Wine-Dark Seas And Tropic Skies - free ebook by A. (Arnold) Safroni-Middleton

WINE-DARK SEAS AND TROPIC SKIES

Lagoon Scene, Apia...

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FOREWORD

IN this volume of reminiscences and impressions I have endeavoured to express some of the elements of romance that remain in my memory of wanderings in the South Seas. My characters are all taken from life, both the settlers and the natives. I have striven to give an account of native life, modes and codes, and to describe the general characteristics of certain island tribes that are now extinct. My attempt is not so much the wanderer’s usual book with its inevitable blemishes, for the reason th

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CHAPTER I

Impecunious Youth—In Sydney—Once more I go Seaward—In Fiji—Lose my Comrade—I arrive off Tai-o-hae—The Isles of Romance—French Officials and Convicts—I am welcomed by a Pretty Chiefess—The Brown Maids’ Preference for English Sailormen—Nuka Hiva by Night—Ranjo’s Grog Shanty—I sleep beneath the Palms—My First Meeting with Waylao, the Half-caste Girl—The Passing of the Great Mohammed—I feel a bit fascinated by the Half-caste Girl—Planting Nuts for a Living I HAD been travelling a good deal when at l

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CHAPTER II

Men who shaved their Beards off—Grog Shanty Sympathy—The Dead who returned on the Tide—Indian-like Men from the Malay Archipelago—The Little Carpet Bag and its Hidden Potentialities—True Belief—Idol-Worship in Secret—My Incorrigible Reverence for a Heathen Idol—The Old Clothes of Kindness from the Hands of Civilisation, and their Hidden Potentialities—The Devil tempts Eve in the New Garden of Eden, with a Leg Bangle!—Waylao returns Home late—Her Mother’s Wrath—Benbow’s Cottage—I conjure up a Pic

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CHAPTER III

Another Comrade—Things as I found Them—Taking Photographs—I introduce Père de N—— —Penitent Natives—I witness a Native Domestic Scene AFTER the passing of Odysseus I met another good comrade, B——. He proved an estimable pal, and was of Scottish descent, consequently his mental equipment was valuable and enabled him to discern an intelligent joke, and laugh, if somewhat sadly, over English humour. The absence of ordinary humour in the Scots is proverbial; but let me maintain that this proverbialn

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CHAPTER IV

Water-Nymphs—Ranjo’s Bath and Problem—The Old Hulk—Its Tenants—My Birthday—Shellback Accommodation—Washing Day A DAY or so after the events of the preceding chapter I became chummy with the inhabitants of the beach. I had seen them before, but had kept slightly aloof. Finding me a musical vagabond at heart, they at once took me to their bosom. Before my reader becomes also intimately acquainted with them I will describe their quaint dwelling-place and its poetical surroundings. God’s bluest sky

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CHAPTER V

The Derelict Hulk—The Signal of Prosperity in Tai-o-hae—The Night Phantoms—Representative Types of Nations—Grimes the Cockney I CANNOT recall the history of that derelict hulk, from what port it sailed, or whether its crew found a refuge on that shore, or slumbered till the trump of doom beneath the sunny seas rolling to the sky-lines. All I know is, that it was beached there after buffeting its “roaring forties,” and by the cut of its jib, the beautiful curves of the bows and figurehead, it mus

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CHAPTER VI

Tai-o-hae by Night—The Bowels of the Old Hulk—The Figurehead—A Mad Escape—South Sea Grog Shanty Barmen up to date—Men who shave their Beards off—Mrs Ranjo’s Blush—The Potentialities of a Bit of Blue Ribbon—A Picture of the Grog Shanty’s Interior—Pauline appears—Waylao appears—The Wonderful Dance of the Half-caste Girl—The Mixture of Two Races—The Music of a Marquesan Waltz GRIMES was a blessing in those days; he was something new to me in the way of man so far as my experiences went. We’d go off

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CHAPTER VII

Father O’Leary’s Confessional Box—Penitent Natives, Chiefs, Dethroned Kings and Queens—Waylao goes into the Confessional Box—Father O’Leary’s Philosophy THAT dance of Waylao’s in the grog shanty created a strange impression in my mind. Henceforth I looked upon her as some half-wild faery creature of the forest. I do not wish to give the impression that I was in love with Waylao. It was only a romantic boy’s fancy, a clinging to something that faintly resembled his immature ideals. I cannot tell

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CHAPTER VIII

Characteristics of Marquesan Natives—Mixed Creeds—Temao and Mendos—Queen Vaekehu IT may strike one as rather overdrawn that a girl of Waylao’s age should interrogate a priest, or worry about religion at all. But the maids of southern climes must not be judged in the same way as the maids of our own lands. From infancy a child in the South Seas hears wild discussions on creeds. Ere the dummy is cast altogether from their lips they see the big, tattooed chief pass down the forest track swearing ag

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CHAPTER IX

South Sea Helen of Troy—A Barbarian Queen’s Lovers—Grimes and I pay Obeisance to the Reformed Queen—The Old Heathen Amphitheatre and the end of Impassioned Hearts—Descendants of Blue Blood—The Calaboose—“Time, Gentleman, please!”—A Race that is Dead—Marquesan Mythology—Holy Birds of the Gods—Thakombau, the Bluebeard of the South Seas—I practise the Cornet in the Mountains to the Delight of the Natives—Waylao believes in Fortune-telling AT that time Queen Vaekehu was living not far from Tai-o-hae

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CHAPTER X

The Half-caste Girl visits Rimbo the Priest—Idols of the Forest—Waylao’s Flight—Grimes and I catch Rimbo—Rimbo’s Hut and Stores—Rimbo’s Hoarded Bribes—Legendary Belief—Remarks IT so happened that the following day Grimes and I went off fishing in the lagoons round the coast. I knew it not at the time, but as we fished we were in close proximity to Rimbo’s hut. In this hut the heathen priest lived all alone, dreaming and cursing the memory of the white men who had blasted his lucrative profession

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CHAPTER XI

Grimes and I fishing—Fish enjoy the Joke—Grog Shanty Chorus and Incidents—The Drunken Settler—The Steaming of Romantic Brains—On the Old Hulk—I cannot sleep—My Romance of the Figurehead—The Hamlet in the Mountains—The Phantom Burglars of the Enchanted Castle AFTER our adventure with Rimbo the priest and the half-caste girl, Grimes and I returned to the shanty, considerably impressed by the scene we had witnessed in the forest. The idol and the pillared trees of that natural temple, the beauty of

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CHAPTER XII

Imaginary Millionaires—Pearls and Diamonds—The Fate of the Sacrilegious—Waylao’s Song—The Great Forest Festival—Grimes and I fall—So does the Idol—A Free Fight—Waylao’s Discovery GRIMES and I returned once more to the grog shanty, penniless. We had been away on a short cruise with a South Sea crank. This particular crank—the South Seas abound with them—was after pearls. He swore that he knew for a positive fact that pearls lay in heaps at the bottom of the shore lagoons, and we believed him. Our

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CHAPTER XIII

Wherein I describe the Harem Cave—Oriental Picturesqueness and Mohammedan Faith in its Bald State IN this chapter I will take the reader to one of the many beautiful caverns of natural subterranean architecture that are to be found in the Marquesan Group, both in the mountain districts and by the shore. In one of these caverns a certain group of Malay Indians had their stronghold, where they lured the semi-civilised native girls. It will be obvious that I can give no more than a meagre account o

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CHAPTER XIV

Waylao Off Colour—Our Trip to Tahiti—Papeete at Night—The drowned Native Girl—Her Obsequies—A Humorous Creed WAYLO returned home after her experience in that harem mosque with several of her illusions slightly damaged. But though the materialisation of her dreams did not correspond with the romance of her old South Sea novels, she was too infatuated with Abduh to break away from him. All that I know about the matter, or knew then, is, that old Lydia sold me one dozen new-laid eggs next morning.

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CHAPTER XV

Benbow’s Return—The Old Blackbirder at Home—The Broaching of the Rum Barrel—A Musical Evening—Benbow and his Daughter—Fatherly Discretion FOR several days Grimes and I sweated away unloading a schooner that arrived from Papeete with stores and lay in Hatiaeu Bay. Being cashless, we were obliged to work at times. The heat was terrific. I wore white duck pants, a dirty shirt and a native hat made out of a banana leaf, and we both looked like sunburnt niggers. One night as we crept home along the B

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CHAPTER XVI

The Discovery—Waylao’s Flight—A South Sea Scandal—I fall in with the Fugitive—The Convict Girl—Sorrow and Sympathy—What the Tide brought Back—Waylao’s Second Escape I HARDLY know how to place the following incidents as they occurred. Perhaps it will be best to give Lydia’s account of what had happened in our absence. It appeared that Waylao had been feeling sick for several weeks, and had become strangely absent-minded. Night after night the girl had gone off to get her mother’s stores and had c

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CHAPTER XVII

A Pacific Storm—A Glimpse of Pauline—Waylao on the Hulk—Her Many Fathers—Grimes’s Unuttered Proposal—A Serenading Fiasco—Hermionæ TWO days after I had lost sight of Waylao I was sitting in the shadows of the banyans near the Broom Road. Grimes was laid up in the hulk with a sprained ankle, through some wild spree in the grog shanty. I had been that day to Father O’Leary and told him my experiences. The old priest was terribly upset, but we were both hoping that Waylao might eventually turn up. I

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CHAPTER XVIII

A Flattering Send-off—The Ghost of the Sea Swallow —The Ghost as Passenger—The True Romance—Arrival at the Fiji Isles—Great-hearted Sailormen REFERRING to my diary notes, I see that the Sea Swallow was due to sail on the 6th September, but did not sail till the 7th. This gave me one day more in Nuka Hiva. I remember how delighted Grimes was to see me appear in the shanty the morning after I was supposed to have sailed. We spent the day visiting old friends, including Lydia, and did our best to c

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CHAPTER XIX

Waylao’s Ancestors—Lodging Hunting—Mr and Mrs Pink—I turn Missionary—Piety at Home—My Disastrous Accident—My Tardy Recovery I THINK it will be best now to leave my diary alone and go on in the old way. I see by the last entry that Waylao had some mad idea of going up to Naraundrau, which was a native town not far from the coast and the source of the Rewa river. She thought that she would come across some of her mother’s royal-blooded relatives there. I told her that possibly her mother had exagg

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CHAPTER XX

The Pinks in their True Colours—A Charitable Community—Waylao thrown out—I return Too Late—Punishment for the Pinks I WILL do my best to record all that happened to Waylao after I was stricken down. It appeared that she waited and waited my return in absolute faith that it was no fault of mine that I had not turned up. I cannot describe her feelings as the days went by and I did not put in an appearance. But I can easily imagine a good deal from all I heard, not only from the people that resided

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CHAPTER XXI

I seek Waylao—The Heart of Fiji—I discover Traces of the Fugitive—The Bathing Parade—The Knut’s Indiscretion—A Submerged Toilette—The Knut as Travelling Companion—A Philosopher—A Noumea Nightmare—The Knut meets his Fate AFTER my interview with Mr and Mrs Pink I strode away, hardly knowing where I went to, I was so upset about Waylao’s disappearance. I slept out beneath some palm-trees just outside of Suva township; or it would be more correct to say that I rested out, for I did more thinking tha

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CHAPTER XXII

I lead a Gaff-house Orchestra—News of Waylao—The Matafas—Tamafanga’s Love Songs—My Sacred Gift to my Host and Hostess—I sail with Tamafanga for Nuka Hiva—The Storm—The End of Tamafanga’s Quest—Celestial Protection for Bugs AFTER the Knut and his camera left me I became slightly depressed. I see by the entry in my diary of that date that I had just got five shillings in my exchequer when I decided to leave Suva. Other entries show that I made several efforts to trace Waylao, also that it was nece

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CHAPTER XXIII

Nuka Hiva once more—The Deserted Grog Shanty—Benbow’s Second Home-coming—He hears the Truth—A Mournful Carouse—Knight-errants in the Bell Bird —A Letter from Grimes—Another Fruitless Serenade ONE can imagine that I did not weep when at last we sighted the wild shores of Nuka Hiva and entered the beautiful rugged bay of Tai-o-hae. Though I had signed on for the trip to San Francisco, no sooner had the anchor dropped than I proceeded to make myself scarce. At first I had thought of doing a bolt, b

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CHAPTER XXIV

Heart-to-heart Talks with Pauline—My Native Friends—The Unappreciated Genius—His Views on Art—Father O’Leary’s Call—Waylao’s Return FATHER O’LEARY and I became the best of pals. Though we disagreed on some matters we never argued. “My son, smoking is a silly habit,” he said. “I suppose you’re right,” I responded, taking my pipe from my lips. He at once held my hand, saying: “Smoke on, I know of men who have done worse.” By this alone one may gather that he was harmless enough and a truly religio

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CHAPTER XXV

Waylao leaves the Matafas in Apia—She drifts a Castaway at Sea—Her Sufferings—The Canoe beaches on an Uninhabited Isle—The Natural Guest of her Sorrow arrives—Death—Strange Visits to the Isle—The Strangers tell Waylao of their Sufferings—Sympathy—Aiola the Hawaiian and O Le Haiwa-oe, her Lover—Mrs Matafa’s Shawl as a Distress Signal—Waylao’s Ruse—Castaways in Sorrow WHEN Waylao decided to leave the Matafas in Samoa she had been in Apia exactly one month. The kind old Matafas had wished her good-

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CHAPTER XXVI

The Weaving Hands of Fate in Mrs Matafa’s Knitted Shawl—Waylao tries to kill Herself—Snatched from Death—The Terrible Scourge—The Hulk disappears—The Compact of Death—The Lovers put off the Act Day by Day—A Ship comes in Sight—The Last Farewell of the Leper Lovers—The Last Sunset AS the days went by, Waylao noticed a great change in her comrades’ manners. Their songs ceased, and they mostly sat whispering or praying together. One day as she sat beneath the palms by the shore, dreaming of the pas

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EPILOGUE

OUT of the night the dawn came creeping over the ranges like a maiden with her sandals dipped in light, the glory of the stars fading in her hair as she stood on the brightening clouds of the eastern mountain peaks of Nuka Hiva, and with her golden bugle of silence she blew transcendent streaks of crimson along the grey horizon—to awaken the day. The sounds of the natives beating their drums aroused the echoes of the hills. “Wailo oooe! wailo ooooeeee!” called some nameless bird from the forest

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