第6章 MAKING FRIENDS(3)

To one such dwelling platform a considerable troop of relatives and dependants resort.In the hour of the dusk,when the fire blazes,and the scent of the cooked breadfruit fills the air,and perhaps the lamp glints already between the pillars and the house,you shall behold them silently assemble to this meal,men,women,and children;and the dogs and pigs frisk together up the terrace stairway,switching rival tails.The strangers from the ship were soon equally welcome:welcome to dip their fingers in the wooden dish,to drink cocoanuts,to share the circulating pipe,and to hear and hold high debate about the misdeeds of the French,the Panama Canal,or the geographical position of San Francisco and New Yo'ko.In a Highland hamlet,quite out of reach of any tourist,Ihave met the same plain and dignified hospitality.

I have mentioned two facts -the distasteful behaviour of our earliest visitors,and the case of the lady who rubbed herself upon the cushions -which would give a very false opinion of Marquesan manners.The great majority of Polynesians are excellently mannered;but the Marquesan stands apart,annoying and attractive,wild,shy,and refined.If you make him a present he affects to forget it,and it must be offered him again at his going:a pretty formality I have found nowhere else.A hint will get rid of any one or any number;they are so fiercely proud and modest;while many of the more lovable but blunter islanders crowd upon a stranger,and can be no more driven off than flies.A slight or an insult the Marquesan seems never to forget.I was one day talking by the wayside with my friend Hoka,when I perceived his eyes suddenly to flash and his stature to swell.A white horseman was coming down the mountain,and as he passed,and while he paused to exchange salutations with myself,Hoka was still staring and ruffling like a gamecock.It was a Corsican who had years before called him COCHON SAUVAGE -COCON CHAUVAGE,as Hoka mispronounced it.With people so nice and so touchy,it was scarce to be supposed that our company of greenhorns should not blunder into offences.Hoka,on one of his visits,fell suddenly in a brooding silence,and presently after left the ship with cold formality.

When he took me back into favour,he adroitly and pointedly explained the nature of my offence:I had asked him to sell cocoa-nuts;and in Hoka's view articles of food were things that a gentleman should give,not sell;or at least that he should not sell to any friend.On another occasion I gave my boat's crew a luncheon of chocolate and biscuits.I had sinned,I could never learn how,against some point of observance;and though I was drily thanked,my offerings were left upon the beach.But our worst mistake was a slight we put on Toma,Hoka's adoptive father,and in his own eyes the rightful chief of Anaho.In the first place,we did not call upon him,as perhaps we should,in his fine new European house,the only one in the hamlet.In the second,when we came ashore upon a visit to his rival,Taipi-Kikino,it was Toma whom we saw standing at the head of the beach,a magnificent figure of a man,magnificently tattooed;and it was of Toma that we asked our question:'Where is the chief?''What chief?'cried Toma,and turned his back on the blasphemers.Nor did he forgive us.Hoka came and went with us daily;but,alone I believe of all the countryside,neither Toma nor his wife set foot on board the CASCO.

The temptation resisted it is hard for a European to compute.The flying city of Laputa moored for a fortnight in St.James's Park affords but a pale figure of the CASCO anchored before Anaho;for the Londoner has still his change of pleasures,but the Marquesan passes to his grave through an unbroken uniformity of days.

On the afternoon before it was intended we should sail,a valedictory party came on board:nine of our particular friends equipped with gifts and dressed as for a festival.Hoka,the chief dancer and singer,the greatest dandy of Anaho,and one of the handsomest young fellows in the world-sullen,showy,dramatic,light as a feather and strong as an ox -it would have been hard,on that occasion,to recognise,as he sat there stooped and silent,his face heavy and grey.It was strange to see the lad so much affected;stranger still to recognise in his last gift one of the curios we had refused on the first day,and to know our friend,so gaily dressed,so plainly moved at our departure,for one of the half-naked crew that had besieged and insulted us on our arrival:

strangest of all,perhaps,to find,in that carved handle of a fan,the last of those curiosities of the first day which had now all been given to us by their possessors -their chief merchandise,for which they had sought to ransom us as long as we were strangers,which they pressed on us for nothing as soon as we were friends.

The last visit was not long protracted.One after another they shook hands and got down into their canoe;when Hoka turned his back immediately upon the ship,so that we saw his face no more.

Taipi,on the other hand,remained standing and facing us with gracious valedictory gestures;and when Captain Otis dipped the ensign,the whole party saluted with their hats.This was the farewell;the episode of our visit to Anaho was held concluded;and though the CASCO remained nearly forty hours at her moorings,not one returned on board,and I am inclined to think they avoided appearing on the beach.This reserve and dignity is the finest trait of the Marquesan.