The old man is something of a wizard. Having an understanding with the
elements, certain phenomena of theirs are exhibited for his
particular benefit. Unusually clear weather, with a fine steady
breeze, is a certain sign that a merchantman is at hand; whale-spouts
seen from the harbour are tokens of a whaling vessel's approach; and
thunder and lightning, happening so seldom as they do, are proof
positive that a man-of-war is drawing near.
In short, Jim, the pilot, is quite a character in his way; and no one
visits Tahiti without hearing some curious story about him.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A GLANCE AT PAPEETEE - WE ARE SENT ABOARD THE FRIGATE
THE village of Papeetee struck us all very pleasantly. Lying in a
semicircle round the bay, the tasteful mansions of the chiefs and
foreign residents impart an air of tropical elegance, heightened by
the palm-trees waving here and there, and the deep-green groves of
the Bread-Fruit in the background. The squalid huts of the common
people are out of sight, and there is nothing to mar the prospect.
All round the water extends a wide, smooth beach of mixed pebbles and
fragments of coral. This forms the thoroughfare of the village; the
handsomest houses all facing it - the fluctuation of the tides being
so inconsiderable that they cause no inconvenience.
The Pritchard residence - a fine large building - occupies a site on one
side of the bay: a green lawn slopes off to the sea: and in front
waves the English flag. Across the water, the tricolour also, and the
stars and stripes, distinguish the residences of the other consuls.
What greatly added to the picturesqueness of the bay at this time was
the condemned hull of a large ship, which, at the farther end of the
harbour, lay bilged upon the beach, its stern settled low in the
water, and the other end high and dry. From where we lay, the trees
behind seemed to lock their leafy boughs over its bowsprit; which,
from its position, looked nearly upright.
She was an American whaler, a very old craft. Having sprung a leak at
sea, she had made all sail for the island, to heave down for repairs.
Found utterly unseaworthy, however, her oil was taken out and sent
home in another vessel; the hull was then stripped and sold for a
trifle.
Before leaving Tahiti, I had the curiosity to go over this poor old
ship, thus stranded on a strange shore. What were my emotions, when I
saw upon her stern the name of a small town on the river Hudson! She
was from the noble stream on whose banks I was born; in whose waters
I had a hundred times bathed.
