By the latest accounts, most of the islanders still refuse to submit
to the French; and what turn events may hereafter take, it is hard to
predict. At any rate, these disorders must accelerate the final
extinction of their race.
Along with the few officers left by Du Petit Thouars were several
French priests, for whose unobstructed exertions in the dissemination
of their faith, the strongest guarantees were provided by an article
of the treaty. But no one was bound to offer them facilities; much
less a luncheon, the first day they went ashore. True, they had
plenty of gold; but to the natives it was anathema - taboo - and, for
several hours and some odd minutes, they would not touch it.
Emissaries of the Pope and the devil, as the strangers were
considered - the smell of sulphur hardly yet shaken out of their
canonicals - what islander would venture to jeopardize his soul, and
call down a blight on his breadfruit, by holding any intercourse with
them! That morning the priests actually picknicked in grove of
cocoa-nut trees; but, before night, Christian hospitality - in
exchange for a commercial equivalent of hard dollars - was given them
in an adjoining house.
Wanting in civility, as the conduct of the English missionaries may be
thought, in withholding a decent reception to these persons, the
latter were certainly to blame in needlessly placing themselves in
so unpleasant a predicament. Under far better auspices, they might
have settled upon some one of the thousand unconverted isles of the
Pacific, rather than have forced themselves thus upon a people
already professedly Christians.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WE RECEIVE CALLS AT THE HOTEL DE CALABOOZA
OUR place of confinement being open all round, and so near the Broom
Road, of course we were in plain sight of everybody passing; and,
therefore, we had no lack of visitors among such an idle, inquisitive
set as the Tahitians. For a few days, they were coming and going
continually; while, thus ignobly fast by the foot, we were fain to
give passive audience.
During this period, we were the lions of the neighbourhood; and, no
doubt, strangers from the distant villages were taken to see the
"Karhowrees" (white men), in the same way that countrymen, in a city,
are gallanted to the Zoological Gardens.
All this gave us a fine opportunity of making observations. I was
painfully struck by the considerable number of sickly or deformed
persons; undoubtedly made so by a virulent complaint, which, under
native treatment, almost invariably affects, in the end, the muscles
and bones of the body. In particular, there is a distortion of the
back, most unsightly to behold, originating in a horrible form of the
malady.
Although this, and other bodily afflictions, were unknown before the
discovery of the islands by the whites, there are several cases found
of the Pa-Fa, or Elephantiasis - a native disease, which seems to have
prevailed among them from the earliest antiquity. Affecting the legs
and feet alone, it swells them, in some instances, to the girth of a
man's body, covering the skin with scales. It might be supposed that
one, thus afflicted, would be incapable of walking; but, to all
appearance, they seem to be nearly as active as anybody; apparently
suffering no pain, and bearing the calamity with a degree of
cheerfulness truly marvellous.
The Fa-Fa is very gradual in its approaches, and years elapse before
the limb is fully swollen. Its origin is ascribed by the natives to
various causes; but the general impression seems to be that it
arises, in most cases, from the eating of unripe bread-fruit and
Indian turnip. So far as I could find out, it is not hereditary. In no
stage do they attempt a cure; the complaint being held incurable.
Speaking of the Fa-Fa reminds me of a poor fellow, a sailor, whom I
afterward saw at Roorootoo, a lone island, some two days' sail from
Tahiti.
The island is very small, and its inhabitants nearly extinct. We sent
a boat off to see whether any yams were to be had, as, formerly, the
yams of Roorootoo were as famous among the islands round about, as
Sicily oranges in the Mediterranean. Going ashore, to my surprise, I
was accosted, near a little shanty of a church, by a white man, who
limped forth from a wretched hut. His hair and beard were unshorn,
his face deadly pale and haggard, and one limb swelled with the Fa-Fa
to an incredible bigness. This was the first instance of a foreigner
suffering from it that I had ever seen, or heard of; and the
spectacle shocked me accordingly.
He had been there for years. From the first symptoms, he could not
believe his complaint to be what it really was, and trusted it would
soon disappear. But when it became plain that his only chance for
recovery was a speedy change of climate, no ship would receive him as
a sailor: to think of being taken as a passenger was idle. This
speaks little for the humanity of sea captains; but the truth is that
those in the Pacific have little enough of the virtue; and, nowadays,
when so many charitable appeals are made to them, they have become
callous.
I pitied the poor fellow from the bottom of my heart; but nothing
could I do, as our captain was inexorable. "Why," said he, "here we
are - started on a six months' cruise - I can't put back; and he is
better off on the island than at sea. So on Roorootoo he must die."
And probably he did.
I afterwards heard of this melancholy object, from two seamen.
