Arriving at Tahiti our passengers went off to the plantations1 and I went off also as I wanted to see what kind of a place it was. The capital, Papeite, was a much larger and livelier place than Apia. The population consisted of all kinds of half-castes, Chinese, French, and Tahitian brigands2. I went inland and tramped around the sugar plantations whereon worked the natives and Chinese. A good deal of the country was under cultivation3. I shall never forget the awful-looking people that I came in contact with or forget the debauchery that I witnessed. The sole occupation of a good many of the natives was to drink as much as they could get down them and the women sold their bodies to the first-comer for the price of a drink. The missionaries4 were there by hundreds, it seemed; they were a mixture of French and English and had exciting times reforming those native women and men. I went into several of the native homes and found them very hospitable5 people. Some of the women had Chinese husbands and their half-caste children had tiny almond eyes, jet-black and sparkling. The Chinese of Society Islands impressed me as being much more wholesome6 in their way of living than 153the Australian Chinamen, and they did not smell half so disagreeable. A Chinaman got jealous of his native wife whilst I was there and struck her with a knife. The Tahitians went for him and when I saw him you could hardly tell which was his head and which his feet; anyway his brother Chinamen came into the village, rolled him up and gave him a decent burial, and his wife screamed and wailed7 away till I was glad to clear out, for it was a most painful sight to see her grief. She was a pretty woman, in fact all the young women were handsome, and the men too, but as soon as the women get over twenty they start to fade. A South Sea Island girl of ten years of age is as matured as a European girl of sixteen.
I found human nature was just the same there as everywhere else—everyone wanted as much as they could get out of you, and those who were better clothed than their sisters and brothers were vain-glorious and looked down on the others. Girls and boys made love to each other and eloped into the forest with the missionaries after them at full speed, and the brave old chiefs strolled about and spoke8 of the old times and smacked9 their lips and spoke on the sly of the missionaries, saying “they were the children of the devil” but addressing them to their faces with some such jargon10 as, “Me Christian11 man now. One God. Good God, who no eat other God,” whereupon they would gravely walk away to sell their soul for a drink. They loved their old customs deep down in their heart and rubbed noses 154with each other and cherished hopes that some day the gods would help them to drive the white men into the sea. But the older ones were even then fast disappearing, and drink and prostitution were raising the death rate of the native children, and so there, as elsewhere all over the South Seas, the race was fast dying out.
There were many traders there, and they all seemed to make plenty of money. You could always recognise a trader by his big hat smashed on his head and his slouching walk and his very often warty12 nose, that had started to blossom after drinking some oceans of beer. They were generally married men and often got into awful trouble when they were quite unsober by mistaking their Tahitian wife for their Marquesan wife, and mentioning the wrong name to their bride during the night brought down her wrath13 on to their wicked heads. I have often seen them with a black eye or a terribly scratched, clawed face, for women in Tahiti are as jealous as the European ladies, and will brook14 no rival; but of course when their husband is away with his other bride on some far-off Isle15 they do not let the grass grow under their feet, and often a white trader leaves his home in disgust when his native wife presents him with a half-caste baby with slit-almond eyes and a face showing strong Mongolian origin, or a little fair-skinned mite16 with pretty violet dark eyes that looks suspiciously like the village missionary17.
Rarotongan Scenery
In Papeite I made the acquaintance of René, a 157Frenchman, who was a clever violin-player. He was at that time working as a clerk in the Tahitian Commissioner’s offices and played at the Papeite opera house which was something on the lines of a bush town music hall in Australia. He was very kind to me and gave me several good lessons on playing the violin, for he had studied under some of the best French masters. He had some splendid duets for two violins and one night, when they had a ball on at the Papeite Government House, he recommended me and I got the engagement to go with him, and we played the duets together. He was a much better performer than I was, but he gave me the solo part and did all he could to get me the credit of the concert. All went off very well indeed till, when René and I were having supper with all the high folk of Papeite and I was feeling in very high spirits at the turn my luck had taken, for I was nearly on my beam ends when René got me that job, I bent18 over from my chair and looked out of the door and saw that my violin which I had left by the hat-rack had disappeared! I got up and rushed off like a shot, and as I did so I saw one of the Tahitian servants bolting through the door with the violin. Shouting at the top of my voice I ran after him, cleared the steps with one jump, and there up the moonlit street ran the thief holding my violin in one hand. I had no revolver with me, otherwise I would have fired, for I was desperate. My violin was my all, and the fear of losing it put renewed vigour19 in my feet and I was gaining on the cursed 158thief. “Stop or I fire!” I shouted, and as he was leaving the straight track he turned, and I held my hand up, as he thought, to shoot. In the moonlight he saw my white hand upheld, and thinking it held a gun he threw the fiddle20 down and rushed off into the scrub. My fiddle was none the worse for the adventure, but I was, for the night was close and sweltering hot, and I arrived back to the supper-table bathed in sweat and half dead.
I was at that time lodging21 in the north of the town with a storekeeper. In the same room where I was also slept a trader; his name was M’Neil, and he had been very ill and was at that time convalescent. He admitted to me that he had been drinking too heavily and had made up his mind to be a teetotaller, and, as he told me what a curse drink was, he kept lifting a bottle of whisky from under his bed and taking a pull at it, saying, “Man, jist a wee snack for the gude time’s sake.” He was really trying to break himself of the habit, and instead of drinking half-a-bottle at a time was just taking it in sips22. By midnight he was quite drunk, and started weeping over his past sins, and kept me awake nearly all night saying over and over again—“Ma lad, keep off th’ drink, ’twill be your ruin.” He was not a bad man at all, and when he was sober during the day, and I played him old Scotch23 songs, for he would not for one moment let me play anything but Scotch melodies, the tears would rise in his eyes. He died two days after and I felt very much cut up, for I saw him die and he gave me an 159old purse, saying, “Take it, guid lad, and think of me.” His old comrade, a Scotchman, came in from up the street, held his hand and completely broke down, crying like a little child as M’Neil closed his eyes for ever. I still remember how that Scotch friend rose up, looked under poor M’Neil’s bed, and gently pulled the half-full whisky bottle out, put it under his coat and left the room, still sobbing24, for M’Neil and he had had many good times together and many a long talk and deep drink in that room as they lived over their old days in Bonny Scotland.
I was naturally very depressed25 after the death of M’Neil; I had only known him a few days, but in those few days I seemed to know more of his true character than you could see through in another man in ten years. I remember after a day or so I got in with a Dutch fellow named “Van Blank.” He was also a lodger26 in my dwelling-place and he had held the Scotchman’s arm as he stood by M’Neil’s grave; otherwise I think poor old Mac (I cannot remember his name) would have fallen in. He had imbibed27 considerably28, and it took Van Blank and I the whole afternoon to get him back to his room and put him to bed.
René, my violin friend, went off to Matahiva on some business, and I was at my wit’s end to know how to get some cash and get away from Papeite. I was offered a job by some missionaries to go off to Rarotonga to help in mission work for awhile. I considered seriously becoming a missionary myself, as it 160seemed a paying game, and I never saw a mission man of any sect29 on the beach hard up. Van Blank had long since joined the mission and he introduced me to several young Tahitian mission girls who were devout30 Christians31. They were mostly very good-looking, wore more clothing than the inland natives, were splendid dancers, and down in the thatched homesteads of the village of Tetua I went and stayed with Van Blank, and those mission girls, good gracious me! stood on their heads, screamed with laughter, waved their legs as I played the fiddle and all went back to the barbarian32 stage in five seconds, and after the dance I had to fly with Van Blank as twenty of them strove to embrace us, all at once! Next day Blank and I saw them in the mission-room teaching the native children to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” or a tune33 of that type, and as we looked in the school door they looked up at us gravely with their earnest dark eyes as though we were absolute strangers to the wild carousal34 of the night before. You could tramp the world over and never find people so clever in their cunning as the Tahitian Islanders, and yet they are, as I found, staunch friends in adversity and would never give a white man away to his superiors. And so all the creed35 denominations36 go swimmingly along, safe and happy in the giant hypocrisy37 of reformation that has brought such changes to the Pacific Isle, such happiness to the reformers, and such deceit into the hearts of the reformed.
A large trading schooner38, the Austral, at this time 161arrived in Tahiti and I once more secured a job as second mate and left the island. I heard that her final destination was Samoa and Tonga; she was then bound for the Marquesas Islands. Before leaving the “Society Group” she called at “Fakarava,” “Raiatea” and “Takaroa,” beautiful Isles39 they were too, standing40 lonely out there in the wide Pacific, covered with luxurious41 tropical trees that sheltered the velvety42 skinned natives, many of whom were as wild as the savages43 of Captain Cook’s days. Indeed, all the races that I came in contact with were as wild at heart as ever their ancestors were; but they were clever, and they soon discovered the best policy, which was hammered into them by the arrival of a warship44 and a gun battery to smash them up and let them see the white man’s power and the wisdom of following all his desires and ceasing all their own desires. Then the missionaries came and the traders brought the rum, and the money to buy the rum, and gave the women the opportunity to obtain the money, for it was the women of the South Seas that started to get the money and shared it with their native husbands. I think that must be the origin of the name “White Slave Traffic” of modern England. I know from my own eyes and from the lips of the sufferers of those far-off Isles that the Black Slave Traffic was a monstrous45 traffic beside which the English “White Slave Traffic” is a kind of sacred concert, comparatively speaking.
As far as I could judge and criticise46 the civilising 162influence of Christianity in the South Seas was this—the English, French and Germans discovered a beautiful land in the South Seas; a few months after arriving they blew the heads of some of the natives off, cowed them completely, took a battalion47 of sailors inland to the wild native village and those sailors all fell madly in love with the beautiful dark-eyed women who stood trembling before them, and by the time they were due to become mothers the fathers were in England, being paid their leave money at Chatham, while the missionaries, hot with haste, were outbound for the same Islands to reform the grieving mothers and make them more upright in their morals. When those missionaries arrived they put a “penny in the slot machine” on the shore, nailed a large tract48 on each wall of the heathen village homesteads, and then called the people Christianised as they knelt in their nudeness and penitence49 at their feet in chanting rows, repeating the Lord’s Prayer with bowed heads, as the missionaries lifted their eyes heavenward and did not miss their boot-laces till long after the reformed heathen had departed.
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1
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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brigands
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| n.土匪，强盗( brigand的名词复数 ) | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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7
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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9
smacked
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| 拍，打，掴( smack的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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12
warty
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| adj.有疣的，似疣的；瘤状 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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14
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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15
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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fiddle
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| n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动 | |
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lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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sips
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| n.小口喝，一小口的量( sip的名词复数 )v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的第三人称单数 ) | |
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23
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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27
imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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32
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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carousal
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| n.喧闹的酒会 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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denominations
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| n.宗派( denomination的名词复数 )；教派；面额；名称 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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40
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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41
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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42
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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43
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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44
warship
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| n.军舰，战舰 | |
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45
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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46
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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47
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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48
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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49
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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