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. His
attempts to leave were still unavailing, and his hard fate was fast
closing in.
Notwithstanding the physical degeneracy of the Tahitians as a people,
among the chiefs, individuals of personable figures are still
frequently met with; and, occasionally, majestic-looking men, and
diminutive women as lovely as the nymphs who, nearly a century ago,
swam round the ships of Wallis. In these instances, Tahitian beauty
is quite as seducing as it proved to the crew of the Bounty; the
young girls being just such creatures as a poet would picture in the
tropics - soft, plump, and dreamy-eyed.
The natural complexion of both sexes is quite light; but the males
appear much darker, from their exposure to the sun.
