Now I did not want to go
to Tahaa. I had letters to deliver in Raiatea, and officials to
see, and there was Charmian down below getting ready to go ashore.
By insistent signs I indicated that I desired no more than a short
sail on the lagoon. Quick was the disappointment in his face, yet
smiling was the acquiescence.
"Come on for a sail," I called below to Charmian. "But put on your
swimming suit. It's going to be wet."
It wasn't real. It was a dream. That canoe slid over the water
like a streak of silver. I climbed out on the outrigger and
supplied the weight to hold her down, while Tehei (pronounced
Tayhayee) supplied the nerve. He, too, in the puffs, climbed part
way out on the outrigger, at the same time steering with both hands
on a large paddle and holding the mainsheet with his foot.
"Ready about!" he called.
I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to maintain the
equilibrium as the sail emptied.
"Hard a-lee!" he called, shooting her into the wind.
I slid out on the opposite side over the water on a spar lashed
across the canoe, and we were full and away on the other tack.
"All right," said Tehei.
Those three phrases, "Ready about," "Hard a-lee," and "All right,"
comprised Tehei's English vocabulary and led me to suspect that at
some time he had been one of a Kanaka crew under an American
captain. Between the puffs I made signs to him and repeatedly and
interrogatively uttered the word SAILOR. Then I tried it in
atrocious French. MARIN conveyed no meaning to him; nor did
MATELOT. Either my French was bad, or else he was not up in it. I
have since concluded that both conjectures were correct. Finally, I
began naming over the adjacent islands. He nodded that he had been
to them. By the time my quest reached Tahiti, he caught my drift.
His thought-processes were almost visible, and it was a joy to watch
him think. He nodded his head vigorously. Yes, he had been to
Tahiti, and he added himself names of islands such as Tikihau,
Rangiroa, and Fakarava, thus proving that he had sailed as far as
the Paumotus - undoubtedly one of the crew of a trading schooner.
After our short sail, when he had returned on board, he by signs
inquired the destination of the Snark, and when I had mentioned
Samoa, Fiji, New Guinea, France, England, and California in their
geographical sequence, he said "Samoa," and by gestures intimated
that he wanted to go along. Whereupon I was hard put to explain
that there was no room for him. "Petit bateau" finally solved it,
and again the disappointment in his face was accompanied by smiling
acquiescence, and promptly came the renewed invitation to accompany
him to Tahaa.
Charmian and I looked at each other. The exhilaration of the ride
we had taken was still upon us. Forgotten were the letters to
Raiatea, the officials we had to visit. Shoes, a shirt, a pair of
trousers, cigarettes matches, and a book to read were hastily
crammed into a biscuit tin and wrapped in a rubber blanket, and we
were over the side and into the canoe.
"When shall we look for you?" Warren called, as the wind filled the
sail and sent Tehei and me scurrying out on the outrigger.
"I don't know," I answered. "When we get back, as near as I can
figure it."
And away we went. The wind had increased, and with slacked sheets
we ran off before it. The freeboard of the canoe was no more than
two and a half inches, and the little waves continually lapped over
the side. This required bailing. Now bailing is one of the
principal functions of the vahine. Vahine is the Tahitian for
woman, and Charmian being the only vahine aboard, the bailing fell
appropriately to her. Tehei and I could not very well do it, the
both of us being perched part way out on the outrigger and busied
with keeping the canoe bottom-side down. So Charmian bailed, with a
wooden scoop of primitive design, and so well did she do it that
there were occasions when she could rest off almost half the time.
Raiatea and Tahaa are unique in that they lie inside the same
encircling reef. Both are volcanic islands, ragged of sky-line,
with heaven-aspiring peaks and minarets. Since Raiatea is thirty
miles in circumference, and Tahaa fifteen miles, some idea may be
gained of the magnitude of the reef that encloses them. Between
them and the reef stretches from one to two miles of water, forming
a beautiful lagoon. The huge Pacific seas, extending in unbroken
lines sometimes a mile or half as much again in length, hurl
themselves upon the reef, overtowering and falling upon it with
tremendous crashes, and yet the fragile coral structure withstands
the shock and protects the land. Outside lies destruction to the
mightiest ship afloat. Inside reigns the calm of untroubled water,
whereon a canoe like ours can sail with no more than a couple of
inches of free-board.
We flew over the water. And such water! - clear as the clearest
spring-water, and crystalline in its clearness, all intershot with a
maddening pageant of colours and rainbow ribbons more magnificently
gorgeous than any rainbow. Jade green alternated with turquoise,
peacock blue with emerald, while now the canoe skimmed over reddish
purple pools, and again over pools of dazzling, shimmering white
where pounded coral sand lay beneath and upon which oozed monstrous
sea-slugs. One moment we were above wonder-gardens of coral,
wherein coloured fishes disported, fluttering like marine
butterflies; the next moment we were dashing across the dark surface
of deep channels, out of which schools of flying fish lifted their
silvery flight; and a third moment we were above other gardens of
living coral, each more wonderful than the last.
