail. Though it still blew from the south-west the wind was manageable, and our course was re-established.
CHAPTER XV
THE CHATHAM ISLANDS
AT midday they calculated the latitude, and at two o’clock the longitude. Where were we ? Twenty leagues, perhaps thirty leagues from New Zealand? No, no, the drift, the currents, the bore had driven us so far to the east that the archipelago of the Chatham Islands would be found not more than thirty miles to leeward, so that, but for the haze upon the horizon, it would certainly have been discovered from the top of the mast.
For a moment the captain hesitated whether to steer the ship for these islands or to set her head for Banks Peninsula. One whale, two, three whales appeared, sprightly after the storm, sporting and frolicking around the ship, and banished his irresolution. The boats were manned in all haste and gave chase, but night came before any one of them could be given a blow from a harpoon.
Usually, once they have reached the fishing grounds, the whaling ships do not cruise at night. In the obscurity they would risk moving away from the places where the fish upon which these creatures feed continue. The whales to which we had given chase appeared to be busily occupied in catching their supper. It was therefore probable that, next morning, they would be, if not in the same spot, at least in the neighbourhood. We passed the night hove to.
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At daybreak, instead of crying: “A whale!” the lookout cried: “Land!” As a matter of fact, the current had carried us near the Chatham Islands. We therefore prepared to cruise around this archipelago. The whales of the previous evening were no longer there, but possibly we might find them on the shoals along the coast. A breeze which came in gusts permitted us to approach the largest island, in the direction of the anchorage of Waitangi. The blowing of some whales was signalled, and our boats went in chase, while the ship tacked about, under light sail, at the entrance of a bay which appeared to have a depth of about three or four miles and a somewhat similar width.
About noon one of the cetaceans which was being pursued was harpooned and killed, and the boats towed it into this bay, where the ship made no delay in anchoring alongside its body.
It was Captain Broughton, the companion of Vancouver, who first discovered these lands, on November 23rd, 1791. He cast anchor to the north, in a little inlet which he called Skirmish Bay, and took possession of the country in the name of the King of Great Britain. The principal island is situated in 43° 52' south latitude, and 176° 54' west of Greenwich. The mountains of these islands, which scarcely attain a height of 250 metres (820 feet), are of volcanic origin. There, also, one finds conglomerations of green sandstone with broken shells, and most of these sedimentary deposits are anterior to the effusion of the igneous rocks.
This group, called indifferently the Chathams or the Broughtons, 1 consists of Expectation, Bell, Table, Pitt,
1 Chathams and Broughtons—now known only as the Chathams.— Note : J. C. A.
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and Chatham Islands. These are surrounded by various islets, of which the geographical bearings are not yet well determined, such as those of the North West, Double Full, the Sisters, the Hermit, the Virgin, the Cathedral, the Zealanders, etc. etc. The largest island is twelve leagues long by a similar width; it is fertile and capable of colonization, possessing numerous and safe harbours. Those of Fournier and Dubraye, to which, for instance, the charts give only the names of creeks or coves, could receive vessels of the largest tonnage. In 1838 ViceAdmiral Cecile, then commanding the corvette Heroine, and having Dubraye and Fournier as officers under him, took fresh bearings for a map of part of these coasts. The approaches are easy, in most cases, but very frequent fogs render them sometimes dangerous. As I shall say later, the inhabitants belong to the same family as the New Zealanders, or rather they are true New Zealanders, whose migrations have brought them to this archipelago.
I remarked that Broughton, who discovered these islands, took possession of them for the Three Kingdoms; but it is to us (the French) that they belong by right. 1 They have cost us dear; we paid for them with the blood of thirty-two of our sailors, and if we should send the population of our hulks to the southern hemisphere, the Chatham Islands would be to our penal colony what Norfolk Island is to Australia and Van Diemen’s Land.
In fact, instead of a flag planted there as a sign of suzerainty, as a proof of having taken possession, one may still see, aground on the sand of one of the Chatham bays, the half-burnt keel of a French ship, the Jean Bart, a whaler from the port of Dunkirk. Captain Gautrau commanded it in 1838. After having threshed the sea
1 See Note XX, on page 401.
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unsuccessfully for long months, he came to make port at the Chathams, in order to take in water and wood. Yet scarcely was the anchor down than, for some purpose nobody knows, he blew out his brains with a pistol-shot. 1 That which he did calmly in port, he certainly would not have done in the open sea. A slave to duty, he wished before everything to place his ship in safety, and to shelter it from bad weather.
A fatality weighed upon both captain and vessel. The death of the former verified, the first lieutenant immediately took command. The funeral rites of the suicide were carried out; they buried him on a little knoll at the bottom of the bay, and the crew drank to his memory, as well as to the health of the new captain. It would seem that this drinking was too deep, and the intoxication had a deadly result.
As is customary in Oceania, where prostitution is not disgraceful, 2 some women of the neighbouring tribe came to spend the night on board. Some women! I am mistaken, and I might lead those who read me into error by saying: “some women.” No, some young girls, and even less than young girls, some poor children whom the islanders sold to the sailors for a few ragged clothes, a piece of tobacco, and a little biscuit!
I dare not indeed write here what Eitouna, the chief of the tribe, taken prisoner for conveyance to France, revealed as being the causes of the massacre of the crew of the Jean Bart. It seems, or at least this man affirmed
1 McNab (Old Whaling Days, Ch. XV) says that this took place at the Bay of Islands, and that there, before sailing for the Chathams, the first officer, who now assumed command, engaged an English pilot familiar with those islands.—Note ; F. W. R.
2 See Note XXI, on page 401.
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so, that a drunken sailor, experiencing an insurmountable difficulty in satisfying his brutality on a little girl of five, eviscerated her with a slash of his knife. The child uttered a terrible cry. At this, which announced a murder, indeed worse, all the women then upon the ship sprang into the sea to gain the shore.
Next day not a native came on board; some terrible vengeance was being prepared. The new captain, therefore, wished to set sail immediately, but the sea was calm and they were thus detained at their anchorage. They then attempted to tow the ship out, but the currents proved to be contrary, and it became necessary to remain near the land.
Meanwhile the natives, warned by messengers, hastened from all directions to the shore of the bay with their weapons. The crew of the Jean Bart perceived all these preparations from the ship, but, restrained as though by the vengeance of Heaven, they could make no efforts to depart. Every moment the gathering of savages was augmented. By evening it was numerous. Next day, thanks to fires lighted on the beach to assemble the warriors from the neighbouring islands, it was formidable. There was no longer any doubt; at any moment the Jean Bart might be attacked, and flight alone, and a prompt flight, could save them from a great catastrophe.
They hoped, a thing which frequently happens in these latitudes, that an evening breeze would spring up about five o’clock, and that this would carry the vessel out to sea. As though the Jean Bart had been condemned in advance by God Himself, the evening breeze was completely lacking, and the crew, launching five boats and rowing with all the strength of
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despair to tow the ship out, could not master the currents.
It was therefore necessary to await the morrow, keeping good watch. Sailors armed with guns were placed in the chain-wales fore and aft, and orders were given to fire on all who approached the ship during the night.
About one o’clock in the morning, the man on guard in the bows heard a noise resembling that made by a swimmer. Instead of waiting, since the sound was an isolated one, and consequently did not presage anything very dangerous, he brutally carried out his orders and fired towards the luminous spot which betrayed, by the phosphorescence of the waves, the position of the swimmer. When day broke they perceived, on a neighbouring islet, the corpse of a man which the tide had cast ashore. The breast was pierced by a ball.
I mention these details from the recital of Eitouna himself, because, but for him, the most impenetrable mystery would still reign over the causes of this terrible drama. Eitouna added that the corpse was that of a chief who was repairing furtively on board the Jean Bart to warn the captain that he would be attacked at sunrise.
“He betrayed his own,” said Eitouna, in the interrogation to which he was subjected, “and the Great Atoua (God) punished him for it.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE MASSACRE
THE sun rose. Twenty canoes, manned by three hundred warriors, flocked from all parts of the archipelago and steered towards the Jean Bart.
From afar they had watched the general effect; as the boats approached the details were distinguishable. The warriors were in fighting array; their hair was ruffled and be-plumed; their bodies were daubed with red ochre; the national tattooing was heightened by the warmest colourings. They brandished clubs, sharpened pieces of iron, and unknown weapons, howling their war-songs and interrupting themselves to laugh pitilessly and ferociously in chorus, because they could see the despair of these sailors, who hauled and hoisted, hoisted and hauled their sails ceaselessly, but which not the faintest
puff of wind caused to shiver. It was then necessary to fight in defence of their lives. They had piled on the deck, in addition to guns and muskets, the terrible weapons, of the whalers: harpoons, lances, spades, and axes. When the ammunition was exhausted they would have recourse to them.
The combat was long and terrible, said Eitouna. The French defended themselves with the courage of despair, but they succumbed, borne down one after another on the heap of corpses. They were thirty against three hundred.
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When the last sailor of the Jean Bart had rendered up his final breath, all paying cruelly for the crime of a single one, the victors hauled the ship up on the beach and set fire to it. Then the victory was celebrated by an orgy of blood, by a feast of human flesh.
Some months later, the American ship, Rebecca Sims, put in at the Chathams. One of the islanders offered to exchange with the captain a marine watch, a chronometer, for a few pounds of powder. They possessed the guns of the Jean Bart, but the crew had used up the powder to the last grain. The American examined the objects offered to him, and recognized them as having belonged to a French ship. He thereupon made some enquiries, and no longer doubting that a great massacre had taken place, he hastened to set sail for the Bay of Islands, where he hoped to find Commandant Cecile of the corvette Heroine. There, in fact, he did find him.
Immediately the comrrtander of the Heroine gathered together three whaling ships, the Adele of Havre, and two American vessels, and made a descent on the Chathams, in the hope of rescuing from slavery those of our unfortunate fellow-countrymen who might have survived the catastrophe. It is needless to remark that that hope was speedily destroyed.
The natives fled into the interior of the mainland and to the surrounding islets. It was possible to capture only one; this was their chief, Eitouna. He affirmed that all the French had been killed and eaten. Once more the expedition gained the open sea, after giving itself the sterile satisfaction of setting fire to the villages. No native came on board the Heroine, but the women of the tribes were received there.
I believe the appended fragments from the report of
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the commander of the corvette Heroine, Captain Cyclic, to-day a vice-admiral, will be read with interest. To these I will add a few reflections aroused in me by a conversation which I had one day, on Banks Peninsula, with some natives who frequented the company of and had known several inhabitants of the Chathams who had been actors in this terrible drama. What I there heard stated does not fully agree with the narrative of Captain Cecile.
THE REPORT OF COMMANDANT CECILE
“ . . . While I was making my preparations for setting sail for Tahiti, the American whaler, Rebecca Sims, arrived at the Bay of Islands. Captain Ray, who commanded her, announced to me the sad and deplorable news of the massacre of the crew of the Jean Bart, and of the destruction of this ship by the natives of the Chatham Islands. Here are the words in which the captain reported to me his account of this event, taken from his shop’s log under the date of June nth, 1838:
“ ‘At four o’clock in the afternoon, being at the mouth of the bay, in the large Chatham Island, we proceeded to anchor in four fathoms of water, with the ship Rose, which accompanied us. We then learned that, a month before, a French vessel had been taken, pillaged, destroyed, and burnt by the natives.
“ ‘We sought information, and learned that the natives had repaired on board that ship just as they came on board my own vessel, without any evil intention, but that the French, finding them too numerous on board, attempted to send them ashore. The islanders, not understanding what it was desired to express to them,
L
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and wishing to carry on a little commerce, were reluctant to leave.
“ ‘The French, believing their intentions to be hostile, employed violence to get rid of them, attacking them with blows from lances and spades. We learned that two Frenchmen had been killed, and that twenty-seven natives also lost their lives, while a great number were wounded.
“ ‘Now, as I have twice visited this island, and as, on each occasion, I have experienced only good treatment there, I cannot help thinking that the French were much to blame. We remained at the anchorage from the i ith to the 23rd of June. There we took in wood and water, and on crossing the bay to leave, we saw the remains of the ship which had been burnt.’ ”
Such is the brief and succinct narrative of Captain Ray. It is that which he received from the lips of the savages, interested, one quite understands, in exculpating themselves. Moreover, there is rivalry between the American whalers and ours, and, as can be seen, the tone of this account has little kindliness towards the French, who did not wish to allow the islanders to apply themselves to commerce. In addition, we have since encountered Captain Ray at sea. He was working his ship, the Rebecca Sims , by aid of the chronometer of the Jean Bart.
I return to the narrative of Vice-Admiral Cecile:
“I at once made my preparations to proceed to the Chathams and avenge upon the islanders the massacre of our compatriots. To go there alone offered small chance of success. I profited by the willingness of Captain Welsh, commander of the French whaler Adele , and that of the captain of the Rebecca Sims, who offered to
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accompany me, and we made sail for that destination on the 6th of October.
“We appeared in the great bay of Chatham Island on the 17th of October. I caused twenty-two men, commanded by an officer, to go' on board the other two vessels. They had instructions to remain concealed, and to take prisoner all the natives whom the captains succeeded in attracting upon their ships.
“The purpose I proposed to myself in acting thus was to secure some hostages, in order to cause the restoration to me of the French, in the event of any being still upon the island, and of seizing the chiefs in order to execute justice upon them. The vessels repaired to the anchorage, and I manoeuvred to leave the bay, in order to remove any suspicions which the sight of the corvette might arouse in the New Zealanders, though I had taken care to disguise her.
“The natives, very distrustful, refused all invitations from the captains. I returned next day.
“Nevertheless, the principal chief, Eitouna, yielding to the solicitations of Captain Ray, and in spite of the remonstrances of his people, and particularly of the elders, who wished to oppose this, went on board the Rebecca Sims, with his wife, two men and several young girls. The Englishman Coffee also repaired there with his wife. It was then eight o’clock in the morning. As soon as the corvette appeared they were arrested. During the tumult, Eitouna’s wife succeeded in escaping, and flung herself into the sea. A sailor, seeing that she was gaining the shore, and taking her for a man, killed her with a shot from his gun.
“This discharge gave warning to the natives, who, disquieted to see their chief remain so long on board,
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scattered and hid themselves in the brushwood upon a height which overlooked the anchorage. From this point they fired on the two ships, which were within gunshot. Some balls pierced the boats, but no one was struck.
“It appeared from the interrogation to which Eitouna was subjected that the 'Jean Bart , having arrived at the Chathams during the first days of the month, had not yet anchored when already it was approached by several canoes belonging to the two tribes established on this island. It was almost two o’clock when the vessel anchored in the little bay of Waitangi, upon the shores of which Eitouna’s tribe was domiciled. The captain, frightened to see his ship invaded by so many savages, asked the chiefs to send them ashore. Eitouna ordered his own people to leave. Several obeyed, but others stayed to carry on barter with the sailors. The companions of Eimare, the chief of the other tribe, also remained, so that there were from seventy to seventyfive on board. The captain, not considering himself safe, immediately weighed anchor that he might leave the bay, and refused to read the certificates which Eitouna offered him in order to inspire confidence.
“Eitouna and several chiefs were in the cabin of the Jean Bart , when suddenly they heard a great tumult on deck. At the moment they reached the ladder of the companion-way a wounded native fell from the deck upon the stairs. They returned to the cabin for shelter; but soon the skylight opened, and an effort was made, said Eitouna, to kill them with blows from lances and spades, which were directed into every corner of the cabin. Many of them were wounded, and some killed. They thereupon sought for weapons with which to defend
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themselves, and found a double-barrelled gun and some pistols in the captain’s cabin; but these weapons were percussion fire-arms, and there being no caps they were unable to use them. Finally they found, in a store-room, some muskets and cartridges, of which they took possession for protection, and succeeded in killing two of the crew. Immediately the cabin skylight was barricaded by the men outside, and soon they heard nothing further.
“Eitouna supposed that the crew, terrified at seeing them possessed of fire-arms, had barricaded the openings in order to have time to lower the boats and escape; because, when he and his men reached the deck, they found no one. He assured me that twenty-eight New Zealanders and one woman were killed, and twenty persons wounded. This chief believed that the combat had been provoked by Eimare’s men, who may have wished to carry off some objects, and that they were repulsed. He also stated that but for the fire-arms which they had discovered they would all have been killed by the French. The combat had lasted from two hours after sunset until two o’clock in the morning.”
Such was the questioning of Eitouna, as reported by Commandant Cecile. It is a very obscure document. Eitouna sought to exculpate himself by accusing his colleague Eimare. If we admit that"it might be true that on returning to the deck, at two o’clock in the morning, he no longer found anyone there, what then had become, or did become, of the Frenchmen who were with him and his men in the cabin of the Jean Bart? Certainly the natives had neither descended alone nor remained alone in the vessel’s cabin. It is to be remarked that Eitouna did not speak of the preparations made by the
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natives two days before the combat, and of the attack on the ship which they made in force. As I shall state later, I have often heard this horrible event described during my residence in New Zealand, and I have gathered up the traditions which inform us that matters passed as I have said at the commencement of this chapter. Eitouna, in his interrogation, was interested in denying all premeditation.
I take up again the narrative of Commandant Cecile, who, having supplied weapons to the men of the ship Hdele, made a descent with a landing party and destroyed several villages. The natives had taken refuge in the interior. Their huts and canoes were burnt, and a boat belonging to the Jean Bart was taken on board, as well as a few articles which had belonged to the same vessel.
Eitouna was greatly perplexed, asking continually when he was to be put to death. The commandant caused him to be informed that they were taking him to France, and that the King of the French would determine his fate.
Pale Island could not be visited because of bad weather and some fog. Perhaps some survivors of the unfortunate crew may have been able to take refuge there.
A few days later the Heroine went to Wangaroa, to fall unexpectedly upon Eimare’s tribe; but the natives saw it arrive, and fled into the Interior. Their huts were destroyed and their provisions carried off.
Eitouna, a prisoner, was an object of observation to all. An exquitise sensitiveness tempered the savage energy of this chief. When Commandant Cecile had him informed that he would not be put to death and eaten, but would be conveyed to France, where the King would no doubt grant him his life, his first thought was
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for his wife, and he begged that they would permit her to come on board the corvette and take her to France with him. The poor fellow was not aware that at the moment he was taken prisoner on the Rebecca Sims, his wife, who had flung herself into the sea, had been killed by a shot from a gun. As he appeared to adore this poor creature, they left him in ignorance of her death, and told him that the regulations of the French navy forbade a woman taking passage on a warship. They also interdicted the women of his tribe, who were permitted to see him, from informing him of the loss he had sustained. Eiomoka, his niece, a pretty young girl of fifteen, said that this restriction was needless, that neither she nor any of his friends would inform Eitouna of this misfortune.
“Because,” she added, “if he learned of his wife’s fate, he would kill himself in despair.”
That is what happened later. Eimoka had predicted truly. Eitouna’s farewells were heartrending. While the corvette was preparing to get under weigh in order to leave the Chathams, he gathered round him several women of his tribe, and though it was not possible to comprehend what he said to them, it was plainly evident that his words must have been very touching, since as they listened the women wept and uttered cries of despair. Then, at the moment of parting from them, he caused one of the sailors to cut off a lock of his hair, This he divided into three portions, which he blessed with prayers and a pantomime clearly expressing the religious act which it completed. Of this lock of hair the first part was intended for his wife, the second for his brother, and the third for Eimoka.
Eitouna was not to see France. Two days before
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the corvette arrived at Talcahuna (Chile), they found him one morning, strangled, in the chain-wales. He was seated, and a buckled strap, of which one end was fastened to a staple on the ship, compressed his neck. It had required an extraordinary power of will to commit suicide thus. For several days his great sadness, his sombre air and the tears which ran down his cheeks when he covered his eyes with his hand, had all been noticed.
Commandant Cecile, astonished, proceeded to make enquiries, and learned that, in spite of his instructions, Eitouna had been told of the death of his wife. It was from that moment he had determined to die. Eitouna had always believed that he would be hung immediately he arrived in France, then roasted on a spit, and served up at the table of King Louis Philippe. Some ill jests by the crew, to whom he had revealed some of his fears, and whom he showed his sketches, confirmed him in this belief instead of combating it.
He was beginning to learn to read, write and sketch, and his drawings, made with some intelligence, most frequently represented a man hanging from the branch of a tree. He was so proud, as chief of a tribe, that, when they gave him a sailor’s clothes, he positively insisted that they should take in exchange several beautiful flax mats which he had brought with him. During the first days of the voyage he kept constantly on the quarterdeck astern, in order not to be confounded with those sailors whose costume he wore.
He was born at the East Cape of New Zealand; his stature was above the average and his constitution powerful and sinewy; his face was entirely tattooed, and bore three very distinct expressions, which were sometimes mingled into one, giving then to his physiognomy a
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strange animation; they were courage, intelligence, and craft. According to his ideas, his suicide would do honour to his memory, because, for a New Zealand chief, it was shameful to die by the hands of his conquerors, or to live as their slave.
That is all which is known concerning the tragedy of the Jean Bart. Perhaps, had he reached Europe, Eitouna would have made fresh revelations as to the causes of the massacre. Those I have indicated are, in my opinion, not only the ones most circulated, but also the most probable, and, like all sailors who have voyaged in Oceania, I am inclined to the belief that the conduct of our sailors provoked the terrible reprisals of these natives, to whom vegeance is a religious duty. One of my confreres and good friends, Doctor Assollant, who had embarked on the Jean Bart, was at that time killed and eaten. 1
1 McNab (Old Whaling Days, Ch. XV) favours the narrative of Dr. Maynard as likely to be more accurate as to the causes than the official one of Commandant Cecile.—Note : F. W. R.
CHAPTER XVII
KING THY-GA-RIT 1
OUR compulsory visit to the Chatham Islands was not unprofitable; we killed two whales there, and, but for the definite orders of the owner, who had decided that we should exploit the gulf season upon Banks Peninsula, our captain would have established his winter quarters in the cove of the Jean Bart. When a captain has received instructions, it is only on condition that he is successful that he may deviate from them. Yet what is more uncertain than the
success of a voyage like ours, and how great a responsibility weighs on the captain who changes, or even modifies his itinerary!
We left the Chathams, then, regretfully, even as we had been sorry to leave the Auckland Islands. I employed the morning of the day of our departure in examining a salt-water lake which exists at about a mile and a quarter from the shore, but without hunting. Being desirous of husbanding my ammunition, 1 did not trouble to fire at the sea-pies 2 with black bodies and red beaks, the curlews 3 with yellow beaks and black
1 See Note XXII, on page 401.
2 The torea, pied oyster-catcher ; Htrmatofus ostra/egus. —Note : J.C.A.
3 There are no curlews of this description in New Zealand ; he was possibly referring to young black-backed gulls ( karoro) Larue Jominicanus, in immature plumage.—Note : J. C. A.
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and white speckled plumage, and the ducks with reddish crests, 1 which I was to meet with again at Port Olive (Port Levy).
For a moment I rested on the charred remains of the Jean Bart, one extremity of which was still half-buried in the sand, and flung a glance of sadness over the collapsed and deserted huts of the villages of Wangaroa and WaiTangui; then I returned on board at the moment the anchor was being weighed.
On May Bth we saw Tavai-Pounamou again, at the latitude of the Lookers-On. It was midday, and we should be again obliged to pass the night in the open, because the breeze from the south was feeble, and we could make no great distance between noon and evening. Moreover, it would be imprudent to go and take up our anchorage in the darkness. Thus it would be to-morrow we should arrive, unless a hurricane, as on that other night, descended from the mountains.
Cook gave the name of the Lookers-On to two elevated peaks which dominate the coast at this spot, and which a deep valley separates one from the other. That great navigator took the opening of this valley for a bay; a canoe manned by natives appeared to be coming from it; silently they approached to examine his ship, then darted away, uttering a great cry. Old charts, therefore, wrongly indicate a Lookers-On Bay at this parallel, and more than one ship, driven towards a lee shore, has thought to find good harbourage there where a small cove will barely contain a few ship’s boats.
On the morning of the 9th we turned obliquely a little to the south. We sailed slowly, exploring the sea, because as yet we had only eighteen whales in the hold
1 We know of no such ducks.—Note : J. C. A.
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and the between decks, and thirty-one or thirty-two were required to complete the cargo.
We thus sailed near Table Island, a great flat rock placed like a landmark at the northern entrance to Pegasus Bay. From this point the tongue of sand which unites the mainland with the peninsula appears to be almost at sea-level. By degrees, as we proceeded, we perceived some whalers’ boats cruising outside the numerous headlands with which the coast bristles from Akaroa to Port Cooper (Lyttelton Harbour). About four o’clock we dropped anchor in Oetn Cove, where we had preceded the whaler Neptune from Nantes, and the ships Cr'etry , Angelina , Courrier , and Cousin from Havre.
New Zealand is not the pleasant land of cheerful shores which false accounts had depicted to me as an Eden; no, everything there is sad, rugged and severe, and the curtain of mountains concealed from our gaze the splendours and beauties of its valleys. On all sides the rocky walls and natural embankments of earth were carpeted by a single flower, the samphire. 1 When, in order to enter the Heroine Inlet (Oeteta), we steered to within a few cable lengths of the Olimaroa Hill, 2 it was terrifying to see, overhanging the masts and more than two thousand feet high, a cliff cut perpendicularly and striated by the tints of horizontal layers of varied soils, which had been laid bare by some cataclysm. I took note of the principal features, and of the most salient characteristics of this vast atlas of geological revolutions; but unfortunately I lack the knowledge to utilize these recollections.
From the foot of this cliff we perceived the entire
1 Salicomia australia. —Note: J.C. A
2 See Note XXIII, on page 401
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Gulf of Togolabo, 1 which included several bays to port, while the starboard shore was separated from Pegasus Bay by a narrow tongue of land commencing at Cape Cachalot, 2 a pile of rocks so named after the whaler Cachalot of Havre had been well-nigh dashed to pieces there.
This gulf had a somewhat more smiling appearance than that of Oeteta. It curved, disappearing in the distance and losing itself in clumps of verdure. Nothing could be more sad and desolate than the haven in which we were anchored. It was invisible from the sea. It would be taken for a deep and circular opening, a vast funnel hollowed out in the earth. When we were at anchor it was necessary to raise the head in order to perceive the sky. Already at ten o’clock the sun had scarcely and with difficulty sent its rays over the cliff of Olimaroa, and by three o’clock in the afternoon it would disappear behind Cape Cachalot. Here the eye vainly sought for a cluster of trees, the ear for the so much vaunted songs of the birds, and the nostrils for the penetrating aroma of the composite which were so plentiful in the neighbouring bays. Here there was nothing save wild brassicae, lichens, samphires, and mosses; nothing but the piercing cries of the sea-woodpecker 3 and the gulls, and the barking of vagrant dogs; nothing, finally, save the infectious miasmas liberated by the rotting cetaceans upon the shore.
This bay had two landing beaches: on one smoked the
1 Togolabo, or Tokolabo, a name sometimes given to Lyttelton Harbour, evidently a corruption of the Maori name, Whangaraupo.— Note : J. C. A.
2 See Note XXIV, on page 401.
3 Sea-woodpecker, possibly the tara, white-fronted tern —Sterna striata , the only sea-bird with a bill like a woodpecker.—Note : J. C. A.
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camp of the natives; the ships’ stores and the cemetery for their sailors occupied the other.
The native camp (and I name it so because the tribe inhabited it only when Europeans came there to winter) was full of animation and of strange sights. Canoes were hauled high and dry upon the beach; huts were built pell-mell, and covered and panelled with yellow leaves; platform larders, raised upon four wooden posts, were laden with sacks of sweet potatoes, bundles of dried fish and cakes of fern; men, swathed in flax mats or in coverings of white wool, sometimes paced gravely, sometimes lay in groups or singly on the lower grounds of the hill; women squatted before the household hearth, alight in the open air; other women were washing or beating between two stones the phormium soaking in a stream of fresh water; naked children, daubed with red ochre, frisked at the edge of the sea, amid a chaos of whale bones, stripped of their flesh and bleached by the weather, which the ebb of the tide had abandoned on the shore; dogs howled, wandering about from rock to rock; while, as a background to the picture, showed the sterile mountain upon which the village abuts, and which seems uncultivated and stern, rising to heaven. Such were the principal features of the sketch of this Oceanic village.
The other shore presented a very different appearance. It was silent. Behind the tents erected to receive the rigging of the light masts, which were no longer used during the wintering, and the tuns and barrels requiring repairs, rose several wooden crosses in the midst of tufts of akiraho 1 and wild rape with golden blooms. Every
1 Akiraho —the tree akiraho, Ole aria Forsteri, has a sweet scented daisy-like flower, and its wood, a good firewood, emits a fragrance when burned.—Note ; J. C. A.
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year the whales in the bays kill a certain number of poor mariners, and this is their resting place.
For seven months the mounds of earth above the graves are smothered with wild grasses; the arms of the crosses, lashed by the wind and the rain, become warped and broken. Then, when the ships return, living friends remember the dead; the crosses are repaired and painted black once more, with white tears, and garlanded with immortelles; the grass is cut upon the mounds, flowers are planted, and as long as the fishing season lasts the ground-lark 1 can peck the fresh earth of the flower-beds, while the solitude of this cove, which we name the Inlet of Memory, is enlivened by the songs and the blows of the mallets of the coopers belonging to the squadron.
The sails of the Asia were scarcely clewed up, when some large canoes, loaded to sinking point, accosted us. I expected to see, on one of these, some masterpieces of Oceanic carving, about which I had heard so much spoken, but they were only old skiffs belonging to some whaler, which the islanders had doubtless purchased at the price of a few sacks of potatoes.
The king of the district, the King of the Maoris and Wahines (of the men and the women) first sprang upon the deck and advanced towards the captain, to bid him welcome. I naturally expected to see his Oceanic majesty rub his nose, in accordance with the native ritual, against that of Captain Jay, who was an old acquaintance of previous winterings. I was disappointed. A simple and brief word, and a rough English hand-clasp, ratified this exchange of official greetings. The royal personage afterwards graciously deigned to greet the officers of the
1 Ground-lark —pi hoi hoi ; pipit; Anthus vov<esce!andi<t. —Note ; J.C.A.
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ship, among the number of whom I found myself, and, as I contemplated him with an astonishment in which his searching glance did not recognize a sufficient amount of respect, he felt annoyed, probably thinking I questioned his exalted social position. Thereupon he challenged me by striking his breast and pointing with his hand to the earth, the sea, and the men of his following, shouting emphatically, in bad English;
“Understand that here I am the same as, with you, is Touititi French (which means, Louis Philippe, King of the French).”
I bowed very humbly at this peremptory declaration, and a compact of friendship was concluded between us.
This prince, a handsome man of about five feet six, and some fifty years of age, was not entirely lacking in a certain majesty which distinguished him from the generality of his subjects; but a smile, involuntarily childish, and a continual blinking of the eyes, tempered the expression of his physiognomy; his face was not more bronzed than that of a Provenfal peasant, save that it was darkened beneath the black and red lines of a heavy tattooing chiselled into the skin.
His clothing had undergone the fate of the carved canoes and the national salutation: it was Europeanized, and adapted to the rigours of the season. This worthy king was, however, more proud of it than of the most magnificent national costume! Could you but have seen how he promenaded, counting his steps, on the quarterdeck of the ship, timing and measuring them so that he should not pass the mainmast, because forward of that belonged to the sailors, to those of little count, to the slaves. His costume was truly original. It consisted of a pair of large blue pantaloons, a tarred hat laced with
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silver, and a yellow box-coat surmounted by a series of six capes superimposed one upon another. It might have been thought to be an infringement of Odry’s costumes in The Mountebanks d Unfortunately, with this princely torso, the feet were bare.
He appeared to be waiting for something, and from time to time looked impatiently towards the shore. A canoe came off and made towards the vessel impelled by all the strength of its rowers. When the skiff was within hearing he uttered a kind of call, to which a woman replied. This was the queen. He did me the honour of presenting me to her. This venerable matron, with head dressed a la Titus , with much difficulty sheltered her royal nudities beneath a mat of phormium tenax. She granted me a prolonged smile, wagging her head, and modestly crossing the folds of her native cashmere across her breast, it being retained beneath her chin by a point tagged with a strip of cachalot’s tooth.
The other Maoris and Wahines afterwards came to offer me their greetings, interested salutations which must be paid for with a fragment of biscuit or a pipe of tobacco. I confess that, at the sight of these savage mendicants, I experienced a triple sentiment of disgust, sadness, and shame. Of disgust, because they were covered with vermin and dirt; of sadness, because not long since their tribe was noble and powerful; of shame, because, after all, they still were men. They grew more ugly from day to day; they copied our manners. The women at least preserved their nudity; but the men overloaded their bodies, so supple, vigorous, and handsome beneath the floating folds of their noble grass tunics, with sordid and incongruous rags. I saw one of them,
1 See Note XXV, on page 402.
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probably some minister of His Majesty, wearing a pair of pantaloons lacking one leg. Another was satisfied with a woollen shirt torn off at the height of the navel. This one was shod with an old pair of boots, and had his head covered with a seaman’s helmet of leather, toughened by boiling, while the remainder of his body, between the casque and the boots, was clothed with a ray of sunlight. That one, save for an old black coat, showed himself in the celestial dress of the Apollo Belvedere. I should never end did I undertake to pass in review all these eccentric toilets.
The national costumes, the fighting and festal ornaments, had disappeared. Barely have I caught glimpses of a few women and old men wearing the herbaceous mantle, the necklace of sharks’ teeth, the ear-pendants of greenstone, the scapulary of black touchstone, and the hair bushy, ruffled and bristling like a porcupine with the long white feathers of the sea-birds.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COLLEAGUES OF KING THY-GA-RIT
BARELY five minutes had passed since Thy-ga-rit —that is the name of the King of Oeteta—had indicated to me his supreme power, when another New Zealander, as well garbed as he, arrived in a similar style of boat to announce, in his turn, to me that he, Ha-vy-ko, 1 held the same position here as Touititi in France.
Then a third person, Tha-le, came to vindicate his right to the same title.
Afterwards, the great, the magnificent, the colossal The-suy of Iko-ko-kiva came to make a similar declaration. That was four within an hour.
Later came a fifth king, and finally a sixth, all tattooed, all escutcheoned, in fact all kings.
What a polymonarchy was this Banks Peninsula, where I had not even been aware that there was a kingdom! Whence came the sceptres of all these unknown kings? Was it from right divine? Was it by popular acclaim? Was it by legitimacy? Was it by the will of the majority? I put this politico-social question to Captain Jay, who was visiting this tribe for the fourth time.
He explained it thus. The chiefs of the different tribes on Banks Peninsula, and of the adjoining coasts to
1 See Note XXVI, on page 402.
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north and south, gather at Oeteta or at Akaroa every year, during the wintering of the whalers. They repair there, attracted by the desire to traffic with the European crews, and they thus carry off from Thy-ga-rit, the true and only chief of the parts about Port Cooper, the choice of the windfalls and the revenue produced by the monopoly of the commerce in young girls and potatoes, those two great means of exchange belonging to the New Zealanders. If Thy-ga-rit had sufficient powder and guns, sabres and soldiers to make his will respected, he would compel his illustrious cousins to remain in their royal domains; but he is weak, too weak. Thus he puts a good face on matters, invites his colleagues cordially, at least in appearance, to come and pass the winter in his realm, where he receives them with great, if not with sincere, demonstrations of friendship. That is why an annual congress of tattooed sovereigns holds its meetings at Port Cooper.
As for me, here I was, installed for five or six months upon this land, the greatest, most beautiful, and most fertile in the antipodes. I should have time to fish, to hunt, to botanize, in fact, to study in all its aspects this nature full of mysteries, of which the most famous or boldest travellers have hitherto caught but a casual glimpse.
New Zealand is the name given to the austral lands included between 34 0 and 48° of south latitude, and between 166° and 178° 30' east of Greenwich. They may also be named the antipodean lands, because they are almost upon that point of the globe at which a shaft would open if driven from the court of our new observatory in a direct line through the centre of the earth. Their surfaces comprise a zone four hundred leagues
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long by a very variable width, of which the average is from twenty-five to thirty leagues. Cook Strait, a vast funnel with its greatest opening towards the west, separates the two islands. It is not known for what reason Cook gave them the name of New Zealand. 1
In casting a glance over my journal, I see that since we have sailed in these latitudes, from the time of leaving Van Diemen’s Land until our arrival at Oeteta, that is to say, from March 3rd until May 7th, some sixty-five days, we have experienced twenty-nine days of tempest, of squalls of wind which would be reckoned as real tempests on board any vessel other than a poor whaling ship. Add to these twenty-nine days of tempest almost daily fogs, a sad and black cold and formidable seas, even during the finest days, and you will have only a feeble idea of the miseries of navigating in these antipodean latitudes. Some day steam will free us from these miseries.
1 The name was not given by Cook, but by the Dutch.
CHAPTER XIX
TAILLEVENT ON HIS FEET
ON the day following our arrival they stripped the Asia of her light masts; the coopers installed their workshops beside the cemetery cove, where, beneath a tent, were stored all the articles not required on board. After this we prepared energetically to complete our cargo of oil. We still lacked ten or twelve whales, and if we could kill them before the commencement of the month of August we could then immediately set sail for France.
This hope of shortly seeing our native land again, of seeing it before the month of January, in time for the day of New Year gifts, that charming memory of childhood, redoubled the courage and energy of our men, and they prepared gaily to endure the fatigues of fishing in the bays, a weariness of quite a different type from that experienced in the open sea. At sea they wait patiently, or impatiently, for the whale to appear; then it is hunted and either killed or not; if unsuccessful they return on board and wait once more; when a kill results, the ship approaches the cetacean, and the operations progress. In the bays it is different. The ship remains at the anchorage; but well before sunrise the men come on deck, hastily swallow a cup of hot coffee, and depart six by six in the boats.
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They go to thresh the sea 1 outside the bay along its coasts and watch for the blowing of the whales. With them they take pork, biscuit and water, and they eat when hungry or when they have time. They thus pass whole days, sometimes stimulated by the sight of the prey they are pursuing, sometimes following it unsuccessfully, and, at night, returning on board tired out, knocked up, disheartened, but ready to commence again on the morrow.
If fortune favours them the toil is still greater, because they must tow the dead whale to the extremity of the bay, from which the ship cannot depart, since it is moored across. I have thus sometimes seen whales killed in the morning at daybreak, several miles out at sea, and only arrive by night alongside the Asia.
As for me, I was the happiest man on board. I assisted in the departure of the fishers, in order to receive the complaints and the requests of the sick or the idle. Then I went down again to my cabin, and slept till broad daylight. Afterwards, when the weather was favourable and I felt so disposed, the service boat, manned by the ship’s boys, would place me on shore. It was then one long promenade during the whole day; perhaps I remained in the village, or I might cross the mountain to shoot in the forest which extended on its slopes towards the south.
Before I deal further with my excursions, will the reader permit me to recall to him a poor wounded fellow whom we left on his bed of pain, that worthy Taillevent. About sixty days had elapsed since the amputation of the foot, and I thought him strong enough to go ashore. I depended greatly on the sight of new objects, and on
1 See Note XXVII, on page 402.
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the movement which he would be able progressively to give the limb, to heal the mental injury, which was quite as dangerous for him as the physical wound.
For several days I prepared him for this great matter of the first transfer of one who had suffered an amputation. The ship’s carpenter had made him a supplementary leg. Taillevent wished the shank to be constructed from the oaken handle of the axe which had cut off his foot. I undertook the responsibility of stuffing the knee-piece with all the wadding I could remove from the linings of my coats, and from the skin of a doublefurred seal. It was at once both a day of joy and of sadness when I permitted him to go ashore, that he might breathe in the fine odours of the grass and the composite which carpeted the borders of our wateringplace.
I liked Taillevent. Thus it will be understood with how many precautions I surrounded his first going forth, how many cares I took to soften his first pains and to moderate the first fatigues of his movements; yet, In fact, I could not always be near him. He quite understood, and of his own accord asked me to continue my existence as a naturalist, a botanizer and a hunter.
Soon I noticed that a gloomy melancholy took possession of this poor injured fellow. He thought of the future and regretted the past; he saw himself staring misery and old age in the face. In particular he thought of the gold, formerly earned in years of always successful fishing, which would now have been so useful to him, poor mutilated one, on his return to Havre, and which he had foolishly spent on a few hours of orgy. For his part, Captain Jay gave him the hope that the owner would find him a post as storekeeper, but this did not console him,
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and but for a providential piece of luck, which came to change the face of things for him, he would finally, I greatly feared, have slipped one dark night into the water and so ended his life. However, this is what happened.
He took the fancy, one day, to expose to the air and the sunshine the clothes contained in his box; on that very day the ladies of the village had come to pay a visit to their gallants on board, and Master Taillevent took a certain pride in complacently spreading out in broad daylight on the deck his “changes” of clothes: his blue jacket of fine cloth, his blue pantaloons, blue waistcoat, blue shirt, his red umbrella and embroidered braces, and a number of other things. Master Taillevent was not, to use sailors’ language, one of the seedy ones , one of those squalid fellows who go to sea with their chest so scantily furnished that a rat falling into it would break its four -paws. I passed near him then, and paid him my compliments upon his set of sails, that is to say, his spare clothes.
“Alas! doctor,” he replied, “of what use henceforth will it be to me to bend my new vest, since I can no longer either haul to windward or run for the offing? See, here is one more of my sails , and a fine one too; it is the last.”
Saying this he opened a cardboard box which contained, carefully wrapped up in tissue paper and reposing on cushions of carded cotton, a quantity of lockets, ear-rings, rings, watch-chains, and, in fact, a whole assortment of spurious jewellery.
I regretted that I had not known sooner of this treasure of carded cotton, for I should not then have relieved my coats of their padding.
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“Yes, it is one of my follies,” he continued, “and the last. Why, doctor, would you believe it, all this pinchbeck trash cost me twenty francs, a fine golden louis! (About 16/- then.) Picture to yourself, doctor, that, with all due respect (and for that matter you must know it as well as I do), the bridge of the citadel at Havre is littered with bankrupt rascals who, when we get under weigh, pester us with their wares of jewellery, knives, razors, mirrors, and flageolets, by means of which, according to them, one might by laying out twenty francs, and with luck, return a millionaire. We were ready to leave, and I was returning to the Asia, urged by a fair wind, when a young girl hove alongside me, saying;
“ ‘Captain, captain, buy my trinkets! Buy my trinkets, captain!’
“This was certainly to the purpose, since I had just made this reflection:
“ ‘Taillevent, my friend, you still possess twenty francs and you are not thirsty. You still have a golden louis, and your friends are no longer here, while the Asia is being towed into the outer harbour. What are you going to do, Taillevent? You cannot decently leave with twenty francs in your pocket. ... You might fall into the water, and lose the gold while you took a small glass from the ocean, in fact while you drank up the spillings. 1 No, i’faith, that shall not be. As says the song:
A whaler goes hence
When he cannot dispense
Further pence !
1 “Son bain de pied,” slang for what has overflowed from cup or glass.—Note : F. W. R.
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What is to be done then? Drink again? But already you are loaded above the hatchways.’
“So I scratched my ear. Then I seemed to have an inspiration from Heaven. I was finely deceived!
“ ’Taillevent,’ I said to myself, ‘before you go aboard, you must perform some worthy action for the good of your conscience.’
“The young girl was still following me with her trinkets; only, as hitherto I had not replied, from captain I became commandant, from commandant, admiral.
“ ‘ls it a venture you are offering me by way of consignment, my pretty girl?’ I asked her pleasantly.
“ ‘Oh! instead of taking it as a consignment, buy it from me, admiral! It will bring you luck, and my poor grandmother, who is sick, will have something with which to pay for medicines and drugs.’
“I would have sent the drugs, the medicines, and the grandmother to the devil, if the granddaughter had not been so pretty, while, at the same time, possessing a voice so charming, soft, and caressing, that every word she spoke seemed to titillate my heart. I turned and twisted the gold louis in my pocket, and brought it out with a ‘Bah! after me the deluge!’ 1
“So I gave it to the fair seller, and sprang aboard the Asia, carrying the box.
“There you see it, doctor, there you see the box! That was my last folly! Oh! my poor money! how I should have clung to you had I known that I should
1 So said Madame de Pompadour, favourite of Louis XV, when the rapidly accumulating debts owing by the State, largely as the result of her extravagance, were pointed out to her. It has become a common French saying, to indicate “ no matter what happens after we are dead and gone.” —Note: F.W. R.
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return to Havre with such heavy damage to my lower spars!”
While Taillevent was thus pitying himself regarding his past prodigality, as he made the sunlight flash from the facets of coloured glass in the trinkets, one of those ladies, the great coquette of Oeteta, the legitimate and none too austere wife of the tayo x of the Asia, flung covetous glances at the sailor’s trumpery wares, and held out her hand to receive a pair of ear-rings, a ring, or a watch-chain.
“She is not fastidious, Madame Kaka the fair; 2 they will buy these Havre trinkets from you; take care!”
Madame Kaka was not a woman to recoil before a refusal; the passion for barter is powerfully developed among the peoples of Oceania, and especially among the females of those lands. She proposed to exchange her ear-rings with the harpooner for a pair of those contained in the box.
I made Taillevent a sign to agree without haggling, and to give Madame Kaka the best he had. With full confidence in me he gave her some pear-shaped imitation pearls, which were worth quite five sous each. In exchange Madame Kaka removed her own ear-rings and gave them to him. They were simply large Spanish gold pieces, known by the name of ounces. (Worth about 70/- each.) As a matter of fact the islanders only employ the monies of civilized peoples as ornaments, having no knowledge of their worth. Scarcely do they become possessed of gold or silver pieces than they perforate them, thread them upon a string of flax, and thus make
1 Each ship in port has its tayo ; he is the friend, the agent, the purveyor accredited to the vessel. Ours was named Kaka.—Author’s Note.
2 The original spells it “ Kar-kar.”
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of them necklaces, ear-rings, or bracelets. In this way each tribe possesses an enormous capital, the produce of trading, but especially of murder and pillage. 1
Taillevent could not credit his good fortune. I was obliged to repeat to him twenty times that these two pieces were of the purest gold, and were worth, together, a hundred and sixty-eight francs, that is to say, he had already doubled his capital more than eight times.
Madame Kaka, for her part, went to flaunt her false pearl drops among her companions. The example was contagious; the women of Oeteta and of the other tribes on the peninsula hastened, in emulation of one another, to propose similar exchanges to Taillevent, and the copper of the trinkets changed to gold, and contributed not a little to cure the harpooner of his melancholy.
I have heard say since our return that, when walking on the quays at Havre, Taillevent met again his pretty vendor with her basket before her. Remembering that she had proved to be his good angel, and bethinking him of the five or six thousand francs (£2OO to £240 at that time), obtained by the exchange of the false jewellery for the gold pieces of the New Zealanders, he considered it as being the natural marriage portion of the young girl. He married her, and Madame Taillevent Is, to-day, the queen of the cashier’s desk in a little caf 6 much frequented by the sailors, and especially by the whalers, in port.
1 See Note XXVIII, on page 402.
CHAPTER XX
PORT OLIVE (PORT LEVY)
ONE morning my friend King Thy-ga-rit, who, when he came to pay us a visit, never failed to arrive a few moments before a meal in order to honour our table with his presence, appeared alongside with his large jolly-boat. Fifteen women, perfectly naked, served him as rowers, and the skiff was loaded with empty rush baskets. The captain invited Thy-ga-rit to lunch with him. He accepted and, while so doing, announced to us that he was proceeding to his country house, to his summer palace, situated at Port Olive (Port Levy), in order to harvest his sweet potatoes.
“The deuce!” thought I to myself, “here is a fine opportunity offering to visit the country and make the acquaintance of those large wood-pigeons of New Zealand, which our marine epicures dare to prefer to the European pheasants.”
At that very moment, as though he guessed my thought, the captain said to me:
“Eh, doctor, if you are not afraid of being patoupatoue 1 (roasted and eaten), go with Thy-ga-rit.”
I made no reply, but, delighted at the permission given me and without any request on my part, I hastened to my cabin and reappeared before our staff a moment later
1 Patupatu is to knock on the head only ; it means neither to be roasted nor to be eaten. —Note : J. C. A.
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with my carbine under my arm, my game-bag on my back, and my hunting knife at my belt.
Thy-ga-rit, understood my intention, invited me to take my place in his boat, and we left with a great spurt by female rowers while, in a bantering tone, the captain called out from the deck to my new coxswain:
“A good appetite! The doctor’s flesh is tender!”
Thy-ga-rit, who understood this pleasantry quite well, stretched out his hand, pinched my thigh, and retorted in his English jargon;
“You all same beef!”
The rowers soon began to sing a hymn of love or war, I know not which, since it was incomprehensible to me, but it was, in fact, melodious, wild and sad, each measure being marked by the cadenced noise of the fall of the oars into the water.
Then, suddenly, O profanation! of whom did I catch a glimpse among the women? Of my queen of the other day, the Queen of Oeteta who, no longer crossing the folds of her native cashmere across her breast, had flung it off and handled the oar like the least of the koukies 1 (slaves). The poor woman sadly bent her head; the others raised theirs with pride. Their supple and vigorous arms laboured energetically; their oblique looks never left the blades of the oars, and the boat flew like an arrow, while I, gravely smoking my pipe, played the pasha in the midst of his harem, admiring these daughters of nature, whose skins shone in the sunlight like a beautiful yellow copper. A tattoed star adorned their forehead, a band of red wool encircled their hair, and strange blue lines marked their chests and shoulders.
1 Koukies, probably the Maori for cookies—slaves being set the ignominious task of cooking, like housewives.—Note ; J. C. A.
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Thy-ga-rit took a pleasure in doing me the honours of his royal barge. Not knowing too well what to speak of to him, I asked by signs why he did not use one of those long canoes with carved prows and planking, which they themselves construct with the trunk of a koridi for keel. 1
He replied with a forcible grimace of disdain that he was too civilized to still employ a method of transport as primitive as the native canoe.
In a few moments we arrived beneath the immense cliff of Olimaroa. We were escorted by a flock of white gulls and crested cormorants. 2 It was there that I first perceived, hopping about on the rocks, the true pie of the austral seas, so beautiful to see with its garb of black moire and its coral beak. Port Levy then opened before us. It was certainly somewhat more spacious and deeper than the Bay of Oeteta, but yet it was no very great thing. A cluster of trees which crowned some isolated summits graced the depth of the amphitheatre, while the landfall to right and left was everywhere abrupt, cut almost perpendicular and without verdure.
As we passed, the king pointed out to me a small island near the shore on which some thousands of great oysters waited in the sunlight, eager for the arrival of the time of high water. I was far from suspecting as I glanced complacently at this islet that, three months later, I should be transported there as the result of a blow from a whale’s tail.
So far nothing had courted the favour of my glance in
1 He seems to be astray in his naval architecture ; the raft or rough canoe, mokihi, made of dry flax sticks, korari , seems to be referred to. — Note : J. C. A.
2 See Note XXIX, on page 402.
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this bay; everything was dismal, sad, poor, and deserted, but the commander of my boat smiled mysteriously, understanding my disenchantment, and veered towards the left to double a headland which jutted into the inlet, warning me that once this cape was passed I should open my eyes. I did open them, and very widely, because the curtain, which hitherto had masked from me a smiling landscape, was suddenly passed, and I perceived a large basin, closed towards the open sea by the wall of this last promontory, to the right by a long island, low and sandy, and to the left and before us by an immense and verdant fan of forest.
It was about midday. The rays of the sun inundated the bluff and caused a bright reflection from the shingle and the golden thatch of three or four pretty huts, of which the gables were caressed by the flowering branches of giant greenweeds. Our boat was soon moored to the trunk of a tree, and I sprang ashore full of pride and joy, because at last I saw myself in New Zealand, and saw myself there alone, far from my companions and the dullness of the Asia. Alone, all alone on the outskirts of these forests, alone and abandoned to the mercy of these ferocious children of Nature ; I was, in fact, alone with no other protector than my own courage, my own coolness and the two barrels of my gun.
I had taken barely a few steps when the population of this little realm was roused in my honour. I may say, without conceit, in my honour rather than in that of Thy-ga-rit. Men who were working at the construction of a peculiar-shaped shed which the natives call a koumare ; women who were splitting leaves of flax with the thumbnail; children and dogs wandering beside the woods, all came eagerly to meet us.
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The dogs barked, the women and children cried : “Paulo-o! paulo-o!” 1 which means: “Bread! bread!”
The men saluted me with a frank smile, saying: “Welcome!”
I plunged at once into the forest to escape from the foolish caresses and the importunate demands of my new acquaintances, and to devote the rest of the day to hunting.
The month of May is in New Zealand what the month of December is in Europe. Yet the forest had retained its summer foliage, and every moment my path was barred by thickets of berberidte. 2 In proportion as I moved away from the coast, Nature became more virgin. Here were no longer paths beaten by those gathering dead branches; no longer were the tree-trunks hacked by the marine woodcutters. Little by little I experienced the freshness of complete isolation. The birds fluttered about with less fear, the wood-pigeons no longer took flight at the sound of my steps, and the tuts, hidden in tufts of acacias, 3 did not cease to vomit 4 —l know no expression which better interprets my thought—did not cease, I say, to vomit their melodious songs into the air. What a marvellous creation of the Good God in a day of gaiety is this feathered songster! It is the finest tenor of Oceania! Always in a black coat having brilliant blue reflections, a tuft of white feathers, silky and curled, adorns his throat like an embroidered cravat and a double frill. The natives have well
1 Paulo-o, fardoa, bread or flour.—Note ; ]. C. A.
2 Berberidce —the bush-lawyer ; tataramoa ; Ruius australis—sometimes also, appropriately, “ wait-a-bit.”—Note ; J. C. A.
3 Acacias— kowhai , Edwardsia Utraftera. —Note ; J. C. A.
4 Vomit—this word (“ vomit ”) very aptly expresses the manner of the tui in uttering some of his notes ; he is quite careless of appearances — and so magnificent is he in colour and in song that he can afford to be. —Note : J. C. A.
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named it the tui, because it commences all its symphonies with this first motet: Tui, tui, tui, tui!
Here and there are open spaces, trunks of kahikateas, immense podocarps, overthrown by age, were stretched upon the soil. A glade almost always surrounded the debris of these gigantic trees, and the creepers which formerly swung from their branches now lay with them and grovelled over their surface, enveloping them in a winding-sheet of verdure. It was in the midst of these glades that I usually halted. The pines and the planes around could be seen, and it was easy to fill my game-bag with pigeons. This New Zealand species is magnificent. A white breastplate betrays them to the eyes of the hunter when they screen themselves amid the foliage, and they have a throat more iridescent than the most glittering silken material. I have killed these beautiful pigeons! Good heavens! who shall say how many of them have been my victims. I reproach myself to-day with their useless deaths, because I did not kill them to bring to France their plumage, worthy to gleam in the most magnificent ornithological collections. No! I killed them to pluck, roast, and eat.
The day drew to its close ; to-morrow I would resume my hunting; I would make the tour of the bay, and return on board by crossing the mountain which separated Port Levy from the bottom of the Oeteta Cove.
I returned therefore to the spot from which I had set out at midday. Thy-ga-rit invited me to pass the night beneath his own roof.
CHAPTER XXI
A NIGHT OF ANGUISH
THY-GA-RIT’S hut was twenty-five feet long by fifteen wide and five high, so far as I can recall. The door was low, so low that I was obliged to crouch in order to cross its threshold.
On each side of the room stretched a camp-bed, which the natives call a tarala. It was formed of a trellis of the branches of the kaikomako, 1 straight, light, and flexible twigs similar to the bamboo. This bed resembled in form those of our guard-houses, sloping down towards the hearth which blazed in the centre of the hut, so that, when lying upon it, we could warm our feet at the glowing brands which burnt without smoke.
It has been said that God has carried His condescension towards these children of Nature so far as to give them a special wood, which will burn in the middle of a hut without asphyxiating with fumes those who Inhabit it. When dealing with the productions of this new land, I will tell you what this wood is, the combustion of which differs so greatly from that of our European timbers.
I took my place on the tarala , beside my royal host, and I noticed on the opposite side of the hearth five or six big fellows nonchalantly stretched on a similar bed. By their silence I should have thought them to be sleeping,
1 Kaikomako, Maori fire, or bridal tree, Pennantia corymbosa, used by the Maori for producing fire by friction.—Note ; J. C. A.
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but that their eyes, sparkling in the glow from the fire, rested directly upon me. Below those eyes their white teeth shone in the shadow with almost as sinister an appearance, teeth of greater length than their width, narrow and sharp, true cannibals’ teeth. I could not remove my glance from those eyes and those teeth. The ferocious pleasantry of “all same beef ” ceaselessly echoed in my ears.
Outside the women sang softly and sadly a monotonous chant, of which the refrain was ever: “Paulo-o! paulo-o! (Bread! bread!).”
As for me, without appearing to notice the desires of my neighbours, who gazed at me with the eyes of epicures at Chevet’s 1 door regarding a truffled turkey, I sought for the glance of the poor queen, whose place I no doubt occupied; I sought for her to share my biscuit with her alone.
For his part, Thy-ga-rit no more lost sight of me, and noticing that I was seeking something he guessed what that was. He therefore hastened to signify to me, by an expressive pantomime, that the women never ate before the men, and that all which the men chose for their food was taboo to the others.
Taboo, that is to say sacred, prohibited, forbidden. It was even forbidden the poor women to enter where the men are taking their repast. I had previously read this in the accounts given by travellers, but I believed the Maoris to have renounced the taboo, as they have given up their primitive weapons and their national costumes. No!
1 Peat, Gossip from Paris, 1864-69, says; “ All gourmets know Chevet’s windows in the Palais Royal, and remember the display of birds’ nests from China, ortolans from Italy, truffles from Perigord, and fate's de fois gras from Strasbourg, which have fascinated their gaze each time they passed its savoury precincts.”—Note : F. W. R.
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Gluttony caused the revival of the taboo. I made my excuses then, and the king received the portion of my sea biscuit intended for his wife.
One of these sham sleepers, whose eyes and teeth indicated overmuch to me, placed as they were directly opposite, had no doubt noticed that my game-bag contained yet other biscuits, because he rose from his place and came towards me, not like a vile mendicant, but as would a trader who believed himself justified in proposing some traffic. He spoke a little English. He offered a fragment of greenstone for a piece of biscuit. I refused, and he offered two. Yet to the New Zealanders greenstone is much more precious than gold is to us. Greenstone! that mysterious rock which they reverence like an image of the divinity, and which they go to seek through a thousand fatigues and a thousand dangers in the depths of the lake on Tavai-Pounamou. 1 Later I will speak of this greenstone.
I remained firm. I did not wish to yield. Captain Jay had warned me that to yield but once to the caprice of a Maori was to be in some measure dishonoured. When exchanging it is obligatory never to accept what is offered. It is necessary, always, to compel the addition of something to what has been tendered, even if it is only a trifle. I therefore demanded something more than the two pieces of greenstone. The islander held in his hand a little paper notebook. I asked this from him, with no idea of what it was. He hesitated. Thereupon I replaced my slab of biscuit in my game-bag and prepared to light my pipe. He turned his back on me as though determined to dispense with my biscuit, and went to lie down beside his companions. I did not wish to have the appearance of
1 See Note XXX, on page 402.
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paying any heed to him, and when once more his eyes were turned towards mine, I was already looking in another direction, to the outside of the hut.
What was I looking at? At a spectacle which held but scanty attraction for me, upon my word! Crouched before a large cast-iron pot, the bottom of which rested on a hearth of boulders, and resembling that sorceress in Macbeth cooking her infernal broth, a woman, darker, more hideous than any of those with whom I had yet met since I set foot in New Zealand, a koukie, a slave, no doubt—because it is a dishonour for the natives to cook—stirred with a stick the unknown ingredients which boiled in the cauldron.
An acrid smoke, an odour of fraichin, as our sailors say when they wish to refer to that smell which the great fish of the sea leave behind them, gnawed at my throat, and though the walk had developed my appetite beyond measure, I realized with disgust that the hour of supper approached, and that no doubt it would be necessary for me to do honour to it.
In fact, Thy-ga-rit made me an expressive sign, which clearly meant to say: “Come, my guest, it is suppertime.” Then he gave utterance to a raucous but voluptuous exclamation. It was an order, the king wished to be served. Immediately the koukie grovelled at the foot of the tarala , depositing there two rush baskets, 1 one filled with steaming potatoes, and the other with boiled fish. His Majesty, half opening the basket, graciously offered to share his repast with me, and having helped himself, conceded the remainder to his aides-de-camp.
I then called to my aid all the stoicism of which a
1 “ Two rush baskets,” kono, usually made from a blade of flax, a new one for each meal.—Note ; J. C. A.
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physician is capable, in order to swallow these sweet potatoes, to which the dried and rancid fish had communicated an infernal taste and a loathsome odour. Fortunately I adroitly caused to fall between the gaps in the camp bed some portions of cod and of conger eel which, if I had had the misfortune to swallow them, would very certainly have produced upon me the effect of the most violent emetic.
The gua-doua , that dough which they make from a species of fern (the Pteris esculenta), passed muster rather better, and, for dessert, I drew from my game-bag a fine cake of biscuit. At the sight of this Thy-ga-rit, who had already devoured the first piece, despatched in my direction a great hiccough of joy. He well knew that I should not eat it without breaking off some morsels for him and the men in the depths of the hut, whose eyes redoubled their fire, and who caused their white teeth to click, jaw against jaw, as they murmured; “Paulo-o! paulo-o! (Bread ! bread!).”
Then the islander who had already come to me rose anew, and, tormented by his desire for paulo-o, came to fling upon my knees the two fragments of greenstone and the paper note-book. I opened this last. It was a small booklet of white paper, such as cooks and laundresses use. He to whom it had belonged was a fellow-country-man, and he had there copied out some ballads and songs, especially the songs of Beranger. The first leaf had been torn out, and half of the last, but on what remained of this I perceived these words: “I belong to . . . my ... on board .. . shi .. , the Jean Bart.” The spaces where the writing was missing seemed to have been moistened and then rubbed with the finger.
I pointed out the words Jean Bart to the company, a
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the same time pronouncing them and uttering an exclamation. Instantly a great silence befell, as though the possession of this note-book accused each of those present of having taking part in the massacre of our unfortunate compatriots.
I do not know how to express the impression which this half-effaced, half-torn leaf of the note-book made upon me. The combat, the massacre, the conflagration, the feast of victory, all the horrors of Chatham Bay unrolled before me like a panorama, and I saw, on closing my eyes, while shuddering from head to foot, the savage who devoured the hand which had written these songs; I saw the heads despoiled of their flesh, and the red tinged mouths of those who had sung them so joyously the night before, when they had celebrated the elevation of their new captain.
The New Zealanders around me realized why I appeared so sadly affected, and they kept a gloomy silence. This frightened me. I almost feared they wished to get rid of me, in terror lest I should make myself their accuser to a vessel of war. No doubt it was this which determined him who had given me the notebook, and who spoke English fairly well, to explain to me how this book came to be at Koukourarata (Port Levy).
His explanation, given easily and with entire unconstraint, informed me that the winds had stranded a canoe from the Chathams on Banks Peninsula, and that those living there, being friends of the French, thought it fitting to seize the castaways, kill them, roast them, and eat them, as they had eaten the Oui-oui , a name by which we are designated, from our customary reply: “Ouioui,” on all occasions.
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I applauded as well as I could this penalty of retaliation, but, believing it necessary to make some sacrifice for my personal safety, I returned the note-book to its owner, and joy reappeared in our circle. 1
I should certainly have liked to retain the little notebook which spoke to me of a fellow-countryman, but it would have been a great imprudence. They thought I wished it to serve as an accusing witness; these people retain eternally the memory of deeds to be avenged; they believe that we resemble them, and that, once offended or irritated, we never pardon. The recollection of murders is thus perpetuated among them by tradition, and each time a French ship arrives at the Bay of Islands the New Zealanders ask anxiously if it comes to exact vengeance for the assassination of Marion Dufrense, killed in that bay nearly ninety years ago.
All these terrible ideas unsettled my mind a little. If I could have risen, gone out, and returned overland to the Asia , at the risk of losing myself in the forests, I should have done so that instant, and without hesitation. There was no means of flight; I had come voluntarily, and must appear to remain as willingly. I therefore closed my eyes in order not to see the terrible company in which I found myself; but when I did so, I perceived a still more terrifying thing, that is to say the dream instead of the reality.
I might pass over this night in silence, or merely say that I endured it with philosophical intrepidity, in courageous observation, and by studying the aspect of the premises and the demeanour of individuals; and I might even add, without wincing. Yes, but I should lie, and that I do not wish to do. I will then tell the truth.
1 He is quite wrong ; he was perfectly safe.—Note ; J. C. A.
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Yes, I shivered, not with cold, but with fear. Yet when I think of the foolish terrors which assailed me during that night, passed at the mercy of those epicures in human flesh, I laugh at and take pity on myself.
What had I really to fear? Had I not left the Asia in the sight of the whole crew, and with their knowledge? Did not Captain Jay know where and with whom I was? Would the tribes of the peninsula have dared to make war on the ships which frequented the bay, and commence hostilities by offering me as a holocaust to the Great Atoua, to God? Had not Captain Jay, in permitting me to spend a night at a distance from the ship, already a knowledge, extending over a long period, of the pacific characters of Thy-ga-rit and his rangatiras , that is to say his subject nobles, and of his koukies, in other words of his subject slaves? It would have needed that I should become the aggressor in order to run any danger, and certainly I was inoffensive enough, for, without difficulty, I calculated that my gun and my knife would be of no great use, blockaded as I was in the depths of a hut.
True, but fear does not weigh and balance, and, I confess it, I was afraid. Thus the night passed slowly and replete with horrible dreams: a whole epic of cannibalism unrolled before my eyes, and my memory evoked the most formidable recollections. The spectres of murdered travellers burst forth from the lips which narrated those slaughterings; it was a kind of madness, an hallucination such as only once have I experienced.
Suddenly the songs of women rose not far from us, in the silence of the night. The king, who was sleeping, like all the members of his court, wakened, starting at the noise of these voices. He sat up on his bed and
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appeared to listen religiously. At intervals the choir ceased, and one woman only sang some words rapidly and harmoniously in a clear, high, and sonorous tone. I asked Thy-ga-rit, by a sign, what the chant signified.
“To the Big Man!” he replied, “to the Big Man!” (That was to say: “To God! It is a prayer to God!”)
I had, gradually, by strength of reason and will, recovered a certain amount of courage. It is true that curiosity had come to my aid. I hoped to be present at some nocturnal religious ceremony of this people. For this reason I left my bed and went out. Once outside the hut, I perceived neither priest nor Levite. The back of the cabin abutted on the forest, and a level space stretched before it to the water’s edge.
The voice did not come from among the trees, and yet I sought vainly for its source. On looking towards the sea, where the great promontory ended, permitting a few yards of the horizon to be seen, I perceived standing out darkly against the full moon, which was appearing slowly out of the water, the silhouette of a kneeling woman, raising her head to the firmament, praying aloud in a clear and ringing voice, and greeting with her great bare arms the rising of the luminary. I recognized one of our rowers, I recognized the queen, who ceased her prayer immediately the orb of the moon appeared to become detached from the earth, to sweep into the heavens.
I was outside the hut, and had no desire to re-enter it. I therefore promenaded on the open space, going from the forest to the sea and from the sea to the forest, very wearied at not knowing the time. I recollected then the hour of the moon’s rising some nights earlier, and by
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comparing that with its present appearance, I estimated that the sun would not rise for two hours.
If one spends but a few months at sea, one becomes a practical astronomer in spite of one’s self. 1 The positions of the principal stars, their names and their calendar are familiar to one. The moon, that queen of the nights, is especially studied. I have known men so experienced that they could state, without ever making a mistake, the continuation or the approach of good or bad weather, of cold or heat; they predicted wind and storms; they could tell what the time was almost to five minutes. I myself became one of these prophets. I calculated then that there were still two hours of night. What was I to do during these two hours?
“Eh! indeed, muse of my country, think of France! Think of my friends, of my mother, of my love, dream of all these, and while dreaming stamp my feet.”
Suddenly ... I stopped, I listened. . . . What had I just heard at the edge of the forest? A small bell, no doubt—a goat’s bell, at first slow, then quicker, then everywhere at once. 2 . . .
No, it was not a goat’s bell, it was the bell of a bird, of that bird which, every night, gives the signal for the magic concert that the plumaged artistes of the austral lands perform before the rising of the sun.
The first to come and interrupt the silvery ringing of this little bell was the tui. It flung into the night and into the midst of the silence a fusillade of rapid and continuous notes, like a bouquet of fireworks. This was the first tenor, who took possession of the stage. Soon came
1 See Note XXXI, on page 402.
2 See Note XXXII, on page 403, for the identification and other details regarding the following songsters.
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the rosary, told bead by bead, of the glaucope , followed by the brilliant notes of the troupiale. Next, a solo, as though from a crystal flute, came from the Jauvette de tangara, singing its nocturnal hymn. The other birds paused for an instant as though to listen. Then all together once more resumed, like an immense choir, each sustaining its part; the mesange embellished the harmonious concert with triple and quadruple quavers; 1 the pigeon ( colombe ), with its flow of low notes; the traquet , with head as blue as heaven, a skilled baritone, passing from the pigeon to the tui, from the base to the tenor; finally, the trichoglosse, in its turn, scattered its skilful trills amid this marvellous melody; while the perroquet trigops, the cymbal-player of the forest, mingled its brazen vibrations with the sound of the silver bell.
No longer did I ask myself what I should do while waiting for the day; I listened. I listened thus for two hours, then, little by little, the concert ceased, and the tui alone continued to sing. The sun had risen.
I had at least a five-hour walk before me to reach the village of Oeteta, at which I must arrive before midday, for a sick man was awaiting me.
I left the hut, smiling at my terrors of the night, but it is easy to smile at the fears of darkness when the day has come.
I gave Thy-ga-rit half my biscuit, reserving for myself only sufficient for breakfast. Then I distributed to each of those natives with the flashing eyes and the sharp, white teeth a piece of tobacco, and, loaded with their benedictions, 1 followed the shore in the direction of the bottom of the bay, in order to reach the edge of
1 Literally “ with demi-semiquavers and double derai-semiquavers.” —Note: F.W. R.
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that forest which extended to the other side of the mountain. 1 I came in sight of the Asia about noon, having walked quickly, without either hunting or botanizing.
1 See Note XXXIII, on page 40;.
CHAPTER XXII
A NEW ZEALAND LEGEND
THE district in which we wintered has its legends, its terrible and blood-stained legends of murder and revenge, which can compare with the worst which our own barbarous ages record.
Six months of familiar intercourse with the natives, my professional prestige as a physician, and the services I was able to render some of them, permitted me to enter more deeply into all their formidable historical mysteries, which are usually closed to Europeans. lam therefore going to tell everything which was spoken of before me about cannibalism, adding to this sinister epitome what has never yet been said, but which I have learned by my own personal studies.
The natives of Banks Peninsula and of the neighbouring inlets towards the south were those with whom I came into contact every day and hour, in fact every minute. They were no more than the feeble remains of a once powerful nation, partly destroyed by the expeditions of that terrible Taraboulo, 1 whose reappearance they still feared every moment.
This indefatigable foe came periodically to destroy their crops, choosing the time for his campaign when he knew that the whaling ships would be remaining at sea and the warship which protects them would have sailed
1 See Note XXXIV, on page 405. 208
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for Tasmania or some other revictualling port. The inhabitants of the peninsula knew what this exposure of their coasts presaged, and they fled towards Otago, but not always were they able to escape Taraboulo, the vulture of Cloudy Bay.
The misfortunes of this tribe, of which Thy-ga-rit was the real chief, date from 1828. Topahai 1 was then the chief of Kapiti Island, situated in Cook Strait. He was an energetic and adventurous man. Amazed at the wonders of civilization, he asked an English captain to take him to Europe, and, upon his refusal, seized hold of the foremast, swearing that they should hack him to pieces before he would be forced to return to Kapiti without first seeing England. Finally the captain consented to take him. It was only after two years that he returned.
The captain and sailors had taken a great fancy to Topahi and had heaped cares and attentions upon him, finally bringing him back to his island and his family, where he was received with great demonstrations of joy. He told them how, being seriously ill in England, these friends had cared for him, taking turns to watch beside him. He said it was the kindly attentions of these great children, whom we call sailors and soldiers, which alone had saved his life. What could Topahi do for his benefactors in return? How could he prove his gratitude to them? He determined to give them all the greenstone he could collect, this being the stone which the New Zealanders esteem as most precious. Greenstone is only procurable on the shores of a sacred lake, situated in the centre of the island of Tavai-Pounamou, to the south-west of Banks Peninsula.
1 See Note XXXV, on page 407.
o
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Topahi therefore departed from Kapiti in search of greenstone, like the ancient mythological heroes who went to seek the golden fleece or the apples of the Hcsperides. He passed Akaroa, the inhabitants of which knew him by reputation, and were aware of his voyage to Europe. They detained and feasted him for several days. This festivity and the apparently friendly compulsion had the most cordial outward seeming, but at bottom it was quite a different sentiment. The Akaroans were unable to appreciate that a feeling of gratitude could alone be sufficient to cause Topahi to make so long and laborious a journey, and they suspected that this adventurous chief, this terrible warrior, had come among them only to spy upon them, to reconnoitre their strength and study their territory, so that he might afterwards return with his warriors and reduce them to slavery. His death was therefore determined upon, and they murdered him during the farewell feasts. However, some of Topahi’s warriors escaped the massacre and, returning to Kapiti, reported the murder of their chief.
Despair was great in the island, and the more so that Topahi’s son was still too young to lead the tribe in a fight for vengeance. It was then that Taraboulo revealed himself. He was a slave freed by Topahi, an active, crafty, energetic, courageous, and grateful man. He claimed that it was to him that revenge belonged, and he took an oath to avenge the illustrious dead upon Maramvail and his son, the present and future chiefs of the tribe by whom Topahi had been assassinated. He offered his services to the Kapitians who, recognizing him as their master in cunning and courage, acknowledged him as
1 Sec Note XXXVI, on page 407.
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their chief, and confided to him the care of preparing everything for the attaining of the desired end.
Taraboulo was too knowing to proceed openly to attack a numerous tribe and one which, after the crime it had committed, was bound to be on its guard. He thought over the enterprise, determined upon his plan, and waited with the patience of a savage for the moment of its execution.
This occasion offered in 1830. In that year the English brig Elizabeth , despatched from Sydney to New Zealand to purchase flax, anchored in Cloudy Bay. Taraboulo offered Captain Stewart ten tons of flax if he would allow him to embark on the brig with a hundred warriors, and convey him to Akaroa. Stewart accepted the terms, embarked the Kapitians and entered Akaroa as though coming to trade.
Maramvai, the Akaroan chief, his wife, his son and his two daughters immediately repaired on board the brig, where Captain Stewart received them with great demonstrations of friendliness ; but scarcely had they descended into the cabin, where they were invited to a repast, than Taraboulo seized them and made them his prisoners. Then, at the head of his hundred warriors, he fell suddenly upon the unfortunate inhabitants who had followed their chief, and who already thronged the deck of the vessel. It was a horrible butchery. It is even said that, at the sight of the blood—the odour of blood intoxicates like that of wine—the English sailors took part with Taraboulo, sharing in these terrible reprisals and shooting the New Zealanders who flung themselves into the sea to regain the shore by swimming.
This massacre accomplished, the Kapitians embarked in the canoes of their victims and, as the catastrophe had
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occurred almost out of sight of the shore, the inhabitants of the villages situated around the bay allowed their foes to land in peace, believing it to be their fellows returning. Then there was a further massacre. When night came the stoves on the brig were lighted, the coppers were filled with human limbs, and under the eyes of the crew and the English captain, the cannibals feasted ! . . .
On the following day Captain Stewart resumed his voyage towards Cook Strait, carrying the victors and their slaves. Maramvai had been flung, bound hand and foot, among the dead and dying upon the deck. His son, seriously wounded, was lying a few paces away. While the conquerors gave themselves up to the joys of the feast, the son placed his mouth close to his father’s ear, and said :
“You are old, my father; they will kill you, but they will let me live, and I shall be condemned to some shameful employ. Taraboulo will make me his slave, perhaps his cook! Save me from this infamy; two steps from you is an axe; take it and kill me. . . .
The father, without answering, gnawed at the cords confining his hands, but his mind approved his son’s project. The son then crawled imperceptibly nearer to the axe, secured it, cut Maramvai’s bonds, placed the axe in his hands, and as though he would repose more comfortably, placed his head upon the raised foot of one of the lower masts. Then Maramvai sprang up with a cry of triumph, and they saw him swing the axe in his hands, while at the same instant the head of his son rolled to a distance of ten paces.
Had this deed been related by Titus Livy or Plutarch, and attributed to a Roman or a Spartan, it would be heroism; related by me, and accredited to a New Zealand
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chief, it is only barbarism exciting enthusiasm in the companions of Maramvai. They uttered cries of admiration ; Taraboulo hastened up and, furious to see the finest trophy of his victory escape him, caused Maramvai’s hands to be bound afresh. Afterwards he drove an iron hook into the roof of the cabin and there suspended his enemy by the lower jaw. Hanging thus, Maramvai arrived, still living, at Kapiti. On the voyage one of his daughters, having dared to take him in her arms in order to lessen his sufferings, was so violently repulsed by an English sailor on guard that she was killed by falling against the corner of the wainscoting. Her sisters succumbed under the brutalities of the crew. The mother flung herself over the bulwarks and was drowned.
On the very day of the arrival at Kapiti, Maramvai was put to death. Taraboulo himself served as executioner. He opened the carotid artery, received into both hands the blood which flowed from it, and drank it. . . .
Then he tore out his victim’s eyes and swallowed them, with the object of rendering his sight more piercing, and to inoculate himself with the courage of the vanquished to whom he, the victor, was compelled to accord his savage admiration.
On his return to Sydney, Captain Stewart was tried and acquitted.
The narratives of travellers are full of contradictions concerning cannibalism, which they sometimes regard as permitted by the religious laws of this land or that, sometimes as provoked by a sentiment of implacable vengeance, and, finally, as at times the result of scarcity and even of sensuality. Of these various motives they select a single one according to their liking, and therewith connect this horrible custom, whereas actually the motive varies, or is
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complicated with others, according to circumstances. These errors have been committed in particular by navigators who have passed rapidly from one part of Oceania to another, and who, consequently, had but a few hours contact with the natives, hours all too brief for the study of their manners and customs. They have thus been compelled to repeat what was said by their predecessors, and to gather on their passage a few traditions already related, and which have been falsified by the difficulties of interpreting the language.
In our day cannibalism exists, as a matter of habit, only in Oceania. Some examples can be found among both ancient and modern peoples, it is true, but such are only exceptional cases. A residence of six months on Banks Peninsula, in other words in the heart of the South Island of New Zealand, an existence almost continuously in contact with the tribes on the coast, permitted me to collect some comparatively new details concerning cannibalism, to which I shall add that which is most curious and correct from the statements of other travellers.
CHAPTER XXIII
TARABOULO
ONE day, while we were in harbour, a little schooner anchored in the cove of Oeteta. It brought word that the terrible Taraboulo, the supreme chief of the island, had just embraced Christianity, and now ordered the southern tribes to follow his example. At the same time he forbade the eating of human flesh, threatening, if his orders were not carried out, to come and exterminate from the first to the last those who dared to disobey.
The schooner had arrived at eleven in the morning, and about two o’clock of the same day the inhabitants flocked on board asking for Bibles. Not a single one did we possess, but everything having the appearance of a book served. They asked no more, and our sailors exchanged their books of songs and their slang dictionaries for mats and shells. I escaped at the cost of a volume of the Odes of Horace, not that I supplied it for a Bible, but that it was stolen from me.
At this unexpected news Thy-ga-rit had left his summer residence and returned to Oeteta. There he gathered all his people together and transmitted to them the orders of the superior authority, inviting everyone to assemble morning and evening to listen to the divine service. On the following day the Christian rites commenced. The barrel of a musket was hung across a post, and upon this
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they struck with any convenient fragment of old iron ; it was the bell which called to mass. Then all the residents fell upon their knees, made the sign of the cross and opened their books. These they held upside down or crosswise, appearing to read the verses of the psalms which they sang with all the strength of their lungs. I can still hear in my ears that incredible music, which lasted for an hour in the morning and for an equal time in the evening.
All this was in expectation of the arrival of Taraboulo, the bugbear of Ika-na-mavi. Yet all was to no purpose, because Taraboulo did not come. Instead, some weeks later, several missionaries appeared. These holy men were admirably received, and immediately set about the work of salvation. The apocryphal Bibles were denounced, and instructions given for them to be confiscated. However, the natives obtained permission to retain the books that they might make wads from them for their guns.
A rumour circulated among the crews of the whaling ships fishing in the waters of the Peninsula that this threat of the arrival of Taraboulo had saved the life of a poor woman. She was to have been eaten at Oeteta, at the end of the current moon. I was never able to verify the fact, but I felt convinced it was correct, and for the following reason.
One day as we were cruising in the great Pegasus Bay, a canoe commanded by one of the island chiefs, named Ivico, 1 passed near us. He was conveying to a Tasmanian ship, which remained under sail in the neighbourhood of Table Island, a deserter arrested at Port Levy. During
1 Iviko—lwikau, one of the leading chiefs of Port Levy.—Note ; J.C.A.
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his passage he anchored at night under shelter of the land whenever the weather permitted.
The captain of the ship had been fortunate in his fishing and, as barrels were lacking, he established his coopers on the edge of a forest at Port Levy in order to construct some more casks. It was from there the deserter fled, after having fought with one of his companions, whom he had seriously wounded.
Ivico, as we have just seen, brought him aboard and received a satisfactory recompense from the English captain. He resumed his way back to the peninsula, but a squall flung him upon the mainland. Having taken shelter in a small bay, he encountered a man and two women. How had they come there? Who were they? Had they been shipwrecked? Were they spies from one of the northern tribes? This last supposition prevailed and they were secured. The man was sufficiently agile to escape to the mountain; time pressed, and they could not pursue him. The two women, less fortunate, were taken and flung, bound hand and foot, into the canoe which resumed its passage. As he returned Ivico again passed near us, but did not come aboard, yet we noticed through the telescope that his crew was augmented by two women.
Next day we returned to Oeteta as night fell. The last quarter of the moon was on the wane. The fires of the village guided us in gaining our customary anchorage, but not a native came on board. About midnight we heard gunshots and an infernal noise in the direction of the huts. A great fire burned before Thy-ga-rit’s abode, while the howls of the dogs mingled with those of the women, and we could see these latter gambolling on the open space as they waved dry torches soaked in whale oil.
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There was something horrible and fascinating, I swear, about this scene, which was incomprehensible to us. The second in command and I were unable to remain passive; we went to find the captain and requested permission to go ashore. This he obstinately refused, giving as his reason that the natives were no doubt celebrating some religious festival, and that our indiscreet visit would be likely to cause a quarrel.
The tumult only abated as the night ended. When I went on shore in the morning I could see nothing unusual ; everything was once more tranquil and, still black and warm, the place where the fire had been alone bore witness to the nocturnal festivity.
I questioned my best friends among the islanders; the king, his sons, his wife, even some children, but in each case they replied with much self-possession and indifference that it was easily recognized as being affected. Their statement was that the tribe had celebrated during the previous night one of their sacred festivals which, as usual, had ended by a sacrifice to the Great Atoua, and by a feast at which they had eaten dogs fattened for the purpose. All this was quite probable, because dogs swarmed on the coast of this savage state, and the natives were accustomed to capture some and enclose them in confined sheds, there to fatten them on fish preparatory to eating them. I hese dogs even become an important resource when the fish are affected by a malady peculiar to the New Zealand seas, and when the crops of potatoes have not been abundant.
A girl belonging to the tribe was not so discreet; some days later, in a moment of forgetfulness, she confided to her sailor lover that during this mysterious night they had massacred, roasted, and devoured one of the two
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women encountered by Ivico; that the survivor was imprisoned in a tabooed hut, where she was being fattened, and that she would be sacrificed at the last quarter of the new moon. According to their belief the moon is angry when it does not shine, and prayers and sacrifices are necessary to appease it, in order that once more it may consent to illuminate the nights.
There were several tabooed huts in the village. They drove us away with loud cries and threats immediately we approached them. It was thus impossible for me to discover the prison of the unfortunate victim. The captains of the vessels then in the different bays of the South Island were considering the uniting of their crews to set this poor wretch free when, fortunately, the schooner brought Taraboulo’s manifesto.
I believe Commandant Cecile had formerly carried off from this same tribe one or two women already being fattened for eating. Thy-ga-rit, whom the Commandant calls Thdgare, was, as I have stated, the true chief of Togolabo.
Parents are very fond of their children, but only during their early years. Commandant Cecile relates that in 1839, he noticed at Togolabo a little girl of five with charmingly pretty features. Reflecting on the fate which awaited the unfortunate child in this country of prostitution, he wished to remove her from it, being prepared to adopt her and take her to Europe. In exchange for the child, he offered a uniform and some other articles. He endeavoured to make the natives comprehend that, having no child of his own, he would care for her as though she were his daughter. The mother would not listen and refused all his proposals, but a few days before the corvette sailed the father had him told that he was willing
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to give up his daughter, and the commandant repaired with him to the house of the chief of the tribe, Thy-ga-rit, in order to conclude the business. Barely had they entered and begun to confer when a native, usually very quiet, entered pale with anger, and cried out in English:
“No, no, I do not wish it; the girl shall not leave!”
The commandant thereupon observed to him that the matter in no way concerned him; but he answered that the child’s father was his brother-in-law, and that the mother, his sister, had sworn to avenge herself by killing him if he allowed the little Heloi to leave.
While this altercation was proceeding, the child, dragged away by her mother, had hastily reached the mountain, and Commandant Cecile never saw her again. Thy-ga-rit stated that, if the daughter had been nubile, the bargain would have been concluded without difficulty. This Heloi, or rather Heloa, and even, euphonically, Eoa, I saw some years later. Prostitution had already tarnished her, and Thy-ga-rit assured me that she was the same whom the Oui-oui rangatira, that is to say the French chief, had wished to take away over sea.
Poor girl! in my memory I have retained the recollection of her sweet profile, with the dark hair falling in curls upon her shoulders. How slender, light, and graceful she was, walking bare-footed on the quarter deck, respected by the sailors for her beauty alone! Everywhere she was a queen! everywhere a goddess! proud of her improvised toilet, of her petticoat made from red woollen shirts, and of her bodice of white calico, which allowed to be seen the firm and polished flesh of her arms and shoulders, which were of a dull red
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tint resembling certain kinds of marble. In the centre of her forehead she carried a blue tattooed star. The features of the pretty gipsies who wander about the lands of southern Europe are more swarthy than hers; while never have I seen contrasted in the same face teeth so white and eyes so black as those of Eoa.
Poor child! she was sold for a red woollen counterpane, an old cavalry sabre, and a pair of boots, which price enriched her whole family. The father and mother shared the counterpane, each making of the half a kind of shawl; the uncle was accommodated with the boots, from which he stripped the soles, wearing only the uppers, seeing that his, feet were too big for them. As for Eoa’s fiance, a young fellow of eighteen, five feet six inches tall, lively and mettlesome, but who had not yet taken part in a combat, he took possession of the sabre, swearing that with it he would kill Taraboulo the first time that chief attempted a descent upon the peninsula.
Having promised to tell the truth, I am compelled to admit that, charming as she was, Eoa had a great defect, and one for which the sultan her master never forgave her. She was addicted to the sin of gluttony, a mortal sin, a villainous sin, especially when the object which tempted her is mentioned.
First of all it is necessary to understand that each officer had his cabin illuminated by a little swinging lamp, which the steward kept in order and filled with whale oil. One evening the fortunate master of Eoa, returning from a hunting expedition or a botanizing excursion, wished to light his lamp. It contained no wick and no oil. The steward was very angry, swearing that he had prepared the lamp as usual, but, in spite of his oaths, he was obliged to fit it out afresh. Next day
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the same thing occurred. On the third day neither wick nor oil was there any more than on the previous occasions. Always it was upon the steward that the anger of our comrade fell.
Yet, while he swore, fumed, and stormed, a little titter was heard from a corner of the cabin where Eoa was accustomed to crouch while awaiting her lord’s return. The lord and master lowered his candle towards her. Good heavens! what did he see? Protruding from the pretty lips of the charming Maori was one end of the lamp wick.
Yes, it was Eoa, the fair New Zealander with the sweet name, with the black eyes, the white teeth and the blue star who, every evening, swallowed the oil in the lamp, and retained the wick in her mouth, the longer to enjoy the flavour of that delicious nectar! Let us hasten to say that she was corrected, and let us be equally frank in stating that this correction produced no effect.
What manners, alas! have these children of nature, so greatly extolled by the philosophers of the eighteenth century. The daughters become an object of commerce until their marriage; they are betrothed at an early age, but their fianc£ marries them only after having been to war, or rather when he has fought for his personal quarrel or for that of the tribe. These betrothals do not hinder the girls from being delivered over to strangers, and I have seen parents dare to offer for sale children six or seven years of age. This happened on board the Asia. A father offered his daughter, barely seven years old. Captain Jay forbade him ever to set foot on the ship again. Unfortunately the example of our captain was not always followed, and few ships remain at the anchor-
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ages of the peninsula without such infamies being tolerated.
It is true that several travellers have claimed that, if the young girls are given up to prostitution, the married women are, on the other hand, models of conjugal fidelity. I have very frequently seen the opposite. Kaka, our purveyor of potatoes, the ship’s tayo, my hunting companion, was a very complaisant husband, and his young wife, with breast and shoulders ornamented with little blue tattooed stars, often aired her buxom favours before the quarter-deck.
The married woman is more often forcibly faithful to her husband than naturally virtuous. The youth and beauty of the New Zealanders Is ephemeral. The rudest of labours, performed in the open air, the fishing for crustaceans beneath the boulders along the shore, the fatiguing preparation of the flax, the gathering of dead wood in the forests on the mountain, and, more than all, the frequent pregnancies, deprive these unfortunate creatures, before the age of twenty, of the charms so much boasted of by Europeans. Especially do the results of their pregnancies wither them. 1 Scarcely has a New Zealand woman given birth to her child than she becomes tabooed for at least a month. To some extent she no longer forms part of the tribe. Relegated to the threshold of her hut, crouching beside a post, a kind of dead tree trunk, from the branches of which are suspended some plaited baskets full of sweet potatoes, fern root, and dried fish, she suckles her infant in the open air, in isolation and misery, no one addressing a word to
1 The remarks on birth and the treatment of the mother are far from true. See Ch. lof Yol. II of The Maori, by Elsdon Best.—Note ; J.C.A.
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her. If her provisions fail, they offer her more at the end of a pole. Then, when this harsh quarantine is ended, she returns to her fellows and resumes her laborious existence. Such is her fate, whether she be a chief’s wife, a simple islander, or even a slave.
CHAPTER XXIV
CANNIBALISM
THE Papuans eat only the vanquished. They cut up the bodies with knives of a special shape and used only for that purpose. Formerly these instruments were of hard stone, but since their contact with Europeans they have been made of hoop-iron.
Captain Morell, the American skipper of whom I have already spoken in connection with the Auckland Islands and the pairing of the seals, came near being the victim of an ambush in the Fiji Islands. He owed his safety to his coolness, but he lost fourteen of his companions. After regaining his ship with much difficulty, he took a telescope and swept the beach.
“By aid of this,” he says, “I saw the savages cutting up the members of my poor sailors while they were still alive, and more than one among them saw his arm or leg roasted and devoured before his death.”
Morell took refuge at Manila, where he renewed and augmented his crew; then he returned to take vengeance on these islanders who, on his first visit, had welcomed him cordially. At that time, Captain Morell was in command of his fine schooner, the Antarctic. He cruised Oceania to collect beche-de-mer, the trepang of which Chinese epicures make such excellent use. This mollusc, the galiero-pedopulmonifero of Cuvier, inhabits the rocks
p
*25
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at the level of the water on almost all the islands of Oceania, but, according to the American navigator, the trepang of the Massacre Islands is the best he has ever encountered. The Chinese employ it both as a tonic and as an aphrodisiac, eating it indifferently with beef, poultry, or vegetables.
In my opinion religion, revenge, sensuality, and dearth, separately and collectively, have urged and do still urge man to devour his fellows. Unfortunately, one may find examples of cannibalism elsewhere than among the Oceanians.
Let us pass these various motives in review.
DEARTH
The soil of New Zealand is very fertile; it abounds in sweet potatoes and fern root, from which latter a nutritious dough is made, while its bays furnish an immense quantity of fish, which is dried in order to preserve it. Yet it sometimes happens that this harvest of the sea fails, especially when a certain malady attacks the fish. This sickness is produced by a long, white, thread-like worm which penetrates the flesh, preventing the fish from being either dried or preserved.
As these islands contain no quadrupeds, save those which have been imported, such as pigs and dogs, though a few species of large birds are also found, hunting affords only a very insufficient source of supplies. Let war eventuate, and the forces on the march no longer have anything to sustain them but the ngoua-doue , a paste prepared from fern root, the pteris esculenta. Thus armies often come to blows when on the verge of famine. They fight then, not only from hatred and for vengeance,
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but also from necessity. The warriors sup after the victory to indemnify themselves, at the expense of the corpses of their foes, for the diet to which they had previously been compelled to submit.
In 1835 Captain Harwood, of the English brig Rodney , received a hundred and fifty tons of flax and fifty tons of salt pork in payment for conveying some New Zealanders to the Chatham Islands, where they intended to establish themselves. They took potatoes with them, and cleared the soil; but provision failing before the harvest was ready for gathering, and the fish suffering from their malady, they laid hands upon the original inhabitants and devoured more than two hundred of them.
All the Australian tribes around Torres Strait, and those of several groups of islands in the neighbourhood of New Caledonia avoid famine by this terrible method and, when their enemies are victorious or the conquered fail, they immolate their slaves or their children.
I could multiply examples, but these, I think, will be sufficient.
SENSUALITY
To the shame of the human species it must be confessed that there are cannibals who, from inclination, pleasure or sensuality, cold-bloodedly massacre slaves or defenceless Europeans who fall into their hands as the result of shipwreck, the curiosity of the traveller or the cupidity' of trade.
Touai, 1 a New Zealand chief who was taken to I -ondon, residing there for a long time and becoming almost civilized, confessed, in his moments of nostalgia, that what he most regretted in the country from which he was
1 See Note XXXVII, on page 407
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absent was the feast of human flesh, the feast of victory. He was weary of eating English beef; he claimed that there was a great analogy between the flesh of the pig and that of man. 1 his last declaration he made before a sumptuously served table. The flesh of women and children was to him and his fellow-countrymen the most delicious, while certain Malays prefer that of a man of fifty, and that of a black rather than that of a white. His countrymen, Touai resumed, never ate the flesh raw, and they preserved the fat of the rump for the purpose of dressing their sweet potatoes.
Marsden 1 relates that some missionaries having expressed the fear of being eaten, the New Zealand chiefs present replied, in order to reassure them, that if they were famishing for human flesh they would take in preference that of their foes of the neighbouring tribes, which had a much more agreeable flavour than that of Europeans, who were accustomed to taking too much salt, a seasoning unpleasant to the Maoris.
The natives of New Zealand expressed to the naturalist Lesson, of the corvette Coquille y the pleasure they would have experienced in tasting him. It was Lesson who, in the account of his voyage, postulated this axiom;
T. he first art one must examine among any peoples, whatsoever be their state of civilization, is that of the kitchen.”
I no longer remember the name of the island of which a chief served up to Dumont d’Urville, thinking to do him great honour, a young child roasted in banana leaves like a young partridge larded with slices of bacon.
Later we shall meet with numerous examples of sensuality combined with vengeance and religion.
1 See Note XXXVIII, on page 407.
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VENGEANCE
The massacre of Europeans treacherously cut down and devoured, without there having been any previous combat, could never have any object save a horrible cupidity if the conduct of these strangers coming amid such children of Nature had always been free from reproach. In most cases the savages made reprisals, for always it was the civilized race which committed the first wrong. Sometimes, too, it happened that the crew of a vessel, as soon as it was anchored, unexpectedly experienced the vengeance due to somCyOther ship which had been fortunate enough to escape, and this was especially so when the flags were similar. These ferocious peoples never forget and never forgive. It would take too long here to record the martyrology of the Oceanic navigators.
Every year since the four men of Tasman’s crew, the first of Europeans, fell beneath the meres of the New Zealanders, the archipelagos of Oceania have been ensanguined by similar catastrophes. The ships seeking trepang, tortoise-shell, flax, pearls, sandal-wood, and whales there, pay only too frequently their tribute of blood.
Nor are the warships exempt, as witness the deaths of two young naval officers, de Varennes and de Maynard, with those of men who composed their crews.
It was Commandant Surville who, in 1772, commenced that series of reprisals which will only be exhausted when the Europeo-American race has absorbed, in the great current of its emigration, the Oceanic aborigines, whose subjection can only be by annihilation.
D’Entrecasteaux, Marion Dufresne, Crozet, and La Perouse, whom one might reproach with over-scrupulous
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sentiments of humanity towards such enemies, left unpunished—a great error, since they knew these Oceanic savages —the massacre of Captain Delangle, the colleague of La Perouse, by the natives of Mahouna in the Samoan Islands. He, with the naturalist Lamanon and nine sailors and soldiers of the Astralobe, were devoured on December 23rd, 1787.
The name of the island has escaped me on which Captain Hyene, whom I knew as commander of the Havre whaling ship Angelina , perished in 1845 or 1 %4-6-Leaving the ship still under sail, he went ashore to purchase fruit and pigs. He was accompanied by five sailors and my friend Renoque, the ship’s surgeon. Not one of them returned, though the vessel vainly cruised within sight of the island for a week.
The two young men, de Maynard and de Varennes, were massacred in one of the bays of New Caledonia. This occurred at the time when Captain d’Harcourt was in command of the Alomene.
Peter Dillon describes a terrible siege which he endured in Naclear Bay in the Fijis. Dillon was an English captain entrusted with a commission from the ConsulGeneral at Sydney. This was to go in search of La Perouse, and to restore to their country, if possible, any survivors of the crew of the Aimable-Josephine of Nantes, commanded by Bureau.
Let us first say something about this archipelago. The Viti or Fiji group, one of the least known, yet one of the most singular in Oceania, possesses legends of cannibalism. There the English and American adventurers obtained magnificent cargoes of sandal-wood, which they have exploited since the beginning of the century. Most have paid dearly for the apparent readiness with
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which the natives permitted them to penetrate their forests.
Bureau of Nantes was one of their victims. He arrived at Ambou, one of these islands, in 1833, as captain of the Aimable-Josephine. His intention was to trade in caretta, which is the name they give to tortoiseshell. While he was at anchor, a Fijian chief and four men came to pay him a visit on board, just as he was sending a boat ashore. The chief allowed the boat to move away for half a mile or more, and then suddenly cried out to Bureau :
“Captain, your boat is sinking!”
Bureau took up his telescope to verify the statement, and while he was locating the position of the skiff, the chief struck him a blow on the nape of the neck which stretched him dead at the other’s feet. The second in command and most of the sailors, not being on their guard, were knocked on the head. Afterwards the natives conveyed the vessel to the bottom of the bay, intending to sell it to some Americans. They then devoured Bureau and his companions. The Aimable-Josephine was a little schooner carrying a crew of only eight or ten men. It was the men who had gone ashore in the boat, and who might have escaped massacre, whom it was a question of repatriating.
Entrusted with this double mission, Captain Dillon left Sydney and cast anchor in Naclear Bay, where, in his turn, he came near to losing his life. He went ashore near the Black Rock with eighteen or twenty men, intending to explore the coast and cut sandal-wood. While searching for these trees his men became separated. Suddenly Dillon saw himself surrounded by a large number of natives. It was impossible to regain the sea so he, with four others,
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succeeded in taking refuge on a steep rock. Fortunately they all had their weapons. Now let Dillon himself speak. “We were,” he says “five refugees on a rock, and the ground was covered with several thousand savages. They lit fires at the foot of the rock and heated hearths upon which to roast the limbs of my unfortunate companions. The corpses of these, as well as those of two chiefs of Eiboa, the neighbouring island, were brought before the fires in the following manner: two natives from Naclear constructed a kind of stretcher with branches of trees, which they placed upon their shoulders. The corpses of their victims were put crosswise upon this structure, so that the head hung on one side and the legs on the other.
“Thus they carried them in triumph to the fires, where they were placed on the grass in a sitting position. The savages sang and danced around them with demonstrations of the most ferocious joy. They fired several bullets at the inanimate bodies, using for this posthumous execution the guns which had fallen into their hands. When this ceremony was finished, the priests commenced to cut up the corpses before our eyes, and the fragments were placed on the hearths.
“Meanwhile we were surrounded upon every side save that where a thicket of mangroves bordered the river.”
The situation was bad enough for poor Dillon, but knowing he had no mercy to expect, he determined to defend himself on the spot till killed. He held fast then, always in readiness to place his gun to his shoulder or to hurl down any savage who ventured near enough on the pathway which led to the summit of the rock. Two of his companions, one named Savage and the other Louis, the Chinaman, abandoned him and, trusting to the
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promises of the barbarians that they would come to no harm, actually descended.
I again yield the description to Dillon and allow him to continue his own narrative.
“Savage,” he says, “was soon in their midst, while Louis abandoned me by escaping with his weapons on the other side.
“ ‘Come down, Peter,’ the cannibals cried to me, ‘come down, and we will do no more harm to you that we have done to Savage.’
“In fact, they surrounded him, laughing and appearing to congratulate him; but, suddenly, the natives uttered a great cry, seizing Savage at the same moment by the legs. Six men held him suspended head downwards and plunged him into a hole full of water, where he was speedily suffocated. Meanwhile a native approached the Chinaman from behind and dashed out his brains with a blow from a club. Thereupon the two unfortunate fellows were cut up and placed on the hearth with their companions.”
There were now only three against as many thousands, yet Peter Dillon escaped this frightful danger.
While thus making head against this crowd of furious savages, knocking down, one after another, the boldest of the natives who ventured upon this veritable “warpath,” a boat from the Hunter , which had remained in the offing, heard the gunshots, suspected the captain’s danger, and approached the coast. It brought ashore eight natives who had been on board, and who were retained there as hostages while the crews were collecting wood. They set these islanders free, with a box of glass trinkets and cutlery for the purchase of the lives of the English survivors. An ambetti (priest) advanced at their
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head towards Dillon, promising him his life, and the right to return on board the Hunter , if he would lay down his arms.
Dillon refused, and, as there was no time to lose, he and his companions withdrew backwards, threatening every moment to crack the priest’s skull if he dared make one step towards the natives. The life of the ambetti was sacred, and the people, rather than risk it, allowed the captain and his two companions to effect their retreat without subjecting them to any hostile demonstration. Yet, no sooner had the three Europeans leapt into the boat than the savages rushed up in a crowd and greeted them with a hail of stones and arrows. Fortunately the Englishmen were already beyond reach of the missiles, and it was with gratitude to Divine Providence that they reached the Hunter , using the full strength of their arms at the oars. The ship departed just as the sun ceased to illuminate this terrible spectacle.
Cannibalism is disappearing from Oceania in proportion as the influence of the Europeans increases in the Pacific. In many lands already, and particularly in the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas and Tahiti, it has become only a memory.
To the shame of humanity, history reveals that some civilized peoples have immolated and eaten men. I have omitted here the coasts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia; but the reader must be weary of hearing me speak for so long of these Oceanic orgies of blood and feastings on human flesh.
La Perouse, Delangle, La Place, Dumont d’Urville, d’Harcourt, etc. etc., suffered terrible catastrophes there, yet, regrettable as they are, they do not compare with those which so frequently befell humble adventurers,
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indefatigable pioneers of commerce and navigation, such as the French, English, and American whalers, and those cargo boats which gathered their ladings from isle to isle, under captains like Morell the American and the Englishman Peter Dillon, etc. etc.
The entire crew of the whaling ship Union was roasted in the Fiji Islands.
The famous whaler Powet du Ramcler died at Vavas, with a great number of his companions, in an effort to snatch from the hands of the natives his eldest son John, with whom Ozela, daughter of Aculoulala, the head chief, was so much enamoured that she desired to oppose his departure.
While we were fishing in New Zealand waters, the ship Liancourt, from Havre, owed its safety solely to a good breeze which carried it far out from Cloudy Bay. It has since been lost in the Sea of Okhotsk.
There is not a bay, not a cove in New Zealand which has not witnessed one of these horrible dramas. Every number of the English newspapers published at the Bay of Islands, Wellington, Port Nicholson, or in Canterbury, 1 contains some accounts of combats waged by the tribes driven back into the interior, and of the saturnalia which follow the victory. Woe to the white man who falls into their hands. Two years ago some natives on Cook Strait devoured the whole of a numerous settlement 2 of English colonists which had undertaken the clearing of I no longer remember what portion of the coast.
1 This portion must have been written subsequently to 1850, since it mentions Canterbury newspapers.—Note ; J. C. A.
2 The “ whole of a numerous settlement ” devoured is a fiction.— Note : J. C. A.
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The association with Europeans and the colonization of these great lands, which the English have undertaken on a vast scale, are gradually causing the disappearance of these horrible customs. None the less, I believe they will afflict humanity no longer only when the European race has completely substituted itself for the native peoples.
When the victor eats his foe after the combat, he believes he eats not only his body, but also his soul.. It is an outrage to eat the body, and it is an advantage to eat the waidoua, the soul of the vanquished, because this is then assimilated with one’s own. 1 This superstition is all-powerful in war time, especially among the New Zealanders; the courage of the vanquished is added to their own, and they thus inherit noble qualities. Usually, after a fight, they commence by devouring the bodies of the oldest and most courageous warriors, those most completely tattooed, leaving the corpses of the younger men aside, those who were novices in warfare, even though their flesh might be more appetizing. Thus, before all, the victors value the assimilation, the inoculation, the appropriation of the life and courage of the most celebrated warriors, however thin and fleshless they may be. Considered from this point of view, cannibalism is almost excusable among barbarous peoples.
The New Zealanders particularly esteem the brain and reject the remainder of the head. Nicols, 2 an English missionary, said, however, that Pomare, of the Bay of Islands, ate six entire heads.
1 IVaiJoua —wairua. It was not supposed that the wairua could be eaten ; the eating of the body however was desecration to the body and anguish to the wairua, —Note ; J. C. A.
2 See Note XXXIX, on page 407
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The heads of chiefs are usually dried and perfectly preserved by an ingenious process. When a tribe wishes to make peace, it offers the vanquished tribe, as the proof of its good intentions, the heads of the chiefs the others have lost. These heads are also articles of commerce in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, and a number, very well mummified, have been transmitted to Europe.
The bones of chiefs are very carefully gathered up, and from them they construct knives, fish-hooks, arrow points, and points for lances and javelins, as well as ornaments for the toilet. I possess some fish-hooks pointed with very sharp fragments of human bone.
Sometimes they detach the hand and forearm, and dry them at a fire of aromatic herbs. The muscles and tendons of the fingers contract so that the whole forms a hook, which they place in their huts for the suspension of baskets and weapons. I have seen several of these clothes-pegs. They utilize the remnants of the corpse In this manner in order to cause the family of the chief who is no more to feel that, even after death, he is still the slave of the victor.
Before the feast of victory, each warrior drinks the blood of the enemy he has killed with his own hand.
The Atoua, the god of the conquered, then becomes subject to the Atoua of the victors. Kendall reported that, in the neighbourhood of Hokianga, Hongi 1 ate the left eye of a great chief. According to their belief, the left eye becomes a star in the firmament, and Hongi considered that henceforth his star would be much the more brilliant, and the strength of his sight would be augmented by all that possessed by the defunct.
1 Dumas, or Dr. Maynard, spells these names “ Soukianga ” and “ Schongui.”—Note ; F. W. R.
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RELIGION
Here I come to some contradictions. There are travellers who claim that the New Zealanders believe the soul of him who has been eaten to be, alike with the body, condemned to eternal fire. I have never experienced any confirmation of such a belief. Since this idea is to be found among other Oceanic peoples, it would seem to be an error which has attributed it to the Maori. In Borneo, Sumatra, and the other large islands, as well as among the natives of Australia, the afflicted soul of him who has been eaten is believed to wander ceaselessly, and without repose, around the tomb (the ondoupa ) of his fathers. There are peoples who even have an Elysium (the Balaton hyppa , the At a myra ), from which the souls of the vanquished are for ever proscribed. The New Zealanders, while having complete faith in the survival of the soul after the death of the body, never speak of the abode of the blessed. They have other gods in addition to the great Atoua, the principal one; indeed the number of these gods is unlimited, seeing that each chief who dies victorious becomes one in his turn.
This is at least what I have been able to comprehend most clearly of their barbaric theology. The action of cutting off an adversary’s head, of raising it by the hair above one’s mouth, in order to drink the warm blood which escapes from the arteries; the action of swallowing the left eye and of enthusiastically masticating the muscles, in order to inherit a star and a soul: are not all these preparations for becoming a god in due course, when death shall supervene, whether in peace or in warfare?
There are always human sacrifices after the death of a
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chief, and the New Zealanders eat the victims, though this is not obligatory. The number of the slaves immolated varies according to the rank of him for whom they weep, because the tribe fears the power of the chief whom it has lost. Death does not weaken the principle of authority. This sacrifice is for the placating of the waidoua, the soul of the dead, and to stay his anger, which would otherwise fall upon the survivors of the family. It also provides slaves to serve him among the gods in the other world. A blow from a club {mere) strikes down the designated victims at the moment when they least expect it.
Religion orders, then, that the bodies of slaves shall be placed upon that of a chief; but it frequently happens that the sacrificers prefer to eat them. Like our own ancestors in the old continent, the Gauls and the Germans, they sacrifice men at the commencement of war and during its final vicissitudes.
Though the New Zealanders do not conceal their cannibalism, their chiefs sometimes endeavour to excuse themselves for it. Thus Marsden says that they gave him the following reasons:
“The fish of the sea eat one another; the large fish eat the small ones, the small ones eat insects; dogs eat men, and men eat dogs, while dogs eat one another; the birds of the air also prey one upon another; finally the gods devour other gods. Why, among enemies, should we not eat one another?...”
“Yet I do not see that one god ever ate another,” said Marsden to the chief who discoursed thus.
Hongi, the great chief, who was present, replied:
“That has been seen, is still seen, and will be seen again. When I went to make war in the south, I killed
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a large part of the inhabitants; then I feared lest their god might wish to kill and eat me, because I too am a god, so I killed the god of these strangers, which was a reptile. I ate part of it, and retained the rest for my friends. This sacred food saved us from the god’s resentment.”
In addition to the great god Atoua and the victorious chiefs who become gods after death, there is still a penate god for each tribe ; it is sometimes represented under the form of a plant, an animal, a reptile, an insect or a bird.
It was this same Hongi whom Dumont d’Urville questioned regarding human sacrifices and the custom of eating the vanquished and the victims; but the famous navigator only succeeded in collecting some already confused, false, or for the most part falsified statements. He passed through this land too rapidly, though this did not prevent him from leaving a work which alone would suffice for the fame of any navigator: the examination, the charts, and the hydrography of four hundred leagues of coast line along the two islands of Ika-na-mawi and Tawai-Pounamou.
There is usually a suspension of fighting after the death of the first chief to fall in combat. The party which has not lost that leader claims the body of the defunct. If the others are intimidated, they yield it at once, and in addition the chief’s wife, who is immediately put to death; she even voluntarily yields herself up if she loves her husband. The priests and priestesses cut up the corpses, divide them into fragments and eat some, offering the greater number to their idols, while consulting the gods upon the issue of the present war. During these ceremonies and the prayers, the other chiefs and the people
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squat around the arikis (priests), l and maintain a profound silence, covering their heads with their flax mats, in fear lest their profane regards should trouble the holy mysteries.
Then the combat recommences or peace is made, according to the auguries. In such a case as this there is no dishonour in the tribe delivering up the body of its chief, because it is only for religious purposes and the corpse is not devoured.
Under other circumstances, after the death of a chief, it is customary for the victorious tribe to suspend the combat in order to offer a sacrifice to its gods, especially if it has secured possession of the chief’s corpse. The wife of the chief comes to yield herself of her own will, that the vanquishers may put her to death. Then the principal chiefs and priests prepare the body of the defunct warrior; while the high priestesses and the wives of the chiefs do the same for that of the wife. The dissected bodies are roasted in front of clear fires, then certain portions, to the accompaniment of appropriate rites, are offered to the gods. At intervals the arikis take small pieces of this sacred flesh and eat them in deep meditation, having the appearance of consulting the gods upon the issue of the war. If the gods show themselves favourable towards the tribe, the combat is renewed; if not the tribe, whatever its numerical strength, and in spite of the advantages already obtained, retires to its pas (fortified villages). As under the other circumstances detailed, the warriors veil their faces and maintain a profound silence during this ceremony.
The religious rites concluded, the feast commences
1 Ariki, the first-born of a first-born ; not necessarily a priest, and wrongly translated as priest.—Note ; J. C. A.
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and the roasted flesh is shared among the chiefs and principal warriors, who eat it with marked favour. If the war is not interrupted, the greatest chiefs make provision of several choice fragments, which upon their return are distributed among such of their friends as were not present. This is a signal honour and a mark of high distinction.
When the distances to be covered on the return journey are considerable, and there is fear that the sacred flesh may become corrupted, they put in practice a kind of transubstantiation. The high priest takes a piece of wood called rakau-tapou, covers it with a heap of slices of pork and sweet potatoes, and recites further long orisons. Then the piece of wood is removed, flung to a distance on some solitary spot 1 where no profane regard can recognize it, and the pork and potatoes are considered to have received the qualities of human flesh, and the inhabitants who have not been present at the war devour them with delight.
Two Englishmen have related that they were present at the immolation of a slave in the Fiji Islands. The ear was a morsel much esteemed, and two of the chiefs each reserved one for himself, and ate it after steeping it in samboul, a mixture of salt and spices. Afterwards those present flung themselves upon the condemned, who still breathed, and each cut for himself from the body the pieces which pleased him. Soon afterwards, but only out of deference to the Englishmen, they struck the victim to the heart in order to give him his death blow.
The code of the Battas condemns to be eaten alive those
1 Some solitary spot,” this would be a tvaki tapu (sacred place), where no one dared intrude, and tapu fragments, etc., would be quite safe from interference.—Note : J. C. A.
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guilty of adultery, those who commit theft at night, prisoners of war, those who being of the same family or tribe marry, and, finally, those who treacherously attack the inhabitants of a house or a lonely man. A specially constituted tribunal pronounces sentence on these crimes. After the discussion and the sentence, each of the judges drinks a cup of kava or some other fermented beverage, as though to ratify the decision, and the execution takes place without delay, in the presence of the whole population. In cases of adultery one last formality is necessary and indispensable: the relatives of the criminals must be present at the carrying out of the sentence.
As remarked previously, the husband, the wife or the persons most directly offended have the right to retain the ears of the condemned for themselves. Then, each according to rank chooses his fragment, and the chief judge cuts off the head and hangs it like a trophy at the door of his hut.
The brain, to which they attribute magical properties, is preserved in a gourd. The intestines are not devoured, but the soles of the feet and the heart, cooked with rice and salt, are regarded as a delicious dish. The flesh is always eaten raw or grilled on the place of punishment, and the use of palm wine and other strong liquors is severely interdicted at these judicial feasts, where the men alone have the right to be present. Sometimes, also, they collect the blood in bamboo stems. In defiance of the law the women use a thousand subterfuges, and employ all their seductions in order to share in the secret of this horrible feast.
Some travellers affirm that the Battas prefer human flesh to all other, but that they only indulge in it during warfare and following the death sentence. Other
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narrators accuse them of immolating, in times of peace, from sixty to a hundred slaves annually. Though Christianity has not yet banished cannibalism from Sumatra, it has at least diminished the number of the more barbarous practices. Thus, to-day, the Battas no longer put their parents to death when age has rendered them useless as workers or fighters. Formerly, every year, at the time of the ripening of the citrons, old men were to be seen voluntarily submitting to death. The family assembled; the victim, weighted down by age, collected all his energy and sprang towards the branch of a tree, there to remain suspended by both arms until his strength failed and he fell to the ground. Then the children and neighbours, who had been dancing round him in a circle, sang this refrain: “When the fruit is ripe it needs must fall!” They thereupon precipitated themselves upon him, beat him to death, dismembered him and devoured his flesh, soaking it in samboul or sprinkling it with kart.
When an Englishman offers tea and milk, the Battas, often reject them with scorn, retorting: “Only children drink milk; Battas drink blood.”
Some of these details are borrowed from the narrative of Stamford Raffles, a former governor of the English settlements in Sumatra, who is considered to be a reliable recorder by his fellow-countrymen.
Most travellers assure us that the Malays are no longer cannibals; but I remember an American whaling captain, who made me a present of a phial of cajuput oil obtained at Ombai, in the Moluccas, told me that, attracted by the women, three of his sailors had gone furtively ashore at that same Ombai, in 1846. They disappeared, and when next day he went in search of
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them, with his whole crew armed to the teeth, he became convinced that they had been massacred and devoured during the night. In one hut he found some bloodstained fragments of their clothing, and some bones, freshly picked, as though dogs had been feasting, were scattered around a still warm hearth.
The Dayac-Kayangs , the Tidouns, and the Badjous, Independent tribes living in the interior of the great island of Borneo, are still cannibals; while the Dayac Mussulmans and the Malay population of the sea coasts, who devote themselves to continual piracy, have long since renounced it. Only the people of the interior eat their prisoners of war, offering them as a holocaust to the divinity, in thanks for having given them the victory.
When a chief dies, human sacrifices ensanguine the obsequies. Adulterers, both men and women, are condemned to death, as among the Battas, but they can redeem themselves by killing several of their slaves, afterwards giving them to the populace to be devoured in expiation for this crime. In spite of their cannibalism, the Badjous of the district of Maladou are the most civilized of the natives of Borneo.
It is claimed that the Bohemian Zingaris, who in our day wander over every country of Europe, and whose vagabond gangs we frequently see pass through our fields, living by rapine and a mysterious commerce, originated in the north-west coast of Borneo, where they constituted several tribes known under the name of Biadj-Zingaris. Their religion is a mingling of Mussulman and blood-stained rites.
It has been stated by de Rienzi that a Biadjak-Zingaris informed him that, according to a rajah of his country, the most delicate morsels of raw or roast human flesh
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were the ears, the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, the calves, and the cheeks, and that black men were preferable to white; that the flesh of young people was sweet and succulent, but that of a man of forty-five or fifty was more highly flavoured. He added that, after the combat, chiefs alone had the privilege of cutting off the heads of the prisoners in order to drink the still warm blood escaping from the veins and arteries.
We have seen the same claims and the same delicacies referred to among the New Zealanders.
CHAPTER XXV
IN THE FASHION
FASHION is just as despotic a sovereign at the Antipodes as in France. The sea-horse, a strange little creature fished up with the seaweed, having a horse’s head and a body composed of wellknit rings and ending in a tail curved back like those of the sirens, no longer flatters the coquette of Oeteta. Formerly it was preserved by drying and worn as an ear pendant. They have also come to despise greenstone and sharks’ teeth, which they formerly wore thrust through a hole in the lobe of the ear. That orifice, moreover, was very accommodating, since both men and and women passed the stems of their pipes through it when they had finished smoking.
Such primitive ornaments have been replaced by pieces of money transformed into pendants for the ears and into brooches, and it has already been told how Taillevent advantageously disposed of his false jewelry by sweeping up all the coins on the peninsula. To the desire for ear-rings and necklaces succeeded the wish for dresses and shawls.
One day when it rained in torrents, rendering it impossible to fish, hunt, or stroll about the village, the captain offered us tea in the main cabin, to which the natives on board were admitted. Captain Jay had prepared a surprise. At a sign made to them, two sailors
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brought in a box, at which the natives began to look curiously. It was a barrel-organ.
After allowing them to look at this machine to their satisfaction, the captain commenced to turn the handle and grind out an air with all the strength of his arm. The Maoris uttered cries of stupefaction, gradually drawing back in search of some support, as though, in their state of ravishment, they feared not to be able to remain on their feet. Having thus reached the wainscot, they sank down upon their haunches. King, queen, ministers, nobles, all the grandees of the realm were there, all in ecstasy, with pupils dilated that they might see the better, hands outstretched ready to applaud.
While this concert went on I was skinning a large kaka 1 with red plumage, a less beautiful, but more rare specimen than the green paroquet. Afterwards I intended to treat in a similar manner an Anthornis melanura , 2 the bell-bird which gave the signal for the nocturnal symphony to which I had already listened at Port Levy.
I finished wrapping up in paper my paroquet, my bell-bird and an ash-hued, wattled glaucope, 3 a kind of grey merle which bears behind the attachment of the bill two small dependent fragments of flesh, as red as the crest of a rooster. I then folded my arms and plunged into a profound reverie as to what I should do next in order to amuse myself, because, in direct contrast to the enraptured Maoris, the barrel-organ was most irritating to my nerves. During our long and wearying days we had so often seen and heard the revolutions of those three carded combs
1 The author calls it a Nestor paroquet. —Note ; F. W. R.
2 The author refers to it as Orthongi keteroclile. —Note : F. W. R.
3 The kokako, or orange-wattled crow.—Note : J. C. A.
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called cylinders, which gave forth nothing but “The White Lady,” 1 “The Village Soothsayer,” 2 and “The Postilion of Longjumeau,” 3 that we held in horror these tunes by our most famous composers: Auber, Rousseau, and Adam. 4 While I was thus meditating concerning the remainder of this day, which promised to be of a merciless length, my glance fell upon a pretty child with whom you are acquainted, and who was named Eoa. I confess I had noticed, in spite of her attraction to the wick of the whale oil lamp, that she was not only the prettiest girl on the peninsula, but also the most charming creature to be met with.
Chance—let us put it down, if you will, to chance—so arranged matters that at the moment she was extended at my feet, supported on her elbow and half-enveloped in her flax mat. She seemed less attracted by the harmonies of the organ than were her companions. This indifference caused me, from sympathy, to pay more heed to her. Her curious glances wandered over two or three coloured lithographs hanging on the bulkheads of the cabin. These drawings were by Gavarni. 5 The Ameri-
1 The three titles here given are those of well-known operas, but we must surmise that the barrel-organ gave only the most popular tune from each. La Dame Blanche is by Boieldieu, not as the author states by Auber.—Note : F. W. R.
2 Le Devin du Village, by Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), was composed in 1753. —Note : F. W. R.
3 Le Postilion de Longjumeau, by Adam (1803-56), dates from 1835, and is still performed from time to time.—Note ; F. W. R.
4 Auber (1782-1871) was one of the great musical geniuses of his day, and at the time of his death certainly enjoyed the supreme position in the favour of the French. He composed the music for many of Scribe’s comedies, but not for La Dame Blanche, as above stated.—Note ; F. W. R.
5 Gavarni was the assumed name of Sulpice Paul Chevalier (1801—66). He was one of the most popular caricaturists and illustrators of nineteenthcentury Paris. He first won fame as a designer of fashion plates. These
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cans greatly esteem them, and with justice. For a long time I sought to discover from whence they developed such good taste, but the effort was in vain; I was compelled to be satisfied with the fact. So well known, however, was this attraction that we always brought with us on each voyage a large number of those designs, with which we were able to trade. Gavarni may not be aware of the price his works command in the New World, but we are going to tell him. One of his women is worth ten pounds of tobacco, if plain, and twenty pounds if coloured. I owe the greater part of my collection of shells to the charming sketches of light women made by this eminent artist. Should Gavarni desire to make a voyage round the world, I could guarantee that he need carry no other wares than a cargo of his own albums. In exchange for one of them I obtained a whole box full of shells, not discoloured specimens or those which have been knocked about, but examples brilliant with the most vivid colourings, collected from the shallow waters of the Indian archipelago, where all the finest samples are found.
I return to Eoa’s glance. It was fixed upon a coloured lithograph representing a woman in a red velvet dress and with a crepe de Chine shawl.
“Would you like to be dressed as that lady is?” I asked Eoa.
were followed by series of illustrations devoted to actresses, people of fashion, the carnival, masked balls, etc. etc. Many of his series of plates, such as “ Les Enfants terribles ” (Those Terrible Children), “ Petits Malheurs du Bonheur ” (The Little Woes of Happiness) and others are famous still. He illustrated Sue’s Wandering Jew , some of Balzac’s works, and supplied nineteen portrait studies for Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo. In his last years he devoted much study to aerial navigation as applied to balloons. —Note ; F. W. R.
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Her reply was by one word only: “ Kapai ” (That is to say: “Splendid!”)
As can be perceived, this answer is more affirmative than our “Yes” a thousand times repeated, moreover, she flung it at me with profound sadness.
I felt pity for the fate of this poor child, whose life Admiral Cecile had wished to alter, but whom fate had condemned to live as she was born, poor and naked. My wishes, those capricious messengers of our fancy, would have transported her to France. I thought of what a magical change would have been produced in her by a silk robe swathed about her supple and slender figure; by a cashmere instead of her grass mat; by dainty foot-wear covering those bare feet, both of which could have been contained in one of my hands. I pictured her living among us, always pale, and thanks to that pallor as fair as our daintiest Parisians; always beautiful, but more pretty; always a young girl, but yet a great lady seated upon an ottoman and framed by a circle of admirers. I wished to see her in the proscenium of the Opera House, causing a murmur of admiration from two thousand spectators. “Oh!” they would exclaim, “it is Eoa, the beautiful Oceanian!” I saw her promenading beneath the orange trees of our Tuileries, followed by the glances of those who, passing near, paused to look, standing motionless for long to follow her with their eyes.
If only I were Merlin or Prospero! If only I had the magic wand of Tasso’s enchanters or of Perrault’s sorcerers! With one wave of it I would have caused to come to me, there on the rocks of TavaiPounamou, the best dressmaker in Paris, the most fashionable milliner, the most celebrated jeweller, and I
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would have said, as I flung a handful of gold to each:
“Eoa is a queen; dress her, adorn her head, array her, as queens are arrayed, adorned and dressed.”
Alas! Reality stifled the dream, and had my cabin contained all the gold in Australia, that dress could not have become fact. Yet my desire to see her in European dress grew upon me to such an extent that it absorbed my whole thoughts, and I sought in my imagination for some means of attaining the satisfaction of my caprice.
Having exhausted the repertoire of his three cylinders, the captain, yawning prodigiously, noticed my preoccupation and said:
“You are very fortunate, doctor!”
I shivered as I came out of my dream.
“Why so, captain?” I asked.
“Because you are not bored!”
“No,” I replied, “I was thinking.”
“Of what?” he asked.
“Of making a dress for Eoa.”
He began to laugh. “Is that what you are thinking about?” said he.
“Of nothing else, and you see it is an occupation sufficient to occupy me for the rest of the voyage.”
“How is that?”
“Certainly, since only upon my return to France shall I be able to shake off this fancy.”
“You think so?”
“Assuredly!”
“What kind of a dress do you want?”
“One similar to that engraving.”
“In red velvet?”
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“Oh! lam not particular as to the material.”
"But you cling to the colour?”
jo “You can see plainly, captain, that it is the red hue which attracts Eoa.”
“Well, what would you say, doctor, if I were to give you that dress?”
“You, captain?”
“Yes, I; or at least the material for it, and that for the shawl to go with it.”
“Come then, captain, you will give me immense pleasure; but how is it to be done?”
“I have, in some corner of the ship, ten bales of cotton print, and they will contain sufficient material for five hundred dresses and three hundred shawls.”
“Captain, you are the magician for whom I was seeking.”
“Do you desire blue, red, yellow, green, or variegated?”
“I choose the red, captain.”
“Go to my cabin, and tell the steward to give you a bale of red chintz.”
All that was now needed was a dressmaker, but not for so little would I renounce so fine a project; moreover, the dressmaker was found . . . the dressmaker was myself. Every sailor knows how to sew, much or little, and did I not consider myself a sailor? Surely, then, I must possess some talent as a costumier. That evening a gown with a wide skirt was half-constructed.
Next day it was still raining. I cut out the sleeves, leg of mutton sleeves, which filled out beneath my fingers. On the third day it rained still more heavily. I fitted a belt to the gown, in order to draw it in at the waist, the
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flowing folds of the jacket shaping themselves into a gathered bodice to form the figure.
Then I cut a long shawl from another piece of chintz, but this time of a white material decorated with blue flowers.
Lastly, amid the laughter of the captain and officers, I succeeded in disentangling Eoa’s hair and in passing a comb through it, finally causing it to fall in long black curls over her beautiful shoulders.
The following day was a notable one; it shone on the triumph of Eoa. I dressed her in her robe of purple cotton; I draped her in her chintz shawl; I raised her hair after the Chinese manner, and adorned it with a bunch of ribbons falling over the nape of the neck.
When she went ashore I swear to you that the populace greeted her with acclamations such as the august spouse of King Thy-ga-rit did not always arouse. She excited the jealousy of all the women of the tribe. Very certainly, that day, there lacked to Eoa only the being a queen.
This dress of Eoa’s soon became the fashion on Banks Peninsula. Each female native exacted that her lover on shipboard should give her a dress and a shawl like Eoa’s, and the captain was able to dispose of part of his wares. Eoa’s robe served as a model, and during the long evenings of our wintering the sailors’ quarters were changed into a dressmaker’s work-room, of which I was the head forewoman. It was a strange sight, upon my word, to watch those rough sailors, those children of the ocean and the tempest, fashioning ladies’ dresses with their calloused and tarry hands. Under the dim light of the swinging lamps, and to a running fire of jokes, they plied their needles, while the women hung
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over their shoulders and watched. For long the first hours of the night watch passed in this amusement. Then, with the coming of daylight, our men picked up their oars, instead of their needles, and amused themselves with the whales.
CHAPTER XXVI
A CHANCE WHALE
I ONCE performed my share in the killing of a whale, and I confess that it was by compulsion. It was not fear which hindered me from ever getting into one of the boats leaving for the chase, but my sense of duty and my post as physician prevented me from doing so, detaining me on board ready to proceed wherever my services might be required The hand accustomed to pulling an oar would be too clumsy for an operation. Yet to have returned to France without having jostled against a whale would have been a disappointment.
One morning, after the departure of our boats for their cruising, the captain proposed to me that we should visit a bank of oysters situated at the bottom of Togolabo Bay. We were to lunch on the shore and afterwards shoot pigeons. How many unsuccessful jaunts did I make after those birds before experience taught me where to find them! The pigeons only frequent places sheltered from the wind. On this particular day they were perching on the great trees in the forest, where the south-west wind did not stir the branches. My hunting would be fortunate, and next day I should return again. But on the morrow there was a stiff blow from the north-east, and not one shot did I fire.
These large pigeons, especially fitted for flying, cover long distances. I encountered here the red dove of
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New Guinea, the amaranth-coloured pigeon of New Zealand, the magnificent dove of New Holland, and the white-breasted pigeon with its neck shot with green and blue, and its ashen-hued back. I should never have been able to discover the white-breasted pigeon, the most common of all, concealed at the summit of a podocarpus, but for the aid of one of the children from Oeteta, who sometimes accompanied me on my expeditions. His keen and practised eyes detected amid the leaves the white patch on the bird, as the astronomer’s telescope selects one star in the milky way. When the child could not come, I tempted a little white puppy to follow me, a little rascal of a dog which knew what game I was hunting, and never failed to bark and scratch at the foot of the tree where a pigeon was concealed. I would search the tree and discover nothing, but the dog still barked. Then I would fire at random into the foliage, and the frightened bird would take flight so that, with my second shot, I either brought it down or missed it. On fortunate days I returned on board with five, six, perhaps ten pigeons, in addition to tuts and glaucopes. 1 It was not the hunter’s lure which thus drew me each day into the forests of the peninsula; rather was it the necessity of improving our daily fare, composed, as you know, of bacon, salt pork and pig.
When I wished to study natural history I loaded my gun with small myrtle berries. 2 The bird, struck, fell stunned, and its uninjured and unruffled plumage was
1 Glaucopes— kokakos, orange-wattled crows, Callseas (formerly Glaucopis cinerea), a bird long extinct on Banks Peninsula and elsewhere, and now very rare in a few restricted localities.—Note : J. C. A.
2 “ Small myrtle berries ” —probably the hard nuts of manuka or kanaka, scrub or tree-manuka, Lfptospermum scofarium and Ltptospermum ericoides. —Note : J. C. A.
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worth preserving. I summoned my childish recollections to the construction of gins and snares, the apparatus of the bird-catcher, but I speedily renounced these, because the youthful Maori who served as my tracker was himself an accomplished fowler. This was his method of procedure. He took the branch of a very flexible shrub, stripped it of its leaves and twisted the extremity of the bark to form a noose, which he arranged with a running knot. Then he concealed himself among the high grasses bordering the stream, and, motionless, silent, and indistinguishable, thanks to his cloak of the colour of dried grass, he waited till the fly-catchers and the wagtails came hopping towards their broods. With a slight turn of the wrist he was then able to bring down his branch, catch the bird of his choice by its neck in this new pattern of lasso, and draw it noiselessly to him, without disturbance and without frightening the other flutterers around. It is to him I owe the best-preserved birds in my collection.
Now let us return to my whale. We made our way, then, towards the bank of oysters. We were in one of the dismantled boats, that is to say one from which the harpoons, lances, and lines had all been removed. There were seven of us: the five rowers, the captain, and I. Scarcely had we reached the centre of the channel abreast of Cape Cachalot when an enormous whale, accompanied by its nursling, its calf, rose suddenly in front of the boat and sprinkled us with its salt spray.
What a figure Captain Jay cut, at the sight of this whale passing directly under his nose, and he utterly incapable of making fast to it. Not a harpoon, not a line, and no means of signalling to our boats, long since
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away! None the less it was impossible to resign ourselves to allowing such a fine prey to escape.
“Captain, here is a lance,” cried the harpooner, “one which I brought to fling at the wild pigs in Togolabo Bay.”
At one bound the captain sprang to the bow of the boat, and, brandishing the lance, cried: “Ready, lads, ready!”
The harpooner took the steering oar and, according to his commands, the sailors pulled or back-watered, pulled or back-watered again.
Well content to be in the thick of such a tournament, I folded my arms, having no oar to handle, but before doing so I took the precaution to fasten my gun to the thwart on which I sat with an end of spun-yarn. If the boat capsized at least the gun would not be lost. The mother whale did not seem startled at our proximity: she frolicked, turned herself about and raised the little calf, tired with following her, upon her fin.
Captain Jay, his lance poised, waited the favourable moment to strike. That moment came, and the lance transfixed, not the whale, but the calf.
I thought at first that the captain had aimed badly, but soon I comprehended his skill and wisdom. He was aware that the first blow from the lance would not kill the mother, and that she would then fly to a distance and be lost to us; but, by killing the nursling she would be detained immovable, no matter what might be her fate; as mother she would allow herself to be killed on the spot rather than abandon her calf. That is precisely what happened. Captain Jay was able to strike at his leisure, one, two, three, ten blows. The monster floundered, spouted blood, flurried , and died, without
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moving any farther away than if It had been made fast by the most solid of harpoons. How admirably the power of maternal love dominates the instinct for selfpreservation.
Thus at last I was able to say I had both seen and touched a living whale, and this in the very height of the combat. So close had I been to it that I was even covered with its blood. I had touched it to such purpose that my arm was almost crushed between it and the gunwale of the boat when, making a rush on the surface of the water to approach its wounded young, it passed along the side of the boat, flinging down our oars, which had remained in their rests, and, just as the sheep leaves a little of its wool upon a bush past which it brushes, leaving upon the grey paint of our planking the black and scurfy lamellas of its epidermis.
The sleeve of my overcoat was covered with these scales, which I shook off proudly.
It will readily be understood that we abandoned the pigeon hunt and the bank of oysters. We planted a guidon of ownership in the back of the dead whale and returned on board to prepare the apparatus for raising it, while one of the men climbed the summit of the Olimaroa cliff to give the signal agreed upon, by means of a flag especially erected there, for the boats to return to the Asia.
Part of the day was employed in towing the whale in and in hoisting it by the tackle. The Maoris came in crowds to lend our men a hand, and by nightfall the work was accomplished. Scarcely was the last morsel of fat on deck than the native canoes darted towards the floating carcase, which they towed to the strand. It was then a spectacle at once comical and disgusting to see that mob
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of men, naked and armed with knives, some hanging above the animal’s flanks and others buried within its half-open side, slashing off its flesh in every direction, and choosing enormous steaks, which the women placed on the grass in the rays of the sun.
That evening the fires of rich and poor alike were alight for the cooking of these dainty morsels. The feast began at first with cries of joy and songs improvised in honour of the whalers, while the next day the more thrifty housewives hung from the posts of their koumaras 1 pieces of meat to be reserved for times of scarcity.
1 Koumaras , sheds of some kind, but unidentifiable. —Note : J. C, A.
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CHAPTER XXVII
FISHING IN PARTNERSHIP
THE whaling captains considered that by working in pairs they would secure their cargoes of oil more speedily. Henceforth, therefore, the Neptune of Nantes worked with the Gretry of Havre, and the Asia shared her chances with the Cousin , Captain Vasselin. Each partner in turn remained at anchor, while the other went to tack about in the wide Pegasus Bay, the crew of the cruising vessel being augmented by a dozen men borrowed from that which remained in harbour; then, when the season was ended, the barrels of oil collected would be counted and shared.
Fate determined that the Asia should not yet leave the inlet of Oeteta, while the Neptune stationed herself broadside on at the mouth of the same harbour, the Gretry following our confrere, the Cousin , to the open sea.
On the day following this separation, the captain left at dawn and went to prowl along the sea-girt crags with our two remaining boats. When I awoke I found myself the only officer on board, with no more than three men under my orders; the cook, the steward, and the ship’s boy. I forgot to tell you that four of our men had deserted at Hobart Town, and that recently an American ship had carried off a further four.
The weather was uncertain, but even had it been particularly fine, I would not under such circumstances
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have allowed myself to go hunting. I therefore resolved to fulfil on board, for the time being, the position of “master after God,” and I baited five or six ground lines in order both to fish for my lunch and at the same time to distract my weariness. The fish bit so readily that I soon lost all interest in this miraculous fishing and, leaving the boy to attend to it, out of sheer idleness I set myself to examine through the telescope the amphitheatre of hills surrounding the bay.
What a prison that inlet was, what a funnel! A belt of verdure climbed to the summit of the mountain from behind the village, those being the only trees perceptible from the anchorage. They screened the fresh-water stream along the borders of which I had frequently wandered to kill kukupas, the great pigeons which came there to seek shelter from sun and wind. Heedlessly I then walked, stumbling incessantly among the stones of the torrent, searching with my glance amid the dome of foliage for the flash of a pigeon’s breast, as the astronomer seeks a star in the firmament.
I had arranged a nomenclature for all the varieties of pigeons frequenting the lands of the Antipodes, but of what use would it be to cause you to share it? It has not kept pace with science, since the Prince of Canino 1 reshaped the ornithological classifications. Go and visit his corridor of birds at the Jardin des Plantes (Zoological Gardens of Paris), and you will remain dumbfounded before those glass cases containing the marvellous encyclopaedia of pigeons, with their varied, simple, and
1 Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino (1803-1857). He was the eldest son of Napoleon’s brother Lucien. Politics had little attraction for him and he devoted himself to literature and science, and in particular to writing upon ornithology.—Note : F. W. R.
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splendid plumage. Every genus, every species has its place there, from the humble bird which has escaped from captivity, with its fustian garb, to the New Zealand species, amaranthine hued, with velvet mantle embroidered with feathers gleaming like precious stones.
As was his custom, the king came at midday to fetch the temporary spouses of our sailors, that he might take them to fish along the shore. Accompanying his majesty was a canoe filled with natives whom I had not yet seen on board. These new-comers were introduced to me by the king as inhabitants of a small village 1 'situated to the north of the sandy isthmus which, I have mentioned, connects the peninsula with the mainland.
The New Zealanders, worthy imitators of the natives of Great Britain, are very particular concerning the ridiculous formalities of official presentations, and I was thus compelled to add to my previous wearinesses the additional one of ceremonial, which I abridged as much as possible by a hurried distribution of J>aulo-o, that is to say, of biscuit and bread.
I was smoking a long pipe, one of those American clay pipes with the stem curved and coated at its tip with a red glaze, and I made pretence not to understand that my visitors, one after another, were imploring the favour of inhaling a few mouthfuls of its tobacco smoke. To remove the pipe from one’s lips, to place it between those of a Polynesian, and afterwards to resume it, without wiping it free of saliva, is the greatest honour one can pay a chief, a rangatira. In this manner one becomes permanently a tayo (friend); it is thus that the covenant of
1 The small village was probably Otakaro, on the stream later called the Avon, and still later (1850) occupied by the city of Christchurch.— Note ; J. C. A.
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fraternity is ratified, which has been initiated by rubbing the tip of one nose against the other, and by blending the waidouas (souls), by mingling breaths, mouth against mouth. During the earlier period of my residence there I had been weak enough to submit docilely to these disgusting rites, but I soon revolted and found a means of no longer prostituting my breath, my nose, and my pipe, particularly my pipe.
For this purpose I established a tobacco shop on the rack of the mizzen mast. In the interstices between the pins I placed three or four old, well-coloured pipes, which I filled beforehand. When a savage asked me for a smoke, I pointed out to him, with all the graciousness of which I was capable, the providential pipe intended for him. Not all Maoris, apparently, were pleased with my expedient, and I realized that it was not my tobacco smoke alone which they desired, but also the honour of passing between their lips what had been held in my own. I remained firm. I definitely refused my pipe to these new visitors, and I even repulsed a lusty fellow who, more urgent than his companions, would have insisted on smoking my pipe, even stretching out his hand to take it from me. I was thoroughly angry, and in the absence of the captain, the crew and Thy-ga-rit, either of whom would no doubt have intervened to protect me, I resolved to look after myself. From beneath my jersey I drew a little pocket pistol loaded with three buck-shot, and threatened to fire it at anyone who laid a hand on me.
I ask myself to-day, when gathering my recollections together, if I really should have discharged my pistol point blank at a man whose only crime consisted in wishing to sample my pipe. ... In answering my own
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question now, I am compelled to state that most assuredly I should have done so! Yet what madness! What a misfortune! What a crime! Most of the bloody dramas of Oceania have had a prologue no more serious, and it is grievous to think that a solitary outbreak of anger has many times provoked terrible reprisals.
None the less, to allow one’s self to be intimidated by savages is not to be thought of. Rather is it necessary to dominate them by the power of the will. They always hold in high esteem any man who courageously defends himself. They do not feel humiliated if overcome by a heroic resistance.
That is what happened when I threatened to blow out the brains of him who coveted my pipe. He slunk away and disappeared behind his companions, who laughed at his misadventure. As for me, seeing the laughter with me, I laughed even more loudly than they, delighted at the pacific outcome of this little adventure. A long sojourn at sea, always upon the same vessel and constantly seeing the same faces, supplies more than is necessary to sharpen the temper and arouse an irascibility in any disposition, however placid. I had at that time fallen under the malign influence of a monotonous and interminable voyage, and the daily contact with my travelling companions had gradually become insupportable. It is generally thought that nothing is more picturesque and varied than a voyage to foreign parts. Not so ; rather is there almost continuously a scarcity of adventures, and one completes a tour round the world with fewer romantic experiences than might befall one in circumnavigating the Lake of Enghien or that in the Bois de Boulogne.
I might have committed a crime purely and simply out of boredom, had not Providence disarmed me by arousing
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the smiles of the spectators and even making me laugh myself. The circumstances might well have become dangerous; there were only four of us men on board, opposed to about a score of savages, all of whom were, moreover, strangers to the Oeteta tribe. Before our crews or our village friends could have hastened to our aid, these bandits could have knocked us on the head, pillaged the Asia and fled with impunity across the sandy isthmus.
Fate decreed otherwise. Confidence was established between us, and while my Maoris buzzed around the mizzen mast, I quickly descended to close and doublelock the door of the main cabin, returning on deck with the key in my pocket. I also furtively padlocked the main hatchway, sending the boy to do the same as regards the quarters of the harpooners and the sailors. I took all these precautions because I felt certain the strangers would commit some thefts, not of objects visible from the deck and forming part of the rigging, but of those trifles so useful to the sailors: knives, pipes, tobacco, pictures, paper, and the like. I was so illdisposed in mind that it seemed to me, every moment, that the Maoris, laughing at first, became more and more turbulent, as though hatching some plot. Full of anxiety, I studied their behaviour.
At last Thy-ga-rit brought his women on board again; and I breathed more freely to perceive, at the edge of Cape Cachalot, our boats returning from the chase. The captain rallied me on my fears, distributed some biscuit among the Maoris and sent them ashore.
After supper that evening, wanting my pipe, I looked for it again where I had placed it, in a corner of the binnacle, when I descended to close the door of the main
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cabin. No pipe was there! In vain I rummaged every nook and corner of the quarter-deck. I experienced a regret with which only smokers will be able to sympathize. Evidently it had been stolen, but how was I to find the thief?
For more than a week not once did I pass through the village without closely watching the groups of natives, that I might recognize my old pipe in the mouth of one among them. So fond of it was I that I had even composed some verses in its honour.
I complained to the king, who promised to punish the tangata tahae (thief), if we discovered him. The punishment was to be no less than to crack his skull by a blow from a mere. Then his head, dried according to the customary procedure, would be handed over to me, and I should carry it to France to show the people of my own land how King Thy-ga-rit punished thieves. So furious was I at having lost my pipe, that I believe I really should have allowed such a punishment to be inflicted upon my thief. May Heaven pardon me, but one becomes cruel in one’s own despite by living among cannibals.
The tangata tahae dissembled his larceny so well that months passed without his discovery, and I almost forgot my old pipe in colouring a new one. It was written, however, that I should recover it one day, and I have religiously preserved it ever since. I never used it again, for fear of breaking it, and it now forms a part of a panoply of pipes collected by my brother.
Having returned one evening by land from the forest at Port Levy, by descending the mountain overlooking the village of Oeteta, I was waiting, near the wateringplace, until a boat came for me. Some Maoris were seated chatting in a circle on a neighbouring knoll, and
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called me to them. I willingly responded to the invitation. They were young rangatiras , already almost completely tattooed. We had lived together for five months on very good terms. While they jested with me about my hunting, which had not been very successful, asking me if my powder was good, and if I still had any biscuit in my game-bag, I caught a glimpse, between the lips of one of them, of a pipe exactly resembling my stolen one, save that the stem was shorter. I furtively examined this object, and the more I did so the more convinced I became that It certainly was my poor old pipe. Now, how was Ito regain possession of it? If I claimed It, he would never admit to having committed a theft, and would refuse to restore it. If, by surprise, I snatched it from his lips, that would be an insult both to him and to his companions. In that case, let me look out for my skin! The longer I hesitated as to the means to be taken, the more certain I became that it was my unfortunate pipe which was before my eyes, sullied, polluted by the saliva of a wretched man-eater.
Ah! If a mother will brave every danger to recover her stolen child, the smoker, the real smoker, especially the sailor smoker, will recognize no obstacle when it becomes a question of rescuing his pipe. Carried away by anger, a prey to a sudden exaltation, which caused me to forget those in whose midst I was, and the terrible consequences which might result from my conduct, I suddenly stretched out my arm towards the Maori thief and snatched my pipe from between his teeth, shouting in English:
“Thief! Thief!’’
The Maori sprang up at a bound, drawing the long knife which he wore at his belt in imitation of the whalers,
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and prepared to thrust it through my chest. Galvanized by the instinct of self-preservation, I had already sprung ten paces from the ring of savages, with my pipe safely in my game-bag. I held myself on the defensive, my gun thrust forward in the attitude with which one holds a rifle with the bayonet attached.
Those fellows knew quite well that my right barrel was merely loaded with small shot and a weak powder, but that the left contained three buck-shot for use against wild pigs or ill-doers. Hesitation was no longer possible. If the Maori with the knife, supported by his comrades, rushed upon me, I was lost and could but sell my life as dearly as possible. If, on the other hand, his comrades did not support him, then what an adversary for me! My hands did not tremble, my sight was clear, and the target was large and close.
Fortunately the thief was left to himself. Thus I was amazed when his comrades did not rush at me in company with him, but contented themselves with uttering exclamations of surprise, leaving us in hostile attitudes. He stood there, brandishing his knife, but I stood also, and held him covered.
I do not know if Thy-ga-rit had perceived what was happening from a distance, or whether he happened to pass by chance. Be that as it may, he interposed between us, and I handed him the object in dispute, declaring that, since my pipe had been stolen from me, I believed I had the right to take it again wherever I discovered it.
His Majesty looked at the pipe, turning it over and over between his fingers, questioned the culprit, who, no doubt, did not answer very satisfactorily, seeing that the king pronounced this judgment:
“You see,” he said to his subjects, in bad English, so
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that I might understand, “you see there, on the stem, these little letters; well, they form the doctor’s name; this pipe is his, and this man is a thief.”
Whereupon he handed me the pipe. I confess that it would never have occurred to me to tell these men, who were unable to read, that the letters engraved on the stem of my pipe, and which consisted of the maker’s name, represented my own designation and my title to ownership. Thy-ga-rit was doubly successful in giving such a sentence: firstly he proved his sound justice, and then he revealed to his subjects that he was more learned than they.
The Maoris applauded this decision, from which there was no appeal; and they pursued the thief with their hootings, as he disappeared behind the neighbouring huts.
Next day I recalled to the king’s memory that he had promised me the head of the thief. He answered me, without flinching, that he was about to concern himself with the matter, and that within twenty-four hours I should be satisfied.
Two days later he came on board to explain to me, with much embarrassment, that the thief did not belong to his tribe, and that he had taken flight on the very evening of the discovery of the theft. I did not wish to inform Thy-ga-rit that I only recalled to him his promise of punishment in order to have the opportunity of pardoning the culprit. No, with these people it was necessary to show oneself as cruel and barbarous as they are, at least in intention, so that one may retain a greater influence over them, and thus be able to modify matters at the decisive moment.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE GREAT WHALER OF SAG HARBOUR
WITHOUT being severe, the winter sometimes prevented our boats from hunting, and the crew, forcibly confined on board, taxed its ingenuity in efforts to combat boredom.
The dressmaker’s work-room, which had furnished the ladies with their cotton dresses, had ceased operations. What was to be done? Love had no attractions, and idleness wearied our men more than a whole day passed in handling the oars. Some did their washing, others repaired clothes, while yet a further number chatted in a circle or listened to the stories related by some old fisher.
The washing of the whalers is curious enough. They obtain from the whale a sufficiency of potash to saponify the thick coating of oil plastered over their clothing. Either you do or do not know that the fires of the furnaces which melt the blubber are fed by the spongy residue left from the fragments of fat flung into the boilers. This residue, formed of the network of cellular tissue enclosing the oil, burns rapidly, giving rise to much heat, and leaving a residue of ashes rich in the salts of soda and potash. These ashes are gathered up and placed in a barrel standing on end and with the head removed, but having a false bottom. This additional bottom is perforated with numerous holes and separated from the
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s
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natural one by a space some six or eight inches in depth. Fresh water is poured over the ashes, through which it percolates, removing the salts. An opening is made at the bottom of the barrel, from which a reddish liquid is collected, even more powerful than that which our frugal housewives call lye. This whale lye completely emulsifies the oil and greasy substances, so that a jersey which would stand upright owing to the amount of contained fat, becomes, after being rubbed for a few minutes, as supple and clean as though it had never been dipped into anything save fresh water.
The captain permitted this scouring after each lot of oil was stowed away in the hold. Here we were, then, some washing, some mending, others idling, chatting or listening to stories. These last had formed a ring round the cook, who had fixed his coffee-mill at the end of a handspike thrust into the windlass, and was energetically preparing our supply for the week, I have told you that the cook was the acknowledged story-teller of the ship. Moreover, he explained dreams, criticized presentiments, presaged gales of wind, knew by heart the Little Albert , 1 and adroitly practised certain clever and amusing tricks, such as the production of hair by scratching, the application of fire to rope-yarns without burning it, and many others.
The crew thought very highly of him; and, what is more, they were very fond of him. When the captain
1 Albertus Magnus, the Doctor Universalis of the schoolmen (11931280). Excelling all his contemporaries in the breadth of his learning, he obtained the reputation of being a magician, and many wild stories have been told of his powers. Two absurd volumes were long popular in France among the ignorant, under the titles of Secrets du Grand Albert and Secrets du Petit Albert. They have no connection with Albertus. The latter is referred to above.—Note : F. W. R.
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weighed out for him, every evening, the allowance of salt meat for the next day, he gave, without scruple, a fraudulent tilt to the beam of the steel-yard, and the sailors’ ration of salt pork was increased at the expense of the owner. Furthermore, it was always he who solved questions debated in the crew’s berth, and when he decided, there was no retort —his word was without appeal.
On the day in question the conversation was particularly interesting around the coffee-mill, seeing that a few strong minds had dared to contradict master cook.
“Yes, yes,” said he, ceasing to turn his mill, and holding his cap with one hand, lest the wind coming down from the bolt-rope of the foresail should carry it into the sea, “yes, yes, may the northern rainbow serve me for a neckcloth, and may I melt them down in the case of my watch, if ever you kill a single one of those whales. . . . Do you hear?”
“Cookie is right,” murmured some of the men, discouraged by a week of continual and useless rowing; “he is right.”
“He is wrong,” cried a harpooner from the south of France, “and it is I who tell you so, I who am an old hand from the Souvenir-de-Marseille. ... It is I who tell you we shall kill them . . . and kill them soon, too, and more than one.”
Alone among our sailors this southerner had always shown himself restive under the prophetic voice of the old cook. For all reply the man of the stoves shook his head, gave him a rapid glance askance, and stoically resumed grinding his coffee.
“You’d suppose they had their bellies full of boulders,” an apprentice ventured to suggest. “When we approach
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them they let themselves sink without so much as showing their tails. Really, master, they must have their holds full of stones.”
“Avast, muddlehead! If that is all you have to say, stow your slack,” roared the cook, happy to be able to vent his ill-humour on someone unable to retaliate. “What! . . . You have seen, you have touched, you have felt, you have tasted whales vittles, the sauce on the ripples over the side there, yet you claim they have boulders in their bellies! Come now! It is no such matter as that which makes them sink, don’t I know it? Too well I know it! Have I sailed ten years with the most famous captains of Havre without learning about these whales. Cunning that they are, it is no crook hook that will catch them, my hearties! They know all about the tricks of shrewd ones, let alone the shrewd ones of the Grand-Souvenir-de-Marseille /”
“Ay! Sly they may be,” replied the southerner, “but all the same, only lay us alongside, and stave me, but I stick twenty inches of steel into their vitals.”
“Stave you may be, it’s little I care,” said the cook, “but if you stick your steel anywhere it will be in the fish-pond, not in the fish.”
The company began to laugh, and the cook, pleased at still retaining the general approval, deserted the handle of his mill, seated himself on the windlass, removed his quid, placed it behind his ear to dry, replaced his cap over it, and, folding his arms, prepared to satisfy the curious, who with loud voices asked why the whales escaped us thus, plunging at the very first sound of our oars.
“You wish me to tell you, then, why you will not kill a single one of these whales?”
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“Yes, yes!”
“Well, I am going to tell you. . , . Pay heed, then.
. . . Pay heed!”
These words were followed by some meaningless and indescribable chaff between the cook and his audience, a prologue to his narrative which was intended to waken the sleepy and generally to arrest attention.
“I repeat to you then, that you will not harpoon one of these whales!”
“But why?”
“Ah! You are curious. Well and good! You will not harpoon them because of ... of the . . . pig of a word, it always disappears just when I want it ... in fact, because when you ship with Davy Jones in one shape, you make good. . . . You understand that, don’t you?”
This beginning attracted remarkably little attention from the sailors. The cook considered again for a moment, but unsuccessfully, seeking this word which escaped him, and promising himself that he would ask me what it was on the first occasion upon which I went to light my pipe in his galley. Then he resumed:
“You lubbers quite understand what I mean. You will not wound one of those whales because, formerly, they were old whalers themselves!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried the whole crew.
“That’s a yarn to spin! I say, that’s all blither!” But this objection from the hero of the Souvenir-de-Marseille was smothered in the indignant protests of the others.
“Ah! "iou may laugh; but every mother’s son in North America knows it. Sent to perdition for their sins, whalers of former days are sent to live again as whales.
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It you doubt it, keep your eye on those sly old ones which amuse themselves spouting a mile to windward. There they lie, hearing as plainly as any lubber on deck the call of our look out, the taking in of the main top-sail and the manning of the boats. They let you within an oar’s length, give you a cunning wink and, when the harpooner rises, sink I don’t know how many fathoms deep, to rise again a mile away, blowing and guffawing. . . . Cut and look for them, you spry young cock of the Souvenir-de-Marseille. . . . Ay, ay, lads, these whales are only tarry old whalers, and not even French ones; they are Americans, the old codgers of Sag Harbour. They can smell tar thirty miles down the wind, and will only sheer up to amuse themselves and hear our ‘God dams.’
“It’s truth I’m telling you; I was told by those who know, who always made Havre with a full cargo, and who never lied. Ten years I fished with them, and if we had chased none but these, I might have been shaken on the Havre quay heels up and head down and with not a jingle of coins falling, just as if I had returned from a share trip in the Grand-Souvenir-de-Marseille .”
“One for you, greenhorn!”
“Ay, I’d use the bowsprit for a tooth-pick and the mainsail for a hanky (it not being the thing, on shore, to wipe the nose with the fingers) if all your share for the season brings as much as a glass of rum big enough to oil my tongue.”
Saying which the cook again betook himself to his mill, while his listeners gazed open-mouthed, disappointment in their looks, as if they expected more.
“Well,” he resumed, “what are you gaping at? You think it’s all lies? Right! Who pays me to tell the
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truth? . . . Ask the gentlemen of the Grand-Souvenir-de-Marscille. . . . May the fire of heaven take me; may it blow as strong as to skin the devil or sink the ship, to take the horns off the cattle or bend my thumb, if ever the furnace is lit to melt so much as a single pound of blubber from these whales.”
“Excuse me, cook, but you are right; yet tell us, of your kindness, why the old codgers of Sag Harbour have become whales. ... Of your kindness. . . .”
“Ah! it is you who question me, worthless scamp of an apprentice ... it is true, you have some touches of honesty. . . . I’ll tell you later . . . when these gentlemen have grown tired of bringing in their spoil and we are on our way to France. . . . Only, for your benefit, know that it all happened fifteen years ago, while you were still at your mother’s breast. . . . Yes, it is fifteen years ago since a whole Sag Harbour family, boys, girls, husband, and wife, all the blessed family in fact, took to the water. ... In fifteen years there must have been some young ones. . . . That is why there are so many whales of this species.”
“Tell us! Tell us!” was the general cry from the listeners. “Tell us!”
The cook required much pressing, but at length he yielded. The southerner, as curious as the others, did not move away. Instead, by way of reconciliation, he offered the other an enormous new quid, which was however declined.
“Thanks!” said the cook, “mine is here, cooling, and if I am not using it, it is because the story I am going to tell you is so appalling that, in the shock which it cannot fail to give even me, I might swallow the plum. I say then that all the members of a Sag Harbour family were
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furnished with tails and a pair of flippers; but first learn something about Sag Harbour.
“Sag Harbour is the great whaling port of Long Island, a famous North American isle, surrounded bywater, like the Asia, and where there is not one person who is not a sailor or a whaler, which is also like the Asia. The women there are impressionable. When a Frenchman steers for and comes up with them, because the French must always carry on against the wind, they lay the main top-sail aback to wait for him. ... I know this, I am sure of it, because, just by the way, I was in port at Long Island ten years ago, when on my way to New York, as the result of an accursed squall of wind. Seeing that my thatch was then blacker than coal tar, I was able to favourably influence all the beauties of whom it pleased me to take the bearings, and I sailed much in the company of those charming islanders, who carried their sails very well and never knew seasickness save when they bore a child.
“Let us luff off them for a quarter of a point. It is not of my bygone rascalities that I wish to speak to you. I say then that the Sag Harbour , a magnificent threemaster, had a tonnage equal to the number of small glasses of gin which I can swallow (without loss of wits, be it said) during pay week I —seven hundred! One may remark, by way of detail, that it is a fine thing to sail on a vessel bearing the name of the district. Every time one speaks of the ship one mentions one’s homeland, and however rotten the biscuit may be, it tastes to you as good as new bread. When speaking of the homeland, each swallows his piece of salt pork as though it were a
1 Des decomples. The dicomfte is the sum received by each sailor ai his share of the oil, on the return from a cruise.—Author’s Note.
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slice of Christmas pig, while the dried beans which I so carefully cook for you seem as tender as the little garden peas of your good old father! This beer, too, made from the spruce, which I should have a certificate for perfecting, there is not in all our Normandy a small cask of cider equal to It in quality. Ah! yes, everything is good when the ship bears the name of one’s district! ... I am not telling you this, lads, to dissatisfy you with the Asia. . . . Do not think I bear any animosity against our owner. No, no! but Ido confess to you that we are treated like niggers, like dogs, and I promise you that if I had an income of a thousand little crown pieces, there is never a captain or an admiral cunning enough to persuade me to accept an advance of two hundred and fifty francs (say £10), in order to handle the saucepans on his ship. Good-bye to the turlutine , x if only I had a thousand little crowns.
“Now let us return to our three-master from Sag Harbour, from its first voyage it returned with a hundred barrels of oil, while other vessels brought two thousand. The owner pulled a face at the captain, but did not discharge him. They were cousins; and such a relationship, boys, is very useful in this world. Thus I, who speak to you, would never have made my first voyage as cook of the Archimede of Havre, tw r elve years ago, if my grandmother (peace be to her soul), had not presumably been the dear friend of the grandfather of the captain of the Archimede; moreover, it may be mentioned in passing, that it was from this same captain that I received the details of the story which you have the honour to hear related.
“On the second voyage of the Sag Harbour the same
1 See page 129.
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fate befell. Thereupon the owner made two grimaces, and asked the captain if he had not been fishing for pepper off the coast of Brazil, which was a jesting method of reproaching him for his bad luck.
“ ‘Look Sharp,’—it may be mentioned, in passing, that the name of the captain was Look Sharp, 1 the meaning of which is a keen or watchful eye—‘Master Look Sharp,’ the owner added politely, ‘you may now, if that is agreeable to you, go and take command of the Flying Dutchman.'
“The poor dismissed captain took himself off, as well satisfied as a fowl which has come across a knife, and no longer knowing in what direction to turn his steps, he returned to the conjugal dwelling.
“ ‘My dear,’ said his wife, as she kissed him, ‘let us go and buy that silk dress you promised me.’
“Without answering Look Sharp shook his head.
“ ‘My dear,’ she continued, T want my silk dress.’
“These hussies of women never end!
“ ‘Better go and find your old cotton gown. We shall need to sell it in order to buy bread. I am run down, Mrs. Look Sharp, run down, and there is nothing left for me to do but go and take command of the Flying Dutchman.'
“At these words mistress captain allowed herself to fall like a paddle on the deck of her room, remaining there as motionless as a boom, the scuttles of her eyes closed, and giving vent to sighs through the main hatch of her mouth.
“Master Look Sharp, having a tender heart, rushed out to go to the nearest chemist, and returned at once
1 Luke Sharp, doubtless, but we leave it as the Cook gives it
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with a cargo of sulphur, with which to draw his lady from that swooning tack.
“Ah! the poor man, he would have done better to have given her a decoction of stick, or a few blows from a rope’s end. While he was away the hussy weighed anchor and slipped her cable, the thief, making off with his cash box and the family jewellery.
“ ‘Ah! Look Sharp 1 Look Sharp! you are a lost man,’ said the unfortunate captain to himself. ‘No wife, no ship, no money! Where shall I direct my course now, if not to the open sea? . . .’
“So the unfortunate fellow, quite determined to swallow his gaff, pass in his checks, stamped determinedly down to the water.
“ ‘Nothing is easier than to make a hole in the sea,’ thought he, ‘even though I can swim. Ten pounds of pebbles hung round my neck in a handkerchief, with a piece of spun yarn for a watch-chain will suffice.’
“The former captain took his road along the shore till he reached a lonely spot. The tide was out, which vexed him, because he would need to wet his feet and entangle himself with the seaweed before he could reach the water.
“The sun was about to set and had already uncurled its great fiery peruke, and he only needed to dismantle himself of his breeches and stockings in order to descend and cool himself in the big pond. Look Sharp therefore prepared his travelling portmanteau by filling his neckcloth with stones and, while doing so, sighed and sobbed, raising his eyes to heaven. Suddenly he saw approaching him from the direction of the open sea a tall gentleman, who came out from the swell of the waves, dressed in a black coat and wearing black gloves. His face was of a
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greenish hue, and he had a nose like the fluke of an anchor.
“ ‘Here,’ thought the captain, ‘is someone who is going to hinder me at my job; but what a queer road he follows in order to accost me. At least he has no need of a brush with which to remove the dust from his clothes.’
“The tall gentleman in black continued to advance. Look Sharp still went on stowing away his pebbles. He took in ballast as the ships at Havre often do. When no more than the length of an oar parted them the tall gentleman in black said, without raising his hat;
“ ‘Good day, Captain Look Sharp!’
“ ‘Good day, sir.’
“ ‘Ah! he knows me,’ thought Look Sharp, ‘but I do not know him. What a strange person. Can he have been ship-wrecked? He comes on foot out of the open sea, and yet he is not wet! Oh! oh!’
“ ‘What are you doing here, captain!’
“ ‘What are you doing yourself, you who possess the property of the ducks, and can cross water without becoming wet? Who the devil are you then?’
“The tall gentleman in black made a grimace before answering, and attempted to laugh.
“ ‘Are you by chance looking for a fish beneath these stones?’ he resumed.
“T am looking for what it suits me to seek. Leave me in peace, in the devil’s name!’
“The black gentleman made a fresh grimace, and once more endeavoured to laugh.
“ ‘The weather is fine this evening, captain.’
“ ‘Come, return whence you came. If you know me you are aware that they have no fine sport who joke with me.’
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“ ‘Do not let us become vexed, captain. I am no jester, and if I know you, I also know your position and your prospects. You have met with misfortunes; well, if you agree to negotiate with me, I can render you a service.’
Listen, will you! Tack about and leave me in peace. What the devil! I have no money with which to pay for your services.’
The tall gentleman in black made a third grimace and again attempted to laugh, but still in vain.
“ ‘The owner who deprived you of the command of the Sag Harbour is one of my friends. He will reinstate you, if I desire it.’
“ ‘ln that case say what you wish,’ cried Look Sharp very quickly, flinging the stones out of his neckcloth. ‘Perhaps I shall have better luck on my third voyage.’
“ ‘Ah! ah! you relent; you will listen to me; you no longer wish to fling yourself into the water.’
“ ‘To be so well aware of what has happened to me and of what I intend to do, are you then the devil?’
“There was a fourth grimace- on the part of the black gentleman, and another useless attempt to laugh. “ T am who I am, and you are what you are,’ retorted the unknown sourly. In short, yes or no; do you wish to resume command of the Sag Harbour? Reply without any tacking about.’
“ ‘Yes.’
Do you wish to return from every voyage with a full cargo of oil? Answer again, without beating about and without yawing.’
“ ‘Yes.’
Do you wish to acquire an immense fortune?
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Answer once more without beating about, without yawing, and on a straight course.’
“ yes, a thousand times yes!’
“ ‘Well, everything shall happen thus, I promise you.’
Thanks! Now tell me who you are. Are you the Good God Himself?’
“At those words, ‘the Good God,’ the tall gentleman in black no longer made a grimace or attempted to laugh, but made one bound like a flying fish.
“ ‘ln the name of Jesus Christ, tell me who you are.’
“At these last words, the flying fish did more than jump, it writhed like an eel in a bush.
“ ‘Truly,’ added I.ook Sharp, ‘one would betray the Good God to become your friend.’
“This time the gentleman in black bowed to the earth before the captain, and smiled at him so amiably that the latter, not noticing that one of his eyes was green and the other red, asked him his conditions.
“ ‘My conditions, captain, are that you and all the members of your family shall become whales after death.’
“Look Sharp, stunned, back-watered for two or three steps, and recommenced his ditty;
“ ‘Tell me first of all who you are.’
“ ‘You will know later.’
“ ‘No, I wish to know beforehand.’
“ ‘Well, I am the king of the whales, the emperor of the cachalots, and on every ocean, not a single blow is given with the harpoon, not a single thrust with the lance, without my permission, and then it is to punish some of those animals, my subjects, who have become rebellious and obstinate. . . . Do you consent?’
“ ‘Shall I make a fortune before dying?’
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“ ‘Yes, and I had forgotten to tell you that you will only die after some member of your family has succumbed, and, without knowing it, you shall have caused that one, then become a whale of a cachalot, to spout thick blood.’
“ ‘The bargain is concluded!’ cried Look Sharp, reassured by this last clause in the agreement.
“He held out his hand to the man in black, who stretched forth his own. Look Sharp trembled in spite of himself when clasping the stranger’s hand, because, beneath the black glove, he felt something harder than fingers and more pointed than nails.
“ ‘Now, I must brand you, in order to be able to recognize you; such is my custom. There are so many individuals who do business with me, that I cannot recall all their names.’
“Speaking thus, he stretched out his big left hand and placed it on Look Sharp’s head, which he turned towards the sun, then showing no more than the tip of its nose, and saying to him:
“ ‘Close both your eyes.’
“The captain shut his eyes. Then the other placed two large fingers of his right hand over the eyes of the aspirant, and, after having mumbled a few words in a low voice, he said:
“ ‘Open your right eye and look towards the west.
“Look Sharp opened the eye and looked.
“ ‘Open your left eye and look towards the east.’
“Again Look Sharp obeyed. After this the tall gentleman in black passed to leeward of him and, bowing to the ground, said:
“ T salute you, and name you the great whaler of the Sag Harbour.'
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“ ‘Where have you branded me?’ asked the captain, rubbing his eyes.
“ ‘The first person you meet on the harbour front will tell you. . . . Now, before we part, I must show you something.’
“He picked up a pebble, spat upon it, and said to Look Sharp:
“ ‘Look at this, and tell me what you see in the saliva.’
“ ‘I see three boats chasing a whale; the boats are as broad as a hair and four or five times as long. The whale is as large as a young flea. It blows a quarter of a mile to leeward of them, and the column of water it flings up is not as thick as the spurt of wine which comes from a barrel pierced with a pig’s bristle. “Row! row! forward! Row hard, my lads,” cries the officer, who wears a red woollen shirt, a pair of pantaloons cut from an old main topsail, and has dirty hands. “Row hard! One more stroke! ... Up, harpooner! Up! Back-water, lads, backwater! . . . Struck! struck! . . . Make fast! Make fast!” And the struck whale makes off. . . . Ah! what a fine waggonette ride! Thousand thunders! Haul in the line now, and then one thrust with the lance. . . . Hurrah! Hurrah! it spouts blood already. ... It is the harpoon which has killed it. . . . The officer has been diddled!’
“Look Sharp was going to continue the account of this whale-fishing in some saliva, but the tall black gentleman gave him no time. He flung the marvellous pebble to a distance, saying:
“ ‘What do you make of what you have just seen?’
“ ‘Upon my word, I think I must have wonderfully clear sight. I had no telescope to my eye, but it seemed as though you must have stowed half a dozen in each of them.’
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“ ‘No. Henceforth you will see clearly, and you will be well named Look Sharp; I am satisfied with you. You will be able to perceive a whale at a distance of a hundred miles, and to a depth of a hundred fathoms. Good-bye, great whaler of the Sag Harbour! Return home, and there you will receive word from your owner this evening.’
“Saying this, the tall black gentleman moved away taking the road towards the tide, which was coming in.
“Look Sharp, as he passed through the town, encountered several sailors of his crew and many friends, but they seemed to avoid him now that he was no longer captain.
“ ‘Poor fellow,’ they said, ‘he has wept so much that he has developed a squint.’
“That same evening the owner’s carriage stopped at his door, and its occupant, who had reflected since morning, without knowing why, came to have him sign a fresh engagement as captain. Mrs. Look Sharp came to beg his pardon, and made her excuses by placing the flight of the morning to the state of her nerves. These whalers’ wives are like that; they resemble store-room lamps, which only burn when they contain oil. . . .
“Her husband forgave her, went away and after a cruise lasting eight months, returned with his ship loaded with oil above the cross-trees of the royals. The ship’s cooper was decorated for having invented a method of treating the boats so that they could be filled with oil, and the carpenter drew up plans for constructing extra storage room in each top, for the next voyage.
“Look Sharp’s reputation spread like a gust of wind throughout North America. Owners disputed for him keenly, and captains spoke only with jealousy of their
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great confrere of the Sag Harbour. He undertook four cruises, each as fortunate as the first, and his wife during this time presented him with four little ones.
“He already desired to stay on the quay (in other words, to retire) permanently, because he felt rich enough to no longer risk going to take a tot in the big pond, but his wife, who had set her mind on a palace in New York, begged him so much to let go the standing jib once more, that he yielded and prepared to leave. Then, on the very eve of leaving, what should happen but that cholera carried off all four of his children.
“ ‘Stop a minute,’ cried he, ‘I cannot go.’
“ ‘You shall go. I will replace them for you.’
“ ‘No, I cannot go.’
“ ‘You shall go. I would rather give you eight children than that you should not.’
“ T cannot go.’
“The unfortunate creature did not know that her husband was inscribed in the registers of the king of the whales and the emperor of the cachalots! She did not know, and so much did she urge him, that Look Sharp, over-persuaded, obeyed and left with the reflection:
“ ‘I am running no more danger than formerly; the oldest of my dead children was four; since they have become whales, they are still only young ones, calves. Well, I will not harpoon calves.’
“He did not hunt calves therefore, and made a very successful cruise. His wife, who during his absence had sailed in company with a young copying clerk, urged him again to such purpose that he left for the last time, it was definitely understood, and this without delay. While the ship was being refitted, Look Sharp’s father, an old man of eighty, slipped his cable. At first Look Sharp
T
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determined not to leave, but again he reflected, as on the occasion when his children died.
“ ‘My father,’ he told himself, ‘was humpbacked when alive; he must therefore be a humpback whale after death. Now, we never hunt for humpback whales, they are too thin; thus there is no danger that I shall kill my whale father. Let go the standing jib! Adieu! here goes for the last time.’
“Six months later Look Sharp needed only one more whale in order to return with a full cargo to Sag Harbour, and he launched his boat at a fat mother which was playing with her calf a mile on their beam.
“ ‘Spare the life of the calf,’ he cried to the harpooner.
“Three hours later, the poor little calf was swimming round the ship anxiously snuffing the planking of the hold into which its mother had descended cut into pieces.
“ ‘That finishes it, lads,’ cried Look Sharp then; ‘make sail for home. Up with the helm, steersman. Brace the yards squarely and bear down for Sag Harbour.’ Then he added to himself: ‘Now, if the tall gentleman in black, who made me squint but gave me a fortune, ever catches me hauling out whales again, I hope that roast pigs may run about the streets of Sag Harbour with forks stuck in their backs and mustard under their tails! Oh! yes, he will be a famously cunning fellow if ever he sees me take the harpoon or lance in hand again!’
“At this, and rubbing his hands, he went below to bed. Before lying down, the ship’s journal is always written up, and this he proceeded to do.
“ ‘Grow, grow, my little ones, my good calves,’ he murmured as he wrote, ‘put on the fat of two hundred whales; I will come and rejoin you when I set myself adrift, like my father, at eighty years of age.’
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“While he was writing he seemed to hear a scratching at one of the stern ports of the cabin. At first he paid little attention, thinking it was only an end of rope fretting the taffrail. The noise increased, the shutter of the gun port was raised and a countenance showed: a countenance with a nose flattened like the fluke of an anchor, with one eye green and the other red, in fact, one of which resembled that of the tall black gentleman of the incoming tide. From this countenance these words issued ;
“ ‘Do not let me disturb you. Pardon me, excuse me, Master Look Sharp, but write this in your log: “This day, such and such, the captain of the Sag Harbour fell into the sea and was not picked up again. ...” Write that and give me your hand.’
“The tall gentleman in black stretched out his arm, at the extremity of which he had a claw shaped like an eel-spear, which fastened itself on the captain’s shoulder.
“ ‘Heyl’ cried this latter, ‘ what does this handshake mean? Have I caused some member of my family to spout blood?’
“ ‘Yes.’
“ ‘lmpossible.’
“ ‘lt is more than possible, it is a fact. You have just killed your wife who, this morning, was brought to bed of a little boy.’
“ ‘Ah! the accursed female! It was decreed that she should always be my misfortune. I told them to spare the calf.’
“ ‘That you might have killed.’
“ ‘Why?’
“ ‘Because it is the consignment of a copying clerk. Come, be quick; there is a good breeze, and I am not at ease tossed like this at the stern of your ship.’
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“Poor Look Sharp was not inclined to obey, but the tall man in black hauled him out like a bundle of tow, and made with him a plunge which I do not wish to make, my lads!
“Next morning there was no more captain in the main cabin than in the watch pocket of my Sunday breeches, and the crew asked one another; ‘Where is he then?’
“The first officer took over the command of the ship, and set the course for Sag Harbour. For a long time they saw a big whale swimming in their wake, but the vessel had no use for it, fully loaded as she was.
“That is the story of the great whaler of Sag Harbour. He and his family live in these parts where we are working; you would really think he had acquaintance with all the whales in the locality, and that he had warned them of the method of escaping from the harpoons, lances and spades. That is the reason why you will never harpoon one of them, even if you have already sailed in the Grand-Souvenir-de-Marseille!"
Then the cook turned his back upon his dumbfounded audience, resumed his quid and again commenced to grind his coffee.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CARBINE WHALE-BOAT AND THE MOTHER WHALE
IT was during these long days of bad weather that we realized with terror the dangers and the tardiness of the whale-fishing. We then passed in review the various methods proposed for killing these animals other than by the lance; whether by the harpoon cannon or the harpoon rifle of Francois of Nantes and the Americans, by the harpoon treated with prussic acid as proposed by Gervais, or by other suggested means. We did not then know of the gunsmith Devisme’s projectiles and of his carbine whale-boat. 1
After a year spent in almost daily experiments, both upon the living animal and the dead body, it is no longer possible to entertain any doubt as to the great penetrability and force of these terrible projectiles, or that his carbine of special calibre is suited for hunting these great cetaceans. This weapon is as easy to handle as an ordinary musket; the conveyance of the projectiles in the boats is accompanied by no risk; and one is justified in stating, without fear of error, that henceforth the pursuit
1 Dumas, himself very fond of hunting, was much interested in this subject. In his journal Le Monte Cristo, No. for March Bth, 1860, he devoted two columns to the recently Invented explosive bullets of Devisme, then the best gunsmith of Paris.
Devisme was the originator of many improvements in both guns and pistols, receiving recognition and decorations from various nations.—Note: F. W. R.
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of whales will resemble that of hunting ducks on a pond. Devisme’s invention will not only result in radical modifications of the equipment of vessels commissioned for the great fishing, but will also influence the future of this industry, recently so flourishing, but to-day languishing and full of disappointment.
A whaling ship, with a crew of from thirty-six to forty men, can launch only four boats. Each of these is manned by six men: an officer, a harpooner and four rowers. This number of hands is absolutely necessary for all the apparatus required in the fishing: the harpoon for its wielder, the lance for the officer, oars for the rowers, who have also to care for a line more than four hundred feet in length. In addition, the boat is overloaded and encumbered with the tub for the cord, spare harpoons and lances, as well as spades and a drag. Instead of all these substitute the carbine and its explosive bullet, and five men will be sufficient for each boat, so that the ship, being able to equip five instead of four skiffs, will have many more chances of success.
The attack upon a whale with harpoon, lance, and line, is most complicated. It is necessary for the harpoon to penetrate at a chosen spot and to enter in a forward direction, so that, retained by the muscular fibres, it cannot tear out, or trip , by ripping the bed of fat which it has just traversed. It is necessary for the line to be watched with the closest attention. In addition to the often indispensable use of the spade, it needs that the lance shall penetrate either the lungs, the aorta or the heart of the animal; and when this struggle of pigmy against giant is ended, it still requires that the victors shall wait for some minutes, in terrible anxiety, until the whale ceases to flounder in the convulsions of death.
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Inevitable dangers are frequently caused by the least distraction. It will easily be understood how greatly our sailors rely upon coolness, skill, agility, and courage for the harpooning of a whale, for following it or curbing it when it flies, for giving it the death wound with a lance, and for allowing it to die without the ability to avenge itself. Frequently, at the conclusion of this superhuman struggle, the prey so ardently coveted, so skilfully overcome, escapes and descends to the depths of the ocean like the sounding lead.
With the carbine and its explosive projectile all this dramatic display becomes needless; the struggle is simplified, the result infallible, and the danger almost absent. Four rowers take their places in the boat, which is steered by a skilful hand, and is the lighter by no longer containing its harpoons, lances, spades, and tub of rope. It draws near the cetacean; the harpooner rises, seizes his carbine, already loaded and placed handy in the support formerly used for the handle of the harpoon, aims at the monster in such a manner as to strike it some inches behind the articulation of the fin, and fires. The missile penetrates the fatty layer, passes through it, explodes, is shattered and spreads to some extent throughout the whole cavity of the thorax, perforating, lacerating, tearing, and destroying the organs essential to life. The greater the number of fragments, the more numerous are the causes of death, in addition to asphyxia or the poisoning of the blood by the oxides of carbon set free by the ignition of the powder.
Custom will vainly be urged in denial of the immense importance of the results which whale fishers must obtain by using the invention of Devisme with all its stark simplicity. Men trained to this work will instantly
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understand that the future of the great fisheries depends upon the knowledge of, and the putting into practice of, this new method. In vain will they argue as to the difficulty of transforming a harpooner into a rifle-shot. Will it be more difficult on a boat tossed by the waves to fire the shot from a gun, than to project the steel of a harpoon or lance at a ceaselessly moving spot, alternately visible and out of sight? Moreover, if the question were not one of interest, would not the dictates of humanity impose upon owners and captains the obligation of substituting carbine whale-boats for all that ancient apparatus which has caused in the past, is still causing and will continue to cause, so long as it is employed, the deaths of our most intrepid sailors?
Not long since, the port of Havre despatched sixty or seventy vessels to the whale fishing; to-day it is doubtful whether there are eight or ten to be counted at this occupation. The Americans of the United States formerly equipped more than six hundred ships; they have not two hundred. Englishmen, Russians, Brazilians, Chileans have established fisheries in the bays of South America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, on the north-west coast of North America and Tartary, and in the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, besides other places. These fishing-grounds, after having yielded abundantly, are almost abandoned. In short, the right whale has disappeared from temperate latitudes, and to discover it again it becomes necessary to brave the neighbourhood of the poles. Yet is it profitable to fish amid ice, with a line which is incessantly becoming entangled amid these floating obstructions? Only the carbine can claim the cetaceans which take refuge among the ice floes as they break up. 1
1 See Note XL, on page 408.
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The future of the great fisheries, for the encouragement of which the French Government has, for more than twenty years, decreed a number of very important bounties, is thus seriously threatened as the result of the destruction of the species known as right whales , and formerly regarded as being alone capable of furnishing what is known to commerce as fish oil. Yet the oceans contain other species of cetaceans, the spoil from which, though not as rich as that of the right whales, is yet not to be disdained.
We refer to the hunting of the fin-back whale and the humpback whale. They are to be met with everywhere, but are never attacked—Why?—Because they defend themselves with fury; as soon as the boats are made fast to them with the harpoon, just so soon are they smashed. Thus their generations succeed one another in peace in every sea; they even frequent the shores of the English Channel, the (Atlantic) Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Devisme’s carbine will henceforth permit these to be successfully attacked. Struck by the missile, they will have neither time to fly nor power to smash, with blows from tail or fins, the boats which, no longer retained near them by the line, can immediately move to a distance, once the blow has been given. To safeguard the lives of the men, to encourage fresh and numerous equipments for the whale fishing, and to guarantee the success of such enterprises are the results of Devisme’s invention —one of the most simple, as are all those which are transcendent.
I return to New Zealand. A gale had driven the Cousin , our associate, into Oeteta. As soon as the weather permitted, we, in our turn, went to cruise in Pegasus Bay.
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All the ships anchored in the various inlets of the peninsula had arranged a meeting-place there.
What a magnificent spectacle it was! Pegasus Bay was a hippodrome, where the cars progressed without axles or wheels, where the reins were more than four hundred feet long, and the coursers were urged by the spur which kills them, and paused only to die. The sun appeared from the open sea; it rose from the far horizon of this ocean which, in these latitudes, sweeps its waves over an expanse of two thousand leagues, from Banks Peninsula to the shores of South America, without one island, one islet, or one rock showing above its surface.
The Asia , please God, will soon be crossing these immeasurable solitudes. In an oblique northerly direction, she will pass the Chatham Islands and, still further north and to the east, the archipelagos of Oceania. Nothing is now needed before we set forth on fresh adventure but two large whales, two whales each of which should yield us eighty barrels of oil, and then away for France, away for home! Before we round Cape Horn, however, we shall go to dance a fandango with the beautiful girls of San Carlos, of Chile, that paradise of the whale fishers. The sun will shine for us then.
Yesterday evening we anchored all alone in the centre of the great bay. This morning we can count fourteen ships in sight. No doubt all the barometers announced this beautiful weather, and the vessels which were sheltering from the south-west winds, in the various coves of the peninsula, hastened to come out and make up for lost time. Some are clewing up their sails and allowing themselves to drift, while their boats, which left with the dawn, are prowling along 1 that strip of sand which unites
1 See Note XLI, on page 408.
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the peninsula with the mainland. Others, at anchor, have despatched their boats towards the cliff's of Tavai and almost as far as Table Island. Still others, under full sail, but with their boats ready for launching, cruise at the entrance to the bay, ready to intercept the passage of the mother whales returning from the open sea.
There is the Angelina , a splendid sailer; she fires a broadside near Table Island, and salutes the Gretry, which advances heavily, allowing herself to be passed by the Rubens , competing in speed with the Aglae. The Liancourt, the Neptune, the Cosmopolite, the Due d'Orleans and the Havre plough in every direction the waters of this basin, which the tempests of the days just passed rendered so dangerous, and which to-day resembles a calm pond.
Each masthead carries its look-out, and the crews wait impatiently for the American cry to resound: “She blows! She blows!” Everywhere, north, south, east, and west, to every quarter of the compass appear isolated boats, tossing on the swell, the peaked oars of which resemble, at a distance, some spider lying on its back with its feet in the air. The hours which pass in this manner seem very long, with not one whale spouting its double plume of water in the sight of the fishers. Then yonder, yonder, a dark speck appears and disappears on the surface of the water, and the tail or fin of a cetacean describes an enormous curve above the water. Immediately the peaked oars fall into the water; the ships lay their main top-sails aback and launch their boats, and the chase begins, obstinate, relentless, with no truce until the death of the animal, or at least until night falls.
The poet accorded a triple breastplate of brass only to the man who first, unfalteringly, dared to confide himself
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to the mercy of the waves. That is not sufficient for him who gave the first stroke of a harpoon to these giants of nature; no longer are they sailors, men, beings like ourselves, who thus launch themselves into this moving arena, already in itself so full of strange dangers; they are rather madmen, I dare even say they are heroes!
Adventuring themselves upon the frail deal planks which the waves ceaselessly threaten to smash, they dare to attack a creature to whom the Creator has given the ocean for its domain, and which sums up in itself all that our imagination can conceive of muscular power in action. I still feel terror at the recollection of these great struggles. Once more I see the phantom of death seeking to overwhelm my companions beneath the flexible tail of the whale, which it whirls like a flail. A veil of blood conceals the scene from me, and, when the drama is played out, when the Bestiarii, with hurrahs of victory, return on board, towing the leviathan which their pigmy hands have pierced to the heart, then indeed could I feel proud to be a man, and I could feel elated to have received from the Divinity a spark of that courage and intelligence which suffices to subdue the most ungovernable of things.
Do you know these lines by Bishop Godeau of Grasse? 1
To beautify the universe,
With monsters in their forms diverse
He peopled all the humid plains,
And willed that, in their vast domains,
All souls their homage on these mighty whales bestow,
Which taken are for reefs that through the billows show.
1 Antoine Godeau (1603-72), one of the first members of the French Academy. His poetry is forgotten, but he is still esteemed for some historical works. Bishop of Grasse, 1636; Bishop of Vence, 1642. — Note: F.W. R.
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Here, also, are others, relating to that moment in the combat when, as I have already said, the animal, wounded to death, instinctively attempts to avenge itself as it flounders in its death agony.
Woe to the sailor in this moment fell,
If yon light oar sweeps not his skiff afar
From that terrific storm which plagues the swell!
All speed away, all fly ; the dying whale
Plunges, returns, and floats, so vast in scale
That still the winds and waves it seeming braves,
The while its cooling blood the billow laves.
(“The Voyage,” a poem by Esmenard.) 1
I prefer Godeau’s poem to that of Esmenard. Sailor for whaler, perhaps seems more poetic, but assuredly less exact, and one might make other criticisms. The whale which braves the winds and waves seems to me to be braving precisely those things with which it is most at ease, and without which it could not live.
Now let us return to our chase in Pegasus Bay. Of all those present at this fishing, we were perhaps the only ones especially desirous of not making a useless cruise, because, with two more whales rendered down, our cargo, as has been mentioned, would be complete, and then we should immediately set sail for the citadel bridge at Havre. Our competitors, our rivals would therefore be justified in lending us a hand and hunting for our benefit; we alone were leaving, and we alone could shortly carry news of them to France. It was therefore to their interest that our cargo should be completed as speedily as possible. Yet it was not in this way that they
1 Joseph Alphonse Esmenard (1796-1811), a Provencal poet, novelist, exiled after the 10th of August, 1792, and a Member of the French Institute.—Note : F. W. R.
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reasoned, and, really, I believe, had we been in their place, we should have regarded things from as selfish a standpoint. Brotherliness is only a dream . . . under such circumstances.
On an average a whale is worth £4OO. A tenth of this goes to the captain, that is £4O; the first officer receives a fortieth, j£io; the other officers a sixtieth, from £6 to £j ; while the members of the crew draw from a two-hundredth to a two-hundred-and-fortieth, say from 33/- to 40/- approximately. As the fishing payment is not by the month, but by a share, it is calculated proportionately for each one according to the terms of the contract, the number of gallons of oil obtained during the cruise, and the price the oil realizes at Havre at the moment of its sale or delivery.
It is thus obvious that, for all fishers, whatever their position, a whale is worth the trouble of a brisk handling of the oars. Then, to the actual gain resulting, add the glory of the triumph! Especially is this latter to be reckoned with when the ship is not alone in the expanse of the ocean, and when a fleet of twenty boats beset, as was the case on this day, one poor fugitive mother, who would allow herself to be killed rather than abandon her
progeny, and would become the prey of the most agile bloodhound of the pack.
At the cry: “She blows!” shouted by the look out, as he indicates the direction to the officers distant from the ship by means of a black bladder attached to a stick, the boats were transformed into sledges, gliding across the calm, green waters of the bay, as over an upland of hardened snow.
The whale was sporting with its calf in the backwater of a current. It might have been thought to be
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giving it a lesson in swimming, but, actually, lying on its side, it was permitting the little one to rub its body the length of its breasts. The little thing, which was unable to seize its mother’s nipple in its mouth, by reason of having only a lower lip, the upper being a pointed muzzle furnished with embryo baleen plates, obeyed a natural instinct and rubbed its body against the breasts of its nurse, in order to cause the milk to spurt forth. This milk is white, thick, and oily, and does not mingle with sea water, but floats upon it. The calf allows it to enter its mouth with half a cask of water. This water it ejects through its vents, while gathering with its tongue and swallowing the milk which has become entangled between the hairs of its baleen plates. What an admirable method of suckling! What a marvellous use of organs which, at first sight, appear to us so imperfect!
I have on several occasions tasted this whale milk, not that I have gone to rub my back along the extremity of the breast, but, after we have turned a mother, and the spade has severed the end of one of the breasts, and the milk has floated on the surface of the water, I have collected it by aid of a bucket flung into the sea at the end of a cord. The milk has an acrid and nauseating taste; it contracts the tongue and throat and induces an inclination to vomit. No doubt its principal constituents are similar to those of other mammals, save for a notable quantity of iodine, which betrays itself to the nostrils.
The whale, then, was nursing its calf, or rather the calf was feeding itself. The hunters, discovering this in time, and so that they should not disturb the tranquillity of this domestic scene and put so fine a prey to flight, immediately unshipped their oars, and,
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manoeuvring by paddling, advanced silently, though none the less rapidly, some in a direct line, others making a circuit, in order to enclose the pair within an unbreakable ring.
The officer, who always handles the great steering oar, no longer danced upon his stern planking to urge upon the boat a more vigorous spurt; or leaned forward to encourage with his hand the labours of the rower seated at his feet; he no longer complained regarding the energy displayed by his men; no longer did he unfold to them his litany of fantastic promises, by shouting to them: “Row, row, my lads! Row, row! If we strike it first, I will give you a barrel of rum! a barrel of gold! a new quid! I will give you my wife! . . . my wife! . . . Row!”
No, he was dumb, he was even afraid lest his breathing should be too loud, and his paddlers were like him breathless and mute; then, as they drew nearer and the splashing of the whale’s tail and fins upon the waves grew louder, the harpooner, already on his feet, stiffened his legs and, weapon in hand, extended his arm and aimed.
Our captain had outdistanced all his rivals, being already not more than a couple of yards from the cetacean, and, through a telescope, I saw him crouching over the steering oar, estimating the distance, imposing silence and briskness on his men, while causing the boat to glide as though cradled, in such a manner as to approach the animal on the beam without arousing any mistrust. Under any other circumstances, if, for instance, we were alone or working in concert with our partner only, so many precautions would be needless. Then the attack would be carried out with the bustle of
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oars clattering between their thole-pins, like rattles; the breasts of the rowers groaning in complete freedom; the harpooner excited to the utmost by the adjurations of the officer, brandishing his steel and roaring, singling out the calf, and this, struck a mortal blow, would henceforth serve as a guarantee of the possession of its mother.
Because, as I have remarked before, a mother never abandons her little one; she forgets the danger threatening herself in order to follow its traces; she threshes the waves crossed by those who have been towing her dead offspring; she recognizes the purple drops of its blood which have not yet mingled with the sea water; and, infuriated, distracted, prowling along the ship’s side, up which the corpse of her young has been hoisted, she receives a blow from the lance while Instinctively seeking to mount the bulwarks of the ship. To kill a young whale is then to kill the mother.
In the case with which we are now dealing, however, matters were different. The whale would not belong to him who killed it with the thrust of a lance; but would be the property of whoever first plunged through its envelope of fat a harpoon able to withstand, without dragging free, the flight of the animal and the resistance offered by the boats which It was towing by aid of that long fishing line to which reference has been made.
If the shaft of the harpoon broke and the barb remained in the wound, the whale belonged to the possessor of the harpoon; but if the steel tore free, tripped, and lost its hold, the animal might then become the prey of another fisher. Thus even when the officer of a boat coming from another ship succeeded in killing, with a blow from a lance, a whale in which you had
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lodged a harpoon, that would not prevent the carcase from belonging to you.
Captain Jay, surrounded by so many competitors, was therefore obliged to make choice of the mother, because some other than he might harpoon it while he was concerning himself with the trifle of the nurseling.
I could see his boat, I say, creep forward and arrive level with the head of the monster, then descend obliquely to the right, in the direction of the fin. Another caress or two with the paddles, one more dart forward, and the steel of the harpoon, flashing in the sunlight, would fall like lightning on the skin of the cetacean.
In her security, and with no presentiment of danger, the mother still permitted her breasts to be rubbed; but trade jealousy, the greedy and ignoble envy of belated competitors, caused the boatmen from other ships, having no hope of securing the prey which had escaped them, to give vent to frightful howls, and dash forward with a loud din from their oars, in our wake.
The aroused animal started in terror, perceived the threatening danger, convulsively swung round upon itself, and then, carried away by the instinct of maternal love, plunged with its little one, travelled a mile beneath the water, returned in haste to the surface to reoxygenate its blood, plunged anew and only paused at such a distance that it could no longer hear the baying of the pack which was in pursuit. Oaths and maledictions from the lips of Captain Jay were scattered over Pegasus Bay. He had his men fling aside their paddles and take up the oars again, and a new hunting commenced with incredible frenzy on all sides.
The whale cunningly displayed a marvellous agility, but without abandoning its calf, which followed it with
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difficulty. Several times it passed near the ship, and I saw that, to assist its little one, it carried it for some moments on one of its fins, yet without in any manner diminishing its speed.
Had the fishers not acted each in his own interest, had their efforts and their routes been directed in accord with one another, in less than an hour the whale would have succumbed; but instead of posting themselves at different points of a vast circumference and patiently waiting till the animal, in making its turns, brought itself within reach of their blows, they pursued it in straight lines, each striving to reach it first, and the sun began to sink behind the peninsula before they had been able to attack it with the harpoon. None the less the poor beast was more harassed than its enemies. Its calf only abandoned one fin to repose upon the other. If it still escaped the harpooners it was no longer by flying, but by allowing itself to sink. By itself it would have found safety in the open sea, but it could not leave the shallows with a young one only a few days old. It approached the sandy isthmus and followed the rocks of Togolabo, as if it hoped to find, among the sinuosities of the coast, an asylum for the night, some place of refuge unknown to its tormentors.
I, so proud that morning of belonging to this race of men who dared to fight like gladiators with these formidable creatures of the ocean, was this evening ashamed to watch the catastrophe of this fishing drama, in which twenty boats, like so many vultures, had harassed, hemmed in for a dozen hours a being whom maternal affection was justified in protecting from their cupidity. Truly this was a fine victory to inscribe in the ship’s books!
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Finally, fate determined that the executioners should not, on this occasion, slake their thirst with the blood of their victim. After vainly seeking a refuge along the sand and rocks of the gulf, the whale suddenly doubled Cape Cachalot, sounded, and went to rise again on the far side of the promontory, in the middle of the Togolabo Gulf, and within view of our partner, the Cousin , which had remained at the anchorage of Oeteta, and was preparing to hoist its two boats on board, after their return from fetching wood from the forest of Port Levy'.
The twenty boats of the hunters in Pegasus Bay, no longer seeing the animal, and unaware of where it had taken refuge, had already regained the cruising vessels. Had it not been for the presence of the Cousin, the calf and its mother would have found themselves in safety, and as bad weather is of almost daily occurrence during the wintering, they would have had a chance to avoid death on either the next day or those which followed.
As long as daylight holds the whalers keep a good look out. The men of the Cousin, then, welcomed this unfortunate family. The two boats rapidly discharged their load of logs, darted towards the whale, and, with the first stroke from a lance gave it the death blow. It did not defend itself, nor did it flurry, that poor nursing mother. It expired, barely beating the water of the inlet with the flat of its flippers and with its tail, as though in the convulsions of death it feared to strike the careless calf \tdiich still frolicked around it. Already when night fell an iron chain retained its body alongside the ship.
CHAPTER XXX
TABOO 1
I WAS able to observe the effects of the taboo, that religious law of which the southern tribes still recognize the power, but which those of the north, of strong personality and civilized by the English, have relegated to the ranks of obsolete lumber. No, I am mistaken: they still submit to this law, but under a changed form; an evangelical taboo has taken the place of the former one.
Three examples of taboo came under my notice at Oeteta: that dealing with a woman at her confinement, that of the knife of a deceased Maori, and that of a brand from the hearth.
First let us state what the taboo is. The word signifies religious interdiction; it is in use throughout the whole of Oceania and is written indifferently tapoo or taboo. Before the arrivals of the Europeans, it imposed numerous privations upon the peoples, and those who disregarded its rules were often punished by death. This law forbade women to eat certain things, to enter the places where men were taking their repasts, or to use fire ignited by them. Some great chiefs have tabooed
1 Taboo , Maori tapu. Tabu is the form adopted by the New English Dictionary, tapu being given as the Polynesian form. Its meaning varies from “ forbidden ” (the well-known German verboten) to “ sacred.”— Note : J. C. A.
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themselves; a certain Tamehamea 1 of the Sandwich Islands tabooed himself for the duration of the day, and whoever by chance set eyes on him was punished by death.
The original object of the taboo was to be pleasing to God and to appease his anger by imposing privations on oneself and, rather than labour to make themselves better, men hoped to obtain forgiveness for their crimes and faults by carrying these out with exactitude. As has been said, “Man created God in his own image.” Later the priests employed the taboo that they might command and obtain obedience, and every object, living or inanimate, to which the priest’s interdiction was applied, then became the possession of the Deity, and was protected from all profane contact. The natives themselves eagerly punish the sacrilege which infringes the law of taboo, thinking thus to remove from them the Divine wrath. A chief Touai informed Dumont d’Urville that the arikis (priests), when gathered in council, had decided that a European arriving for the first time in this land, would be excusable for violating these sacred laws because he sinned through ignorance, but that upon a second voyage he would be punished for committing a similar fault. If, from some presentiment, a dream or a word from an old man, a chief, or a priest, a New Zealander believes that his Atoua 2 is angry, he Immediately taboos his house, his canoe, his weapons, his fire and, in fact, all he possesses, that is to say, he wholly deprives himself of their use and wanders in distress, sleeping without shelter, naked and dying of hunger, until it is revealed to him that the Atoua is no longer wrathful.
1 Should be Kameharneha.—Note ; J. C. A
2 So spelt by Maynard, now Atua,
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Sometimes the taboo is inflicted on the tribe, on the entire nation, and woe to him who dares to disregard it! Sometimes it is relative, and concerns only one or several individuals. The tabooed person is isolated, having no communication with his fellows; he has not even the right to feed himself with his own hands. Food is placed near him by the aid of a long stick; he browses on his piece of fern bread, his potatoes or his fish, and drinks from the stream, at a distance from the place where the tribe has established its watering place.
The taboo is still more solemn and inviolable when it has been pronounced by an all-powerful chief. The poor devil, dependent upon his superiors and his priests, can only impose it upon himself. A rangatira , a noble imposes it upon his koukies (slaves), and the general public submits itself to the principal chief.
It will be understood how greatly such an institution favours tyranny and allows the abuse of power. Under certain circumstances, policy, I may even say good policy, takes advantage of this means. Let some famous chief fear famine, let him feel concern lest, as the result of too great a consumption of fish, shell-fish, or sweet potatoes, his subjects may experience a dearth of these, and he will taboo the surrounding district. Should he desire to assure to himself the monopoly of barter with a foreign ship which has just cast anchor in the bay, the taboo will exclude from it all his subjects, and permits him and his family alone to board it. If he wishes to avenge himself upon some captain, and prevent him from obtaining provisions, he will interdict all communications with the pakokas (pakehas). 1 The chiefs who adroitly wield this mysterious and terrible weapon are obeyed blindly.
1 See Note XLII, on page 409.
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The priests possess the same power, but no conflict ot authority between these two classes is ever aroused; they usually belong to the same family and have mutual interests to sustain.
Ceremonies, words, and prayers, as yet uncomprehended, precede and follow the promulgation and withdrawal of the taboo. According to Mr. Nicholas—a fact which I have myself proved, as you will presently see—an object may be freed from taboo by the aid of certain magnetic passes, which transfer its attributes to a piece of wood or a pebble, which the agent will afterwards go and bury in some secret place.
Certain things are essentially sacred by their very nature or by the purpose they perform, such as the attire of a deceased person, especially if he has occupied a lofty position in the community.
A man’s hair is sacred. The islander who has this clipped watches very carefully that no one shall remove any portion of it. He scrupulously collects it all and buries it in some spot known only to himself, and from time to time visits it. This fear lest the hair should be profaned exists also with us. Are there not those who believe that death will shortly come to one whose hair is flung into the fire? Does not a lock of her hair represent to us an absent one? Do we not make into an amulet a tress from the head of a dear one who is no longer with us? Does not a woman who gives her hair bestow herself? Who among us does not possess some treasure of this nature: the white locks of an old father, the fair hair of a child who has passed into a more beautiful world, the tress of a woman, forgetful or faithful? Dear ringlets which memory, or the glass of the locket which contains them, renders tabooed for us!
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The freshly shorn man is tabooed for three days, as is also he who has submitted to the operation of tattooing. I have already stated that, in New Zealand, food is stored on platforms raised upon posts above the ground. They thus construct their koumaras 1 in the open air for two reasons: first, in order to preserve the provisions from the moisture of the soil and from the voracity of the dogs; and then because they believe that animal substances
placed in their huts and above their heads will assuredly bring them misfortune. This superstition is taken advantage of for the purpose of getting rid of New Zealanders when they become inconvenient in a ship’s cabin, and if it is desired to send them away without using violence. It is then sufficient to hang a piece of salt meat from one of the beams of the ceiling, and they will at once depart. When first they had dealings with foreigners they refused to go below, because they feared that those walking on the deck above would pass over their heads.
I have not noticed that they refused to take their food inside their huts in the presence of Europeans; indeed, my supper with Thy-ga-rit, at Port Levy, proves the contrary.
A man of inferior rank has not the right to warm himself at the same fire as a noble. A brand from the hearth where food is being cooked is sacred, and may not be employed for any other purpose. They never ignite this fire from any other. The great Atoua would punish those who disregarded these laws.
In reflecting upon the motives and origins which gave rise to these interdictions, it is impossible to avoid admitting that they were not inspired in the legislator by superstition and religious prejudices only. Every tribe
1 See Note XLIII, on page 4.09.
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being constantly at war with its neighbour must, to contend advantageously, acknowledge the absolute authority of a chief. It therefore accustomed itself during periods of peace to that domination which manifests itself in all the actions of the common life.
Is not the very presence of that hearth, with its spark emanating from the Divinity blazing to maintain their existence, an undeniable sign of the power of him who possesses it? Does not the forbidding of a man to light his fire from that of his neighbour indicate to them that they must depend only upon themselves, and learn to be selfreliant by this very ability to produce the fire which the Deity has conferred upon them? There is not a religion of antiquity in which fire has not been more or less venerated, adored, or even deified.
If travellers, instead of pretentiously searching for analogies, which often exist only in their own imaginations, between the religions of these new peoples and the texts of our sacred books, would endeavour to give some account of the motives which may have inspired this or that interdiction in these children of nature, they would discover that all such proscriptions have their origins in the political constitution of the tribes, and that they are not rude imitations of dogmas and rites borrowed from the old world.
As I have said, the sick and women in childbirth submit to the laws of the taboo. These poor creatures thus pass days and nights lying in the open air between the posts of a shed. Sometimes they are condemned to an arbitrary diet, and only receive some gua doue (fern-root bread) which is flung to their feet from a distance, and which they gather up by the aid of the mouth alone. The wealthy and noble obey the same rules, but they arc
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assisted by their slaves, whom they have tabooed by the ariki, in order that they may use their services without infringing the law.
The sick whom I visited, and to whom I offered my services, almost always repulsed me. One day I learned that the tayo, the friend, agent, factotum, provisioner of the ship Neptune, of Nantes, which was then away cruising in Pegasus Bay, had seriously injured his shoulder. The butt of a musket, doubtless over-loaded, had broken his collar-bone in its recoil, and he was lying covered with blood in his shed. It was really the task of my confrere on the Neptune to attend to him, but in his absence I hastened to the wounded man. He was suffering horribly. A splinter of the clavicle projected from the bruised and blackened skin. He lay on his back, his arms stretched beside his body and his eyes raised to heaven as though imploring the mercy of Atoua. He was silently awaiting the remedy which the ariki had gone some way to seek. Meanwhile his wife, kneeling at a distance, was uttering cries of despair, beating her head on the ground and tearing the skin of her face and breast with her nails and some sharp stones, which she afterwards flung behind her back. I desired to give him such assistance as I was able, but the neighbours, standing in a circle twenty paces from him, cried out in chorus to stop me, and I was obliged to abandon the wounded man to his unhappy fate.
Next day I passed by the shed. The tayo was still there, motionless, and his wife continued to moan; but the wound was no longer exposed, being covered with the plumage of a green bird, and the poor fellow smiled at me. With that smile he thanked me for what I had wished to do for him, and in it was also to be perceived
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the hope of soon being cured. For a month he lay flat and motionless beneath the shed, treated with dressings of the green bird. Then he reappeared among us as active and alert as previously, and no longer showing any ill effects or any trace of the accident beyond an ugly scar. I was never able to discover either the name of this bird or to what family it belonged. When I asked for some information concerning it, they replied mysteriously that the great Atoua sent the green bird into the mountain forests expressly to heal the wounded whom he wished to save from death.
As I walked about the village, if I lighted my pipe at a fire where they were warming themselves, I could replace the brand on the hearth ; but if it came from a cooking fire the brand was henceforth impure and must be flung away.
Clothing, weapons and everything else which had belonged to a dead man were tabooed, destroyed or flung to a distance, and could in future belong to no one. One of our sailors found, at no great distance from the watering place, an old sheath knife, one of those which the whalers carry at their belts. He picked it up and, having returned on board and cleansed it from the rust which covered it, was sharpening it on the grindstone, when a visiting Maori recognized it, uttered a cry of terror, and seizing the sailor by the shoulders wished to prevent him from continuing to whet it. The seaman, none too patient, resorted to his fists. Already a ring had been formed round the combatants when the captain intervened. The matter was explained to him, and peace was restored when it was understood that the Maori only acted as he did from superstition and a religious sentiment. The sailor who had found this knife, which had
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been tabooed as the rejected possession of a native who had died some months before our arrival, gave up the weapon. What was to be done with it? It remained there on the deck and no one dared to pick it up. The New Zealander who had recognized it asked for a boat in which to go ashore and fetch an ariki. This was refused. He thereupon flung himself into the water, returning the same evening in one of the canoes belonging to the tribe, with an old Maori, a white-bearded pontiff, clothed in a great ceremonial cloak, a flax mat fringed with the skin of a dog, and with his hair ruffled and adorned with the feathers of a white gull. The pontiff approached the knife, which no one had dared to touch since learning that it had been tabooed. After murmuring some prayers in a low voice and gesticulating energetically for a long time, with the performance of a series of magnetic passes over both blade and handle, he delicately picked up the weapon between his thumb and first finger, and flung it over his shoulder into the sea. This being accomplished, the women, crouched upon the windlass, intoned a song of thanksgiving, while the ariki descended again into his boat.
The workman who builds a house, the carpenter who constructs a canoe, the planter of kumaras (sweet potatoes), are brought under the taboo, but less strictly than under other circumstances. They may mingle with their friends, but they may not serve themselves with food by aid of their own hands.
Access to the cultivated fields is forbidden during the period of germination, and the custodians watch day and night to drive away dogs, pigs, and poultry.
The domestic animals and fowls which Cook gave to these natives were killed immediately after his departure.
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The aboriginals did not desire them to increase, because these new guests continually violated forbidden places and penetrated the cultivated plots and the morals (cemeteries). 1
Agriculture, here still in its infancy, has its festivals, its mystic ceremonies and its religious rites, just as in the old Chinese Empire. The missionary Kendall, who asked a chief in the Bay of Islands why the tribal leaders were present in their festive garb at the sowing of the land, received this reply;
“Behold the sky; when the tiny clouds gather across its expanse and the sun shines upon them, well, it is a festival above, and the great Atoua is planting his sweet potatoes. We must do like him, and rejoice when we plant ours.”
D’Urville relates that, at Kawakawa, he was never able to obtain permission to pass near the sacred cultivations.
When a New Zealander undertakes a journey either by sea or land, his wife, his children, and his friends taboo themselves during the day following his departure, in order to attract to the absent one the protection of the Deity. When we left the peninsula my friend King Thy-ga-rit gave me to understand that directly the Asia had rounded the cliff of Olimaroa he intended to taboo himself.
The mother of Schongui (Hongi), the great chief of whom I spoke in connection with cannibalism, remained tabooed during the whole period of her son’s voyage to England. A woman slave helped her to eat by means of a kind of spatula with a wooden handle about ten feet long.
When the tribe goes to war, a priest submits himself to the rigours of this interdiction until the warriors return.
1 See Note XLIV, on page 409.
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Fish caught in the autumn, when provision is made for the winter, is tabooed. Were it not for this enforced abstinence, they would not store a sufficient supply, since the fishers would eat them as fast as they were taken from the water.
Some authors, of the kind who desire to systematize everything, have claimed that the New Zealanders prove their Jewish origin by their features, by circumcision, which I confess never to have seen, and by their refusal to eat pork. This last proof is of as little worth as either of the others. How many times have I seen the kinglets of the peninsula and their subjects devour with gusto the salt pork which has been offered to them. If the natives sometimes rejected this food, it was only in the early days of their connection with Europeans, not because it was pig’s flesh, but because it was salted, and they have never been accustomed, as I said before, to use this condiment. I have frequently noticed a little preliminary ceremony which was never omitted by one New Zealander of the old school, when Captain Jay admitted him to our table. The English missionaries have also remarked this custom among their various guests. The worthy man, before devouring his portion of salt pork, chewed a smjll piece between his teeth and flung it beneath the table while murmuring a prayer.
The taboo also had its part in commercial transactions. If a native buys anything and is not able to pay cash, he attaches to the article a thread of flax and utters the word “ sacred.” 1 Then he departs, presently to return and redeem his pledge. It is never prudent to sell to them on
1 He rendered the article tapu to himself—that is, forbidden to anyone else. So the Maori would often tapu a piece of land for a purchaser, as we ourselves will secure the option by paying a deposit. The Maori karakia served the purpose of a deposit.—Note : J. C. A.
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credit, especially if one has not taken the precaution to engage their conscience by means of the taboo.
Thus this law plays an important role among these outcasts from civilization. It directs, modifies, and determines all their actions, and causes the Deity to ceaselessly intervene.
I had always heard it said that the dead were buried, each in a solitary place surrounded by palisades and tabooed; that after a certain time the family came to recover the bones, in other words to dig up the corpse, remove from the bones the still adherent putrefied flesh, cleanse them with much ceremony, and convey them to the family moral , a kind of enclosure far removed from the haunts of the living, where henceforth they would bleach in the open air, upon platforms raised some feet above the soil. I was therefore astonished one day to find near the village of Togolabo, a wooden coffin painted red and fastened to the top of a post. At its foot crouched a weeping woman who made me a sign to move away quickly. I asked a person who was fashioning rush baskets not far away, and who spoke a little English, what this exposure of the coffin signified. He told me that this woman, the widow of a chief killed some months previously when searching for greenstone in the Tavai lake, had recently lost her child. Instead of burying it she had subjected it to the fumigation of aromatic plants in order to preserve it entire, as they do heads. She remained there for an entire year, until the wai doua , that is the soul of the child, had become entirely separated from the body. Then she departed, bearing the little coffin on her back, to seek the bones of her husband. If she were fortunate enough to discover them, she would bring them back to the family moral.
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T his piety towards the dead frequently inspired the sentimentality of the eighteenth-century writers. Who does not remember the picture of the king’s painter Lebarbier l : Canadians at the Grave of their Children? The fact or legend is borrowed from the book of the priest Raynal: The Philosophical and Political History of the Indies? This priest, no great physiologist, drew his inferences from the case of a Canadian woman who, six months after her accouchement , came to cause the milk from her breasts to fall upon the tomb of her stillborn child.
Blood alone will avenge the violation of the tombs. Word was brought to Hongi that the members of a neighbouring tribe at Whangaroa had carried off the bones of his wife’s father from the morai in which they
had been deposited. Hongi could scarcely credit such a profanation without first personally verifying it. He left then for the morai , and there found only a few ribs and the broken part of the top of a skull. The bones of the arms, legs and jaws had been smashed to pieces and converted into fish-hooks. Overcome by fury, he advanced alone towards the village of those desecrators and, pausing to aim his gun, declared to the Maoris that he had come to punish them. The guilty remained silent, and the terrible chief killed five with his gun, without the slightest effort on the part of the tribe to defend them.
The corpses of slaves are abandoned without burial, or flung into the sea.
1 See Note XLV, on page 409.
2 Guillaume Thomas Franpois Raynal (1713-96). The book named is correctly VHistoire Philosophique des Etablissements et du Commerce des Europeens dans les deux Indes, 1770. It was burnt by order of the Parliament of Paris as “ impious, blasphemous, seditious,” etc. Raynal was a Jesuit. —Note ; F. W. R.
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Yet, have I not already stated that all passes; the taboo is degenerating. The northern isle is English; already the peninsula is so in name; in my day there were already some at Port Cooper strong-minded enough to eat beneath their roofs, and who no longer tabooed themselves after getting their hair cut.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE GREENSTONE LAKE
EVER since my arrival on the peninsula I had been tormented by the desire to proceed on an expedition to the mysterious lake Tavai-Pounamou , l which gives its name to the great southern land, and upon the borders of which the natives collect the greenstone, the pounamou , from which they shaped the points of their spears and the heads of their axes before Europeans brought them iron and steel. To-day they only make of it talismans, amulets, or ornaments worn round the neck or in the ears. They no longer even appear to value them, and they willingly exchange these curious trifles for powder or for copper trinkets.
The pounamou , greenstone or oriental nephritic jade, is frequently met with as thin veins in the numerous crags of greyish talc to be found in the South Island; but that which is most highly esteemed and most venerated comes from the great inland lake situated at two days’ journey on foot to the south-west of Cook Strait. This has a sacred origin. A divine fish inhabits the waters of the lake, and when it is stranded on the shore it becomes transmuted into greenstone instead of decaying.
The family of fishes was certain to supply some gods to this island people, who are born, live and die beside the ocean. The northern land, that volcanic soil which
1 See Note XLVI, on page 410.
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quakes so frequently, is, as you know, Ika-na-mawai , the marine monster which angrily shakes itself beneath the waves. The southern land, colder, more stable, is Pou-na-ntou , the petrified fish.
The numerous pieces of greenstone which I have seen, handled and brought to France, vary in length from two to eight inches, with a uniform thickness of one and a half or two. It is said to exist in much larger fragments. Some are opaque, others veined or striated with a more or less dark green tint.
Days, weeks, and months passed, without it being possible for me to leave the ship for a few consecutive days. My guide, the tayo or ship’s friend, calculated that we should require two days and two nights at least for this pilgrimage, and always, just when we were about to leave, some vexatious occurrence would prevent. A man would be injured or one would fall sick; it would commence to rain or the Asia would again proceed to cruise in Pegasus Bay. Sometimes Captain Jay promised to accompany me, if I would wait until a whale was killed, rendered down and stowed in the hold. I waited therefore, but he was never ready.
At last, one beautiful morning, he gave me my liberty, and we left, a party of three: a confrere of mine, the surgeon of the Angelina , our tayo, Kao-kao, and I. In addition to our weapons, a gun and a whaler’s knife at the belt, we each carried a red woollen rug bandolierwise and a good supply of powder and both bullets and small shots. The tayo was loaded with a bag of biscuit and some ready-cooked salt meat. His dog, a humble but intelligent animal, hobbled along behind him. It is claimed that these creatures, which resemble the pariah dogs of the Indies, are peculiar to New Zealand. It
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would be difficult to prove this assertion to-day. The pure type, if it ever existed, has long since vanished. The savage packs which howl on the shores, and in the wastes of the Bay of Islands, and which furnish the natives with the most desirable dishes for their religious festivals, have sprung from successive crossings of the different species brought by European ships during the past eighty years. On his first voyage Cook found dogs there, but Tasman had been before him, and doubtless, still earlier, other navigators or some shipwrecked unknowns.
For the most part the dogs of Oeteta resemble our sheep-dogs. The head is unusually large, the eyes very small, the ears pointed, the hair Jong, yellowish and almost always flecked with white, and the tail short and bushy. They are lazy and have but a feeble scent, though their powerful sight obviates this disadvantage. Old travellers relate that the dogs of Europe lose their bark after living for some time at New Orleans and in the Americas. Assuredly nothing is less correct regarding the New Zealand dogs. I have already stated that I found no special characteristics among the crowd of hideous, famished, and ferocious mongrels of divers breeds, which so often deprived me of sleep by their nocturnal bowlings. The Australian dog possesses some things which are at least more original: its tail, its patience, and its silence. The tail resembles that of the fox, and its patience is such that it can remain suspended by it, silent and motionless, for more than an hour. When I was hunting in the neighbourhood of Cape Leeuwin, on the southern coast of Australia, I encountered a black Alfourous prowling with his dog amid some thickets of mimosae. The savage, no doubt fearing that
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1 should carry off his animal, grasped it by the tail, flung it over his shoulder and kept it hanging there, concealed behind his back, as long as our interview lasted. The dogs of New Holland, not having become debased like those of New Zealand, the Australians do not desire to lose the few they possess. They do not eat them, but prefer the clammy flesh of the lizard, killing it with a blow from their spear, after driving it from the bushes in which it lies concealed. Their dogs do not even give themselves the trouble to seek the reptile; the man sets fire to the brushwood, and the animal betrays its presence by flying before the flame.
We left the Asia then at daybreak, and the captain was obliging enough to permit me to take advantage of the boat which left the ship to convey the men who were to keep watch along the sandy strip. By this means we were able to avoid a march of half a day, gaining by sea the mouth of the Teo-ne-poto, 1 a little river which flows into Pegasus Bay to the west of Cape Cachalot, where the rocky slopes of the northern border of Togolabo Inlet bury themselves in the sands of the extensive strand 2 stretching away towards the north. This crossing by boat did not exhaust our strength at the commencement of the journey, and we were able to avoid the tiring climb over the mountain looking down upon Oeteta.
The sailor on fatigue duty is always sullen and crossgrained. It is much worse when the labour begins with the dawn, when eight bells is struck and the sing-song
1 See Note XLVII, on page 411.
2 The extensive strand would be the New Brighton beach, which extends in a hard level sweep from the estuary to the mouth of the Waimakariri River, a distance of about ten miles.—Note : I. C. A.
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of the apprentice summons with a loud voice either the port or the starboard watch, as the case may be: “Hullo, there! Starboard watch! Wretched snails! Ihe jolly port watch will eat your stew! Hullo, there! On deck! On deck 1” Thus he brutally snatches them from the comfort of a sleep always, unfortunately, too brief and always too broken. When the vessel is under sail the period for rest is each alternate four-hourly spell; when it is fishing in the open sea both watches labour while the light lasts, and each gets barely four hours of sleep at night, when in turn it is relieved by the other.
Our rowers were then in a bad humour and still halt asleep. The boat hobbled along, and it seemed as though the oars were afraid of doing themselves some damage in the swell. Tieutenant Seigle was in command and did not show any good cheer. It might have been thought that because we were three passengers aboard the crew was knocked up 1 I knew my company, and was quite well aware that cheerful conversation and provocative laughter from me would have no effect upon this general sullenness. It was not joviality that was required to whip up these tortoises, but a flask. Without saying a word I offered my uncorked bottle to the officer, and he, also without a word, placed it to his lips and kept it there for as long as it takes the binnacle sand-glass to run—one minute —while the rowers watched with greedy eyes the movements made by his throat in swallowing. Seigle, as his only thanks, passed the back of his hand over his mouth and returned the flask to me. I gave it to the harpooner, who, more eloquent than Seigle, said “Hum!” after having drunk. The man pulling the long central oar wet his whistle and murmured a.“ Many thanks!” as he passed the “life-saver” to
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his neighbour, who, in his turn, remarked that the doctor’s medicine was quite to his liking. The remaining two men wiped it as clean as the barrel of a gun.
The ice was broken, and so well did the rum act that even before we reached the three rocks just awash off Cape Cachalot, the chatter, merriment, and animation of a cheerful day had been recovered. A jocular baritone commenced to sing one of his barcarolles to stimulate the rowers, bringing harmony to their efforts and aiding their progress, so that distances covered slowly and painfully in silence before were now sped over with marvellous rapidity and without fatigue. When a w’hale was being chased, it is true they could not sing, but then emulation, the enticement of gain and of glory took the place of the barcarolles.
I knew many of these songs, and some I still recollect, but the finest and most picturesque I cannot repeat to you. They were too spicy, and over-pungent for the landlubbers who will read me. The sailor designates as a land-lubber those who never sail and who never leave what you call terra firma.
The rum therefore caused our rowers to find their voices, and one, a Breton, began to sing at the top of his pitch this simple song, of which I supply a few verses. The air, as natural as the words, was admirably suited to the action of the oars. The Breton sang the first line alone, and the chorus afterwards repeated it with him. The same was done with the second, while the chorus remained silent during the last two lines of each quatrain.
Adieu, my fair, I must away,
Adieu, my fair, I must away.
No longer will my vessel stay,
No longer will my vessel stay ,
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Adieu, at Nantes it must I join.
For so the king doth me enjoin,
I omit here several verses in which the lover describes his manner of farewell. Mutual fidelity is promised, but the sailor considers that his oath binds him only while he is north of the equator. South of the line, everything is permitted. He asks his fair one if she has any commissions to give him for the town of Nantes, and the weeping damsel, in spite of her grief, does not forget that village toilets are manufactured in the town, and replies:
Ah! when in Nantes yourself you find,
; ] J Ah ! when in Nantes yourself you find.
A handsome bodice bear in mind,
A handsome bodice hear in mind;
Let it be lined with satin red.
And naught from you I ask instead.
The sailor promises this and leaves, but the rascal soon forgets that he has only the right to be unfaithful south of the line.
When once he doth at Nantes appear,
When once at Nantes he doth appear,
No more comes thought of bodice near,
No more comes thought of bodice near;
Naught would he now but drink amain,
And with his mates the tankard drain! . . .
He becomes despondent, repentant, and fearful of the anger of his sweetheart. Thereupon he seeks the advice of a good-for-naught. To him he says:
Oh ! what then will my dear love say?
Oh ! what then will my dear love say?
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And the evil counsellor replies:
Why, you will lie and tell her: “Nay,
Why, you will lie and tell her: “Nay,
There was in Nantes no stuff to buy
Of colour would your need supply!”
But the loyal Breton is indignant at the idea of deceiving his beloved. He will confess everything to her, and, if she loves him, she will forgive.
“No, no,” he cries, in reply to the Mephistopheles who whispers this perfidy to him, “Oh! no!”
Better the sea no fish should know,
Better the sea no fish should know,
And mountains ne’er a valley show,
And mountains ne'er a valley show ,
And spring its violets all deny,
Than I should to my sweetheart lie!
Our troubadour deserved a fresh taste of rum; the Angelina's doctor supplied this, and the harpooner, in order not to allow the spirit of the rowers to flag, or rather that he might have a claim to a pull at the flask, struck up this sea chanty, which recalls Schiller’s ballad of The Fisherman}
A quartermaster see,
Lan la,
A quartermaster see,
Lan la,
1 Or rather The Diver. Dumas was very conversant with the works of Schiller, and particularly with his dramas. From the latter he profited much, and, as M. Parigot has convincingly proved, was able to distinctly improve upon the German’s plays when adapting them for the French public.—Note : F. W. R.
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A swimmer stout was he,
Pull, handsome whaler, pull!
A swimmer stout was he.
Pull, handsome whaler, pull!
The chorus repeated successively:
A quartermaster see,
Lan la.
and the last two lines of the verse. I much regret being unable to supply the music here; the tune was very original, and can no longer be discovered. Let us resume.
Ashore then he did go.
Lan la,
A-walking as I trow.
Pull . . .
A damsel there he met,
Lan la,
Weeping, quite upset,
Pull . . .
“Ah ! what’s amiss, my fair,
Lan la.
That you sit weeping there?”
Pull . . .
“The matter is,” said she,
Lan la,
“No thing that changed can be.”
Pull . . .
“ My girdle bore a key,
Lan la.
Which fell into the sea.” . . .
Pull . . .
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“Console you, damsel fair,
Lan la,
For 1 will seek it there.”
Pull . . .
“To him who brings the key,
Lan la,
My father will give me.”
Pull . . .
The quartermaster kind,
Lan la,
The lost prepared to find . . .
Pull . . .
The first time plunged he in,
Lan la,
He nothing forth did win.
Pull . . .
The second time in vain,
Lan la,
The bottom did he gain.
Pull.. .
A third time he essayed,
Lan la,
And there alas he stayed !
Pull
I spare you the other stanzas, in which the despair of the old mother of the quartermaster expresses itself. The poor woman goes complaining along the shore.
“May girls accursed be,
Lan la,
May girls accursed be,
Lan la,
Who married would them see!”
Pull . . .
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The friends and comrades of the unlucky diver ask the fishermen of the coast if the beauty whose key fell into the depths was blond or dark, and, according to the reply, the singer concludes his ballad by a memory ot his love adventures in France, singing:
Were it my fair one sighed,
(or “my dark one”)
Lan la,
Were it my fair one sighed,
Lan la.
To plunge would I decide.
Pull, handsome whaler, pull.
To plunge would I decide.
Pull, handsome whaler, pull.
The harpooner was well entitled to give my comrade’s flask a kiss. During his song we had covered more than two miles, and already we could perceive the gigantic fringe of foam from the sea, rolling in, flung upon the sandy semicircle at the bottom of Port Cooper. He took a long pull then, a very long pull at the flask, that udder which held what the English call French milk, and it required the interference of Seigle with a smart order that he should restore the plug to his gullet, to check him. The plug is that cork stopper, to which a piece of canvas or other material is attached, with which they close the opening contrived at the lowest part of the skiff. This hole contains the plug when the boat is launched, but when it is hoisted to the davits it is freed so that the sea-water and the rain may run out.
Thereupon he replaced the plug in the scupper of his throat and, full of energy, went on with a fresh song, so erotic that one could not listen to it without modesty being alarmed, unless one was a cabillot or a mathurin.
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A mathurin is a seaman, a real seaman, one born such and who will live and struggle and die a sailor. A cabillot, a cleat, is a wooden or iron pin inserted in the ship’s rail, to which is attached the cordage of the rigging; the cabillot is also a soldier, and this designation sufficiently well represents the attitude and stiffness of pose of the military man under arms. Thus the greatest reproach a captain or an officer of the watch can make to a sailor who does not carry out his work or his orders properly, and the greatest insult one sailor can hurl in the face of another, is to call him a soldier! A soldier I almost a soldier! Such is the most complete and impressive expression of contempt.
The coarse song carried us as far as the mouth of the Teo-ne-poto, because my harpooner found no difficulty in lengthening it at will. He had a real talent for improvising. I do not think the ballad of the keys was his own invention. Certainly he had not taken it from Schiller, with whose name he was so unfamiliar that, when my confrere mentioned it, he asked if it belonged to an American whaling captain.
This harpooner, a Cochin-Chinese of Honfleur (so do the residents of Havre nickname the inhabitants of that little port), was a born poet. He had merely obtained a primary school education. Most of his watch below was spent in rhyming, and in constructing songs. He frequently showed me his works, and when I refused to listen to them it caused him very great annoyance. One day I surprised him kneeling before his box, and concealing in the folds of a red woollen belt a small ebony frame covered with a canvas bag which he had himself stitched. Instead of a portrait, a curled lock of fair hair was contained beneath the glass, on a piece of parchment
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below which he had written this verse, which I still remember.
When I, at sea, look at your tress, so fair, so curled,
I happy am and proud, and joyfully declare :
“No woman save thyself doth own such length of hair,
Because, Virginia, thine circles round the world.”
“To the point, is it not, doctor?” he exclaimed, proudly showing me the ebony frame. After that heaven alone knows how often he exhibited it to me in the course of that voyage. “To the point, eh? Oh! I have made others, too; see, these for example. . . . Listen.
. . . I am on the watch, and I am going to recite my great poem to you: The Triumphant Whaler." However, I escaped round the mizzen mast, and the poet, vexed and irritated to find me so refractory towards his sacred verses, folded his arms in sombre dignity and commenced to silently pace the ship’s waist. I will say a few words to you about the adventurous life of this poor devil when we have left New Zealand and are crossing the Pacific Ocean.
Now let me return to my pilgrimage of that day. About seven o’clock, Seigle landed my companions and me on the left bank of the river, wished us a good journey, and went off to his cruising.
The weather was beautiful but cold, and at first we proceeded with long strides over the sandy ground strewn with broken shells, battered by the tides, but soon, despite ourselves, we were obliged to slacken our pace because the tayo, instead of following the beaten path which meandered parallel with the water, made a bee-line to the west through the brushwood. As we had over six miles to travel before reaching the house of an English colonist at which we were to make our first halt, that for
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lunch, we disdained losing any time by shooting the ducks which the puppy constantly put up. Here we met with the painted duck, 1 so well described by Cook’s naturalist; the musk duck, with grey plumage and wings speckled with white, and with the head and neck of an albatross, which, in flying, spreads around it an odorous effluvium; the grey-blue duck, which whistles like a blackbird and rummages in the sand in search of worms; the red-crested duck, with gleaming black plumage and leaden coloured feet and beak and an iris of the colour of gold. In fact, there was a whole living museum of the duck tribe, to which we were obliged to bid adieu. Before we left the sand, the tayo frequently lagged behind to pick up some small pieces of dead wood. These, which I at first took to be fetishes, rendered us good service later.
About ten o’clock we reached some cultivated fields, and found ourselves upon the property of Mr. Deans, 2 the real king of this district. He had built his farmstead to the north of the Teo-ne-poto, which divides into two portions a forest of I do not know how many thousands of acres. He has cleared the outskirts of these great woods, converted into grassy meadows the flat and marshy soil through which the river winds, and sown cereals on the surrounding hillocks. He is thus able to export, without any expense for transport, his agricultural produce and his timber, and already some coastal vessels are waiting, anchored in the great bay, for the shallow barges and the rafts of logs which descend the Teo-ne-poto.
Mr. Deans welcomed us so cordially that in spite of
1 Sec Note XLVIII, on page 411
2 See Note XLIX, on page 412
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our anxiety to push on we spent the day in visiting the various operations of this indefatigable colonist, listening during the evening to the account of his early difficulties and the programme of his future labours and hopes, and at night experienced the delights of a good bed of seabirds’ feathers, a delicacy so often dreamed of by us upon the hard cot of a whaler’s cabin.
The dwelling of the colonist and his family forms a large quadrilateral of a single storey. A wall rises to a height of six feet, and upon this rests the framework of the building which is constructed of beams, smoothed planks, clay, and lime. Four other large buildings rise at the sides of an immense tower which is surrounded by a deep ditch bristling with palisades. The stables face the east. The barns for fodder and grain extend to the north. The other buildings serve, some for workshops and coach-houses, others for the lodgings of the servants, and of the male and female Maoris of the neighbouring tribes, who are daily visitors to this intrepid farmer.
I witnessed a curious scene before dinner. A dozen old women were crouched in a circle at the door of a barn. In their centre were two men ; one, who was very old, was seated on the stump of a tree holding between his knees the head of another New Zealander much younger than himself. I approached them; it was a tattooer emblazoning the face of a youthful warrior.
The method of tattooing which extends throughout Polynesia is alone perhaps sufficient to prove that the islanders most distant from one another have yet a
common origin or frequent opportunities for contact. We may, however, in any case admit that the desire to adorn his body, to embellish it and stamp it with some distinctive seal, is an innate desire among men. Does not
y
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the tattooing with which our workmen, soldiers, and sailors decorate their arms and breasts resemble that of the Oceanians?
The first, performed by the pricking of a needle which introduces coloured, black or red substances beneath the skin, does not induce unevenness on the epidermis; the design is visible and ineffaceable, but not recognizable to the touch.
The second, on the contrary, can be detected by the fingers. Its contours are hollowed in the skin, and might be described as the true work of a sculptor. Flat tattooing was not unknown to the peoples of antiquity. At Thebes, in Egypt, some images were found on the tomb of Osiris I, 1 in which men are represented with their faces ornamented with strange tracings; and Julius Cassar, in his Commentaries , speaks of the inhabitants of Great Britain thus decorating their skins.
This operation is difficult and painful, and erysipelas of the face sometimes results from tattooing the walls of the nose. A young native from Oeteta, who had received the first markings on the corners of his lips, died as the result of the inflammation. The taboo, which enjoins a strict diet on those undergoing this operation, spares them from the dangers of resulting fever. The New Zealanders and the inhabitants of the Marquesas are the best tattooed among all the residents of Oceania. The origin of the word tattoo 2 seems to come from Tahiti.
The young chief who was being tattooed had returned from a northern journey, during which he had been
1 Correctly Seti I (circa 1370 b.c.). On this tomb are representations of tattooed Libyans.—Note ; F. W. R.
2 Quite right; tatou is the French spelling of the Tahiti word ; the Maori word was moko, and this Maynard uses later.—Note : ]. C. A.
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attacked by some men from Cook Strait. He had defended himself valiantly, and deserved this decoration as a recompense for his bravery. Warriors alone may bear upon themselves these indelible marks of courage and victory. A fresh set of lines is added to the old ones after every combat, and the older and more powerful a chief is, the more is he tattooed. Sometimes life is not long enough for the blazon to be completed. Art is long, hut life is fleeting.
The requisite tools consist of a small, long bone, flat and jagged towards its very pointed extremity; of a small rod, or rather mallet; and of two oyster shells, in one of which has been thinned down some pounded charcoal, and in the other some ochre. The graver, smeared with this paint, was forced into the skin at each blow from the mallet, and advanced tooth by tooth, twisting round the nostrils. The young man, as silent and impassive as the sheet of copper grooved by the burin of the engraver, stoically endured this painful operation. The chiselling lasted for an hour. Next day the head would be swollen, and some days later still, so I was told, on the edge of the grooves would be observed a border of dead flesh which would gradually shrivel up and disappear. In a month the nostrils would have resumed their natural shape and would be dilated proudly beneath their insignia of virility. The very hard thorns of the tumatukuru, 1 a shrub of the order Discaria, sometimes replace the bone graver, and the pricks are rubbed with the charcoal of the Podocarpus daorydioides , 2 or of the Dammara australiaP
1 Tumalakuru, the scented thorn, popularly called wild irishman {Discaria toumatou). —Note ; J. C. A.
2 The kahikatea. 3 The kauri.
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Acording to d’Urville, the operation of tattooing is so painful that it cannot be endured at one sitting. I have already stated that the tattooing of a chief is the labour of years, not because the pain endured is so great that it cannot be supported at one time but because it is in a measure the chronological record of the exploits which have rendered him famous. It is only possible to form a precise idea of the complete tattooing of a New Zealand chief’s face by examining in a museum one of their dried heads, such as Europeans have long been accustomed to purchase for a musket or a woollen rug. This barter is steadily diminishing, not because Christianity is progressing or because Europeans no longer encourage it, but for lack of warriors and combats. Three heads were offered to me during my stay, and I do not now remember whether I declined to purchase them for lack of money, or from humanity, in order that I might not encourage the traffickers.
You may see these cannibalistic trophies in the shops of dealers in curiosities, on the Quai Malaquais or the Quai Voltaire. The features are smiling, the skin has the gleam of parchment, the arabesques of the tattooing have retained their strange red and black markings, the crisp beard and the jet hair bristles as in life; the attenuated lips allow the range of white teeth to be seen, true feline teeth, and it would be said that this head was about to think and speak, despite the dark void which lies behind the hardened motionless pupils, in spite of those quenched orbits from which the victor tore the eyes that he might swallow them, in fear lest they should mount the heavens and become, for the descendants of the conquered, the star of vengeance.
Alone among all the Polynesians, the New Zealanders
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are accustomed to preserve their enemies’ heads as trophies of victory and objects of scorn. They call these heads moko-mokai — moko, a tattooed head; mokai, the head of a wretch. It is said that they also preserve the heads of their friends and of great men, In respect for their memory and that they may have them to figure in certain funeral ceremonies. I frequently questioned an old chief, Themi, concerning this, and his reply was always that they preserved only the heads of their foes, and this in order to demonstrate that even after death they were still slaves.
The method of preserving the moko-mokai is so well perfected that no decomposition is to be feared, and the lineaments of the face are scarcely changed. When the head is separated from the body, the operator plucks out the eyes, nicks the hairy skin of the crown of the head, breaks the top of the skull with a stone, as one does the shell of an egg, removes the brain, most carefully cleanses the cavity and pours boiling water into it, so that its membranes become detached from the bony walls. The hair is protected from contact with the boiling water, as otherwise it would come out. Afterwards the pieces of the top of the skull are replaced and covered with the fragment of hairy skin which, in drying, once more adheres to the bone. The nostrils and the mouth are filled with teased flax, and the eyelids and the lips are each joined by means of a few stitches for fear lest they should shrink. The shape of the nose is preserved between two small wooden splints. Afterwards an oven, hollowed in the earth, is filled with aromatic herbs. Pebbles heated to redness are piled above it in a pyramid, and at the summit of this an opening is constructed, into which the base of the head that is to be preserved can be
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accurately fitted. From time to time water is poured over the stones and herbs, and the heat and smoke penetrate the hollow of the skull, impregnating and drying the various tissues little by little. The operator takes care to stroke the face frequently, fearing lest the skin should wrinkle. After twenty-four hours of continuous fumigation, the head is removed from the fire and exposed on the top of a stick to the rays of the sun. There, while desiccation is being completed, they smear the skin with fish oil, in order to give it a brilliant veneer, and the stitches in the lips and eyelids are removed as soon as the shrinking of the tissues is no longer to be feared. It is vexatious that so good and simple a method cannot be used for the collection of types of all the human races.
One more word about the New Zealand moko , the only one I have seen during my travels; because the Australians the Aroucan Indians, the Patagonians, the Bougros of Brazil, and the blacks of Africa, with whom I have been familiar, are not accustomed to thus adorn themselves. He among the New Zealanders who has not submitted to the painful experience of the burin, is regarded as pusillanimous, effeminate, and unworthy of honour, even if he belongs to a family of the highest rank.
The islanders of the north, however, are gradually renouncing this, in proportion as they adopt the manners and vices of the English colonists. The use of clothing, in particular, tends to abolish this national custom; was not the general tattooing of the body formerly their most beautiful garb? What is the use of martyring the epidermis if this is to be covered with rags? At the first glance the furrows of the moko appear to be identical upon the faces and bodies of all warriors; but when
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attentively examined differences In detail are recognizable. Each family possesses its own special tattooing; these are true armorial bearings. Touai, the chief of the Korokoro tribe, said that his family alone had the right to carry the tattooing which decorated his forehead, and that Hongi’s tribe, powerful as it was, might not imitate those designs.
A chief, examining the seal of a naval officer, asked if the arms engraved upon it were the moko of the officer’s tribe.
The New Zealanders very faithfully produce upon paper a copy of the complicated moko of their faces. The chief who sold a bay to Captain Jay and me (because I am of the great landed proprietors of New Zealand), placed this form of signature at the foot of the document. I shall always regret having lost a note-book in which several individuals had traced their tattooings.
The moko has also its hygienic use; it increases the thickness and the resistance of the cutaneous system, which, become thus more solidified, is less sensitive to the inclemencies of the atmosphere, to the punctures of insects and of the thorny plants in the forests, and to all the accidents to which savage man is exposed. Traces of sickness, as well as the wrinkles of age, but very slightly change these toughened masks. Ihe tattooed man knows all the lines of this labyrinth, from the top of his forehead to his ankles; he can detail them one by one from memory; he has studied them as, in Europe, the blazon of one’s family is examined.
“Not long ago,” said Ivico to me one day, “one of my neighbours, having killed a chief whose whole body was tattooed, found this so handsome that he tanned the skin of the thighs in order to preserve it, and with it
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covered his cartridge-box, just as though it had been morocco.”
A man named Aranghui had the reputation of being the most skilful tattooer in the two large islands; he was a veritable artist of his kind. I have myself admired the boldness and precision with which he made his designs on the skin; truly the beauty of his decorations was extraordinary. Straighter lines could not be traced with a ruler, nor more perfect circles with compasses. Such is the reputation and the fashion to which this artist has attained that the head of a chief tattooed by him has, in the eyes of an Englishman, more value than a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. From being a wretched slave, Aranghui has risen by his talents to the level of the most distinguished chiefs in the country, and as all these, when he tattooes them, make him some present, he has become extremely wealthy.
Mr. Deans suggested that we should make a shooting party for tuts , if we had a fancy to enjoy for dinner a dish of greater delicacy than even a spit of ortolans. I admit that I experienced some remorse at shooting these poor songsters which, at each discharge, flew in terror from the fringe of the forest, to return careless and joyous to recommence their singing as soon as the breeze had swept the noise and the fumes of the powder to a distance. These birds live after the manner of bees.
They bore with their pointed beaks into the pouchshaped and scarcely expanded flowers of the broom, dipping their tongues into the honey which these contain. They are so fond of its sweetness that, far from imitating the other birds of the country, which desert the clearings never to return, they come to swoop in
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flocks upon the broom which surrounds all the cottages. Here the colonist’s axe has respected this beautiful tree which, with us, is only a sorry shrub.
The cravatted philedon , the tut or merle of the Antipodes, clad in his beautiful velvet coat of glistening black and dark blue, shakes his magnificent frill, the lace of which is a tuft of greyish feathers, dainty, silky, and curled like those of an ostrich, and sings hidden in the midst of the leafage and the yellow flowers of a forest of broom which, in these latitudes, attains the height of our elms.
The banquet provided by the English colonist was Homeric, not by the number but by the size of the dishes; and yet the oxen, calves, pigs, sheep, and poultry of the farm were not drawn upon to supply the provender. The cattle-sheds, pigsties, and fowl-yards were still of too recent an establishment to allow the farmer to live on them, unless indeed he desired to live on his capital. An enormous rump of Hamburg smoked beef; a York ham; a kingfish, a royal fish almost as large as a sturgeon, caught that morning at Port Cooper; an eel, as long and as stout as the mast of a jolly-boat, captured in the Teo-ne-poto; a pyramid of boiled potatoes, as mealy and white as balls of fine wheaten flour; some stalks of celery which might have served us for walking-sticks; and for roasts a squadron of pigeons, a couple of grouse acting the part of turkeys, and ten or fifteen spits of tuts: such was the menu of the feast, at which slabs of biscuit took the place of bread, and the whole of which we gladly irrigated with real Hollands gin and pure water drawn from a neighbouring spring.
You see it is possible to live on a New Zealand farm, and live well, without depriving the cows of their milk or
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preventing the calves from growing up into working bullocks before being slaughtered, the sheep from giving their wool, the pigs from multiplying, the poultry from laying, the eggs from hatching or the pullets from growing. The region could have furnished us with much more in the way of food. The streams are as plentifully supplied with fish as are the bays, and in as great a variety. The antarctic partridge, 1 the tailed partridge, abounds, as does a species of quail much larger than ours. The thickets are alive with ashen-hued wattled crows, a species of rail as large as a rooster of good breed, while, on the cleared lands of the plateau extending from Port Levy to Pireka Harbour, great flocks of birds which are called bustards in France are put up. Wild geese and ducks are also very common, and it is said that the flesh of the great waders which inhabit the isthmus of sand 2 is not indigestible and nauseous, as is that of the sea birds, the petrels which frequent the landings of the peninsula. Mammals are lacking in this inventory of the gastronomic wealth of New Zealand, with the exception of Captain Cook’s pig and the dog of unknown origin, both of which have long been freed from serfdom. You are aware how greatly the dog has degenerated, and also that the rangatiras immolate and devour it on festive days. The pig also has gained nothing by obtaining its freedom; its villainous Chinese spine is less concave and is becoming straight once more; but its teeth have become its means of defence, its bristles erect themselves like those
1 His notes on the birds of the plains and of Banks Peninsula are good. —Note : J. C. A.
Refer also to latter part of Note XLVIII, page 41 1
2 The “ isthmus of sand.” It was supposed that Banks Peninsula was joined to the mainland by such an isthmus as shown on Arrowsmith’s map referred to. —Note ; J. C. A.
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of the wild boar, while the dead and rotten fish, which it comes to eat at night on the shore, when the tide retreats, give to its flesh an acrid taste, oily and insupportable. It is only hunted to be flayed, so tough is its skin and so good for lining trunks. Yet, to-day, some chiefs, following the example of the colonists, rear herds of pigs. Formerly the natives pitilessly slaughtered the goats and sheep, which caused them superstitious terrors by sacrilegiously browsing indiscriminately upon the tabooed grass of the morals. For a long time they also treated in this manner the fowls which pecked about over the sacred domains, but these have since obtained pardon on account of the cocks, which are greatly esteemed. If at any time, and deservedly, the cock is the emblem of valour, it is in New Zealand. He there takes part in cock-fights, contrary to that old England which no longer indulges in them, and never does a war canoe depart upon an expedition without having a rooster proudly perched at the extremity of the prow.
The red-bellied rat, with its marsupial pouch, is the only quadruped recognized as really indigenous. It is regarded as a choice dish.
A chief saw on board a ship one day one of those large grey rats which live in the hold, and which undertake long voyages, to the annoyance of the crew and to the detriment of the cargo. He thought this species of rat would be more succulent than the small red-coloured one
belonging to his own country, and he resolved to make a present of it to his tribe. He succeeded only too well, and to-day, in every pa, the women are obliged to mount guard beside the storehouses for food.
The sea offers most abundant and assured resources. Immense flax nets gather incredible quantities of fish.
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They have perfected their lines and other fishing apparatus, and steel hooks have now replaced the primitive pattern —the root of a shrub twisted into a worm-like shape and having for barb a little pointed bone. By chance I have retained one of these curious hooks, the only object remaining to me of a whole collection gleaned during two long voyages around the world. I have placed it before me as I write. The hard, flexible root, a foot long, is round and as thick as the little finger, and terminates in a recurved point resembling the tail of an asp or a viper, that is to say the body of the hook has the shape of a lyre. At the large end is attached obliquely, at an angle of forty or fifty degrees, a bone four inches long with two surfaces, one convex and the other concave; it is easy to recognize this as being a splinter from the bone of the upper arm or of the shin of a human being. This pointed bone retains the bait very well, and woe to the fish which swallows it. A sprig of flattened osier connects the bone and the root as firmly as the welding does the tooth and shank of a steel hook. A cord of human gut, from which still oozes an oily matter, permits me to hang it from the small column of a whatnot. It is from deduction, and not from fancy, that I attribute to this hook a human origin. Have I not already mentioned with regard to cannibalism, that to perpetuate revenge, even after death, the remains of the conquered must serve the victor? Thus they make flutes from their bones, and nail to the walls of their huts desiccated and shrivelled hands to serve as hooks.
In summer the New Zealanders eat fresh fish, grilled over the fire or boiled in little cast-iron pots which we have imported into Oceania. In the autumn they dry
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them in the sun and store them for the winter. Shellfish and crustaceans are not lacking to them; but when a whale becomes stranded on the shore, then there is a feast, a great junketing! We have seen tribes take part in bloody combats for the possession of a cetacean’s carcase. The flesh of the mango or shark is not less esteemed, and the oil of fishes and the liquefied fat of the seal tickles more pleasantly their rude palates than do our best wines.
Crozet, the companion of Marlon Dufresne, and after him Dumont d’Urville, refer to a certain green gum which the natives chew with pleasure. I have sought in vain to identify this gum 1 ; it is not that from the koudi (kauri), and I am inclined to believe that they have made here a mistake and taken for the gum some fragments of fresh pith from the Cyathea medularis . 2
It has been claimed that salt is an indispensable condiment for the regular action of digestion. The New Zealanders never use it, any more than they do spices, and certainly their stomachs are not sluggish. Fish, which forms their staple food, is very rich in phosphorus, and no doubt this counter-balances the lack of salt.
Alone among all the Oceanians they drink nothing but pure water, making no fermented beverages from the roots, leaves, berries, or fruits of indigenous plants. They might, however, have used the Piper excelsum, which grows abundantly on their lands, and by infusion produces an intoxicating liquor, identical with the Polynesian kava. They might also have been expected
1 Chewing-gum. It would appear as though this after all was kauri resin. See Note LIV, on page 413. —Note : J. C. A.
2 One of our most handsome tree-ferns.
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to prepare a liquor from the berries of Coriara sarmentosa 1 ; but it has since been discovered that these berries are poisonous. Only with difficulty did they become accustomed to alcoholic beverages, but unfortunately their former sobriety is to-day only a vain expression, and they are past masters in drunkenness.
Cooking was very primitive before the introduction of the cast-iron pots. A strip of meat, a fish, or a bird was roasted on a spit formed of a twig driven perpendicularly into the earth. The hearth served for large pieces, potatoes, and taro. This hearth is simply a hole made in the soil and filled with flaming brands and stones. When these latter are red-hot they remove the charcoal and spread a layer of green leaves over the stones, upon which the meat is placed, being covered with more leaves. Over the whole, from time to time, they pour several quarts of water. The meal is cooked in this manner, by the steam.
A man would prefer to die of hunger rather than cook a meal for himself. The koukie or slave (a corruption of the English word “cook”) performs this office, and failing such, the wife, a true koukie herself.
1 Nevertheless, the Maori used these same tutu berries; straining the juice through a sieve of toetoe, it was mixed with edible sea-weeds and made into a jelly, eaten cold.—Note : J. C. A.
CHAPTER XXXII
THIRTEEN AT TABLE
FOR long our guests kept a natural silence, being absorbed in their labour of eating. I do not know why, but instead of busying myself with the food, I was watching, seeking to discover what sort of impression this gathering of men made upon me, all of them, save my confrere, being strangers.
) J ' All were young, strong, and hale, but all were stamped by that ineffaceable seal which a wandering and adventurous existence impresses upon all who abjure the household gods. The glance and smile of the traveller have no resemblance to those of the domesticated man. Ihe traveller never lowers his eyelids save to sleep; his pupil dilates, without anger, in quest of that unknown of which he is in pursuit; he proceeds from one disillusion to another: the new country he discovers is always less beautiful than that which he has just left and remembers, and that recollection disturbs his smile. The family man, the resident, seats himself squarely and consciously; the cosmopolitan, the wanderer, does not know how to settle himself in an arm-chair: instead of yielding beneath him, the cushions repel him as a spring-board does a tumbler.
Yonder little man, lean, bronzed, with a face which, though pointed, is energetic and crafty, and who occupies the post of honour beside the master of the house, is the
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captain of a Baltimore schooner. He sails about Oceania to collect pearls, tortoise-shell, swallows’ nests, and beche-de-mer (Trepang holoturies ), which he carries to Canton. He has come to negotiate for a cargo of flax, destined for Honolulu, and he carries on his business in a vessel in which I , who cannot swim, would be afraid to cross the Seine. He is of the school of the Morells of New York and the Bureaus of Nantes. If the natives of Oceania do not eat him when his vessel gets piled up on some coral reef, he expects to return, in two or three years, to the shores of the Delaware, there to build a cottage with the dollars which he is gathering to-day. He will do as he says; but a month after the cottage is built and he has installed himself therein, with his family, if he has one, a breeze from the sea will blow up the river one fine morning and tickle his nostrils. . . . Then, farewell to the family, farewell to the cottage, because this breeze will only return to the sea carrying him in its train.
That other Yankee, with the thick-set build, has established a whale fishery in one of the bays of Cook Strait. He commanded a ship which was wrecked in that same bay, two or three years ago. He saved the boats, the fishing implements, and in fact all the wreckage, and now works on his own account. Scandalmongers state that the wreck was no accident. It is possible; but, in the Antipodes, things are not looked into too closely. During his stay at Mr. Deans’s farm he is endeavouring to renew his connection with the whalers at Port Cooper, in order to entice away a master cooper and some harpooners.
The fine talker, who is describing his travels on the sea coast of Southern Australia, and claims that in
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the neighbourhood of Port Melbourne there exist some auriferous strata, appears to me to have very much the appearance of a government man who has escaped from the clearing gangs of Sydney or Hobart Town. He is proposing to Mr. Deans that the farmer should take some shares in a company of which he is the representative. It intends to work these Melbourne mines, and, to convince our incredulous host, he shows him some nuggets of gold which came from that land, so he says, though he exhibits no certificate of origin. I had previously seen, at Hobart Town, commercial men circulating among the taverns and hotels with specimens of the future wealth of Australia and Tasmania. Let us admit that events proved them right. They were proper rascals, but they did not lie.
Those two persons of severe aspect, dressed in black and with close-cropped hair, who swallow their portion of the food without pausing for breath, true pale-faces, as the savages say, are a couple of Wesleyan missionaries, men of the type of Pritchard. 1 They travel among the settlements of the South Island, a Bible in one hand and a price-list in the other, sowing the Gospel and reaping the dollars. These reverend gentlemen preached a long sermon to the natives on the farm while we had been killing the tuts, of which they now devoured with pleasure the flesh, as white and plump as that of our September quail. To pay for our host’s hospitality they had sold him, before dinner, an assortment of plough-shares, hoop-iron, and axes, the whole to be delivered by a vessel expected at the end of the present month. They were to be paid for by a draft on one of the leading firms in Sydney. As you see these good apostles were introducing
1 See Note L, on page 412.
z
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abreast, for the greater glory of God and their own greater advantage, things both temporal and spiritual. I do not know whether it is because I was born in the lap of the Catholic Church, but the English missionaries, Anglican, Methodist, Wesleyan, and other Protestants, whom I have encountered during my travels, have always seemed to me to be living negations of the Gospel. l I have vainly recapitulated in my mind the fatigues, the privations and the dangers to which they were exposed in carrying the Word of God among these cannibals. I have been unable to admire either their courage or their devotion, so insatiable is their thirst for gain! To them every fresh convert is another consumer, and they officiate at the altar of the true God only that they may minister simultaneously at that of the golden calf. None the less, they alone have been, still are, and for long will be the true civilizers of Oceania; because these Oceanian children require something besides lectures, sermons and prayers. Let us leave them to carry on their work in peace. They have their labours to accomplish, and the true ministers of the Gospel will come later to preach faith and charity to these same countries where their predecessors have extolled trade and labour.
I should rightly have commenced this series of portraits with those of Mr. Deans and his partner, but I found nothing out of the ordinary, special or characteristic in their physiognomies and their bearing. Moreover, had there been such, it would have been for the moment dissimulated beneath the appearance of cordiality which every master of a house is called upon to exhibit
1 As a contrast to Maynard’s harsh judgment it is not without interest to read the opinion .of the reviewer of d’Urville’s voyages, as found in the Revue des Deux Mondes for November Ist, 1832. —Note : F. W. R,
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towards his guests. They were two men about thirty years of age, with the robust appearance of English farmers. As assistants they had a squatter land-surveyor, an agriculturist and a master-carpenter, young men from Port Jackson.
My confrere of the Angelina , Henoque, who spoke English as well as a Londoner, first broke the ice and gave a jog to the conversation, which soon became general or personal, serious or merry, moderate or noisy. He commenced by remarking that there were thirteen of us at table, and, laughingly, we counted ourselves.
On all sides a good deal of fun was poked at those who were frightened at finding thirteen guests at the same table, and yet each experienced an involuntary terror, and was unable to avoid a feeling of fear lest, before the end of the year, that sword suspended over the festive table might fall upon his own head. The strongest and best regulated minds assailed the ear with lugubrious stories which they related. This mysterious influence is endured, and it is with a half-hearted laugh that one treats as nonsense and as stupid folly those fears which are unfortunately too often justified. I certainly do not claim to affirm that, because thirteen sit down at table, one guest must die during the ensuing year. I merely wish to say that such a coincidence is very frequent, that it has been noticed in all periods, that we each in searching our memories can discover examples thereof, and that it is quite natural, whenever possible, to avoid making up this fatal total, if only because it gives rise to the idea of death amid the joys of the feast.
Poor Henoque! He was a worthy confrere who, to-day, would be my old travelling companion; it was he who drew attention to the fact of our being thirteen at
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table, and who drank thirteen times to our long life and his own, and it was he who among us first suffered the fatal lot. This is the destiny which befell that joyous friend, whom I was to see no more after the Asia weighed anchor at Port Cooper to sail for France.
Henoque had sworn to me by all his gods that as soon as the Angelina arrived at Havre he would leave for Paris, finish his medical studies, exchange his certificate as officer of health for a doctor’s diploma, and then, as I had already determined to do, would go and take up a good anchorage in his native village, spin out a hundred fathoms of chain and so lessen the risk of dragging his anchors during the tide-races or storms of civil life.
The Angelina reached Havre, then, some weeks after the Asia. Henoque wrote to me announcing that he would arrive in Paris any day; but, instead of welcoming him I received a second letter in which he bade me farewell for two or three years. The unfortunate fellow, unlike me, had not possessed sufficient strength to break with that cruel mistress called the sea. So he left, still on the Angelina , still with the same Captain Hyene, one of those fearless whalers of whom there are so many, and also a gallant man, which is a great rarity, especially among that class of sailors.
A year later I read in the newspapers an extract from the Courrier de Havre announcing that Captain Hyene of the Angelina , the surgeon, and eleven sailors had been massacred and eaten by the natives of the Isle of Cayanne, the Galleleup of the Mulgrave Archipelago. 1 These unfortunate men went ashore to hunt and to barter with the natives, while the ship tacked under sail within sight of land, and they never returned. The second-in-
1 A portion of the Marshall Group.—Note ; F. W. R.
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command of the Angelina , now become captain, cruised round the island for several days. Nothing appeared, neither Captain Hy&ie’s boat, nor any belonging to the natives, so that the new commandant of the ship, not being strong enough to risk sending ashore a fresh squad of sailors in search of their companions, resolved to seek some war vessel as speedily as possible, in order to return and ransack Cayanne.
There was no longer any hope of recovering the Angelina's missing men alive. No doubt a quarrel had followed some fraud or brutality on the part of a sailor, and Captain Hyen£, violent by nature and of a wellproven courage, tried to withstand the storm. Yet what could thirteen combatants do against several hundred savages. Until the present no details have been discovered concerning the horrible drama, in which Henoque lost his life less than a year after our dinner of thirteen at the homestead of Mr. Deans.
Eight months after the catastrophe Captain Berard, 1 commander of the Rhin corvette, proceeded to the Mulgraves to punish the murderers, and save those of our comrades whose lives might have been spared. He sighted Cayanne towards evening, and got into touch with a canoe manned by thirteen natives. I hese at first showed much suspicion, but Captain Berard appeared ignorant of the disaster which had occurred to the whaler, and they became reassured and promised to return on board the corvette next morning. dhe captain’s plan was to seize a number of the savages, so that he might exchange them for the survivors of the
1 Berard. A peak, 2575 feet high, on the range behind Akaroa town was named after Berard, who was at Akaroa in 1844-45, and with others prepared a rough map of Banks Peninsula. Note : J.C.A.
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Angelina. The next day he succeeded in capturing seven Oceanians and had them put in irons. These men professed to know nothing, and he dismissed them. He hoped that other natives, seeing the first captives released, would come on board. He calculated badly. Not one native appeared next day. A woman who had passed the night on board, and whom they loaded with presents, caused them to understand, by aid of signs, that thirteen Frenchmen were dead and had been buried on an islet to the south of Cayanne. Evidently the first prisoners, mistakenly set free, had deceived our people by appearing ignorant.
Three days later Captain Berard sent a detachment of marines ashore, under the command of Lieutenant Reynaud. They demolished a village and burnt the ruins, as well as such canoes as they were able to find, and killed several natives who had not escaped to the woods. It was a useless vengeance! Would it not have been better to follow the example of Commandant Cecile, who, as we have related, captured Eitouna, one of the chiefs of the Chatham Islands, the inhabitants of which had massacred the crew of the whaler Jean Bart? Those men would have ended by stating what they knew. The expedition of the Rhin, ill-conducted and badly finished, gave us, then, no information other than what was already known, namely that Captain Hy£ne, Henoque, and the sailors had been murdered. They also discovered in several of the huts articles which had belonged to our unfortunate fellow-countrymen.
The sole of one of Captain Hyena’s light shoes;
The doctor’s gun;
A spade and a harpoon, stamped with the monogram of the Angelina;
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A fishing line;
A button from a line uniform, threaded on a cord so that it could be hung round the neck. This button proved to be from the vest of the carpenter of the Angelina , who had recently received his discharge from the service of the state.
CHAPTER XXXIII
DUCKS AND DENTISTRY
LET us return to the table of the farmer of Teo-ne-poto. Henoque, who was on my left, continued to jest about the number thirteen, and they laughed at his mockery. I alone did not smile; my friend’s gaiety saddened me; it seemed to me that he was joking at the expense of his future. I vainly endeavoured to give a different turn to his merry loquacity, and then, wearied of the struggle, directed my attention to the neighbour on my right. This was a fair, sturdy Tasmanian gentleman of about thirty, a splendid specimen of that English society of New South Wales in which there recurs, in this nineteenth century, types long since lost in the old Saxon race.
The Anglo-Saxon across the Channel, vulgarized by the pencils of the caricaturists, is, save for a few exceptions, so degenerate, so diminished, that one may well believe his commercial and industrial aptitudes have been developed at the expense of his other traits. The Australian Anglo-Saxon is of the build which must have been that of our first father, Adam; he has become regenerated on this virgin soil, the atmosphere of which is unsullied, and where a new human seedling promises in the future a series of generations mighty in strength and in intellect.
Yet they have only dispossessed the savage inhabitants of these countries in order to deport there the trash, the
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dross and the refuse of Great Britain, and the tares would be justified in germinating there where they have been flung; but, with all due deference to certain political economists, unwise deportation and emigration, whether voluntary or compulsory, act like fire: they purify!
This table companion had been introduced to me as a person of notable scientific attainments, and after exchanging a few words with him I understood that he was a commercial traveller dealing in natural history specimens. The British Museum sends its agents throughout the whole universe, and some scientific societies with a wealthy membership also retain those who journey at their expense, so that London, Edinburgh, and Dublin receive everything rare which can be discovered under the sun. This naturalist was profiting by Mr. Deans’s hospitality to collect ducks indigenous to Tavai-pounamou. A lord, whose name I have forgotten, a great Scottish landed proprietor, who wished to establish at his model farm a representative duck-run, employed agents in every quarter of the globe, who were entrusted with the collection of duplicate samples, one dead and the other living, of every species, family, and variety of duck, whether known or unknown. 1
The Tasmanian, very well versed in ornithology, spoke a little French, and I preferred to listen to him rather than converse with the other guests. He spoke to me of his labours, saying he had made a complete tour of Australia and New Zealand, which he had finished at this station, travelling constantly to collect ducks. Already he had forwarded to the Scottish lord a number of boxes and crates of these web-footed birds, stuffed and living, and he
1 This is Gallic facetiousness; he would no doubt include the barnacle-goose.—Note : J. C. A.
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expected to pay a visit to Captain Jay shortly, to learn what freight he would charge upon the Asia. Flad I been able to leave Port Cooper three days earlier, I should have had him for travelling companion, because he had this very day returned from an excursion to the Greenstone Lake.
I asked him if he had been able to procure any specimens of the wingless bird, the apteryx ( kiwi ), which is, on a small scale, what, on a much larger, the dinornis [mod) was in former times. This dinornis was four times the size of the largest African ostriches, in other words it was at least twenty-six feet high, reckoning to the top of its back, forty-six to fifty feet from the feet to the head with neck outstretched, eighty-two feet long from the tip of the beak to the extremity of the tail, and, naturally, of a proportionate circumference! What a fine bird! But it did not fly. . . . Our contemporary apteryx does not fly either; it is a walker like Fantassin, that friendly penguin of ours, with which you have made acquaintance. The Creator of all things dispensed with giving it that final power of flight, since it had no need to go in search of its food. Its long and pointed beak, a true woodcock’s beak, allows it to grub up the worms from the bottom of the mud of the lakes which it frequents. It is as large as a goose, and has russet plumage. Formerly the directors of European museums set a great value upon it, because of its rarity. Dumont d’Urville bought a single specimen for three hundred francs (£l2 10s.). My naturalist answered me disdainfully that the apteryx was not a duck, and that he had not concerned himself with it. 1
1 Quite right; neither in the fable was the pearl a grain of corn ; still the Gallic raillery,—Note : J. C. A.
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A few glasses of port had loosened the tongue of this gentleman, but suddenly he rose from the table and vanished like a shadow. The other guests were speaking of commerce, religion, and politics. Weariness seized me, and I left the room and proceeded to wander about the yard in front of the farm. A lighted barn attracted my attention. I could see the hearth gleaming through the doorway. I entered, partly out of curiosity and partly to warm myself, and was agreeably surprised to find my Tasmanian there. This building usually served as a workshop by day and as a common room in the evening.
My naturalist appeared to be very busily occupied. A dozen women and children and three or four men had deserted the hearth to gather round the Tasmanian, who was bending over a Maori seated upon a log. From time to time the naturalist raised himself and showed the savages some object which he held lightly between his thumb and first finger, and the natives laughed, crying: “Kapai! Kapai!” Curious to learn what was happening in this group, I drew nearer. A mass of tow was flaming in a large mussel shell full of oil and illuminated the scene. Good Heavens! What was it I saw? I would give you a hundred guesses, a thousand, ten thousand? I perceived the naturalist extracting a tooth from a Maori seated before him, then a second, a third, in fact, one after another, the complete range of canines and incisors from the upper jaw. It might have been thought that the tooth-puller was operating on a corpse, such a stoical and motionless silence did the Maori maintain, with his head flung back and his mouth bathed with blood. He who thus endured such a martyrdom, without betraying his sufferings, was assuredly worthy to bear, chiselled upon the skin of his face, a dense
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tattooing, that symbol of courage and resignation under pain.
After him another Maori took his place on the stool of repentance, and his teeth also fell; then came the turn of a third, to whom succeeded some women.
“Ah!” said I to myself, “they all have decayed teeth then! Yet I thought I had perceived them to possess magnificent sets!”
The operator, as though quite unwearied after extracting so many canines and incisors, pitilessly wiped his forceps, still glancing round in search of fresh victims. Perceiving shortly that no more patients came out from the group, he placed his spoils in a little leather bag and prepared to leave the barn, while I remained quite dumbfounded and very indignant. Assuredly it was not as the result of decay in their teeth that these Maoris thus had their jaws mauled. For what purpose was it then? Was it out of pleasure? That would be a singular amusement! Was it from coquetry? No, the handsomest men and the fairest women, the fashionables of Oeteta, Port Levy, Akaroa, and the surrounding parts did not part with their front teeth in order to be in the fashion.
As for this naturalist dentist, why did he operate unnecessarily and without urgency? Was it for the purpose of keeping his hand in, of maintaining his quickness of glance, or of attaining the greatest possible nimbleness and skill? That could not be the cause, because he would then have disregarded the teeth he had extracted and have left them where they fell, whereas, on the contrary, he had very carefully gathered them up and counted them before taking them away.
Perhaps my comrade of the Angelina , had he not
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remained drinking healths with the other guests, might have been able to explain this puzzle to me. I was about to go and question him, when my tayo darted into the centre of the circle, stopped the Tasmanian, who was leaving, and opened his mouth to its widest extent, showing a magnificent array of teeth whiter than the whitest ivory. My astonishment increased. This tayo, who could crunch a slab of biscuit without first soaking it in water, also wished to be relieved of the contents of his jaws. What a rage against their teeth seemed to have seized upon these unfortunates! Were they then betwitched by this man of the ducks? What had he given them or promised them in exchange for the suffering they endured and the devastation of their mouths?
The bargain was not concluded without a long altercation between the Englishman and the tayo. The latter argued for his own profit like a man from Lower Normandy. I could not understand a word of their discussion, but by the gestures made I guessed that the main motive of this dispute was the determination of the price to be paid for each tooth. The one offered so much; the other asked such a figure. If the buyer agreed to a rise in price, the seller consented to reduce his claims, but only by a little, a very little, a mere trifle. On both sides there were concessions, and finally they came to terms; the Englishman, however, had advanced his offer much more than the Maori had abated his. Ino longer had any doubt as to the nature of this courteous traffic. There was here a bargain of quite a different kind from that of the trading for elephant ivory on the coast of Africa: a bargain for human ivory!
The dentist, ready to operate, placed his big hand on
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the tayo's shoulder in order to make him sit down before him, and had already half-opened the other’s lips with the thumb of his left hand, when the tayo, suddenly seized by a sense of mistrust, stood up, freed himself from the grasp of the Tasmanian, and insisted that the price of his teeth should be paid him in advance. At first the operator refused to pay beforehand, declaring that he would settle with this new client next morning, at the same time as with his fellow-countrymen. The tayo held firm, and called me to witness that before daybreak on the morrow he would have left the farm in my company. It therefore became necessary to go and obtain what he so stubbornly exacted, because he had such fine teeth that the collector was quite determined not to allow such a windfall to escape him.
I thus became the witness of a scene in which the child of nature was more than a match for the man of civilization. The tayo was selling his teeth for a certain quantity of sporting powder; an oyster shell filled ten times over with the explosive was to be the price of each tooth. The Englishman therefore brought to the barn a small barrel of powder, and began to measure out the arranged quantities. The tayo followed all his movements with a greedy and watchful eye, staying his hand each time that, having filled the shell, he was about to tip the contents into the Maori’s powder-flask; the native, for his part, would then have a little more powder added, passing over its surface a small piece of wood, in the same manner that is done in the case of measures of wheat. Once the first ten shellfuls had been accepted, the Englishman, no doubt to be revenged for the scant confidence shown in him, declared that, before continuing to hand over his commodity, he wished to extract one of the teeth. The
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tayo found himself caught. His adversary was in the right, as he realized. Thereupon, after reflecting for a moment, in an endeavour to discover some method of further delaying the operation, he seated himself piteously upon the fatal stool. I heard the steel of the forceps grate against his teeth. It was done, they were about to fall, slowly, one after another. Then a sudden inspiration came to the savage; he rose suddenly, pushed the Englishman aside, and, smiling like a petitioner who has just discovered a plea to lay before the court, seized a pinch of the powder which had been supplied as that used for hunting, placed it in the hollow of his hand, and carefully examined its granulation, fearlessly drawing near the burning tow which illumined the barn; then, moving away, he blew strongly upon it, and the powder was dispersed. Assuming a majestic pose of indignation, he advanced towards the Englishman and showed him a large black stain covering the hollow of his palm, though the powder was no longer there. This was as good as to say that he had been sold artillery powder which had been crushed to make it resemble sporting powder. l
There was a cry of indignation from the group of Maoris, and the women, like furies, rushed towards the Tasmanian, who hastened to withdraw, escaping only to be pursued by their clamour. The tayo gesticulated, harangued, and seemed to be assembling them for vengeance, but there were only three or four men present, and they would have met with little success in attacking the settlement. Mr. Deans, warned by the
1 Guns of large calibre and requiring a heavy charge need the powder to be in larger grains, this ensuring slower combustion. The smaller the grains are, the more rapid is the ignition, and the more suitable for hunting purposes.—Note : F. W. R.
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fugitive, immediately intervened and addressed the discontented. He acted and spoke so well that they were calmed and accepted as an error what was in reality a fraud. A European servant submitted himself to the public reproaches of his master for mistakenly taking from the storehouse a barrel of artillery powder instead of one of sporting powder.
The Maoris have learned to know, as the result of costly experience, the qualities of the different powders, and, as the tayo had just shown, they possessed a test. If the explosive is of good quality, its granules, though very fine, are whole and do not stain the hollow of the hand, from which a breath will sweep them away. The contrary results if the trial is made with artillery powder, the larger grains of which have been crushed on a sheet of paper by rolling them beneath a bottle, a method I have myself frequently employed when ammunition failed me.
How changeable and inconstant are these great Maori children, how easily they pass from tears to laughter, from a deep distrust to as entire a confidence! The dentist was not discouraged by such a trifle, and appeared among them again, but this time with a barrel of real sporting powder. The tayo , having exchanged his first consignment for a fresh one, resumed his place on the log. The greed of both buyer and seller caused me such disgust that I resolved to oppose the commerce. I had taken the tayo into my pay; I had enrolled him as a man in full vigour and health and with all his faculties. For this reason I was perfectly justified in exacting the fulfilment of his engagement without permitting him to lessen his bodily powers by any wilful and deliberate action. Having lost his teeth he would be unable to
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digest the nourishment with which we had provided ourselves for this expedition, because, as you know, it was hard and difficult to masticate. Then fed insufficiently, he would be unequal to withstanding the fatigues of a long journey across the mountains. What should we do without a guide? Moreover, there was the risk that, next morning, a considerable amount of inflammation might result. This would have been well merited, but would not suit us, since we should be unable to continue our road.
“Tayo , I wish you to keep all your teeth,” I exclaimed, going towards him. “And you, sir,” I said to the Englishman, “spare this poor devil’s jaw, I beg you.”
The tayo, though he did not understand what I was saying, comprehended my pantomime, and replied by a sign that he had a greater need of the powder than of his teeth in order to live; while the Englishman gravely answered that he was not constraining the man, who had the right to a free decision, which we must respect, and that he was going to operate, since he was requested to do so. I immediately realized that my efforts would only be crowned with success if I offered the tayo a higher bid for his teeth.
"Tayo, if you will keep your teeth, I will give you your powder-container full of the finest quality of powder made by the French Republic. What do you say? Come, get up, and think well; on our return to the Asia your large container, yes, the large one, shall be filled with powder. I promise it to you, and, still more, you shall load your gun ten times with my own powder.”
The savage hesitated, smiled, then rose and moved away from the Englishman when he saw me raise my right hand in the attitude of one taking an oath.
2 A
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“Sir,” said the Englishman in a tone of annoyance, “your action lacks friendliness. You are probably not aware that in addition to the work of a naturalist, which has been entrusted to me, I have also been commissioned to collect teeth on behalf of the firm of Willis and Sons, of Regent Street, the most famous dental surgeons in Great Britain.”
“What do your dental surgeons of Regent Street matter to me? Just now you invoked the freedom this Maori possessed of determining whether or not he would have his teeth extracted; well, in my turn, I make the same appeal in favour of their retention.”
My confrere and two or three other persons, who had followed Mr. Deans into the barn at the moment when he came to allay the anger aroused in the Maoris, now interposed between the Tasmanian and me. Thanks to their good offices, there was, for the moment at any rate, no open recourse to a contest of boxing and the savate. 1
It may perhaps be thought that what I have just related is to be numbered among those episodes with which the fancy and imagination of the traveller embellish the narrative of his wanderings when these, not infrequently, tend to become monotonous. Not at all; nothing could be more true than the account I have given. Many English dentists, instead of moulding and constructing false teeth from materials more or less resembling the dental substance, prefer to employ the natural article, and since no human beings possess whiter and stronger teeth than the cannibals of New Zealand, it is there that they have agents instructed to devastate the Maori jaws.
1 That form of French boxing in which the feet play as important a part as the fists, the contestant, with a great deal of agility, at times resting his hand or hands on the ground and delivering heavy blows with one or both feet.—Note ; F. W. R.
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Assuredly more than one famous personage, lord, or lady, does not know whence comes the range of teeth for which they have paid with their weight in gold. Were it known, I should not be surprised if their imagination strayed to the extent of mistaking for shreds of human flesh what the toothpick removed after dinner from their interstices.
The guests resumed their places at the table, but the conversation and the toasts were not resumed. My dispute with the Tasmanian caused me to feel cool and constrained in this company. Moreover, it already grew late, so we went to our sleep in fine beds, after instructing the tayo to awaken us at four o’clock in the morning.
Before dawn our guide was gesticulating and exclaiming between our two beds, and, as I then slept more soundly than I do to-day, it required a considerable amount of eloquence to awaken me, and no small effort to make me cast loose from that depth of wool and feathers in which I found myself so well anchored.
We had bidden adieu to the master of the house and the other guests on the previous evening. It is true they would no longer recollect it, because English toasts cause loss of memory. Thus no duties of politeness detained us at the farm, and no sooner were we up than we left, rendered active and cheerful by a glass of gin which Mr. Deans’s steward offered us in return for the customary tip.
The tayo s dog led the way; then came the tayo himself, then Henoque, while I followed last. Our caravan took this order because we were obliged to follow a narrow path, traced between fields of wheat and oats and a patch of impenetrable forest 1 not yet attacked by axe and fire, and which served to shelter the plantations from the
1 This is Putaringamotu, the Riccarton bush already referred to. — Note ; J. C. A.
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north-east wind, which drives before it clouds of sand raised from the flat lands of the isthmus. We reached this neck of land after an hour’s walk, and it took us at least another hour to cross it.
This toil was a rude one; sometimes we sank to our knees in the sand, sometimes we stumbled over beds of dry and crumbling shells which were crushed beneath our boots. The tide flung its immense foaming waves upon the beach; the spray settled upon our clothing, covering it with a white and saline powder; the frightened petrels flew out to sea; and a chill and biting wind caused us to bend our backs and fold our arms over our guns as we advanced further over this tract of land which united the peninsula with the mainland of Tavai-Pounamou. 1
It will perhaps arouse a sense of surprise that I did not take advantage of this opportunity to gather some shells. It is not generally known that those magnificent specimens of porcelain, those lyres of which the spiral ends in a tiny diamond, those gleaming conches of Venus, those rose-tinted casques with reflections of the dawn and the sunset, in fact all those marvels of the conchologist, which the learned collect with so much pleasure and which we place like flowers amid the knick-knacks on our shelves, are never collected on the sands of the seashore. Those abandoned by the waves are valueless; to use a technical term they are threshed-, the animal which secretes this enamel for his covering has long been dead, and its brilliance has been tarnished beneath the brightness of the solar rays, and the sea trinket is worn by the ebb and flow of the tide and the continual friction of the gravel and the waves. The real shell which we admire has been collected, while still living, from the depths of
1 See Note LI, on page 412
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the sea, or from between rocks which protected it from the influences of the atmosphere. So far from revealing the splendours of its garb through the blue or green waters, it is enveloped by a bed of ooze or a smock of moss and seaweeds, and it only becomes beautiful when the hand of man cleanses and unmasks it. We did not therefore waste our time in gathering defunct shells. Yet a serious naturalist would have devoted himself to seeking specimens hitherto unknown, but we were rather wanderers than students, and we passed on. The tayo alone paused from time to time to search in the sand for small pieces of wood like those he had collected on the previous evening.
Cook has been reproached with having indicated Banks Peninsula on his charts as an island. Yet who shall prove to us that this great navigator kept his journal badly, and that, in his day, the sea did not cover this tongue of sand, which only rises a yard above the level of the ocean, or at most a yard and a half? At certain places on the coast of France the sea withdraws an inch or more every year, and assuredly it would not require long here to transform an island into a peninsula.
Having reached the mainland, we penetrated into the mountainous district and turned towards the north-north-east. The plain separating the mountains from the sea is very narrow and wooded, and is no doubt only one of the plateaux of these Antipodean Alps, the bases of which are submerged.
At the foot of these mountains, as majestic as the Pyrenees, I could have believed myself in the valley of the Gripp, 1 on the road to Tourmalet; there were the
1 In the Pyrenees, south of Bagn£res-de-Bigorre, and south-east of Lourdes. It is now famous for its winter sports and its two cascades.— Note; F.W.R.
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same undulations of the land, a deep valley and a River Adour following the declivity, and everywhere rocks, forests, and moors. Only ferns take the place of firs and of cedars with their olive leaves, while the monstrous kauri 1 and the giant evergreen box-tree replace the planes, the birches, and the oaks of the south of France. Even snow was not lacking on our journey; but what I did miss was the colour of the strip of earth turned up by the spade, the meadow wrested from the moorland and the smoke from a cottage, those things which mean life.
Our guide led us along the crest of a deep valley; we only advanced with difficulty amid brushwood and tall grasses, and it was necessary to make a long detour in order to enter another valley at right angles to this one, so that we might avoid the first buttresses of the mountain, which we could only have scaled with difficulty. We made our first halt about ten o’clock, after crossing the torrent which reminded me of the Adour, and which, thank Heaven, was then almost dry. We climbed the heights and stopped beside a little basin formed by the fall of a trickle of water. A rock carpeted with maidenhair overhung our heads and protected us from the wind. From this spot, seated upon a thick velvet-pile of moss, we could contemplate at the same time the valley we had just left and that we were about to skirt. This latter, narrower and wilder than the former, was, to speak correctly, only a gorge, a cleft in the granite of the mountains. A boundless horizon was revealed at the
1 Dr. Maynard is here plainly confounding the kauri with some other tree, or has become confused in his memories of the places where he saw it—supposing that he visited the North Island, which he does not state. — Note; F.W. R.
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extremity of the perspective, and, if ever civilization establishes a connection between the inhabitants of the east and west coasts of Tavai-Pounamou, the railway will be compelled to pass here. While waiting for the noise of the puffing locomotives to be reverberated by the echoes of these solitudes, my gun disturbed that eternal silence by bringing down a large grouse, perched on the trunk of a dead tree, and there preening itself in the sunshine and voluptuously airing itself as the wattles on its neck became engorged with blood. These wattles, situated on either side of the head like a pair of whiskers, are to the New Zealand grouse what its crest is to our domestic rooster.
The tayo, who had lit a fire beneath the penthouse of the rock, did not wish to undertake the roasting of the bird. I have already said that it is only koukies, or slaves, who attend to the cooking, and the tayo was not that; however, he was not a real rangatira , though he had the pride of one. A New Zealand prisoner of war would prefer death to being condemned to cook for his conqueror. Thus, of all the men on board our ship, the master cook was the most despised by our friends of Oeteta.
Henoque cleaned and plucked the game, while I fitted up a spit with a handle. This is how I did it. Two wooden forks were driven into the earth on either side of the hearth. The game was impaled on a branch, and that was then placed on the two forks in such a manner that the flesh was not too distant from the fire. To the thick end of the branch was attached another piece of wood at right-angles by the aid of grass or rope-yarn; yet another piece of wood was again fastened to this last in such manner that its direction was in a parallel line
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with the length of the spit. The handle was now complete, and could be turned. The tayo was amazed at our skill; he was not familiar with this arrangement, and would have cooked the bird by wrapping it in leaves and covering it with red-hot stones. We preferred it roasted.
Fearing that our legs would become stiff, we did not rest for long. Moreover, the weather was cold and the moss damp. Before leaving, the tayo placed in the centre of the brands two or three small pieces of the wood which he had picked up on the sand. I asked him why he had done this, but he did not answer. This was his custom when he was preparing a surprise for us. I also asked him where he intended to pass the night. Concerning this, we were quite aware that no farm resembling that of Mr. Deans was to be found along our route, but we at least hoped to find some village or at least an abandoned hut. There, wrapped in our rugs, we should sleep more comfortably than under the stars. For that matter, before leaving, he had caused us to understand, by signs, that we should have a shelter over our heads that night. Was it to be the shelter of a tree, a rock, or a hut?
Henoque, as the journey progressed, was much more concerned than I about our nocturnal residence. This journey on foot, up hill and down dale (that is how it should be described, because we followed no recognized track), this tourist escapade through the almost virgin solitudes of New Zealand may perhaps cause some of my readers to smile in fancy. 'lome it was, however, yet one more delusion to add to those Wandering Jew illusions of mine.
The soil, sometimes concealed by lichens, clubmosses, and wild plants, sometimes as marshy as a bog
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and at others as stony as the bed of a torrent, only permitted us to progress with difficulty. A grey and misty sky, without a single ray of sunlight to illumine it, hung above our heads, and the wind which scurried through the ravines and tossed lugubriously the branches of the forest, the borders of which we followed, saddened us as does the mistral 1 the river-side residents of Provence.
How could one examine this natural history or study this flora, which resembles no other in the known continents; how could one, at every step, wonder at the strangeness of this antipodean nature, which baffles all the rules and principles laid down by our scholars; how could one collect flowers, seeds, insects, birds, or reptiles, stupefied as we were by fatigue and cold? Really, I began to think myself condemned to travel over a stage in the most prosaic province in France. Yet what treasures were offered to my gaze and what precious contrasts I could have noticed between the New Zealand flora and that of Europe. Here the number of species of the cryptogams is double that of the phanerogams, and where the flowers of our fields and gardens are annuals, here the same are perennials, and, subjected to a similar temperature, survive the winter without withering or drying. There are orchids here which would be the queens of our flower-beds 2 ; here are geraniums with sad blossoms lacking richness, but so perfumed with amber that after ten months the cloak, in the folds of which I had placed a few of their leaves, was still impregnated with their sweet odour.
1 The mistral is a powerful, drying north-west wind, very prevalent on the south coast of France from autumn to spring.—Note : F. W. R.
! See Note LII, on page 413
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I stooped and plucked from above a small ledge of mossy broom a tuft of grass, which I rubbed between my fingers, and it would have been thought that I had dipped them in liquid musk. The composite and labiates fill the air with their keen scents, as though to correct the odour of the fetid clematis 1 peculiar to these countries. If I were not afraid of being accused of lying, I should risk stating that I found upon the edge of a thicket of woody and arborescent veronicas some briars bearing green roses, yes, green roses, quite green, not because of the moss which covered them, but naturally of that hue. I took some cuttings of this, in order to propagate them in France on my return, but when I reached Havre they had become as dry as old vine twigs. While I was writing my recollections, I read in Le Steele, for May 13th, 1855, that a florist at Mannheim had just succeeded in producing green roses. Perhaps he had obtained some cuttings from the briar of Tavai-Pounamou.
My former professor, Achille Richard, 2 as well as several English naturalists, have published large works on the vegetation of New Zealand. Surgeon-Major Raoul, of the corvette Aube , has added to their lists nine hundred and twenty new species, and the supply is not yet exhausted, indeed far from it. I have sought in vain in the works of these gentlemen for the descriptions of numerous species to be met with at every step, and of which the natives pointed out to me the importance as
1 Foetid clematis (Clematis fattiJa), misnamed, as it produces great numbers of sweet-scented yellow-green flowers. It is believed that the flowers were faded when found by the Frenchman who gave the name, and “ lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”—Note : J. C. A.
2 See Note LIII, on page 413.
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timber, both for use and for export. Such were the toujou-toupou, 1 a kind of mangrove, the m#-ce, the maido, the miro, the pohutukawa, the tarai-da, all species of lofty growth and straight stemmed, with a fine compact structure, good perhaps for the spars of ships and for carpenters’ use, or for cabinet-making. These various species, all belonging to the genera of the dacrydiums and the podocarps, are the largest trees of the forests. The best known is the kauri, with a trunk straight and unbranched to a height of more than a hundred and fifty feet, 2 and which furnishes a green gum which could be seen at the Universal Industrial Exhibition (of 1855); the karaka, a great bushy tree with foliage like the orange, and fruit similar to the olive. Mr. Deans has gathered this fruit and attempted to preserve it, as they do olives in Provence. He hopes to be successful. For long the English have exploited the northern forests. The turn of those in the south will come, and it will take no small time for the product to be exhausted.
A little cultivation would civilize the leguminous plants and render domesticated and nutritious a number of indigenous vegetables and roots, such as the simple panax, or wild turnip, the Lepidium cleraceum (wild celery) which the natives call nai-pato , the Tetragonia expansa or spinach, and the criste marine, 3 which creeps over the hills by the border of the sea, and which the naturalist Raoul named Leucopogon bellignnaus, in honour of Belligni, the consoler of the old French colonists at
1 See Note LIV, on page 413.
2 A slight exaggeration
3 Probably the sandbine (Calystegia Soldanella), listed by A. Richard. ■Note ; J. C. A.
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Akaroa. This criste marine, of which the creeping stems are covered with appendages like gherkins, forms when preserved in vinegar what the English call pickles. But lam abusing your patience with my botany. Let us pass on.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE LAST WHALE
FOR an hour we had left the defile which extends from one ocean to the other, and turned obliquely to the left and were climbing the mountain. Already banks of mist were enveloping us and rain threatened. Henoque’s melancholy affected me. I repented of having undertaken this journey, which did not even fulfil my adventurer’s dreams, and I regretted the monotony of our evenings on board the Asia. Yet what could be done ? Turn back? We should not know where to pass the night. Continue our route? Yes, continue we must since the tayo , constantly alert, always cheerful, had promised us a refuge equal to our desires.
We climbed a steep slope which an avalanche of broken and pounded rock had made almost impracticable. We marched abreast, because it would have been dangerous for us to have followed one another, since at any instant the last of the party might be struck by the moving stones which rolled beneath our feet. As far as the view
extended the mountain stretched ahead, bare, despoiled of vegetation, and divided into a series of shelves by the immense parallel strata of granite which separated them. At each shelf it became necessary for us to use our hands as well as our feet in order to scale the barriers and, one overcome, we perceived another, then a third, which we thought to be the last, but which never proved to be such.
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Those who have rambled over the Pyrenees will understand me. Always we expected to be on the point of reaching the summit of this bare mountain which we were attempting to cross. Time and space are calculated, but they laugh at calculations, and the desired result moves farther away in proportion as we approach it.
The tayo pointed out to us with his hand a clump of shrubs, the only thicket of verdure which grew upon the sides of this infernal mountain. He pointed it out persistently, and placing the palm of his hand to his right ear and bending his head and closing his eyes, seemed to inform us that above on yonder height was the sacred wood where we should find our beds.
“Come, comrade, one more pull at the collar, one more stretch, another quarter of a league, a hundred steps farther. The sun must be very near to the level of the ocean. By lifting our heads we have not even the consolation of saluting its last rays, though they redden the summit of the mountain, so much does the sky, overcast with clouds, sulk at us. Let us hasten then.”
“Yet this inn has no sign-board,” said Henoque.
“Who knows?” I replied. “ Perhaps some New Zealand philosopher has taken refuge above, in this oasis amid a desert of stones, and we do not perceive his cottage, concealed no doubt by the foliage. See! that stream which descends yonder little channel seems to come out of the thicket. At least we shall have plenty of fresh water, if we have no bed.”
Henoque heaved a great sigh of resignation. The conversation ceased, and in silence we reached the clump of trees around which, before penetrating it, the tayo passed until he reached some branches broken in a certain manner. These twigs indicated the entrance to the
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thicket, everywhere else impenetrable, and at once we entered upon a very narrow but quite well-beaten path. This wood, which appeared to us so small from the bottom of the mountain, seemed to grow beyond measure as we advanced into its interior. It stretched away into the distance, hidden by an undulation of the ground.
The tayo's dog, which knew the turnings, disappeared ahead and his master, joyous, skipping, clapping his hands and rolling out incomprehensible phrases, invited us to hasten our steps. Suddenly we were halted by a wall of perpendicular rock some fifty feet high. The path went no further and we should have been unable to comprehend why it led here but for three cedars which grew at the foot of this wall, and of which the trunks, notched in places, served as stairs.
The Maori, nimble as a cat, sprang from one notch to another and, having reached the last, sprang across the gap and stepped upon a platform which was invisible from below. Then he leaned over towards us, making a sign that we should follow him. Henoque, more powerful and a better gymnast than I, answered the summons and arrived beside the tayo , calling out to me that a magnificent palace would be our shelter that night.
Whether from fatigue or fear of falling, from lack of suppleness in my back or weakness in the muscles of my arms, I do not know, but when my foot was in the first notch of the tree and my hands on the level of the second, I could not haul myself up, and fell heavily back at the foot of the cedar. From the summit of their magnificence they laughed at me, laughed at my ineffectual attempt, and even the dog came to defy me, yelping with all his might.
Plainly, I felt incapable of securing a hospitality
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which was offered me as they do a silver cup on top of a greasy pole. Yet I did not wish to catch cold far away from my companions, not even under the stars, and soaked by a rain which was already beginning to fall, fine, icy, and heavy. The barking of the dog saved me. I fortunately recollected that this animal had been able to arrive above by taking some other road than that followed by Henoque and the tayo , and I concluded that I should search for it in the hope that having discovered it I might pass by the same route. I therefore sought. On the right the wall of rock stretched away indefinitely and always perpendicularly, either bare or hung here and there with thick, bushy plants springing from fissures, and with supplejacks, those immense creepers. I was obliged to give up all hope of success in that direction. To the left it was different. The cliff gradually diminished in height and was transformed into a slope of earth covered with bushes and scoured by the stream of which I have already spoken. Ihe bed of this rivulet seemed practicable to me. I entered it and commenced my ascent. Already it was almost night and I might have gone astray, but my comrades mingled their voices with the barking of the dog in order to guide me, and I was not long in rejoining them.
Our palace for the night was a grotto hollowed out by nature and enlarged by the hand of man. The foliage of the cedars concealed the entrance, which could not be detected from outside, while from the interior it was possible to perceive in the distance the whole surrounding country. Many such caverns exist in New Zealand where the women, old men and children of a tribe at war take refuge in order to escape from the enemy. These caves also serve for purposes of ambush. Access to them is'
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always difficult and hidden, and the watcher placed at their entrance can detect all who approach it. I have frequently lain in wait for pigeons in a little grotto halfway up a wooded ravine overlooking the village of Oeteta. A trickle of water is always near these hiding places, generally very spacious. The fires there lighted are fed by a fuel which yields no smoke, so that the refugees may store their provisions and remain there for whole months or for the duration of the war. Tasman, who was the first to visit Van Diemen’s Land, spoke of the trunks of trees upon which he had noticed some notches resembling those which served as a ladder for my companions.
I admit that under the conditions in which we found ourselves that cavern was a veritable palace to us. The tayo had hastened to rummage on the slope up which I had climbed, and soon after a thick faggot of dry wood was blazing on the platform outside the retreat, so that the smoke, carried away by the breeze, should not suffocate us.
Not one single narrative have I read by any overseas tourist without encountering the everlasting incident of the savage rubbing two fragments of dead wood together in order to obtain fire. The employment of flint and tinder has long since replaced this primitive method. To-day these also are of the past, and the phosphorus strip and the lucifer match dispute for pre-eminence in the African hut, the American wigwam, and the Oceanian pa. Our Maori gave the preference to the lucifer match. To him, each of these little tips was a real genie, and the manufacturer, Lanacastels, a god. Yet it saddened him to think that the boxes which contained them were not inexhaustible, and that if the whalers did not return every winter to visit the peninsula, the dearth of matches would
2 B
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soon be felt. He therefore kept carefully wrapped up in a piece of flax cloth the top of a mushroom, the flint from a musket, and a fragment of steel from an old file.
When the logs on the hearth were reduced to charcoal, the tayo rolled them inside the cave to the bottom of a cavity in the earth, and added to them some fragments of the wood which he had picked up on the previous evening and the present morning upon the beach. I did not again ask him for what purpose. Little by little I noticed this wood become incandescent without smoking, and it gave out a grateful warmth through the entire extent of our den. This wood which burns thus, free from smoke, the New Zealanders call pate. (The naturalists have not yet been able to refer it to any known family.) The pate is whitish and friable like rotten wood. They find it as branches or as fragments, stranded at the bottom of bays, on the shore or buried in the sand. The tides carry it there and leave it as they retreat. The natives, who attribute everything to the power of Maui, their fish god, claim that this beneficent deity exploits the forests which he possesses in the depths of the ocean especially for them. This pate , then, when the tinder, the phosphorus, and the lucifer matches were unknown to them, produced fire on being rubbed. Though to-day it no longer fulfils this purpose, it serves several others no less important: that of burning without giving off any smoke, of setting free much heat, and of remaining incandescent for an indefinite time. Thus, when we returned next day, or the day after, to the place where we had roasted our grouse, we should have no need to light our fire again. The pate which our tayo had flung upon the hearth would still be glowing, and even were we not to pass that way for a month we should still find sparks hidden beneath those
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white and compact ashes resembling those of a cigar, and moreover retaining the shape of the fragment of wood before it was placed on the fire. I think the -pate may come from any species of tree, without distinction, and that it acquires its valuable qualities only after having been for long tossed on the strand by the ebb and flow of the tides. In this way it is gradually despoiled of all the chief properties natural to vegetable matters, being ceaselessly impregnated with sea water, which is evaporated by the rays of the sun, while the phosphates, chlorides, and iodides, as well as other salts contained in the sea, remain absorbed by the woody fibres. When these fibres burn in the same manner as tinder, the sea salts become vitrified beneath the ashes, and retain the fire for an indefinite period, especially if the combustion is protected from rain.
This cavern, almost circular in shape, had a diameter of some thirty-five to fifty feet, and the arch of the entrance was concealed by the bushy summits of the cedars. The earth within was strewn with reeds, the leaves of Indian grass and fragments of matting, while here and there the walls had been blackened by the smoke from fires. Some stakes driven into fissures in the walls, some shells and the remains of fish, and—l still shudder at this —some human bones, dry and broken, all indicated that this lair had served as an asylum, not only for a fugitive tribe, but also for warriors returning from a combat.
While we were preparing our beds the Maori rummaged in one corner after another, and then triumphantly showed us a little cast-iron pot which he had discovered hidden beneath a heap of grass. This vessel had been left there by the last lodgers. He filled it at the neighbouring streamlet, and as soon as the water was boiling
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flung into it a handful of the leaves of Melaleuca scoparia ,* which he had gathered on our route. This shrub is the native tea of New Zealand, just as the mate is that of South America.
This warm beverage, fortified by a strong dash of gin, helped us to shake off the torpor of fatigue and cold, and after having eaten a slice of salt pork, slowly smoked a pipe and chatted rather listlessly of our whaling life, of the France to which I was so shortly to return, and which Henoque would never see again (such was his presentiment), we fell asleep with our feet to the pate fire, our bodies smothered in our rugs, and our heads raised by a piece of rock upon which our game-bags served as pillows.
I do not know whether Henoque, the tayo, and the puppy passed pleasantly this eve of the greenstone, but assuredly I slept as one does when young, vigorous, and careless, and I only awoke when it was broad daylight, but what an awakening it was!
Henoque was seated, leaning his back against the entrance to the cave; near him crouched the tayo , his elbows on his knees and his chin in the hollow of his hands, while the cur stood motionless like a statue, with his muzzle in the air. All three were gloomily contemplating the heavy downpour of rain which fell like a curtain before the cave. \\ e were prisoners, and that for the whole day no doubt. What was to be done? Resume our pilgrimage? We still had a march of fully five hours 2
1 Melaleuca scopana , manuka, tea-tree ( Liptospermum scoparium). There is some confusion in the nomenclature of the rata and the manuka one of the former being for a time called Leptospermum and the latter Melaleuca, a name also bestowed on a rata. —Note : J. C. A.
2 More confusion of topography. Lake Ellesmere ought bv the description to be just below them ; no other lake was five hours distance, unless it were Lake Forsyth.—Note : J. C. A.
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before us in order to reach the lake, and how were we to progress over ground difficult enough in dry weather and impracticable after rain? Each considered in silence what was best to be done. The general opinion was that we should retrace our steps, and leave immediately, hoping to regain Mr. Deans’s farm before night.
In an hour we descended the mountain which it had taken us four hours to climb on the previous evening. We halted for a moment only beside the -pate of the day before, which the rain had not yet extinguished and, shivering with cold and drenched as though we had just swum across the lake, we gladly welcomed once more the hospitality of the English colonist. Next day we resumed our return, still accompanied by the rain so that, instead of descending the course of the Teo-ne-poto, it was necessary to climb the heights which overlooked at the same time the Gulf of Togolabo, the cove of Oeteta and Port Levy. By noon we had attained the highest point of the district, and it was not without a lively pleasure that we perceived peacefully at anchor below us the Asia and the Angelina , just as we had left them two days before.
Seaman or passenger, he who for long resides, a prisoner, on board ship, becomes enamoured of that vessel. Frequently, disgusted with the monotonous life of the open sea, he hastens to go ashore at any port at which the ship stays; but scarcely has he cursorily made acquaintance with the appearance and the details of a land new to him, than, with a feeling of apology, he experiences but one desire, that of once more returning to again weary himself on board. No doubt it is because our national flag floats from the masts of the vessel which conveys us that, on any other soil but that of our
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native land, we are drawn back to the ship by a form of nostalgia.
As I gradually descended the steep slopes of the bay, into the funnel of Oeteta, it seemed to me that the Asia was very noisy and much agitated. Our boats, returned from the fishing, were floating astern; the men were busy, running about the deck, and though I had no telescope it looked to me as though the flag was half mast and knotted in the middle. That was a lugubrious signal! Someone had been injured, was perhaps dead; or had there been a contest with the Maoris? However, I reflected that, if the Asia had been in distress, the men of the Angelina would have gone to her assistance, yet everything seemed calm on board the sister ship. Suddenly my anxiety ended. A small cloud of smoke rose from the foot of the foremast, increased in size and, expanding and driven down by the wind, enveloped the vessel. So Captain Jay had killed and stripped a whale since our departure and, as this completed his cargo, he was saluting the ships which had been his fishing companions by firing a cannon and hoisting at the mizzen gaff a piece of whale blubber instead of the national flag. This piece of pleasantry, quite after the Yankee fashion, never failed in its effect. It greatly increased the energy of the workers while vexing their rivals who had not yet secured this good fortune.
How swiftly I passed through the village; 1 I did not wait for one of the ship’s boats to come for me but, at the price of a stick of tobacco, freighted an old Maori craft and, a few minutes later, was religiously paying
1 He passed through the village. What village ? Probably Rapaki on the north side of Lyttelton Harbour, north-west of the French anchorage. —Note ; J. C. A.
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attention to the captain who, coming in from his platform rigged outside the ship, and, leaning on his spade, said to me;
“Doctor, this is our last whale. We have killed thirty-one, and they have yielded two thousand six hundred barrels of oil. That is as many as the Asia can hold, so now it is farewell and away for France!”
So the last strip of blubber was rendered down. The mallet, so worshipped by the coopers, rang joyously on the iron hoops of the last casks of oil, which were just about to be stowed on end below decks, because the hold itself was loaded to the level of the hatchway. Even the between-decks was not large enough to contain all the barrels ; and two large containers, two immense tuns, had been placed, one to port and the other to starboard of the main hatch, two great scuttle-butts in fact, as they are called, which each held more than a thousand gallons and were to receive the oil furnished by our last whale. These scuttle-butts, which are filled from an opening contrived in the deck, serve during the cruise to convey the oil into the first tier of barrels at the bottom of the hold, it being impossible to remove these. This species of drainage is carried out by means of a long leather pipe, resembling that of a pump, fitted to the bottom ot the scuttle-butts and connecting as required with the bungholes of the lower casks.
The whalers who can return to their home ports with their scuttle-butts full of oil are proud men. Moreover, if they dared, they would attempt, like the great whaler of Sag Harbour, to turn their boats into containers, and construct additional storage in each top.
The whole rendered down, they allowed no time for the caboose (the furnace and boilers combined) to grow
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cold before the captain, equipped with an iron bar, gave the signal for its demolition. In a flash the mass of bricks was flung into the sea, and under pretext of testing the soundness of the cauldrons and discovering whether some crack did not prevent them being retained for the next voyage, the harpooners rang the changes on them with great blows from their hammers, and so well did they carry this out that they were shivered, to the loud applause of the crew, and thus, instead of being lowered below decks, they were flung into the sea—on the trifling excuse of seeing whether they would let the water in.
From day to day the Asia took on a new appearance. The deck, the bulwarks, the lower masts, the rigging, the cordage, both standing and light, everything in fact, the crew and the officers included, got rid of that oily filth which had been accumulated during the rough labours of a long fishing expedition. The weather was favourable for this work of cleansing. A fortnight after our departure from the peninsula we were no longer recognizable, and the most foppish war vessel, the most coquettish and best pitched merchant ship, would scarcely have been worthy to pass to leeward of us.
Our good friends, the Maoris and Wahines, chanted a song of adieu while the anchor was raised, and stowed for use at need. Then we parted, as was quite understood would be the case. The married women returned to their husbands, the young girls to their fiances, and I do not remember to have noticed a single tear in the eyes of one of these widows.
1 hy-ga-rit, taken unawares by die announcement of our departure, came in all haste to ask Captain Jay for a certificate stating that he, the captain, and the crew, had
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only praise to bestow upon His Majesty. The captain gave him this because he deserved it. As for Ivico, of Port Levy, Captain Jay suspected him very much of having assisted at the desertion of two of our men, who were no doubt employed on Mr. Deans’s farm after our departure, and when he too asked for a certificate he obtained one which I drew up in these terms;
“I, the undersigned, declare that the chief of Port Levy and of Pigeon Bay is an arrant rascal, in whom ships’ captains frequenting the peninsula will do well to place no confidence. I also declare that his wife is very amiable. In token of which I have bestowed the present certificate to serve and stand for what is correct.
“(Signed), Jay, Captain of the Asia.”
Ivico, delighted, wished to rub his nose against that of the captain.
The tayo took good care not to forget the sporting powder I had promised him for retaining his teeth. The artful fellow did not leave me for a minute. Captain Jay had his reasons for getting quickly under way. From the capture of the last whale but one, he had given orders to bring on board the material deposited beside the Creek of Memory, and to rig the top-gallant masts, lowered since the commencement of the wintering. Had our departure been announced beforehand, the English colonists on the peninsula, and the agents of those in the North Island, would have been able to tamper in great style with our sailors and entice them away, yet assuredly we had need of all our hands to successfully bring our ship back to Havre as speedily as possible.
When would Havre, with its citadel bridge and its
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La Barre dock, see us once more? That evening, at supper, we spoke of the probable slowness of the voyage; we made allowances for bad weather, for calms and possible losses, and we calculated upon requiring from a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty days for the voyage. Included in this was a stay of ten days at Talcahuana on the coast of Chile. We should have to sail for forty or forty-four times twenty-four hours before perceiving the Breasts of Bio-Bio, that double mountain summit which indicates to incoming ships the location of Conception Bay.
Never was the commencement of a voyage more merry. A pleasant breeze from the south-east drove us rapidly to the east, along the forty-fifth degree of latitude, and by holding this course, making all allowance for drift, currents, and variations of the compass, we should arrive within sight of South America without one island, islet, or rock appearing in that lonely zone of the Pacific. I was mistaken. The next evening, as the sun set, the bluish masses of the Chatham Islands broke the straight line of the horizon. Farewell, last of our antipodean lands! 1
1 Dr. Maynard had promised the story of the poetical Breton during the voyage across the Pacific, but we do not receive it. The Whalers first appeared as a serial in one of the great Parisian dailies. It was then customary to contract for so many “ volumes ” ; probably Dumas did this and, the contract completed, the work was brought to a conclusion.—Note ; F. W. R.
NOTES
I (AND the reader) owe the following elucidating and valuable notes to the friendship and kindly interest of Mr. Johannes C. Andersen, and, as will be seen in one or two instances, through him to Mr. Edgar Stead and to Mr. R. M. Laing, to whom I express my grateful appreciation.
F. W. R.
Note I (page 39). This is the first intimation that there were wild dogs on the Port Hills ; they were common on the Westland side of the Southern Alps, where they thinned out the kakapo and kiwi and even weka, but the early Canterbury explorers do not mention wild dogs, though wild pigs were plentiful.
Note II (page 40). The Kaikoura Mountains are no doubt intended by the Kaikaldas of the original. These, with the snowy tops of their higher peaks, stand out well across Pegasus Bay to the north of the Banks Peninsula, more especially during north-west weather, which causes the clear air to act like the lens of a fieldglass and bring the mountains much nearer, adding colour to definition, and substituting a soft green, eau-de-nil, for the usual purple of distance.
Note 111 (page 54). The first French whaler in New Zealand was the Mississippi , which spent the winter of 1836 in Cloudy Bay. There was none in New Zealand waters in 1837, and it is probably the report of the Mississippi that sent out the French whalers which were numerous in New Zealand waters in 1838. The Mississippi accompanied the whaling fleet that set out from Havre de Grace during June and July, 1837, calling with them at Hobart at the end of January, 1838. The first mention of their arrival in New Zealand waters is the report of Captain Bruce, on his arrival in Sydney on March 29th, that one had been at South Cape, another
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at Otago. The harbours of Banks Peninsula attracted them, and the A dele and Pauline were in the Akaroa Harbour on March 3 ist. By April 12th the Asia had arrived, Captain Jay in command, so it seems as though this is the first appearance of Dr. Maynard. On June Bth, the Hhoine under Captain Cecile, sent out to watch over French whaling interests, found at Akaroa the Nil, the Gustave, the Cosmopolite, and the Gauge ; the A dele and the Pauline were at Peraki ; the Cachalot, the Asia , the Souvenir , the Dunkerquoise at Port Cooper. (See McNab, The Old Whaling Days , pp. 245-259.)
Note IV (page 76). Tavai-Pounamou. Cook was told this name for the South Island by the people of the North Island (Te Ika a Maui). It is supposed to be a corruption of Te wai pounamu (the place of greenstone) j its chief interest to the North Island Maori was its being the source of that valued stone, found chiefly at Arahura on the West Coast.
Note V (page 78). The reference to Horace relates to Satire 1, 5, 26. The name Anxur occurs in the description of a mulejourney from Rome to Brindisi : “ We wash our faces and hands in thy clear water, Feronia ; then, after breakfast, we crawl on for three miles, and come up to Anxur perched on rocks that gleam white from afar/ The more usual name of Anxur is Tarracina.
Note VI (page 80). The agami, or gold-breasted trumpeter of South America, found in the Upper Amazon region, is about the size of a pheasant, but with a long neck and very short tail. It is easily domesticated, and is then a pattern of fondness and fidelity but jealous in disposition. The English call it trumpeter ; the French use the native name, agami.
Note VII (page 82). Dumont D’Urville was at the Auckland Islands in March, 1840. Ihe note by Monsieur Desgras is on page 274 of Vol. 9 Histoire —part of the fine publication containing the account of the voyage. Dumas does not quote literally, but the substance is there ; Desgras calls the penguins, manchots ; D’Urville calls them pingouins.
Note VIII (page 82). The moulting penguin retires to a dark hole among rocks or in the roots of trees, because it does not sired its coat feather by feather, but the whole at once ; and there are
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stronger reasons than modesty which urge it to seek concealment until the new feathers grow.
Note IX (page 87). The fable is from La Fontaine, Book 7, No. 4. The heron saw plenty of fish, great and small, quite close to him as he stood in the water ; but as his appetite was not keen enough for the fullest enjoyment he let the fish go, promising himself a treat later on. Then, when hungry, he took his stand ; a tench appeared, but that was not good enough : he had seen better ; a gudgeon—too small ; he had seen bigger not long since ; —but no more fish appeared, and he had to stay his hunger with a single unfortunate snail which he found on the bank.
Note X (page 93). Antipodes Islands, discovered on M 1 rch 26th, 1800, by Captain Waterhouse of H.M.S. Reliance; he named them Penantipodes from their nearness to the antipodes of London. They were rediscovered by Captain Pendleton of the Union in 1804, and by him and Americans generally called Antipodes. He found a great many seals there and left a sealing gang to collect skins. Their eventful history, which is in part a mystery, is related by R. McNab in Murihiku , pp. 142, 145-7.
It will be noted that the discovery of the islands is credited, in Dumas, to Captain Pendleton, in 1800 ; but he was not there till 1804. The islands lie about 458 miles south-easterly from Port Chalmers.
Note XI (page 94). The passage quoted is not from Cook, but from G. Forster, who accompanied Cook, 1772-1775, and published an independent account ; the following extract is from the English edition, A Voyage Round the World ... by George Forster, 2 vols., London, 1777. “ About seven in the evening, on that day, December 6, 1773, we were in the latitude of 51 0 33' south, and longitude 180° ; consequently just at the point of the antipodes of London. The remembrance of domestic felicity, and the sweets of society, called forth a sigh from every heart which felt the tender ties of filial or parental affection. We are the first Europeans, and I believe I may add, the first human beings, who have reached this point, where it is probable none will come after us. A common report prevails indeed in England concerning Sir Frands Drake, who is said to have visited the Antipodes, which the
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legend expresses by ‘ his having passed under the middle arch of London bridge ’ ; but this is a mistake, as his track lay along the coast of America, and probably originates from his having passed the perioeci, or the point in 180° long, on the same circle of north lat., on the coast of California.” (Vol. I, pp. 527—8.)
German and French editions of Forster’s book, translated from his English one, were published in 1778.
The extract is in the French translation of Cook’s Voyages, published in thirteen volumes, in Paris, from 1774 to 1785. The second voyage begins in Vol. 5 of this translation, Vol. 5 being published in 1778. In his preface the translator states (pp. viii, ix) that he has taken Cook’s text and translated it without altering a single word ; but has included remarks of Forster in parentheses ; —as he says ; “M. Forster le fils a publie une autre Relation en deux Volumes en-40. Le Traducteur en a tire tout ce que n’est pas dans celle de M. Cook, & il a fait un ensemble des deux Ouvrages, en distinguant par des guillemets ce qui est de M. Forster.”
.Note XII (page 98). Cecile Jules Gerard was born in 1817 at Pignans, Var, France, and drowned in West Africa in 1864. He was a French officer, lion hunter, and traveller in Africa, and the author of two books on lion-hunting (1855 and 1856).
Dumas was a personal friend and a great admirer of Gerard, being himself much addicted to hunting. The romancer described very picturesquely some of Gerard’s experiences in Le Mousquetaire during 1853. These articles may now be read in the second volume of the writer’s Causeries.
Note XIII (page 118). The Dutch have now remedied this in part. The Linschoten Society in 1909 started publishing the important Dutch voyages, following the lead of the Hakluyt Society. Thirty-six volumes have been published up to October, 1932, one or more being published each year.
Note XIV (page 123). Camille Falconet (1671-1762), physician and litterateur, son of a physician, Noel Falconet, and grandson of a physician, Andr6 Falconet. He practised first at Lyons and afterwards at Paris, as did his father before him. He was a noted book-collector, and in 1742 presented to the King’s library such of his books to the number of about 11,000, which that library did
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not possess. Was the author of several works in literature, and the translator of several from the classics ; he is credited with the edition of the translation of the Greek pastoral Daphnis and Chloe by d’Amyot, Paris, 1781.
Note XV (page 144). Banks Peninsula —a roughly elliptical mountain mass with radiating valleys, about thirty miles across the widest part and twenty miles across the narrowest, and rising to 3014 feet in height. As Dr. Maynard says, Captain Cook, who did not come close in, took it for an island, naming it Banks Island. In 1809, Captain Chase of the Pegasus, sailing from the north, attempted to sail between the supposed island and the mainland, but fortunately discovered before night came on that it was not an island. To commemorate his discovery he called the bay to the north, Cook’s Mistake, a name later changed to Pegasus Bay, after the ship in which Chase sailed. Thereafter the peninsula was shown on the charts as connected to the mainland by a narrow neck ; but on the survey of the coasts by the Admiralty ship Acheron, 1849-51, it was found that the Canterbury coast was laid down several miles too far west on Cook’s chart. Cook saw it only from the sea, and its lowness and hazy weather caused him to take part of the plains for water.
Note XVI (page 144). “In defiance of acquired rights.”— No ; a French captain, L’Anglois, on August 2nd, 1838, made a provisional purchase—he said of Banks Peninsula, but the Maori said of a part on the south side only —paying down goods valued at j£6, X 234 to be paid later. British Sovereignty, however, was proclaimed in August, 1840, over the whole of New Zealand, before the purchase was completed ; and when the French settlers arrived at Akaroa in the Comte de Paris they found they had come to a British colony, not a French one.
Note XVII (page 145). “ The little Bay of Martha and Pireka.” —Pireka is officially spelt Peraki ; it was the site of the first permanent whaling establishment on Banks Peninsula, started by Hempleman in 1837 ; he had a temporary station at Port Cooper (Lyttelton) in 1836. The Bay of Martha is not identified. A rock a quarter of a mile off the east head of Peraki is commonly known as “ The Frenchman’s Whale.” It is a low reef, and is said
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to have received that name in 1839, when an increasing number of vessels calling at Peraki caused much rivalry between the shoreparty and the vessels lying at anchor in the Cove ; and in the dim light of a winter’s morning a too-eager party of French visitors harpooned the reef in mistake for a whale. Whilst Peraki is the official spelling, there is much evidence that Pireka, the form adopted by the French, is correct. Canon Stack says Pireka was the old spelling before the Ngai-Tahu were dispersed by Te Rauparaha ; and I was told personally by an old Maori that this was the correct spelling. The name was derived from pipi, a species of fern which grew there in abundance, whose root emitted a fragrant smell, reka , when being prepared for food by roasting and pounding. Peraki lies about seven miles west of Akaroa Harbour.
Pahatoupa—Pohatu Pa (Pchoutoupa on a French chart) ; the Maori name of Flea Bay, between two and three miles east of Akaroa Harbour.
IVakarimoa—lVakarimu —Whanga-i-rimu, the Maori name of Fisherman Bay, on the east side of Banks Peninsula.
Kakarourou (Kakarourou on French chart) —Okaruru, the Maori name of Gough’s Bay, on the east side of Banks Peninsula.
Putakolo (Poto-kolu on French chart) —another name of Waikerakikari Bay —corrupted to Hickory Bay, the most easterly of Banks Peninsula.
Mud Bay. The identity of this bay is uncertain ; but as the ship is rounding the Peninsula, this is possibly Okains Bay on the north-east side, whose Maori name, Opara, may refer to the sediment {para) or mud uncovered at the head of the bay at low water.
Cape Crocodile is possibly the Long Look Out which projects with its rounded spur some distance out from the general curve of the Peninsula, and may be regarded as the south-east bound of Pegasus Bay.
Oetata —IVait at a , the Maori name of Little Port Cooper, the first bay on the south within the heads of Port Cooper (Lyttelton Harbour). It was used by the whalers as a trying-out station.
Note XVIII (page 146). Sabres. From the description this was evidently the kahauiai (Arripis salar), commonly called the
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New Zealand salmon, a swift, shapely fish, which takes a baited or unbaited trailed paua hook greedily ; it is rather dry eating.
Note XIX (page 149). It is evident that they experienced one of the sudden north-westers of Canterbury, which make a very nasty sea just outside Lyttelton Harbour and Port Levy. The nor’wester will as suddenly drop and be at once succeeded by a sou’wester, which drenches with its downpours what the hot nor’wester had first parched. After the storm, usually in the summer of short duration, the air is brilliantly clear.
Note XX (page 155). “Itisto us (the French) they belong by right,” etc. They did not pay for the islands with the blood of thirty-two of their sailors, but for their shameful outrages on the Chatham native women. Vice-Admiral Cecile exacted payment in full and more than full for the thirty-two sailors.
Note XXI (page 156). “Prostitution not disgraceful” in Oceania ; —no, nor was robbery, treachery, rape, murder, all of which were committed by supposedly civilized seamen with impunity in the Pacific ; as has been said, they hung up their consciences on Cape Horn before entering the Pacific. And in spite of the brutality of the lust-thwarted sailor and the depravity of his fellows, Dr. Maynard thinks that by the death of a beast and his associates and the burning of the vessel of wrath, the French had paid for the Chathams !
Note XXII (page 170). Thy-ga-rit—probably Tai-karetu. The Maori “ t ” is pronounced by lightly touching the teeth, not the palate with the tongue, so that the “ th ” sound is approached. The final sound is sometimes only breathed—as in Taitapu, pronounced by English tongues, Taitap, and Wakatipu, pronounced Wakatip. So Karetu, karet ga-rit.
Note XXIII (page 172). Olimaroa Hill—the name given by the French to Adderley Head, the common head of Port Levy and Port Cooper, —a fact which caused it, for a time, to be called Common Head. The Maori name on the Acheron's chart of the coast is Toloa ; it is not known where the French got Olimaroa. It is steep and craggy, like most of the headlands of the Peninsula.
Note XXIV (page 173). Godley Head, on the side of Lyttelton Harbour opposite Adderley Head, was called Cachalot Head
2C
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by the French because the French ship Cachalot under Captain Langlois nearly came to grief there after his partial purchase of Banks Peninsula in 1838.
Note XXV (page 177). Charles Jacques Odry, French actor (1781-1853). Comedy was his forte, and he first discovered fame in a part where his wife would not let him speak ; “ though his part comprised only ten lines, by his mute action, his grotesque naivete ”he secured a great success. To him is attributed the authorship of several comedies, among them Les Comichons, 1830.
Note XXVI (page 179). His kings have left no record by which they can be identified ; I cannot pierce the obscurity of his aliases, except that Ha-vy-ko is probably Iwikau, one of the leading chiefs of Puari at Port Levy.
Note XXVII (page 183). “Thresh the sea.” Usually the shore-whaling stations had look-out rocks of some height where a man was kept on the watch for passing whales. Such for instance was Simpson’s Look-out at Peraki.
Note XXVIII (page 189). “ Especially of murder and pillage.” —Quite wrong ; but they were apt learners. And what but pillage is this deception of the women by Taillevent ?
Note XXIX (page 192). White gulls.—Probably the tarapunga ; black-billed gull j Larus hullerie which, about Lyttelton, largely takes the place of the red-billed gull, Larus novxhollandia of New Zealand generally. Crested cormorant —The parekareka ; the spotted shag ; Stictocarho punctatus.
Note XXX (page 198). “In the depths of the lake on TawaiPounamou.” —Lake Wakatipu is supposed to be te wai-pounamou ; it is so marked on early maps, where it appears quite close to the sea, inland of Oamaru, and is called “ the lake of green talc.” The great source of greenstone was, however, the Arahura River in Westland.
Note XXXI (page 205). He compliments himself on his knowledge of astronomy, yet calculates that when he sees the full moon rise it will be daylight in two hours ! The full moon rises at sunset 1 Incidentally, he could not see the moon rise at all
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at the place where he slept ; he was facing west. There is some “ writing up ” here.
Note XXXII (page 205). This is the best recorded description of the morning chorus of the New Zealand birds. I have heard the signal given by the tui, which will call from valley to valley in the dark before the dawn —five and six bell notes, a sort of bell bugle-call j and after this has sounded now here, now there, for a few minutes the great chorus begins and continues for a quarter of an hour or more —often more, ceasing just before the light of day first invades the darkness of the starry sky.
The identification of one or two of the birds is not absolutely certain ; some may be identified by the obsolete names used by Dr. Maynard, some by the description of their song. The name used by Dr. Maynard, the Maori, popular and scientific names follow in the order in which they appear in the description.
Tout tui; parson-bird ; Prosthemadera novascelandia.
Glaucope kokako ; orange-wattled or South Island crow ; Collects cinerea (formerly Glaucopis cinerea).
Troupiale tieke ; saddle-back ; Orcadian carunculatus.
Fauvette de Tangora piopio ; South Island thrush ; Turnagro capensis (formerly spelt Tanagra or Tangara).
Mesange mohua ; yellow-head ; bush-canary ; Mohous ochrocephala. (D’Urville gives the Maori name as momohoua ; this, as momohua is one of the recognized Maori names, as also is mohuahua. It will be noted that for the scientific name the French spelling mohous has been adopted.)
Colomhe kukupa, kereru ; wood-pigeon i Hemiphaga novascelandiee.
Traquet male korimako; bell-bird ; Anthomis melanura. This identification is conjectural ; the characteristic flicking of wings and tail by the traquets is not a characteristic of the korimako. Nevertheless, this seems to be the bird intended. The female sings much more commonly than the male ; 9 0 P er cent of the korimako songs heard by me, or recorded in my Bird-song, are female songs ; the song of the male is seldom heard. Its quality is quite different from the bright, quick tempo of the female ; —the female sings soprano, the male, alto rather than baritone, and a most sympathetic
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alto; it is the most appealing of all the bird-songs. I know of no other bird of which it may be said that its voice ranges from bass to tenor. Its body-colour is bright olive green, its head, cheeks, and throat, steely blue with iridescent gleamings ; and in the sunlight this might give a suggestion of blue— {traquet d tete bleu de del).
In his Voyage autour de Monde ... sur... La Coquille ... 18221825, 5 vols., with 4 atlas vols. of beautiful plates, Paris, 1826-29, M. L. I. Duperrey has written a very fine description of the bird (Z oologie, Vol. 1, page 644), and has made as true a coloured drawing of it in the atlas (Z oologie, plate 21, fig. 1). In this the head is shown of a colour that may represent blue, though the description which follows says purple.
Son plumage est en entier, d’un vert olivatre uniforme, se teignant de jaune sur le bas-ventre. Des reflets d’un pourpre brillant et comme metallises, colorent le dessus de la tete jusqu’a I’occiput, le joue et la gorge. Deux faisceaux de plumes d’un beau jaune d’or, recouvrent les epaules. Les grandes remiges sont brunes, bordees d’olivatre, les moyennes sont teintees de vert. La queue un peu fourchue est d’un noir bleu intense. Les pieds sont gris, et I’iris d’un beau rouge.”
He has noted the colour of the eye, a living rich ruby red.
He calls the bird Philedon dumerelii; and as it and the tui belong to the same family this is probably the source of D’Urville’s name Philedon for the tui , and Dr. Maynard’s, following D’Urville, who was at the Auckland Islands on March 12th, 1840, and wrote of the tui there : “ Des philedons, des merles a cravate, qui se trouvent en assez grande abondance & la Nouvelle-Zelande.” [Historique, Vol. 9, page 103.)
There is another possible explanation. When the kohatuhutu , the Maori fuchsia, was in full summer bloom, the bell-birds rifling the flowers of nectar had their foreheads plentifully smeared with the blue pollen of the anthers—so plentifully that birds caught when so smeared were actually brought forward as a new species of bellbird. Dr. Maynard may have seen several of the birds so adorned at Port Levy ; he may also have seen some of the young Maori women with cheeks similarly adorned ; they were fond of these touches of blue—as were Madame de Pompadour and her companion courtesans of their touches of powder and patches.
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Trichog/osse-pipipi ; brown creeper ; Finschia novascelandia. This is a merry bird that sings in companies of up to twenty-five birds—all singing the same song in time and unison. There is some doubt as to whether this bird is intended, since the trichoglosse is said to belong to the parrakeet family, but this is discounted when it is known that the notes of the parrakeets are in the nature of humorous interjection rather than song —though the kaka has a soft croodling song reserved for its young.
Perroquet trigops-kaka ; brown parrot ; Nestor occidentalis. Brazen tremors is not an inapt description of the note of the kaka — though the word “ tremors ” implies more gentleness than the kaka abroad is wont to display. His part in the morning chorus is said to be the giving of the signal for its conclusion. Then, — kua tangi te kaka , says the Maori ; —the kaka has cried, time to be up and stirring. Strigops is the generic name of the kakapo, the great green parrot ; but his voice, as far as is known, confines itself to a grunting.
Note XXXIII (page 207). From this description of the walk it is evident —it was not evident before —that Tai-keretu took Dr. Maynard to the Maori village on the east side of Port Levy—the village Purari, where there were about 250 Maori resident in 1848. The wide gully at whose foot the village lay was bushclad, and extensive cultivations lay between the bush and the sea. The village and valley would be hidden behind the projecting bluff Puketi, 2 J miles south of the eastern head of Port Levy, and the village with its hill-side of bush would burst on their sight, as described, on their rounding this point, which was at the northern boundary of the village reserve. The long, low island at the south end of the village was Horomonga. It was for a time called Oyster Island. To reach Waitata, where the Asia lay, Dr. Maynard would have to walk round the head of Port Levy and up the spur on its west side. On the west side, almost opposite Purari, was Whalers Bay —the name indicating its own origin. During the off season the whalers spent as peaceable a time as their natures would permit at Port Levy. The Bay Waitata was known as Whalers Retreat before it was known as Little Port Cooper.
Note XXXIV (page 208). Taraboulo —Te Rauparaha, the
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story of whose raids on the Canterbury Maori is long and sanguinary. His first visit was in 1828, by way of Omihi, in north Canterbury. He appeared, travelling overland at Kaiapohia, near Woodend, and his purpose was not friendly. But the Kaiapohia people sensed this and struck first, and Te Pehi and seven other noted chiefs fell. Te Rauparaha, who had declined entering the pa with the others, escaped, vowing vengeance. His headquarters were at Kapiti, and in 1830 he induced a Pakeha, Captain Stewart of the Elizabeth , to take him and 120 warriors to Akaroa for the purpose of securing Te Maiharanui, the chief tohunga of the Ngai Tahu (of Canterbury), who was present at Kaiapohia when Te Pehi and others were killed.
He was secured by treachery, the Pakeha captain and his men assisting, together with his wife and daughter, and other chiefs. Their village was then attacked and burnt and all who could be caught, killed ; a cannibal feast ensued, and the victors then left with their prisoners for Kapiti. Lest worse befall her, Te Maiharanui and his wife strangled their daughter, aged eleven or twelve, and appropriately named Nga Roimata, “ Teats,” for which “ brutality ” the thwarted brutes duly punished the chief—reports are contradictory as to the form the punishment took. However, Te Maiharanui and his wife were shown off at the various settlements about Kapiti, and finally put to a cruel death.
This was not sufficient satisfaction, and soon afterwards Te Rauparaha went south with a war party and invested Kaiapohia. Assisted by a sou’wester he burnt down the palisades, and over one thousand were put to the mere , many escaping and flying across the plains to another strongly fortified pa on the peninsula Onawe in Akaroa Harbour. Te Rauparaha followed at his ease, easily took this pa by guile, and most of the people here also were put to the mere , a few escaping by swimming—but too few to be worth pursuing. The Ngai Tahu were almost exterminated, many being taken back to Kapiti as slaves and as pieces de resistance at anthropophagic (or cannibal) feasts.
On the bulk of Te Rauparaha’s people accepting Christianity a few years later, the slaves were set free and returned to their desolated homes. Kaiapohia was never again occupied, a new village being founded some miles away at Te Tuahiwi, the present Kair.poL
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Whaling around the Peninsula did not begin in earnest until some years after the great slaughters at Kaiapohia and Onawe, — viz. in 1835, when Hempleman whaled in Port Cooper, establishing in 1836 the first permanent shore-whaling stations on the Peninsula at Peraki.
Note XXXV (page 209). Topahi—Te Pehi, mentioned above. He was a dauntless Maori ; secured a passage to England against the wish of the captain of the ship, but saved his life off the coast of Peru, reached England, saw the King, received presents which he exchanged for muskets and powder in Sydney, returned to New Zealand, and through cupidity fell ignominiously at Kaiapohia as related.
Note XXXVI (page 210). Maramvai—Te Maiharanui, spoken of above. He was the chief tohunga, but not a great one ; he was feared and detested even by his own people, and no one was really sorry that he was taken, nor did they sympathize with him for the manner of his death. The story of his capture differs almost as often as it is told. It incites the play of the imagination.
Note XXXVII (page 227). Two Maori, Touai and Titeree (Tuai and Titeri) visited London in 1818, in October of which year their portraits were painted by Jas. Barry. These portraits are now in the Turnbull Library. These were the first Maori visitors to London, and it was from their vocabularies, together with those of Hongi and Waikato, who went to London with Kendall in 1820, that Professor Lee of Cambridge compiled the first Maori grammar and dictionary—published in the same year, 1820.
Note XXXVIII (page 228). Marsden’s very full journals were published in various missionary periodicals, creating much interest. They were translated into French, for the French kept up to date in matters relating to New Zealand, as is seen in their many publications, those of their explorers being as beautifully produced as any, and more beautifully than most.
Note XXXIX (page 236). Nichols —probably Nicholas, who was not a missionary, though he came in the same ship as Marsden in 1814. He was a New South Wales landholder, and in 1817, published a Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand , 2 vols., a good account of early New Zealand. He returned to England, and was
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one of those who in 1838 gave evidence before the Lords on the state of New Zealand. He writes an account of cannibalism in his book.
Note XL (page 296). Dumas is here prophetic. Whaling in the Antarctic took a new lease of life when factories were established and steam-chasers inaugurated, armed with guns of bore, firing bomb-pointed harpoons—“ six feet of death.”
In 1928, the 12,000-ton Sthenic was purchased by Norwegian enterprise and converted into a whaler for the Antarctic. In the same year a prospectus was issued in Dunedin of “ The New Zealand and Ross Sea Whaling Company, Limited,” but local lack of experience could not hope to compete with a company even from the other side of the world, when that company was promoted by such experienced seamen and whalers as the Norwegians.
What would Dumas have said of such whaling as was carried out in 1923-24 season in the Antarctic, when 221 whales were taken, yielding 17,800 barrels of oil ?—which was almost doubled the
following season, the yield steadily increasing till in 1929-30 the Kosmos factory alone took 1822 whales yielding 116,000 barrels, worth more than £1,000,000.
The whales, invaded in their last resort, were threatened with extermination—and New Zealand stood idly by, when she might have prevented the destruction at least in the area of the Ross Dependency. She would neither share in the profit, nor prevent the wanton destruction.
But the evil brought its own retribution ; the market was glutted, prices fell, and such wholesale destruction no longer pays : operations are necessarily much reduced in magnitude. Now is the time for New Zealand to step in and declare the Ross Dependency seas a sanctuary for the whale, for making it illegal to take whales there will at any rate minimize the evil if it does not prevent it.
Note XLI (page 298). “ Prowling along ’’—This would be off the populous seaside resort New Brighton, where very small whales have occasionally come ashore—and since east winds are prevalent there no inhabitant of that place could be unaware of the balmy odour so appreciated by the whaler, since according to its strength, so the value of the cargo.
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Note XLII (page 311). Pakeha. An ingenious suggestion as to the origin of this word from the common whaler and sailor objurgation has more than once been made, and though it is parallel to the name Wiwi for the French (from their constantly repeated “ Oui, oui ”), it is probably unsound, plausible as it may be. Authorities consider it to be derived from pakshakeha or pakepakeha, which with other names of sea-deities— atua, tipua, marakihau, and taenia, have one time or another been applied to Europeans, or foreigners, not necessarily light-skinned. (See Williams’ Dictionary ; also Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 3, page 236).
Note XLII I (page 3 13). Koumara. —There is some confusion here. The elevated stores were principally of two kinds, —stores of various sizes elevated on four posts, pataka, sometimes large and very elaborately carved ; or whata, small box-like stores elevated on a single tall pole provided with notched steps for access. If koumara is a name given because of kumara being stored therein, then a pataka cannot be intended, since kumara were not stored in these but in underground pits ( rua ). Neither were kumara stored in the whata. A tall tree might be taken as a post, its branches cut off level and the whole trimmed, and a platform fixed on the stumps ; such a store was called komanga —but the French ear was too acute to take komanga for koumara , as is shown by Maynard himself later in the chapter where he spells kumara (the sweet potato) correctly, not even using the usual French ou for u.
Note XLIV (page 318). Morai is a Polynesian word, but not Maori, the Maori equivalent being marae, the open space in the village, the plaza as Elsdon Best calls it. In the Society Islands and elsewhere the morai was an open space also, but usually paved and elevated and surrounded by stepped terraces. The flat top might be used for sepulture, but only of chiefs. It would be interesting if Maynard heard the word morai used in New Zealand as applied to a place for sepulture or burial ; for whilst the Maori had none of these platforms of stone, he had known them before he left the Pacific for New Zealand, and had preserved descriptions of them in his traditions.
Note XLV (page 321). Jean Jacques Francois Lebarbier (1738-1826), French artist and writer. Painted classical and
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historical subjects, such as The First Man and the First Woman , iBoi ; Helen and Paris, 1801 ; A Lacedemonian Presenting a Shield to his Son, 1806 ; St. Louis Receiving the Oriflamme before Setting out on his First Crusade, 1812, etc. He also designed illustrations for editions of Ovid, Racine, Rousseau, and Du Lille. He wrote several treatises on painting and design.
Note XLVI (page 323). Tavai-Pounamou. The following note in Cook’s Journal of January 30th, 1770, is of interest ; he is writing of the South Island, which a Maori stated “ consisted of two whenuas, or islands, which might be circumnavigated in a few days, and which he called Tovy Poenammoo ; the literal translation of this word is ‘ the water of green talc ’ ; and probably, if we had understood him better, we should have found that Tovy Poenammoo was the name of some particular place where they got the green talc or stone of which they made their ornaments and tools, and not a general name for the whole southern district.” Though they never got any other name for the whole island, Cook’s surmise was correct ; and the lake to which the name Te Wai-pounamu was given was Lake Wakatipu, the stone being found in some of the streams flowing into that lake, the only other places where it was found being the Arahura River on the West Coast, and Milford Sound. The Maori must have been hazy as to the position of the lake, the Pakeha being equally hazy though more definite when it came to map-drawing j for he placed the Lake Tavai Poenammu, or “ the water of green talc ” a short distance inland of Oamaru — almost as near the sea as he placed Lake Ellesmere. It is so placed on Arrowsmith’s map of New Zealand of 1841 ; and on the map accompanying the Twelfth Report of the New Zealand Company, 1844, it is still so placed, and now called simply Greenstone Lake, neither Arahura nor Milford being shown at all. Lake Ellesmere, too, has parted company from Banks Peninsula and slipped down the coast of Canterbury.
There are several baffling myths regarding the origin of greenstone ; one says it was originally a fish, which hardened on exposure to the air ; another says it was the runaway wives of Tama-ahua these wives changed into stone, having fled up the Arahura where they still remain, petrified for the use of all followers of Tama who found them there ; another, that Pounamu and Poutini were
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migrating people, moving from place to place to avoid the Sandstone people who were ever keen to wear them down.
Note XLVII (page 326). Teo-ne-poto is the correct spelling of this name, but the wrong syllable-division ; —it should be Te One-poto (the short beach). This name was given to the short, white shell-sand beach of Taylor’s Mistake, the bay before Sumner, and to the small mud-sand beach just beyond Sumner, on the south side of the estuary. It was also wrongly given to the River Avon, and on the French chart of Banks Peninsula, 1843-44, the mouth of the combined Heathcote and Avon is so called. Maynard and his party evidently landed at the northern end of the sandpit dividing the estuary of the Heathcote and Avon from the sea, close to what was later New Brighton ; Maynard says they landed on the left bank of the river, that would be some distance above its entrance into the estuary.
Note XLVIII (page 336). As the identification of several of these birds was beyond me I referred to Mr. Edgar Stead, and he replies :
“ ‘ The painted duck ’ —unless Cook’s naturalist gives other indication I should take this to be the paradise duck. Bob Wilson suggested the shoveller, but the man would know the European bird, and recognize this as an ally : ‘ the musk duck ’ —wholly imaginary so far as the smell goes. It may be Cape pigeon, but I should think the whole bird was dreamt ; ‘ the grey-blue duck,’ — the mountain-duck or blue-duck ; it was probably seen on the creeks on the Peninsula ; ‘ the red-crested duck ’ —black teal (New Zealand scaup) ; the red crest is one of the fanciful additions that early writers seem to imagine they had to give to birds to make them sound marvellous ; otherwise the description is quite good of the drake black teal ; ‘ the Antarctic partridge ’ (page 346) —imaginary ; it cannot be the banded rail, because later he recognizes the weka as a rail, and would have undoubtedly noted the banded rail’s likeness to the European land-rail ; ‘ a species of quail ’ —the New Zealand quail, now extinct ; ‘ wattled crows ’ —the orangewattled crow undoubtedly, I should say ; ‘ species of rail ’ —weka ; it is curious that he does not say flightless ; ‘ bustards ’ —possibly pukeko, but I should say not ; the word ‘ bustard ’ applied to the
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‘ little bustard ’ or 1 thick-knee,’ both of which are called ‘ bustard ’ in Europe, implies a brown, speckled bird. The great bustard has, of course, no counterpart here. Are you sure the translation ‘ bustard ’is right 1 ? ‘ wild geese ’ —imaginary, or paradise duck ; in the latter case, why not ‘ painted duck ’ ? ; ‘ great waders ’ —may possibly again not be the translation that properly conveys his meaning 2 ; ‘ large grouse ’ —purely imaginary ; the ‘ blood ’ suggests ‘ red,’ and thus we arrive at pukeko ; but in any case, we must regard the description as being quite fantastic.”
Note XLIX (page 336). The Deans Brothers (Maynard says Dean), Riccarton, who settled here in 1843, at the side of the bush Putaringamotu. This bush, one of the very few clumps on the Canterbury plains, contained about fifty acres. When the Church Settlement occupied Christchurch, close to Riccarton, in 1850 (December), Deans surrendered half the bush to them for firewood and timber, and that half was soon destroyed. The Deans Brothers used the remainder, but judiciously, so that in 1914 there were still sixteen acres of good bush remaining, and this they generously presented to the people of Canterbury as a reserve for all time.
Note L (pages 144, 353). Pritchard, probably George Pritchard of the London Missionary Society, who arrived in Tahiti in 1824, worked there, visited the Marquesas, etc. ; resigned and became British Consul at Tahiti in 1837 ; owing to the trouble with the French in 1840 he had to leave in 1841, but returned as Consul in •843-
Maynard is quite wrong about the missionaries ; the very few detected in engaging in private trade, which was expressly forbidden, were, like Kendall and White, dismissed.
Note LI (page 372). It is hard to say where the wanderers are ; the indefiniteness of the seashore, the sandy spit, the precipitous
1 Maynard says canesfetiires. None of my French-English dictionaries give the word, but Garnier’s large four-volume French Dictionary says : “ Sorte de petite outarde. . . .” The only English equivalent for outarde with which I am acquainted is “ bustard.”—Note : F. W. R.
2 “ Grand chevalier.” I can find no bird so named. The “ chevalier ”is the sand-piper or gambet; Gamier describes the chevaliers as (chanters as to genus, hecasses by family.—Note : F. W. R.
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mountains, make this sound like the region of Nirgendswo, The only sea they could have reached would have been Lake Ellesmere, and there would be no foaming billows ; there was no sandy spit for them to cross. He does not mention crossing a stream, and they should have crossed the Halswell, and swamps rather than sandspits ; and I can think of no bush-covered plateau— yet the railway certainly skirts the foothills now, and he prophesies a railway !
Note LII (page 377). Whilst many of the plants referred to are known to me, I preferred to have the opinion of Mr. R. M. Laing, who knows the botany of the Peninsula well. He remarks :
“ I am afraid Dr. Maynard was a bit of a romancer : ‘ orchids which would be the queens of our flower-beds ’ —there are none such now near Christchurch ; possibly Earina is the best of our local orchids. ‘ Geraniums perfumed with amber ’ —l know none such. G. dissectum may have slightly aromatic leaves. Hierochlce redolens [karetu) would doubtless be the grass referred to, but it is not musk-scented, as I remember the scent of musk. Olearias and Senecios are often heavily scented, but scarcely ‘ fill the air ’ with their fragrance, and certainly there are no labiates which do so. The only true labiate on the hills ( Mentha Cunninghamii) is very rare ; ‘ briars with green roses ’ —might probably be a Rubus—either R. dssoides (with yellowish-white petals) or R. Schmideliodes with whitish, often greenish flowers ; Clematisfaetida as you know has a sweet smell, and is not fetid ; Sicyos angulata does not occur here, and in any case its fruit is not like that of a cucumber ; ‘ woody and arborescent veronicas ’ —this at least is correct.”
Note LI 11 (page 413). Achille Richard published in 1832, in French, Essay on the Flora of New Zealand, the first work dealing with the flora of New Zealand as a whole ; it included the results of d’Urville’s voyage of 1827, and the work of the Forsters who accompanied Cook.
E. Raoul was the first to investigate in 1840—41, the flora of Banks Peninsula ; he was surgeon of the Auhe and the Aillier, and in 1844 he published in French his Select Plants of New Zealand, containing a complete list of the plants, with many fine engravings.
Note LI V (pages 349,379). Touiou-toupou — tuputupu, the mangrove ( Avicennia officinalis) ; but this tree is not found except in
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the northern parts of the North Island. It was reported from the Chatham Islands by Dieffenbach, and this is as far south as Banks Peninsula, but the report is considered to have been a mistake, Cheeseman suggesting that Dieffenbach mistook flowerless specimens of Olearia Traversii for it. Forster’s name for it was Avicennia resinifera, under the supposition that it produced a gumresin which was eaten by the Maori. This mistake Cheeseman supposes may have originated through drifted pieces of kauri- gum, which was formerly used as a masticatory by the Maori (an early chewinggum), having been picked up on some beach among the roots of the Avicennia (mangrove). Maynard earlier thinks the masticatory was not kauri-gum ; and if used in the South Island there must have been another, as the northern gum would hardly be carried south.
Mae-oe, probably mahoe , whitey-wood [Melicytus ramiflorus)
Mai-do, ? maire [Ol ea Cunninghamii).
Miro [Podocarpusferrugineous).
Pohutukawa, Christmas tree [Metrosideros tomentosa) ; as this does not occur in the South Island it is probably intended for Metrosideros tucida, the South Island rata.
Tarai-da, taraire [Beilschmiedia Taraire).
Karaka (Corynocarous Jarvigata), berry, poisonous except for outer fleshy part, but the poison was removed by long soaking.
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Memoirs
These two volumes of “ Memoirs ” are more than an autobiography. They are an indispensable authority on the origins and rise to power of the Labour movement in Great Britain, written by one of the few remaining leaders who has been in the fight from the beginning and who has never turned traitor to those who placed him in authority. Rightly or wrongly he has stood by bis guns.
The author’s father could neither read nor write, and earned 24J. a week. When ten years old the Home Secretary of later years was working in a mill as a piecer, dodging the looms, running barefoot over oily floors, and earning \os. a week, which went to help feed his six brothers and sisters. The future Food Controller often went hungry. He tells the story of “Piecer” Clynes’s first public speech to discontented mill-hands, of his meeting with Mary Harper, a fellow worker and later his comrade through life. In 1906 dynes faces a Parliamentary election campaigrt in Manchester, later becoming V : ce-Chairman of the I.L.P. During the War he was appointed Food Controller and tells how “I had a tape-machine recording only the sinking of food-ships. ... It was ticking away intermittently hour after hour . . . every ship lost meant yet another reshuffle to avoid starvation.” In 1920-1 he was made Deputy Party Header and Chairman of the Labour Party. Then, with Labour, Clynes becomes Lord Privy Seal and tells of his duties as liaison officer between the Premier and his principal Ministers. The ex-mill-hand now takes precedence before Dukes of the United Kingdom, and the great triumph of the son of an illiterate worker becoming Home Secretary is at hand.
To be published Autumn 1937.
Two volumes. 16 illustrations. Large Demy. sis. each
k>
THE RT. HON. J. R. CLYNES, M.P.
The Success of the Autumn Publishing Season
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
First Earl of Balfour, K.G., 0.M., F.R.S.
his niece BLANCHE E. C. DUGDALE
(Mrs. Edgar Dugdale)
Vol. I. 1848-1904, Vol. 11. 1906-1930. Each 18/- illustrated
PAGE ONE
All prices in this list are provisional and subject to alteration.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Reza Shah
Reya Shah, the Persian Peter the Great of today, must he comparatively unknown to English readers, but his story makes fascinating reading in spite of its obscurity. The author depicts the amaojng feudal chaos of old Persia ; R eya’s coup ; the farcical Constitution ; the crushing of feudalism, and Rena’s enormous achievements on the scale of Alexander the Great.
Large Demy. About 20 illustrations. 18/.
hy MOHAMMED ESSAD-BEY
The Best of Me
■T)asiJ Maine is well known as an essayist, critic, novelist, and orator. In JD 1935 reviewers throughout Europe and America were unanimous in acclaiming his biography of Sir Edward Elgar as a “brilliant achievement”. More recently his biography of His Majesty King Edward achieved a wide success. He has written brilliantly of the many personalities he has met and the interesting life he has led. Large Demy. 16 illustrations. 18/.
ky BASIL MAINE
Author of Our Ambassador King
The Romantic Life of Maurice Chevalier
This is essentially a sympathetic study and as such will appeal tremendously to thousands of fans. From a very early age and in his many curious jobs Maurice was always wanting to sing and dance, and in this charming story of his life a very vivid picture is presented of the vicissitudes through which he passed, and, later, of the glamorous life that became bis.
Crown Svo. 16 illustrations. 6s.
by WILLIAM BOYER
My Ups and Downs
The title for Theodore Christy’s autobiography is particularly apt, for, in the opinion of Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, there was no better man over the fences. Besides being Master of the Essex Stag-hounds, the author was also a great steeplechase rider and had many successes at Hunt point-to-point meetings. During the war he did splendid work supplying the Army with horses from Essex. A great sportsman and known to all the sporting world, Theodore Christy has written the most fascinating and delightful hook, full of good stories and reflecting a witty and refreshing personality.
Large Demy. 16 illustrations. ißx
by THEODORE CHRISTY
PAGE TWO
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Swinnerton: An Autobiography
2'n 1917 Frank Swinnerton became known all over the world with the publication of “Nocturne”, which has been translated into every European language except Spanish. His list of novels is imposing ; he is well known as a critic and as an expert on the publishing trade, in which he has enjoyed a wide experience. His life and his books radiate a sane and balanced philosophy which, indeed, is the keynote of one of the most entertaining of literary autobiographies. Demy. About 8 illustrations. About 10 s.
hy FRANK SWINNERTON
Author of The Georgian House (42nd thous.), Elizabeth (15th thous.), etc.
An Autobiography
1 Jfr. W. B. Maxwell is a son of the famous Historian novelist M. E. Brad--1 Vldon, and although reared in the literary atmosphere of her home, it was not for a good many years after growing up that he became an author himself.
Success came to him rapidly when he did make a start. His first three books, “The Ragged Messenger”, “Vivien”, “The Guarded Flame”, one after another gave him a wide circle of readers, and established his reputation as a writer of serious purpose and strong power. Rut before this happened he had enjoyed the largest possible experiences of the world. He had been everywhere, seen everything, and known everybody. He was a hunting man, an artist, a traveller ; also a London club man.
With the War he became a soldier—an infantryman ; the maker of innumerable friends on the Western Front. Since then he has been Chairman of the Society of Authors, Chairman of the National Book Council, a member of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, and an attendant at many other committees.
Those literary abilities which have made W. B. Maxwell one of the most important novelists today have perhaps never been better displayed than in this remarkable autobiography. Large Demy. About 8 illustrations. 18s.
by W. B. MAXWELL
Author of Himself and Mr. Raikes (10th thous.), We Forget Because We Must (61st thous.), etc.
«S> 1 ' Buffet and Rewards
a musician’s reminiscences
IT VVeingartner is, of course, one of the greatest conductors and composers of vv our time and amongst lovers of music has admirers all over the world. In his book he paints vivid portraits of some of the outstanding figures in the sphere of music. He knew both Wagner and Lisof intimately, and was a friend of Brahms. He has conducted in all the great capitals of the world, and gives us individual impressions of Rome, Venice, Paris, New York, Athens, and Moscow. Large Demy. About 20 illustrations. \Bs.
by FELIX WEINGARTNER
PAGE THREE
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
A Century of Buckingham Palace
This fascinating story of Buckingham Palace, published some years ago, has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date. Recent photographs and details of the Royal household as it is today have been included. Illustrated. ss. 6 d.
by BRUCE GRAEME
Author of The Story of St. James's Palace , etc.
The Story of Windsor Castle
Bruce Graeme, who has written such widely praised books on Buckingham Palace and St. James's Palace, has now turned his attention to another Royal household. The result is a most interesting and picturesque account of England's most famous castle. Large Demy. Illustrated, i is.
by BRUCE GRAEME
Author of The Story of Buckingham Palace, etc.
The Countess from lowa
T)orn in Hamburg, lowa, the author of this book soon manifested a desire D for the stage. Her beauty and talent — Huneker, famous dramatic critic, called her “The Elizabeth Farren of the American stage” —soon brought her a position in the well-known Palmer Stock Company. Inevitably what the stage had was wanted by many others, and a German nobleman, Baron Guido von Nimptsch, married Miss Bouton and took her to Germany, where she moved in Court circles and captivated that society as easily as she had won stage audiences.
Eater a divorce took place and the author married Count Nosiitone of the richest of the Prussian aristocraty. Petersburg society welcomed the Countess, who brought not only dignity but vitality and humour to her prominent position. Large Demy. 15 illustrations. About 15/.
by COUNTESS NOSTITZ, LILIE de FERNANDEZ-AZABAL
My Melodious Memories
T Terman Finck, renowned wit and British composer, has been known and il loved by the musical and stage worlds in England for forty years. He has played in many theatres, conducted before kings, and has known many celebrities of the age. He writes brilliantly, and with a sharp wit, of music, writers, clubs, hotels , and, of course, the stage. He has hundreds of amusing stories about hundreds of people, and the celebrities in his pages include the late King, King Edward, Pavlova, Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Harry Preston, Sir James Barrie, A. P. Herbert, and a host of others.
Targe Demy. 47 illustrations. 1 8/.
by HERMAN FINCK
PAGE POUR
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Dreyfus: His Life and Letters
This remarkable biography which throws so much new light on the life and trial of Dreyfus is divided into two parts. The first, which is by his son, is an account of the case up to Dreyfus’s release from Devil’s Island and his second condemnation. It contains a most important selection of letters from Dreyfus to his wife (and vice-versa ) and to Dreyfus from various celebrities. The second part is the pathetic and tragic story of the case from the second condemnation at Rennes in 1899 to his final acquittal in 1906, and is written by Dreyfus himself. To read the authentic words of father and son in this amazing case is a moving experience, and the fact that the book clears up a number of doubful issues makes it all the more interesting. Targe Demy. About 16 illustrations. iBx.
hy PIERRE DREYFUS
Autobiography
T t is no exaggeration to say that S. P. B. Mais must have brought home the X beauties of the English countryside to thousands of people. His books are the stories, one might almost say the diaries, of his travels over the country, whose joys few people can express more happily. His autobiography is a volume that will thus appeal to thousands, representing, as it does, the life-story of a man to whom the pleasures and beauties of the English countryside mean so much. Targe Demy. About 16 illustrations. iBj.
hy S. P. B. MAIS
Author of England’s Pleasance, England's Character
A. E. Housman
A PERSONAL RECORD
Tfew people enjoyed any intimate friendship with Professor Housman, JL one of the greatest of classical scholars and a poet secure of lastingfame. The author of “A Shropshire Tad” and “Last Poems” was popularly believed to have been an unapproachable recluse who lived in a lonely world of his own. This was the legend about him. How far was it true ? Mr. Grant Richards, who published “A Shropshire Tad”, and “Tast Poems”, and knew Professor Housman intimately for many years and travelled with him at home and abroad, answers the question in this book. It is a human and intimate account of the author’s long association with a man who was only known to most people as the author of “A Shropshire Tad”.
Demy. With a frontispiece. 12 s. 6d.
hy GRANT RICHARDS
PAGE FIVE
HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY
A History of Lloyd’s
One of the most brilliant critics of our day, gifted not only with rare critical acumen but also with a witty and pungent pen, Mr. Straus's excursion into a fascinating subject is an event of importance. To the ordinary man Lloyd’s is a synonym for efficiency, but the reader is here taken far afield and is shown how from the humblest beginnings in a London coffee-house, this great company, linking land and sea in a world-wide net, has become a household word from John o’ Groats to the Horn. The authorities at Lloyd’s are putting all their archives at Mr. Straus’s disposal, with the result that his history will be a full ana detailed one with much interesting new material and with a clear explanation of exactly how Lloyd’s works today.
Large Demy. About 20 illustrations. About \%s.
by RALPH STRAUS
Pauline Bonaparte
From the age of sixteen, and possibly earlier, Pauline Bonaparte's whole life was taken up with the “seizing of hearts”. A “gold-digger ” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, she was beautiful but never sentimental, which was perhaps the secret of her many amorous successes. Joachim Kuhn has brilliantly re-created a vivid and colourful life about which little has been written. Large Demy. 15 illustrations. 18/.
by JOACHIM KUHN
inne of Austria : The Infanta Queen
T'his romantic biography tells the story of Anne of Austria during the first years of her marriage to Louis XIII of France, when, to distinguish her from Marie de Medici, the Queen Mother, she was always known as the Infanta Queen.
Young, radiantly lovely, spoilt by her father, Philip 111 of Spain, Anne found her position in the Louvre, with its intn'gues and cabals, almost intolerable. Her dawning love for her young husband was thrown back on itself by his coldness and indifference, and, bored and restless, she became petulant, frivolous, and vain, interesting herself only in the care of her beauty, in dress, and foolish flirtations.
The book ends with her meeting with Magarin, and her realisation of the greatest love in her life. Targe Demy. 16 illustrations. iBj-.
by MERIEL BUCHANAN
PAGE SIX
HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY
“Old Q.’s” Daughter
Everybody who has heard of the famous Wallace Art Collection will be interested in Bernard Falk’s new biographical study, “ 'Old Q.’s’
Daughter". Here, for the first time, is told the amaffng history of the strange family to whom the nation owes the wonderful treasures to be seen at Hertford House. No small part of Mr. Falk’s achievement has been to solve the multitude of riddles arising out of the disputed parentage and behaviour of the different characters. Who was the mysterious lady suggested by the title ? In what sense was another member of the family (the second Marchioness of Hertford) the mistress of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV? Who was the father of Lord Henry Seymour (brother of the fourth Marquis of Hertford) about whom Paris of the forties and ’fifties raved ? Was he the famous “Lord Steyne”, the seducer of Becky Sharp in “Vanity Fair” (incidentally described by Mr. Falk in one remarkable chapter as “The Caliph of Regent’s Park”), or was he Junot, Napoleon's famous general, or Mon frond,friend and bugbear of Talleyrand ? Last but not least, who were the parents of Sir Richard Wallace, who gives his name to the famous Collection ? Was the fourth Marquis of Hertford his half-brother or hisfather? In any case, who was Sir Richard’s mother ? Was she “Old Q.’s” daughter, as suggested by the “Dictionary of National Biography” ? Mr. Falk has been specially privileged to search the archives of the Wallace Collection, and he is indebted to many of our Peers for hitherto unpublished letters throwing light on the obscure history of a family which, at one time, aspired even to the throne itself.
Large Demy. Frontispiece in colour, 34 illustrations. iBx.
by BERNARD FALK
Author of He Faughed in Fleet Street, The Naked Fady, Rachel the Immortal
IN PREPARATION
Five Years Dead
by BERNARD FALK
A sequel to He Laughed in Fleet Street
Cyrano de Bergerac
7\/fr. Humbert Wolfe has made a brilliant and original film version of IVlincidents in the life of that immortal character Cyrano de Bergerac. Mr. Wolfe's scenario is based upon Edward Rostand’s play “Cyrano de Bergerac”, which took Paris by storm when it was produced. The scenario, the work of one of our leading poets and critics, marks an entirely new departure in film technique. Mr. Wolfe has written a long and provocative introduction to the book which is certain to he the subject of considerable discussion.
Demy. About 8 illustrations. lot. 6 d. net
by HUMBERT WOLFE
PAGE SEVEN
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE eV SPORT
Forty Thousand Against the Arctic
HP. Smolka, the well-known journalist, whose recent articles in “The • Times” on Arctic Siberia have aroused such widespread interest, has now written a most important and extraordinary book. Last summer he started his journey by ice-breaker and aeroplane to Northern Asia and the islands in the Polar Sea.
During the last four years the Russian Government has embarked on the great scheme of exploiting the vast natural resources of Northern Siberia, establishing a sea passage round the Arctic coast of Asia, and a short cut from Europe to America in the form of a Trans-Arctic air line. There are probably few people who were aware of these developments before Mr. Smolka’s recent journey and the subsequent publication of his articles.
Earge Demy. About 70 illustrations. 18j
by H. P. SMOLKA
Revisiting My Pygmy Hosts
Translated by Gerald Griffin
T» his two previous hooks Paul Schebesta has shown a deep insight into JLpygmy customs and ways of life. In this fascinating new book the author continues, in more intensive form, his investigations into pygmy culture.
Earge Demy. About 50 illustrations. iBj
by PAUL SCHEBESTA
Author of Among Congo Pygmies, My Pygmy and Negro Hosts
The Whalers
T Jnfortunately we are not able to announce the translation into English CJ of a book by Alexandre Dumas. Nevertheless the impress of that great writer is on this book, and it is interesting to discover just where his influence changed Dr. Maynard’s pages.
The hook represents the diary of a French surgeon on whalers in New Zealand waters during several voyages from 1837 to about 1846. Dr. Maynard, a man of great culture and knowledge, tells in full detail and with any number of human touches the story of the lives of whalers and the killing of whales. Whether describing the natives and their customs, the superstitions of his shipmates, or the dangers faced and endured. Dr. Maynard is always interesting. Crown 8 vo. 10s. Gd.
by DR. FELIX MAYNARD
Edited by Alexandre Dumas
PAGE EIGHT
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE & SPORT
An Authentic Account of the Voyage of the “Girl Pat”
During the early summer of 1936 the whole world was amoved and gasped at the daring of Skipper Orsbome and his crew. The story presented an amazing epic of sheer adventure which will go down in history as a great Saga of the Sea.
Sensation follows sensation in this extraordinary story in which the Skipper tells how, with only a sixpenny atlas for chart, and a match-stick for sextant, he and his crew sailed across the Atlantic. The tale of how they bluffed an agent to secure repairs and fuel and even handsome tips for themselves, how they ran aground and starved, played the mandoline with sharks as an audience, is a stupendous one unparalleled in its sheer daring and gallant pluck. Their adventures are legion, hut there is laugpter mingled with the anguish of these stirring pages.
Demy. About 16 illustrations. About Bj-. 6 d.
by SKIPPER ORSBORNE AND HIS CREW
An African Travel Book
/\/f r - Patrick 'Balfour is no ordinary traveller, for, as “Society Racket” 1VI f roved, he has a profound knowledge of human nature and is yet able to write racily about it. His ability to write amusingly and intelligently will be once again proved with this new African book.
Demy. About 20 illustrations, \zs.6d.
by PATRICK BALFOUR
Author of Society Racket , Grand Tour
A Book on the Australian Test Tour
Hire is no ordinary book telling the secret of So-and-so’s bowling or a dry commentary of day-by-day cricket in Australia, but a book with more general interest, and written from the picturesque and social, rather than the technical, aspect. Crown B vo. About 16 illustrations. 6s.
by BRUCE HARRIS
Flight Across Continents
T'be author, a German, was put in prison for writing articles about Jewish persecution. He was released, but his passport and papers were taken from him. This extraordinary book describes bis a marking adventures and experiences in escaping from Germany and travelling to England.
Demy. 10s. 6d.
by WILLI MELCHERT
PAGE NINE
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE & SPORT
Air Over Eden
There are many books of travel, hut this is an exceptional one. The aim of the authors has been to write a modem air book about Iraq, a country richer in historical associations than almost any other country in the world. The authors describe the country as seen from the air, and they also give a fascinating outline of its history, which began with two people in the Garden of Eden.
The book is at once a bird’s-eye view in the very real modern sense of the term, and a remarkably vivid survey of 5000 years of history. Large Demy. 69 illustrations. 18/.
by “H W” and SIDNEY HAY
Milestones in the Air
Asa complete vade-mecum on aviation this book can have no rivals, but it is MLwritten by a journalist, in fact the “Evening Standard” Aviation Correspondent, and the popular element has consequently not been overlooked. Mr. Courtenay has many amusing and amazing stories to tell of bis wide experience in modem flying. He tells the story of an air tour with Sir Alan Cohham. Having been adviser to Amy Mollison his book contains much that is new concerning her flights and rise to fame. There are new scoops, tales of his own flying experiences, the author's feelings on crashing, plansfor the Atlantic air route, the future of air travel, and a host of new and witty stories about famous airmen and airwomen, in this fascinating and informative book.
Demy. About 1 6 illustrations. 1 is. 6 d.
by WILLIAM COURTENAY
Whirlpools on the Danube
“ TT77 - hirlpools on the Danube” is an account of a journey made through rV some of the Danube countries of Europe during the summer of 1956. The author of that excellent hook, “German journey”, left London and travelledfairly rapidly to Southern Germany and across the Austrian frontier, to the Tyrol, and sets doom his impressions of this popular district of Austria. Chechoslovakia, the next country visited, is the newest European nation, and her problems are new. From there, Subcarpathian Russia, the author travelled to Budapest and the Hungarian countryside. From there the author returned to London, via Transylvania, and in the last chapter of this fascinating book sums up his impressions and thoughts of four months' travelling.
Large Demy. 48 illustrations. 18s,
by CHRISTOPHER SIDGWICK
Author of German Journey
PAGE TEN
TRAVEL, ADVENTURE & SPORT
England's Character
7n this book of Mr. Mass’s recent wanderings round the countryside he has not only described fresh places, he has talked with and listened to all sorts of Englishmen, from gamekeepers to poachers, parsons to tramps, bus-conductors to auctioneers. He traces a Roman road over the fields in Shropshire ; he attends a sheep fair in Sussex ; cattle markets in Wiltshire and Devon ; he watches salmon being netted on the Taw ; travels through the night by bus to Monmouth, and by day up the Great North Road to Darlington ; he pays a visit to the hop-pickers in Kent, and passes the “Queen Mary” on her maiden voyage home. He describes a morning’s cub-hunting at daybreak and a day in chase of the otter, the last cricket match of the season on the village green, and the life of London’s suburbs. By this means he has traced a pattern of England’s character that shows how little, in spite of superficial changes, the character of the countryside or of its people has changed.
Crown 8 vo. 15 illustrations, is. 6d.
by S. P. B. MATS
Author of England’s Pleasance
Australian Fantasy
Ti iking as his inspiration a gallery of notable photographs, Mr. Dudley Glass weaves around them an Australian fantasy. Its lavishly illustrated pages conjure up a bushland of strange plant and animal life ; paint a scenic wonderland of blue mountains and golden beaches and sun-burnt pastures ; shows from a new angle a young country at work and at play. Begin the story among Stone Age aboriginals and end a cavalcade of progress in ultra-modern cities. A colourful Australia is captured in this series of admirable camerastudies accompanied by their complementary pen-pictures.
Si%e ii by 8 ins. Beautifully illustrated. }s.6 d.
by DUDLEY GLASS
Author of The Spanish Goldfish, The Book About the British Empire, etc.
Changing Horizons
Jajor Foran started his travels abroad nearly forty years ago, long before IVlthe vogue of the “luxury cruises”. His wanderings have taken him far and wide on the Seven Seas, both on and off the beaten tracks. Seldom has the same ground been covered more than once. His progress was unhurried, so unusual opportunities came in his path for seeing places and things which are not generally in a traveller’s itinerary. Traveller, explorer, and novelist. Major Foran knows well how to invest his travels with a vividness and clarity of expression that enable the reader to become an eye-witness of the many fascinating places which be visited.
Large Demy. 63 illustrations. 18/
by W. ROBERT FORAN
Author of Malayan Symphony, A Cuckoo in Kenya, etc
PAGE ELEVEN
THE CORONATION
Crowning the King
Coronation Day is going to he a day to be remembered for a lifetime. For on that day King Edward will ride in state to Westminster to be crowned the undoubted King of his realm.”
Thus the opening words to this fascinating and extraordinarily interesting book in which the author tells the history of coronation and kingship from ancient times. He has sought to give an account of the coronation ceremonies which shall he clear, accurate, and readable. It has been his aim to present the knowledge of historians in a form which young people can read andfollow. He also sketches the life of the King and the circumstances leading up to the Coronation. It is a knowledgeable book, written for the purpose of explaining the significance and details of the Coronation to the countless thousands whose interest
it will be.
Crown quarto. Four colour plates and
about twenty black-and-white illustrations. ;r.
hj LEWIS BROAD
An ABC Guide to the Coronation
This book is indeed a happy thought of 'Lewis Broad’s, for this year everyone will want information on such an important subject. It has been concisely drawn up, and on account of its sfe and price is a book that should he in everyone's pocket. Crown B vo. About 20 illustrations. 6 d
by LEWIS BROAD
The Coronation of the Kings of England
J'n “This England” Mr. Shears showed himself to be a man with a very deep knowledge of English customs and places. His book was a masterpiece of patient research and careful selection of material. In his bands the stories of the Kings of England become not only interesting but also lose that film of unreality with which countless educational works have endowed them.
About 3 s. 6d.
hj W. S. SHEARS
Author of This England
Rex, The Coronation Lion
James Riddell’s new book of the Adventures of Rf.v, who comes down from his place in front of St. Martins-in-the-Field for the Coronation will amuse pawn-ups and children. His ancient enemy, the Unicom, is also in Town on Coronation Day, and the fun is fast and furious. Illustrated, is. Gd.
by JAMES RIDDELL
Author of Let’s be Gay , Let’s ht Absurd
PAGE TWELVE
MISCELLANEOUS
Collected Essays and Observations
As one of the most prominent personalities in England today. Lord Hewart, AT of course, needs no introduction. A very full life has accorded him little time for the gentler art of writing, hut the essays which he has chosen to publish have been widely read and appreciated, and this, his latest volume, will appeal to many readers. Demy. With a frontispiece. 10 s. 6d.
by LORD HEW ART
(Lord Chief Justice of England)
Physic and Fancy
There are many wise and amusing statements in this physician's notebook. The author has jotted down random thoughts and statements on all manner of things, and uses, often very skilfully, medical facts to illustrate the points he wishes to make.
It is indeed a book of parts, for mingled with sound medical advice is a ran and sane philosophy of life. Readable, interesting, and bearing comparison, in its form, with the famous “Notebooks of Samuel Butler”, it forms a curiously unusual and inspiring piece of work. Targe crown B no. 6s.
by CHRISTOPHER HOWARD
Company Finance
Famous as a novelist, as a journalist, and as one of the most expert of writers on financial matters, Collin Brooks contributes one of the soundest and most comprehensive volumes on Company Finance yet written.
Crown 8 vo. ss. 6 d.
by COLLIN BROOKS
Claims of the Lesser Creeds
The editor of this volume is a well-known expert and an author of great repute. His collection of the various Creeds of Great Britain will be a somewhat unique one supplying a great need.
The claims in this comprehensive and illuminating volume are set out quite impartially, and readers can judge for themselves of their value.
Demy. About 10 illustrations. iBj
DUFF SESAME, B.D. {Edited by)
PAGE THIRTEEN
MISCELLANEOUS
The Year Illustrated—l 936 in Pictures
One of the most remarkable book values ever offered. The breathless panorama of many world events pictured in a beautifully produced volume. And eminent authorities discuss in illuminating little articles the significance of such all-important happenings in the march of world history.
Over 300 unique photographs on fine art
paper. 96 pp. 14 hy 10 ins. 5/. 6 d.
PAUL POPPER {Edited by)
Woman Adrift
Tn this new hook Mrs. Cecil Chesterton has taken the subject of “ Woman JL Adrift" and has once again written a most appealing and knowledgeable volume. Demy. About 8 illustrations, ior. 6 d.
by MRS. CECIL CHESTERTON
Author of In Darkest London , Women of the Underworld , etc.
I Am Going to Have a Baby
T t would he difficult to imagine a title that sums up its subject more aptly JLthan this. It is, however, necessary to point out the sane and sensible way in which the subject has been treated. It is a plain and straightforward account of invaluable use to every prospective mother. It contains advice on matters which, if overlooked, may be disastrous.
Crown B vo. About 16 illustrations. 6 s.
by MARTHA BLOUNT
Bloomers
T'be success of the “Howler” books has been enormous and has resulted in the author receiving any number of new errors, dropped bricks, faux pas, and other curious misrepresentations of our language. Here are on; or two examples of this gorgeous collection :
From Cincinnati: “Here lies Jane Smith, wife of Thomas Smith, marble cutter. This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work. Monuments of the same style 35 o dollars.” “They gave Wellington a glorious funeral. It took six men to carry the beer.” “C.I.D. means Copper in Disguise.”
This book, presenting the rich humour of “howlers”, will cheer you at any time. Crown B vo. Illustrated, is. 6 d.
hj CECIL HUNT
Author of Howlers, Fun With the Famous, etc
PAGE FOURTEEN
AUTUMN BEST-SELLERS
Autobiography
“ Daily Telegraph ”
“There isn’t a dead, a dull, a false, or a pretentious sentence .”— Sir John Squire. Illustrated. 10 s. 6 d.
hy G. K. CHESTERTON
Arthur James Balfour
“Evening Standard”
. . Vivid descriptions of public affairs, striking sketches of public men—a veritable cavalcade of interesting and dramatic episodes and personalities.” — Sir lan Malcolm. Illustrated. Two vols. iBx. each.
hy MRS. EDGAR DUGDALE
Memoirs
“Sunday Times”
“An eminently readable account of people and places that have made history during the past fifty years.” Illustrated. 16/.
hy H.R.H. THE INFANTA EULALIA
Sixty Years Ago and After
“Daily Mail”
Tt is to be hoped that his extremely entertaining book is only a first instalment f bis reminiscences.” Illustrated. 18x.
hy SIR MAX PEMBERTON
Walter Long and His Times
“ Daily Telegraph ”
“. . . Many sidelights on politics during the last 60 years revealed for the first time.” Illustrated. iBl
hy SIR CHARLES PETRIE
PAGE FIFTEEN
AUTUMN BEST-SELLERS
Sylvia of Sarawak
“Morning Post”
“An easy-going, full, human, and very entertaining book." Illustrated. 18/.
by H.H. THE RANEE OF SARAWAK
Leaves from My Unwritten Diary
“Birmingham Mail”
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German Journey
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PAGE SIXTEEN
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Bibliographic details
APA: Maynard, Felix. (1937). The whalers. Hutchinson.
Chicago: Maynard, Felix. The whalers. London, England: Hutchinson, 1937.
MLA: Maynard, Felix. The whalers. Hutchinson, 1937.
Word Count
122,608
The whalers Maynard, Felix, Hutchinson, London, England, 1937
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