THE impediment of tongues was one that I particularly over — estimated. The languages of Polynesia are easy to smatter, though hard to speak with elegance1. And they are extremely similar, so that a person who has a tincture of one or two may risk, not without hope, an attempt upon the others.
And again, not only is Polynesian easy to smatter, but interpreters abound2. Missionaries3, traders, and broken white folk living on the bounty4 of the natives, are to be found in almost every isle5 and hamlet; and even where these are unserviceable, the natives themselves have often scraped up a little English, and in the French zone (though far less commonly) a little French-English, or an efficient pidgin, what is called to the westward6 ‘Beach-la-Mar,’ comes easy to the Polynesian; it is now taught, besides, in the schools of Hawaii; and from the multiplicity of British ships, and the nearness of the States on the one hand and the colonies on the other, it may be called, and will almost certainly become, the tongue of the Pacific. I will instance a few examples. I met in Majuro a Marshall Island boy who spoke7 excellent English; this he had learned in the German firm in Jaluit, yet did not speak one word of German. I heard from a gendarme8 who had taught school in Rapa-iti that while the children had the utmost difficulty or reluctance9 to learn French, they picked up English on the wayside, and as if by accident. On one of the most out-of-the-way atolls in the Carolines, my friend Mr. Benjamin Hird was amazed to find the lads playing cricket on the beach and talking English; and it was in English that the crew of the JANET NICOLL, a set of black boys from different Melanesian islands, communicated with other natives throughout the cruise, transmitted orders, and sometimes jested together on the fore-hatch. But what struck me perhaps most of all was a word I heard on the verandah of the Tribunal at Noumea. A case had just been heard — a trial for infanticide against an ape — like native woman; and the audience were smoking cigarettes as they awaited the verdict. An anxious, amiable10 French lady, not far from tears, was eager for acquittal, and declared she would engage the prisoner to be her children’s nurse. The bystanders exclaimed at the proposal; the woman was a savage11, said they, and spoke no language. ‘MAIS, VOUS SAVEZ,’ objected the fair sentimentalist; ‘ILS APPRENNENT SI VITE L’ANGLAIS!’
But to be able to speak to people is not all. And in the first stage of my relations with natives I was helped by two things. To begin with, I was the show-man of the CASCO. She, her fine lines, tall spars, and snowy decks, the crimson12 fittings of the saloon, and the white, the gilt13, and the repeating mirrors of the tiny cabin, brought us a hundred visitors. The men fathomed14 out her dimensions with their arms, as their fathers fathomed out the ships of Cook; the women declared the cabins more lovely than a church; bouncing Junos were never weary of sitting in the chairs and contemplating15 in the glass their own bland16 images; and I have seen one lady strip up her dress, and, with cries of wonder and delight, rub herself bare-breeched upon the velvet17 cushions. Biscuit, jam, and syrup18 was the entertainment; and, as in European parlours, the photograph album went the round. This sober gallery, their everyday costumes and physiognomies, had become transformed, in three weeks’ sailing, into things wonderful and rich and foreign; alien faces, barbaric dresses, they were now beheld19 and fingered, in the swerving20 cabin, with innocent excitement and surprise. Her Majesty21 was often recognised, and I have seen French subjects kiss her photograph; Captain Speedy — in an Abyssinian war-dress, supposed to be the uniform of the British army — met with much acceptance; and the effigies22 of Mr. Andrew Lang were admired in the Marquesas. There is the place for him to go when he shall be weary of Middlesex and Homer.
It was perhaps yet more important that I had enjoyed in my youth some knowledge of our Scots folk of the Highlands and the Islands. Not much beyond a century has passed since these were in the same convulsive and transitionary state as the Marquesans of to-day. In both cases an alien authority enforced, the clans24 disarmed25, the chiefs deposed26, new customs introduced, and chiefly that fashion of regarding money as the means and object of existence. The commercial age, in each, succeeding at a bound to an age of war abroad and patriarchal communism at home. In one the cherished practice of tattooing27, in the other a cherished costume, proscribed28. In each a main luxury cut off: beef, driven under cloud of night from Lowland pastures, denied to the meat-loving Highlander29; long-pig, pirated from the next village, to the man — eating Kanaka. The grumbling30, the secret ferment31, the fears and resentments32, the alarms and sudden councils of Marquesan chiefs, reminded me continually of the days of Lovat and Struan. Hospitality, tact33, natural fine manners, and a touchy34 punctilio, are common to both races: common to both tongues the trick of dropping medial consonants36. Here is a table of two widespread Polynesian words:—
HOUSE. LOVE.
Tahitian FARE AROHA
New Zealand WHARE
Samoan FALE TALOFA
Manihiki FALE ALOHA
Hawaiian HALE ALOHA
Marquesan HA’E KAOHA
The elision of medial consonants, so marked in these Marquesan instances, is no less common both in Gaelic and the Lowland Scots. Stranger still, that prevalent Polynesian sound, the so-called catch, written with an apostrophe, and often or always the gravestone of a perished consonant35, is to be heard in Scotland to this day. When a Scot pronounces water, better, or bottle — WA’ER, BE’ER, or BO’LE— the sound is precisely37 that of the catch; and I think we may go beyond, and say, that if such a population could be isolated38, and this mispronunciation should become the rule, it might prove the first stage of transition from T to K, which is the disease of Polynesian languages. The tendency of the Marquesans, however, is to urge against consonants, or at least on the very common letter L, a war of mere39 extermination40. A hiatus is agreeable to any Polynesian ear; the ear even of the stranger soon grows used to these barbaric voids; but only in the Marquesan will you find such names as HAAII and PAAAEUA, when each individual vowel41 must be separately uttered.
These points of similarity between a South Sea people and some of my own folk at home ran much in my head in the islands; and not only inclined me to view my fresh acquaintances with favour, but continually modified my judgment42. A polite Englishman comes to-day to the Marquesans and is amazed to find the men tattooed43; polite Italians came not long ago to England and found our fathers stained with woad; and when I paid the return visit as a little boy, I was highly diverted with the backwardness of Italy: so insecure, so much a matter of the day and hour, is the pre-eminence of race. It was so that I hit upon a means of communication which I recommend to travellers. When I desired any detail of savage custom, or of superstitious44 belief, I cast back in the story of my fathers, and fished for what I wanted with some trait of equal barbarism: Michael Scott, Lord Derwentwater’s head, the second-sight, the Water Kelpie, — each of these I have found to be a killing45 bait; the black bull’s head of Stirling procured46 me the legend of RAHERO; and what I knew of the Cluny Macphersons, or the Appin Stewarts, enabled me to learn, and helped me to understand, about the TEVAS of Tahiti. The native was no longer ashamed, his sense of kinship grew warmer, and his lips were opened. It is this sense of kinship that the traveller must rouse and share; or he had better content himself with travels from the blue bed to the brown. And the presence of one Cockney titterer will cause a whole party to walk in clouds of darkness.
The hamlet of Anaho stands on a margin47 of flat land between the west of the beach and the spring of the impending48 mountains. A grove49 of palms, perpetually ruffling50 its green fans, carpets it (as for a triumph) with fallen branches, and shades it like an arbour. A road runs from end to end of the covert51 among beds of flowers, the milliner’s shop of the community; and here and there, in the grateful twilight52, in an air filled with a diversity of scents53, and still within hearing of the surf upon the reef, the native houses stand in scattered55 neighbourhood. The same word, as we have seen, represents in many tongues of Polynesia, with scarce a shade of difference, the abode56 of man. But although the word be the same, the structure itself continually varies; and the Marquesan, among the most backward and barbarous of islanders, is yet the most commodiously57 lodged58. The grass huts of Hawaii, the birdcage houses of Tahiti, or the open shed, with the crazy Venetian blinds, of the polite Samoan — none of these can be compared with the Marquesan PAEPAE-HAE, or dwelling59 platform. The paepae is an oblong terrace built without cement or black volcanic60 stone, from twenty to fifty feet in length, raised from four to eight feet from the earth, and accessible by a broad stair. Along the back of this, and coming to about half its width, runs the open front of the house, like a covered gallery: the interior sometimes neat and almost elegant in its bareness, the sleeping space divided off by an endlong coaming, some bright raiment perhaps hanging from a nail, and a lamp and one of White’s sewing-machines the only marks of civilization. On the outside, at one end of the terrace, burns the cooking-fire under a shed; at the other there is perhaps a pen for pigs; the remainder is the evening lounge and AL FRESCO61 banquet-hall of the inhabitants. To some houses water is brought down the mountains in bamboo pipes, perforated for the sake of sweetness. With the Highland23 comparison in my mind, I was struck to remember the sluttish mounds62 of turf and stone in which I have sat and been entertained in the Hebrides and the North Islands. Two things, I suppose, explain the contrast. In Scotland wood is rare, and with materials so rude as turf and stone the very hope of neatness is excluded. And in Scotland it is cold. Shelter and a hearth63 are needs so pressing that a man looks not beyond; he is out all day after a bare bellyful, and at night when he saith, ‘Aha, it is warm!’ he has not appetite for more. Or if for something else, then something higher; a fine school of poetry and song arose in these rough shelters, and an air like ‘LOCHABER NO MORE’ is an evidence of refinement64 more convincing, as well as more imperishable, than a palace.
To one such dwelling platform a considerable troop of relatives and dependants65 resort. In the hour of the dusk, when the fire blazes, and the scent54 of the cooked breadfruit fills the air, and perhaps the lamp glints already between the pillars and the house, you shall behold66 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 geographical67 position of San Francisco and New Yo’ko. In a Highland hamlet, quite out of reach of any tourist, I have met the same plain and dignified68 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 stature69 to swell70. 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 adroitly71 and pointedly72 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 luncheon73 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 ashore74 upon a visit to his rival, Taipi-Kikino, it was Toma whom we saw standing75 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 compute76. The flying city of Laputa moored77 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 valedictory78 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 affected79; 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 gaily80 dressed, so plainly moved at our departure, for one of the half-naked crew that had besieged81 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 ransom82 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 protracted83. 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 saluted84 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.
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1
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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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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gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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fathomed
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| 理解…的真意( fathom的过去式和过去分词 )； 彻底了解； 弄清真相 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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syrup
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| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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swerving
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的现在分词 ) | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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effigies
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| n.（人的）雕像，模拟像，肖像( effigy的名词复数 ) | |
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highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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disarmed
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| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
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deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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tattooing
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| n.刺字，文身v.刺青，文身( tattoo的现在分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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proscribed
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| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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highlander
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| n.高地的人，苏格兰高地地区的人 | |
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grumbling
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| adj. 喃喃鸣不平的, 出怨言的 | |
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ferment
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| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
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resentments
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| （因受虐待而）愤恨，不满，怨恨( resentment的名词复数 ) | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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consonant
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| n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的 | |
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consonants
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| n.辅音，子音( consonant的名词复数 )；辅音字母 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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extermination
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| n.消灭，根绝 | |
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vowel
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| n.元音；元音字母 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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ruffling
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| 弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 )； 弄乱； 激怒； 扰乱 | |
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covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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scents
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| n.香水( scent的名词复数 )；气味；（动物的）臭迹；（尤指狗的）嗅觉 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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55
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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commodiously
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| adv.宽阔地，方便地 | |
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lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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fresco
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| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
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mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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dependants
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| 受赡养者，受扶养的家属( dependant的名词复数 ) | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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adroitly
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| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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pointedly
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| adv.尖地，明显地 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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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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compute
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| v./n.计算，估计 | |
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moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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valedictory
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| adj.告别的；n.告别演说 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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protracted
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| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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