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IN THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES
IN THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES
THE ACCOUNT OF A FOURTEEN THOUSAND MILE YACHTING CRUISE TO THE HAWAIIS, MARQUESAS, SOCIETIES, SAMOAS AND FIJIS BY LEWIS R. FREEMAN Author of "Many Fronts," "Stories of the Ships," "Sea-Hounds," "To Kiel in the 'Hercules.'" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1920 Copyright, 1920, By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK TO THE MEMORY OF 'THE COMMODORE' THE LATE H. H. SINCLAIR...
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"THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES"
"THE TRACKS OF THE TRADES"
CHAPTER PAGE I San Pedro to Hilo and Honolulu 1 II Honolulu to Taio-Haie 26 III The Marquesas Today 52 IV Hunting in the Marquesas 72 V The Passion Play at Uahuka 99 VI Taio-Haie to Papeete 110 VII Circling Tahiti 134 VIII Society in the Societies 151 IX The Song and Dance in Tahiti 160 X By the Absinthe Route 182 XI Papeete to Pago Pago 195 XII In Pago Pago Bay 212 XIII Samoan Cricket: Fauga-Sa v. Pago Pago 232 XIV A Visit to Apia 246 XV Kava and the
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
SAN PEDRO TO HILO AND HONOLULU The Weather Bureau, which for several weeks had been issuing bulletins of the "Possibly Showers" order, came out unequivocally with "Rain" on the morning of February 4th, and this, no less than the lead-coloured curtain that veiled the Sierra Madres and the windy shimmers in the tails of the clouds that went rushing across the zenith before the gushing east wind, made it plain that the elements, not to be outdone by our amiable friends, were getting together for a
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
HONOLULU TO TAIO-HAIE With 2,000 miles of salt water stretching between its windward shores and the western coast of North America, with twice that distance separating it from Asia, and with more or less open water rolling limitlessly away to the Arctic and the Antarctic, it is only natural that Hawaii should harbour a race of sea-loving people. A hundred years ago the Hawaiians, bred true to their Samoan progenitors, fearlessly embarked in their sliver-like, cinnet-sewed canoes on voyages that
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
THE MARQUESAS TODAY It is a strange anomaly that the Marquesan, by long odds the fastest disappearing of the Polynesian races, is made up of individuals of incomparably finer physique than those of any other of the islands of the South Pacific. Of a dozen natives picked at random from the beach of Taio-haie, there would probably be not over three or four who would not show more or less of his dark head above the end of a six-foot tape, and the breadth and muscling of each would be in proportion.
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
HUNTING IN THE MARQUESAS The French have never actually prohibited the carrying of arms in the Marquesas, as have the British in the Solomons; but the possession and use of guns has been so hedged about with restrictions as practically to accomplish the same purpose. This is about the way it goes: Coming to the islands with a gun, a permit must first be secured before it may be landed. This allows you to take it to your domicile but not to take it out again. If you would carry it with you on the
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THE PASSION PLAY AT UAHUKA The decennial Passion Play at Oberammergau is, perhaps, the most written and talked about theatrical performance that has ever been staged, and even the annual pageants put on during Holy Week in certain of the Italian, Spanish and South American theatres have attained to considerable publicity in other parts of the world; the Passion Play of the French mission at Uahuka, an island of the Marquesan group, has been witnessed by less than half a dozen non-resident white
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
TAIO-HAIE TO PAPEETE Before leaving Nukahiva the four of us from the Lurline , under the guidance of our good friend McGrath, journeyed on pony-back across the island to visit Queen Mareu of Hatiheu. The road led over two 3,000-foot mountain passes and along the whole length of the incomparable Typee Valley, immortalized by Herman Melville, and though something like eight inches of rain fell during the nine hours we were in the saddle, there were ample intervals between cataclysms in which to gl
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
CIRCLING TAHITI The island of Tahiti has been the best known, or rather the most talked-about, point in the South Pacific since those latitudes were added to the mapped sections of the world. From the time that the much-maundered-over mutiny of the Bounty furnished the theme for Byron's "Island," and later events conspired to produce Hermann Melville's charming "Omoo" and Pierre Loti's idyllic "Rarahue," down to the more numerous but less finished efforts of recent years, Tahiti has been the ins
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
SOCIETY IN THE SOCIETIES The Society Islands took their name from the Royal Geographical Society, which sent an expedition there in 1868 to observe the transit of Venus, not, as might be supposed, from any predilection of the early or latter-day inhabitants to afternoon teas, dinners, dances, masques, routs and the like. There were, to be sure, functions which might freely be classed under some of these heads, but as the foreign visitor who was bidden usually finished up much after the fashion o
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
THE SONG AND DANCE IN TAHITI The Tahitian word for song, himine , is a Kanakazation of the English word hymn. Before the days of the missions there must have been some other term, for singing was quite as prominent an occupation of the native then as now, but it was discarded as a superfluity long ago. The South Sea Islander does not cumber his memory with more than one name at a time for any given thing, and when new words were forced upon him, as was inevitable with the coming of the whites, t
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
BY THE ABSINTHE ROUTE The French islands of the South Pacific perform satisfactorily the regulation duty of all the other of that republic's tropical colonies—that of furnishing a retreat for a governor, secretary, judge and three or four other high officials during such time as they may require to accumulate fortunes sufficient to permit them to return to Paris and ease for a good portion, if not all the rest, of their lives; also for a small army of minor officials who have no chance to accumu
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
PAPEETE TO PAGO PAGO Situated well around on the leeward side of the island of Tahiti, with the great 8000-foot peak of Orohena cutting off all but stray gusts of the Trade wind, Papeete harbour is ordinarily as placid a bit of looped-in water as ever mirrored in its depths the silver disc of the tropic moon. Seaward the reef intercepts the surf as completely as does the volcano the wind from the opposite direction, and with the latter blowing from the southeast, where it belongs, the inner bay
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
IN PAGO PAGO BAY In the settlement of the Samoan imbroglio in the late nineties by the partition of the group between Germany and the United States—Great Britain, the third party to the controversy having been granted compensatory rights in the Tongas and Solomons—America, for all practical purposes, had much the best of the bargain. Germany entered into actual possession of the two largest islands of the group, Upolou and Savaii, leaving the United States to do the same with Tutuila and the Man
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
SAMOAN CRICKET: FAUGA-SA V. PAGO PAGO The captain of Fauga-sa drank deep from his epu of kava , tossed the heel-taps over his shoulder as etiquette required, and sent the shining coconut cup spinning back across the mat to the feet of the taupo , who, in festal regalia of dancing skirt and tuiga , presided at the kava bowl. Then he nodded gravely to the Pago Pago captain opposite, and each leaned forward and laid a honey-hearted hibiscus blossom in the palm of his outstretched hand. Instantly ev
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
A VISIT TO APIA On the 9th of June we sailed from Pago Pago for Apia, planning to return at the end of a week in order to be present at an official flag-raising which our patriotic friend, Chief Mauga, was preparing for. We found the breeze veering and uncertain as we beat out of the harbour late in the afternoon, but ample working room and the absence of strong currents in the entrance to this splendid bay made the direction of the wind of little moment. Beyond the shelter of the harbour walls
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
KAVA AND THE SIVA The principal difference between the dance in Samoa and in the other island groups of the South Pacific is that in the former it is an institution and in the latter—in recent times—an incidental. In years gone by the dance was an integral part of the life of every South Sea people, but through missionary and governmental influence it has practically been killed everywhere but in the Samoas. That the missionary alone could never have accomplished this the instance of these islan
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
PAGO PAGO TO SUVA We sailed from Pago Pago for Fiji on the afternoon of June 18th. Just as the anchor had been catted and the yacht was filling away on her first tack a madly paddled canoe shot alongside and a letter was thrown aboard. It was addressed only to the "Yotta," no individual being specified, and ran as follows: " Talofa. My love to you. Please send me one bicycle. " It was signed by one of the handmaidens of Seuka, the taupo of Pago Pago. For a simple, direct appeal this struck me as
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
IN SUVA AND MBAU Generally speaking, the islands, both coral and volcanic, lying east of the 180th Meridian in the Pacific are almost perfectly healthy, while those to the west of it incline to the breeding of a number of more or less virulent forms of malarial fevers, a circumstance principally due to the fact that the eastern islands, as a rule, have better natural drainage and are more exposed to the full sweep of the Trade-wind. The big island of Viti Levu, the seat of British government in
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
"SHARKS" "Man-eaters on land, man-eaters in the water; for God's sake steer clear of the Fijis!" was the way in which trading captains of forty years ago epitomized their warnings to those who expressed a desire to visit Taviuni or Levuka. Though man-eating on land has become a languishing if not a lost art in this neck of the tropics, that the practice by the denizens of the deep is still carried on is attested by the number of stump-armed and stump-legged natives that one meets in all parts of
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
"HIS WONDERS TO PERFORM" We had heard of the Honourable "Slope" Carew—pearler, "black-birder," yachtsman and scion of a noble British family—at every port we had touched in the South Pacific, but it was not our fortune to meet him until after our arrival at Suva. There he was one of our first callers, and it chanced that he, with the Captain of H.M.S. Clio and two or three other Englishmen, was off to the yacht for dinner the night a bottle of champagne exploded prematurely in the hands of our C
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
SUVA TO HONOLULU At five o'clock in the afternoon of the 2nd of July we weighed anchor and slipped from the quietness of Suva harbour out into a roystering east wind that was playing all manner of strange pranks with the placid sea we had come in through a week previously. For steep, short seas and uncomfortable small-schooner weather, nothing quite equals one of these reef-locked stretches of the south-west Pacific with a stiff blow on. The ever-imminent bottom, constantly dragging on the waves
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
HONOLULU TO SAN PEDRO The two weeks spent ashore during Lurline's return visit to Honolulu were a welcome respite from the four months of unbroken life on shipboard that had preceded them. The absence of the passengers was taken advantage of to give the yacht a thorough overhauling in preparation for the long, hard beat back to San Pedro, especial care being taken in the renewal of the running rigging. Moreover, as we were scheduled for a short stop at Hilo and confidently expected to run down w
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