Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas

by Herman Melville

  Arfretee, Po-Po's wife, was a right motherly body. The meal over, sherecommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us tothe doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we sawthe gleam of water. Taking the hint, we repaired thither; and findinga deep shaded pool, bathed, and returned to the house. Our hostessnow sat down by us; and after looking with great interest at thedoctor's cloak, felt of my own soiled and tattered garments for thehundredth time, and exclaimed plaintively--"Ah nuee nuee olee manee!olee manee!" (Alas! they are very, very old! very old!)

  When Arfretee, good soul, thus addressed us, she thought she wastalking very respectable English. The word "nuee" is so familiar toforeigners throughout Polynesia, and is so often used by them intheir intercourse with the natives, that the latter suppose it to becommon to all mankind. "Olee manee" is the native pronunciation of"old man," which, by Society Islanders talking Saxon, is appliedindiscriminately to all aged things and persons whatsoever.

  Going to a chest filled with various European articles, she took outtwo suits of new sailor frocks and trousers; and presenting them witha gracious smile, pushed us behind a calico screen, and left us.Without any fastidious scruples, we donned the garments; and whatwith the meal, the nap, and the bath, we now came forth like a coupleof bridegrooms.

  Evening drawing on, lamps were lighted. They were very simple; thehalf of a green melon, about one third full of cocoa-nut oil, and awick of twisted tappa floating on the surface. As a night lamp, thiscontrivance cannot be excelled; a soft dreamy light being shedthrough the transparent rind.

  As the evening advanced, other members of the household, whom as yetwe had not seen, began to drop in. There was a slender young dandy ina gay striped shirt, and whole fathoms of bright figured calicotucked about his waist, and falling to the ground. He wore a newstraw hat also with three distinct ribbons tied about the crown; oneblack, one green, and one pink. Shoes or stockings, however, he hadnone.

  There were a couple of delicate, olive-cheeked littlegirls--twins--with mild eyes and beautiful hair, who ran about thehouse, half-naked, like a couple of gazelles. They had a brother,somewhat younger--a fine dark boy, with an eye like a woman's. Allthese were the children of Po-Po, begotten in lawful wedlock.

  Then there were two or three queer-looking old ladies, who wore shabbymantles of soiled sheeting, which fitted so badly, and withal hadsuch a second-hand look that I at once put their wearers down asdomestic paupers--poor relations, supported by the bounty of My LadyArfretee. They were sad, meek old bodies; said little and ate less;and either kept their eyes on the ground, or lifted them updeferentially. The semi-civilization of the island must have hadsomething to do with making them what they were.

  I had almost forgotten Monee, the grinning old man who prepared ourmeal. His head was a shining, bald globe. He had a round littlepaunch, and legs like a cat. He was Po-Po's factotum--cook, butler,and climber of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees; and, added to allelse, a mighty favourite with his mistress; with whom he would sitsmoking and gossiping by the hour.

  Often you saw the indefatigable Monee working away at a great rate;then dropping his employment all at once--never mind what--run off toa little distance, and after rolling himself away in a corner andtaking a nap, jump up again, and fall to with fresh vigour.

  From a certain something in the behaviour of Po-Po and his household,I was led to believe that he was a pillar of the church; though, fromwhat I had seen in Tahiti, I could hardly reconcile such asupposition with his frank, cordial, unembarrassed air. But I wasnot wrong in my conjecture: Po-Po turned out to be a sort of elder,or deacon; he was also accounted a man of wealth, and was nearlyrelated to a high chief.

  Before retiring, the entire household gathered upon the floor; and intheir midst, he read aloud a chapter from a Tahitian Bible. Thenkneeling with the rest of us, he offered up a prayer. Upon itsconclusion, all separated without speaking. These devotions tookplace regularly, every night and morning. Grace too was invariablysaid, by this family, both before and after eating.

  After becoming familiarized with the almost utter destitution ofanything like practical piety upon these islands, what I observed in.our host's house astonished me much. But whatever others might havebeen, Po-Po was, in truth, a Christian: the only one, Arfreteeexcepted, whom I personally knew to be such, among all the natives ofPolynesia.

  CHAPTER LXXIV.

  RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT--THE DOCTOR GROWS DEVOUT

  THEY put us to bed very pleasantly.

  Lying across the foot of Po-Po's nuptial couch was a smaller one madeof Koar-wood; a thin, strong cord, twisted from the fibres of thehusk of the cocoa-nut, and woven into an exceedingly light sort ofnetwork, forming its elastic body. Spread upon this was a single,fine mat, with a roll of dried ferns for a pillow, and a strip ofwhite tappa for a sheet. This couch was mine. The doctor was providedfor in another corner.

  Loo reposed alone on a little settee with a taper burning by her side;the dandy, her brother, swinging overhead in a sailor's hammock Thetwo gazelles frisked upon a mat near by; and the indigent relationsborrowed a scant corner of the old butler's pallet, who snored awayby the open door. After all had retired, Po-Po placed the illuminatedmelon in the middle of the apartment; and so, we all slumbered tillmorning.

  Upon awaking, the sun was streaming brightly through the open bamboos,but no one was stirring. After surveying the fine attitudes intowhich forgetfulness had thrown at least one of the sleepers, myattention was called off to the general aspect of the dwelling, whichwas quite significant of the superior circumstances of our host.

  The house itself was built in the simple, but tasteful native style.It was a long, regular oval, some fifty feet in length, with lowsides of cane-work, and a roof thatched with palmetto-leaves. Theridgepole was, perhaps, twenty feet from the ground. There was nofoundation whatever; the bare earth being merely covered with ferns; akind of carpeting which serves very well, if frequently renewed;otherwise, it becomes dusty, and the haunt of vermin, as in the hutsof the poorer natives.

  Besides the couches, the furniture consisted of three or four sailorchests; in which were stored the fine wearing-apparel of thehousehold--the ruffled linen shirts of Po-Po, the calico dresses ofhis wife and children, and divers odds and ends of Europeanarticles--strings of beads, ribbons, Dutch looking-glasses, knives,coarse prints, bunches of keys, bits of crockery, and metal buttons.One of these chests--used as a bandbox by Arfretee--containedseveral of the native hats (coal-scuttles), all of the same pattern,but trimmed with variously-coloured ribbons. Of nothing was our goodhostess more proud than of these hats, and her dresses. On Sundays,she went abroad a dozen times; and every time, like Queen Elizabeth,in a different robe.

  Po-Po, for some reason or other, always gave us our meals before therest of the family were served; and the doctor, who was verydiscerning in such matters, declared that we fared much better thanthey. Certain it was that, had Ereemear's guests travelled withpurses, portmanteau, and letters of introduction to the queen, theycould not have been better cared for.

  The day after our arrival, Monee, the old butler, brought us in fordinner a small pig, baked in the ground. All savoury, it lay in awooden trencher, surrounded by roasted hemispheres of the breadfruit.A large calabash, filled with taro pudding, or poee, followed; andthe young dandy, overcoming his customary languor, threw down ourcocoa-nuts from an adjoining tree.

  When all was ready, and the household looking on, Long Ghost, devoutlyclasping his hands over the fated pig, implored a blessing. Hereupon,everybody present looked exceedingly pleased; Po-Po coming up andaddressing the doctor with much warmth; and Arfretee, regarding himwith almost maternal affection, exclaimed delightedly, "Ah!mickonaree tata matai!" in other words, "What a pious young man!"

  It was just after this meal that she brought me a roll of grasssinnate (of the kind which sailors sew into the frame of theirtarpaulins), and then, handing me needle and thread, bade me begin atonce, and make myself the hat which I so much
needed. An accomplishedhand at the business, I finished it that day--merely stitching thebraid together; and Arfretee, by way of rewarding my industry, withher own olive hands ornamented the crown with a band offlame-coloured ribbon; the two long ends of which streaming behind,sailor-fashion, still preserved for me the Eastern title bestowed byLong Ghost.

  CHAPTER LXXV.

  A RAMBLE THROUGH THE SETTLEMENT

  THE following morning, making our toilets carefully, we donned oursombreros, and sallied out on a tour. Without meaning to reveal ourdesigns upon the court, our principal object was, to learn whatchances there were for white men to obtain employment under thequeen. On this head, it is true, we had questioned Po-Po; but hisanswers had been very discouraging; so we determined to obtainfurther information elsewhere.

  But, first, to give some little description of the village.

  The settlement of Partoowye is nothing more than some eighty houses,scattered here and there, in the midst of an immense grove, where thetrees have been thinned out and the underbrush cleared away. Throughthe grove flows a stream; and the principal avenue crosses it, overan elastic bridge of cocoa-nut trunks, laid together side by side.The avenue is broad, and serpentine; well shaded from one end to theother, and as pretty a place for a morning promenade as any loungercould wish. The houses, constructed without the slightest regard tothe road, peep into view from among the trees on either side: somelooking you right in the face as you pass, and others, without anymanners, turning their backs. Occasionally you observe a ruralretreat, inclosed by a picket of bamboos, or with a solitary pane ofglass massively framed in the broadside of the dwelling, or with arude, strange-looking door, swinging upon dislocated wooden hinges.Otherwise, the dwellings are built in the original style of thenatives; and never mind how mean and filthy some of them may appearwithin, they all look picturesque enough without.

  As we sauntered along the people we met saluted us pleasantly, andinvited us into their houses; and in this way we made a good manybrief morning calls. But the hour could not have been the fashionableone in Partoowye, since the ladies were invariably in dishabille. Butthey always gave us a cordial reception, and were particularly politeto the doctor; caressing him, and amorously hanging about his neck;wonderfully taken up, in short, with a gay handkerchief he wore there.Arfretee had that morning bestowed it upon the pious youth.

  With some exceptions, the general appearance of the natives ofPartoowye was far better than that of the inhabitants of Papeetee: acircumstance only to be imputed to their restricted intercourse withforeigners.

  Strolling on, we turned a sweep of the road, when the doctor gave astart; and no wonder. Right before us, in the grove, was a block ofhouses: regular square frames, boarded over, furnished with windowsand doorways, and two stories high. We ran up and found them fastgoing to decay: very dingy, and here and there covered with moss; nosashes, no doors; and on one side, the entire block had settled downnearly a foot. On going into the basement we looked clean up throughthe unbearded timbers to the roof; where rays of light, glimmeringthrough many a chink, illuminated the cobwebs which swung all round.

  The whole interior was dark and close. Burrowing among some old matsin one corner, like a parcel of gipsies in a ruin, were a fewvagabond natives. They had their dwelling here.

  Curious to know who on earth could have been thus trying to improvethe value of real estate in Partoowye, we made inquiries; and learnedthat some years previous the block had been thrown up by a veritableYankee (one might have known that), a house-carpenter by trade, and abold, enterprising fellow by nature.

  Put ashore from his ship, sick, he first went to work and got well;then sallied out with chisel and plane, and made himself generallyuseful. A sober, steady man, it seems, he at last obtained theconfidence of several chiefs, and soon filled them with all sorts ofideas concerning the alarming want of public spirit in the people ofImeeo. More especially did he dwell upon the humiliating fact oftheir living in paltry huts of bamboo, when magnificent palaces ofboards might so easily be mortised together.

  In the end, these representations so far prevailed with one old chiefthat the carpenter was engaged to build a batch of these wonderfulpalaces. Provided with plenty of men, he at once set to work: built asaw-mill among the mountains, felled trees, and sent over to Papeeteefor nails.

  Presto! the castle rose; but alas, the roof was hardly on, when theYankee's patron, having speculated beyond his means, broke all topieces, and was absolutely unable to pay one "plug" of tobacco in thepound. His failure involved the carpenter, who sailed away from hiscreditors in the very next ship that touched at the harbour.

  The natives despised the rickety palace of boards; and often loungedby, wagging their heads, and jeering.

  We were told that the queen's residence was at the extreme end of thevillage; so, without waiting for the doctor to procure a fiddle, wesuddenly resolved upon going thither at once, and learning whetherany privy counsellorships were vacant.

  Now, although there was a good deal of my waggish comrade's nonsenseabout what has been said concerning our expectations of courtpreferment, we, nevertheless, really thought that something to ouradvantage might turn up in that quarter.

  On approaching the palace grounds, we found them rather peculiar. Abroad pier of hewn coral rocks was built right out into the water;and upon this, and extending into a grove adjoining, were some eightor ten very large native houses, constructed in the handsomest styleand inclosed together by a low picket of bamboos, which embraced aconsiderable area.

  Throughout the Society Islands, the residences of the chiefs aremostly found in the immediate vicinity of the sea; a site which givesthem the full benefit of a cooling breeze; nor are they so liable tothe annoyance of insects; besides enjoying, when they please, thefine shade afforded by the neighbouring groves, always most luxuriantnear the water.

  Lounging about the grounds were some sixty or eightyhandsomely-dressed natives, men and women; some reclining on theshady side of the houses, others under the trees, and a small groupconversing close by the railing facing us.

  We went up to the latter; and giving the usual salutation, were on thepoint of vaulting over the bamboos, when they turned upon us angrily,and said we could not enter. We stated our earnest desire to see thequeen; hinting that we were bearers of important dispatches. But itwas to no purpose; and not a little vexed, we were obliged to returnto Po-Po's without effecting anything.

  CHAPTER LXXVI.

  AN ISLAND JILT--WE VISIT THE SHIP

  UPON arriving home we fully laid open to Po-Po our motives in visitingTaloo, and begged his friendly advice. In his broken English hecheerfully gave us all the information we needed.

  It was true, he said, that the queen entertained some idea of making astand against the French; and it was currently reported also thatseveral chiefs from Borabora, Huwyenee, Raiatair, and Tahar, theleeward islands of the group, were at that very time taking counselwith her as to the expediency of organizing a general movementthroughout the entire cluster, with a view of anticipating any furtherencroachments on the part of the invaders. Should warlike measures beactually decided upon, it was quite certain that Pomaree would beglad to enlist all the foreigners she could; but as to her makingofficers of either the doctor or me, that was out of the question;because, already, a number of Europeans, well known to her, hadvolunteered as such. Concerning our getting immediate access to thequeen, Po-Po told us it was rather doubtful; she living at that timevery retired, in poor health, and spirits, and averse to receivingcalls. Previous to her misfortunes, however, no one, however humble,was denied admittance to her presence; sailors, even, attended herlevees.

  Not at all disheartened by these things, we concluded to kill time inPartoowye until some event turned up more favourable to our projects.So that very day we sallied out on an excursion to the ship which,lying land-locked far up the bay, yet remained to be visited.

  Passing on our route a long, low shed, a voice hailed us--"White menahoy!" Turning round,
who should we see but a rosy-cheeked Englishman(you could tell his country at a glance), up to his knees inshavings, and planing away at a bench. He turned out to be a runawayship's carpenter, recently from Tahiti, and now doing a profitablebusiness in Imeeo, by fitting up the dwellings of opulent chiefs withcupboards and other conveniences, and once in a while trying his handat a lady's work-box. He had been in the settlement but a few months,and already possessed houses and lands.

  But though blessed with prosperity and high health, there was onething wanting--a wife. And when he came to speak of the matter, hiscountenance fell, and he leaned dejectedly upon his plane.

  "It's too bad!" he sighed, "to wait three long years; and all thewhile, dear little Lullee living in the same house with that infernalchief from Tahar!"

  Our curiosity was piqued; the poor carpenter, then, had been fallingin love with some island coquette, who was going to jilt him.

  But such was not the case. There was a law prohibiting, under a heavypenalty, the marriage of a native with a foreigner, unless thelatter, after being three years a resident on the island, was willingto affirm his settled intention of remaining for life.

  William was therefore in a sad way. He told us that he might havemarried the girl half-a-dozen times, had it not been for this odiouslaw: but, latterly, she had become less loving and more giddy,particularly with the strangers from Tahar. Desperately smitten, anddesirous of securing her at all hazards, he had proposed to thedamsel's friends a nice little arrangement, introductory to marriage;but they would not hear of it; besides, if the pair were discoveredliving together upon such a footing, they would be liable to adegrading punishment:--sent to work making stone walls and openingroads for the queen.