Nearly all the Society Islands are defended
by them. Were the vast swells of the Pacific to break against the
soft alluvial bottoms which in many places border the sea, the soil
would soon be washed away, and the natives be thus deprived of their
most productive lands. As it is, the banks of no rivulet are firmer.
But the coral barriers answer another purpose. They form all the
harbours of this group, including the twenty-four round about the
shores of Tahiti. Curiously enough, the openings in the reefs, by
which alone vessels enter to their anchorage, are invariably opposite
the mouths of running streams: an advantage fully appreciated by the
mariner who touches for the purpose of watering his ship.
It is said that the fresh water of the land, mixing with the salts
held in solution by the sea, so acts upon the latter as to resist the
formation of the coral; and hence the breaks. Here and there, these
openings are sentinelled, as it were, by little fairy islets, green
as emerald, and waving with palms. Strangely and beautifully
diversifying the long line of breakers, no objects can strike the
fancy more vividly. Pomaree II., with a taste in watering-places
truly Tahitian, selected one of them as a royal retreat. We passed it
on our journey.
Omitting several further adventures which befell us after leaving the
party from Loohooloo, we must now hurry on to relate what happened
just before reaching the place of our destination.
CHAPTER LXXII.
A DEALER IN THE CONTRABAND
IT MUST have been at least the tenth day, reckoning from the Hegira,
that we found ourselves the guests of Varvy, an old hermit of an
islander who kept house by himself perhaps a couple of leagues from
Taloo.
A stone's-cast from the beach there was a fantastic rock, moss-grown
and deep in a dell. It was insulated by a shallow brook, which,
dividing its waters, flowed on both sides until united below.
Twisting its roots round the rock, a gnarled "Aoa" spread itself
overhead in a wilderness of foliage; the elastic branch-roots
depending from the larger boughs insinuating themselves into every
cleft, thus forming supports to the parent stem. In some places these
pendulous branches, half-grown, had not yet reached the rock;
swinging their loose fibrous ends in the air like whiplashes.
Varvy's hut, a mere coop of bamboos, was perched upon a level part of
the rock, the ridge-pole resting at one end in a crotch of the "Aoa,"
and the other propped by a forked bough planted in a fissure.
Notwithstanding our cries as we drew near, the first hint the old
hermit received of our approach was the doctor's stepping up and
touching his shoulder, as he was kneeling over on a stone cleaning
fish in the brook. He leaped up, and stared at us. But with a variety
of uncouth gestures, he soon made us welcome; informing us, by the
same means, that he was both deaf and dumb; he then motioned us into
his dwelling.
Going in, we threw ourselves upon an old mat, and peered round. The
soiled bamboos and calabashes looked so uninviting that the doctor
was for pushing on to Taloo that night, notwithstanding it was near
sunset. But at length we concluded to stay where we were.
After a good deal of bustling outside under a decrepit shed, the old
man made his appearance with our supper. In one hand he held a
flickering taper, and in the other, a huge, flat calabash, scantily
filled with viands. His eyes were dancing in his head, and he looked
from the calabash to us, and from us to the calabash, as much as to
say, "Ah, my lads, what do ye think of this, eh? Pretty good cheer,
eh?" But the fish and Indian turnip being none of the best, we made
but a sorry meal. While discussing it, the old man tried hard to make
himself understood by signs; most of which were so excessively
ludicrous that we made no doubt he was perpetrating a series of
pantomimic jokes.
The remnants of the feast removed, our host left us for a moment,
returning with a calabash of portly dimensions and furnished with a
long, hooked neck, the mouth of which was stopped with a wooden plug.
It was covered with particles of earth, and looked as if just taken
from some place underground.
With sundry winks and horrible giggles peculiar to the dumb, the
vegetable demijohn was now tapped; the old fellow looking round
cautiously, and pointing at it; as much as to intimate that it
contained something which was "taboo," or forbidden.
Aware that intoxicating liquors were strictly prohibited to the
natives, we now watched our entertainer with much interest. Charging
a cocoa-nut shell, he tossed it off, and then filling up again,
presented the goblet to me. Disliking the smell, I made faces at it;
upon which he became highly excited; so much so that a miracle was
wrought upon the spot. Snatching the cup from my hands, he shouted
out, "Ah, karhowree sabbee lee-lee ena arva tee maitai!" in other
words, what a blockhead of a white man! this is the real stuff!
We could not have been more startled had a frog leaped from his mouth.
For an instant, he looked confused enough himself; and then placing a
finger mysteriously upon his mouth, he contrived to make us
understand that at times he was subject to a suspension of the powers
of speech.
Deeming the phenomenon a remarkable one, every way, the doctor desired
him to open his mouth so that he might have a look down. But he
refused.
