Omoo A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas

OMOO

They were in pursuit of the strangers, who, having in a single night set at nought all the laws of the place, had thought best to decamp.

In the daytime, Po-Po’s house was as pleasant a lounge as one could wish. So, after strolling about, and seeing all there was to be seen, we spent the greater part of our mornings there; breakfasting late, and dining about two hours after noon. Sometimes we lounged on the floor of ferns, smoking, and telling stories; of which the doctor had as many as a half-pay captain in the army. Sometimes we chatted, as well as we could, with the natives; and, one day – joy to us! – Po-Po brought in three volumes of Smollett’s novels, which had been found in the chest of a sailor, who some time previous had died on the island.

Amelia! – Peregrine! – you hero of rogues, Count Fathom! – what a debt do we owe you!

I know not whether it was the reading of these romances, or the want of some sentimental pastime, which led the doctor, about this period, to lay siege to the heart of the little Loo.

Now, as I have said before, the daughter of Po-Po was most cruelly reserved, and never deigned to notice us. Frequently I addressed her with a long face and an air of the profoundest and most distant respect – but in vain; she wouldn’t even turn up her pretty olive nose. Ah! it’s quite plain, thought I; she knows very well what graceless dogs sailors are, and won’t have anything to do with us.

But thus thought not my comrade. Bent he was upon firing the cold glitter of Loo’s passionless eyes.

391

HERMAN MELVILLE

He opened the campaign with admirable tact: making cautious approaches, and content, for three days, with ogling the nymph for about five minutes after every meal. On the fourth day, he asked her a question; on the fifth, she dropped a nut of ointment, and he picked it up and gave it to her; on the sixth, he went over and sat down within three yards of the couch where she lay; and, on the memorable morn of the seventh, he proceeded to open his batteries in form.

The damsel was reclining on the ferns; one hand supporting her cheek, and the other listlessly turning over the leaves of a Tahitian Bible. The doctor approached.

Now the chief disadvantage under which he laboured was his almost complete ignorance of the love vocabulary of the island. But French counts, they say, make love delightfully in broken English; and what hindered the doctor from doing the same in dulcet Tahitian. So at it he went.

“Ah!” said he, smiling bewitchingly, “oee mickonaree; oee ready Biblee?”

No answer; not even a look.

“Ah I matai! very goody ready Biblee mickonaree.”

Loo, without stirring, began reading, in a low tone, to herself.

“Mickonaree Biblee ready goody maitai,” once more observed the doctor, ingeniously transposing his words for the third time.

But all to no purpose; Loo gave no sign.

He paused, despairingly; but it would never do to give up; so he threw himself at full length beside her, and audaciously commenced turning over the leaves.

392

CHAPTER LXXVIII

MRS. BELL

ONE DAY, taking a pensive afternoon stroll along one of the many bridle-paths which wind among the shady groves in the neighbourhood of Taloo, I was startled by a sunny apparition. It was that of a beautiful young Englishwoman, charmingly dressed, and mounted upon a spirited little white pony. Switching a green branch, she came cantering toward me.

I looked round to see whether I could possibly be in Polynesia. There were the palm-trees; but how to account for the lady?

Stepping to one side as the apparition drew near, I made a polite obeisance. It gave me a bold, rosy look; and then, with a gay air, patted its palfrey, crying out, “Fly away, Willie!” and galloped among the trees.

I would have followed; but Willie’s heels were making such a pattering among the dry leaves that pursuit would have been useless.

So I went straight home to Po-Po’s, and related my adventure to the doctor.

The next day, our inquiries resulted in finding out that the stranger had been on the island about two years; that she came from Sydney; and was the wife of Mr. Bell (happy dog!), the proprietor of the sugar plantation to which I have previously referred.

394

OMOO

To the sugar plantation we went, the same day.

The country round about was very beautiful: a level basin of verdure, surrounded by sloping hillsides. The sugarcane – of which there was about one hundred acres, in various stages of cultivation – looked thrifty. A considerable tract of land, however, which seemed to have been formerly tilled, was now abandoned.

The place where they extracted the saccharine matter was under an immense shed of bamboos. Here we saw several clumsy pieces of machinery for breaking the cane; also great kettles for boiling the sugar. But, at present, nothing was going on. Two or three natives were lounging in one of the kettles, smoking; the other was occupied by three sailors from the Leviathan, playing cards.

While we were conversing with these worthies, a stranger approached. He was a sun-burnt, romantic-looking European, dressed in a loose suit of nankeen; his fine throat and chest were exposed, and he sported a Guayaquil hat with a brim like a Chinese umbrella. This was Mr. Bell. He was very civil; showed us the grounds, and, taking us into a sort of arbour, to our surprise, offered to treat us to some wine. People often do the like; but Mr. Bell did more: he produced the bottle. It was spicy sherry; and we drank out of the halves of fresh citron melons. Delectable goblets!

The wine was a purchase from, the French in Tahiti.

Now all this was extremely polite in Mr. Bell; still, we came to see Mrs. Bell. But she proved to be a phantom, indeed; having left the same morning for Papeetee, on a visit to one of the missionaries’ wives there.

395

CHAPTER LXXIX

TALOO CHAPEL – HOLDING COURT IN POLYNESIA

IN Partoowye is to be seen one of the best-constructed and handsomest chapels in the South Seas. Like the buildings of the palace, it stands upon an artificial pier, presenting a semicircular sweep to the bay. The chapel is built of hewn blocks of coral; a substance which, although extremely friable, is said to harden by exposure to the atmosphere. To a stranger, these blocks look extremely curious. Their surface is covered with strange fossil-like impressions, the seal of which must have been set before the flood. Very nearly white when hewn from the reefs, the coral darkens with age; so that several churches in Polynesia now look almost as sooty and venerable as famed St. Paul’s.

In shape, the chapel is an octagon, with galleries all round. It will seat, perhaps, four hundred people. Everything within is stained a tawny red; and there being but few windows, or rather embrasures, the dusky benches and galleries, and the tall spectre of a pulpit look anything but cheerful.

On Sundays we always went to worship here. Going in the family suite of Po-Po, we, of course, maintained a most decorous exterior; and hence, by all the elderly people of the village, were doubtless regarded as pattern young men.

Po-Po’s seat was in a snug corner; and it being particularly snug, in the immediate vicinity of one of the Palm pillars sup-

397

HERMAN MELVILLE

porting the gallery, I invariably leaned against it: Po-Po and his lady on one side, the doctor and the dandy on the other, and the children and poor relations seated behind.

As for Loo, instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own age; who, all through the sermon, did nothing but look down on the congregation; pointing out, and giggling at the queerlooking old ladies in dowdy bonnets and scant tunics. But Loo, herself, was never guilty of these improprieties.

Occasionally during the week they have afternoon service in the chapel, when the natives themselves have something to say; although their auditors are but few. An introductory prayer being offered by the missionary, and a hymn sung, communicants rise in their places, and exhort in pure Tahitian, and with wonderful tone and gesture. And among them all, Deacon Po-Po, though he talked most, was the one whom you would have liked best to hear. Much would I have given to have understood some of his impassioned bursts; when he tossed his arms overhead, stamped, scowled, and glared, till he looked like the very Angel of Vengeance.

“Deluded man!” sighed the doctor, on one of these occasions, “I fear he takes the fanatical view of the subject.” One thing was certain: when Po-Po spoke, all listened; a great deal more than could be said for the rest; for under the discipline of two or three I could mention, some of the audience napped; others fidgeted; a few yawned; and one irritable old gentleman, in a nightcap of cocoa-nut leaves, used to clutch his long staff in a state of excessive nervousness, and stride out of the

398

OMOO

church, making all the noise he could, to emphasize his disgust.

Right adjoining the chapel is an immense, rickety building, with windows and shutters, and a half-decayed board flooring laid upon trunks of palm-trees. They called it a schoolhouse; but as such we never saw it occupied. It was often used as a court-room, however; and here we attended several trials; among others, that of a decayed naval officer, and a young girl of fourteen; the latter charged with having been very naughty on a particular occasion set forth in the pleadings; and the former with having aided and abetted her in her naughtiness, and with other misdemeanours.

The foreigner was a tall, military-looking fellow, with a dark cheek and black whiskers. According to his own account, he had lost a colonial armed brig on the coast of New Zealand; and since then, had been leading the life of a man about town among the islands of the Pacific.

The doctor wanted to know why he did not go home and report the loss of his brig; but Captain Crash, as they called him, had some incomprehensible reasons for not doing so, about which he could talk by the hour, and no one be any the wiser. Probably he was a discreet man, and thought it best to waive an interview with the lords of the admiralty.

For some time past, this extremely suspicious character had been carrying on the illicit trade in French wines and brandies, smuggled over from the men-of-war lately touching at Tahiti. In a grove near the anchorage he had a rustic shanty and arbour, where, in quiet times, when no ships were in Taloo, a stray native once in a while got boozy, and staggered home,

399

HERMAN MELVILLE

catching at the cocoa-nut trees as he went. The captain himself lounged under a tree during the warm afternoons, pipe in mouth; thinking, perhaps, over old times, and occasionally feeling his shoulders for his lost epaulets.

But, sail ho! a ship is descried coming into the bay. Soon she drops her anchor in its waters; and the next day Captain Crash entertains the sailors in his grove. And rare times they have of it: – drinking and quarrelling together as sociably as you please.

Upon one of these occasions, the crew of the Leviathan made so prodigious a tumult that the natives, indignant at the insult offered their laws, plucked up a heart, and made a dash at the rioters, one hundred strong. The sailors fought like tigers; but were at last overcome, and carried before a native tribunal; which, after a mighty clamour, dismissed everybody but Captain Crash, who was asserted to be the author of the disorders.

Upon this charge, then, he had been placed in confinement against the coming on of the assizes; the judge being expected to lounge along in the course of the afternoon. While waiting his Honour’s arrival, numerous additional offences were preferred against the culprit (mostly by the old women); among others was the bit of a slip in which he stood implicated along with the young lady. Thus, in Polynesia as elsewhere; – charge a man with one misdemeanour, and all his peccadilloes are raked up and assorted before him.

Going to the school-house for the purpose of witnessing the trial, the din of it assailed our ears a long way off; and upon entering the building, we were almost stunned. About five

400