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I can never forget the eighteen or twenty days during which the
light trade-winds were silently sweeping us towards the islands.
In pursuit of the sperm whale, we had been cruising on the line
some twenty degrees to the Westward of the Gallipagos; and
all that we had to do, when our course was determined on, was
to square in the yards and keep the vessel before the breeze, and
then the good ship and the steady gale did the rest between them.
The man at the wheel never vexed the old lady with any superfluous
steering, but comfortably adjusting his limbs at the tiller,
would doze away by the hour. True to her work, the Dolly
headed to her course, and like one of those characters who
always do best when let alone, she jogged on her way like a
veteran old sea-pacer as she was.

What a delightful, lazy, languid time we had whilst we were
thus gliding along! There was nothing to be done; a circumstance
that happily suited our disinclination to do anything. We
abandoned the fore-peak altogether, and spreading an awning
over the forecastle, slept, ate, and lounged under it the live-long
day. Every one seemed to be under the influence of some narcotic.
Even the officers aft, whose duty required them never to
be seated while keeping a deck watch, vainly endeavored to keep

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on their pins; and were obliged invariably to compromise the
matter by leaning up against the bulwarks, and gazing abstractedly
over the side. Reading was out of the question; take a book
in your hand, and you were asleep in an instant.

Although I could not avoid yielding in a great measure to the
general languor, still at times I contrived to shake off the spell,
and to appreciate the beauty of the scene around me. The sky
presented a clear expanse of the most delicate blue, except along
the skirts of the horizon, where you might see a thin drapery of
pale clouds which never varied their form or color. The long,
measured, dirge-like swell of the Pacific came rolling along, with
its surface broken by little tiny waves, sparkling in the sunshine.
Every now and then a shoal of flying fish, scared from the
water under the bows, would leap into the air, and fall the next
moment like a shower of silver into the sea. Then you would
see the superb albicore, with his glittering sides, sailing aloft, and
often describing an arc in his descent, disappear on the surface
of the water. Far off, the lofty jet of the whale might be seen,
and nearer at hand the prowling shark, that villainous footpad of
the seas, would come skulking along, and, at a wary distance,
regard us with an evil eye. At times, some shapeless monster
of the deep, floating on the surface, would, as we approached,
sink slowly into the blue waters, and fade away from the sight.
But the most impressive feature of the scene was the almost unbroken
silence that reigned over sky and water. Scarcely a
sound could be heard but the occasional breathing of the grampus,
and the rippling at the cut-water.

As we drew nearer the land, I hailed with delight the appearance
of innumerable sea-fowl. Screaming and whirling in spiral
tracks, they would accompany the vessel, and at times alight
on our yards and stays. That piratical-looking fellow, appropriately
named the man-of-war's-hawk, with his blood-red bill and
raven plumage, would come sweeping round us in gradually

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diminishing circles, till you could distinctly mark the strange
flashings of his eye; and then, as if satisfied with his observation,
would sail up into the air and disappear from the view. Soon,
other evidences of our vicinity to the land were apparent, and it
was not long before the glad announcement of its being in sight
was heard from aloft,—given with that peculiar prolongation of
sound that a sailor loves—“Land ho!”

The captain, darting on deck from the cabin, bawled lustily for
his spy-glass; the mate in still louder accents hailed the masthead
with a tremendous “where-away?” The black cook thrust
his woolly head from the galley, and Boatswain, the dog, leaped
up between the knight-heads, and barked most furiously. Land
ho! Aye, there it was. A hardly perceptible blue irregular
outline, indicating the bold contour of the lofty heights of Nukuheva.

This island, although generally called one of the Marquesas,
is by some navigators considered as forming one of a distinct
cluster, comprising the islands of Roohka, Ropo, and Nukuheva;
upon which three the appellation of the Washington Group has
been bestowed. They form a triangle, and lie within the parallels
of 8° 38″ and 9° 32″ South latitude, and 139° 20′ and 140°
10′ West longitude from Greenwich. With how little propriety
they are to be regarded as forming a separate group will be at
once apparent, when it is considered that they lie in the immediate
vicinity of the other islands, that is to say, less than a degree
to the north-west of them; that their inhabitants speak the Marquesan
dialect, and that their laws, religion, and general customs
are identical. The only reason why they were ever thus arbitrarily
distinguished, may be attributed to the singular fact, that
their existence was altogether unknown to the world until the
year 1791, when they were discovered by Captain Ingraham, of
Boston, Massachusetts, nearly two centuries after the discovery
of the adjacent islands by the agent of the Spanish Viceroy.

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Notwithstanding this, I shall follow the example of most voyagers,
and treat of them as forming part and parcel of the Marquesas.

Nukuheva is the most important of these islands, being the
only one at which ships are much in the habit of touching, and
is celebrated as being the place where the adventurous Captain
Porter refitted his ships during the late war between England and
the United States, and whence he sallied out upon the large
whaling fleet then sailing under the enemy's flag in the surrounding
seas. This island is about twenty miles in length and
nearly as many in breadth. It has three good harbors on its
coast; the largest and best of which is called by the people living
in its vicinity, “Tyohee,” and by Captain Porter was denominated
Massachusetts Bay. Among the adverse tribes dwelling about
the shores of the other bays, and by all voyagers, it is generally
known by the name bestowed upon the island itself—Nukuheva.
Its inhabitants have become somewhat corrupted, owing to their
recent commerce with Europeans; but so far as regards their
peculiar customs, and general mode of life, they retain their
original primitive character, remaining very nearly in the same
state of nature in which they were first beheld by white men.
The hostile clans, residing in the more remote sections of the
island, and very seldom holding any communication with foreigners,
are in every respect unchanged from their earliest known
condition.

In the bay of Nukuheva was the anchorage we desired to
reach. We had perceived the loom of the mountains about sunset;
so that after running all night with a very light breeze, we
found ourselves close in with the island the next morning; but
as the bay we sought lay on its farther side, we were obliged to
sail some distance along the shore, catching, as we proceeded,
short glimpses of blooming valleys, deep glens, waterfalls, and
waving groves, hidden here and there by projecting and rocky
headlands, every moment opening to the view some new and
startling scene of beauty.

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Those who for the first time visit the South Seas, generally are
surprised at the appearance of the islands when beheld from the
sea. From the vague accounts we sometimes have of their
beauty, many people are apt to picture to themselves enamelled
and softly swelling plains, shaded over with delicious groves, and
watered by purling brooks, and the entire country but little
elevated above the surrounding ocean. The reality is very different;
bold rock-bound coasts, with the surf beating high against
the lofty cliffs, and broken here and there into deep inlets, which
open to the view thickly-wooded valleys, separated by the spurs
of mountains clothed with tufted grass, and sweeping down
towards the sea from an elevated and furrowed interior, form the
principal features of these islands.

Towards noon we drew abreast the entrance to the harbor,
and at last we slowly swept by the intervening promontory, and
entered the bay of Nukuheva. No description can do justice
to its beauty; but that beauty was lost to me then, and I saw
nothing but the tri-colored flag of France trailing over the stern
of six vessels, whose black hulls and bristling broadsides proclaimed
their warlike character. There they were, floating in
that lovely bay, the green eminences of the shore looking down so
tranquilly upon them, as if rebuking the sternness of their aspect.
To my eye nothing could be more out of keeping than the presence
of these vessels; but we soon learnt what brought them
there. The whole group of islands had just been taken possession
of by Rear-Admiral Du Petit Thouars, in the name of the invincible
French nation.

This item of information was imparted to us by a most extraordinary
individual, a genuine South-Sea vagabond, who came
alongside of us in a whale-boat as soon as we entered the bay,
and, by the aid of some benevolent persons at the gangway,
was assisted on board, for our visitor was in that interesting stage
of intoxication when a man is amiable and helpless. Although

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he was utterly unable to stand erect or to navigate his body across
the deck, he still magnanimously proffered his services to pilot
the ship to a good and secure anchorage. Our captain, however,
rather distrusted his ability in this respect, and refused to recognize
his claim to the character he assumed; but our gentleman
was determined to play his part, for, by dint of much scrambling,
he succeeded in getting into the weather-quarter boat, where he
steadied himself by holding on to a shroud, and then commenced
issuing his commands with amazing volubility and very peculiar
gestures. Of course no one obeyed his orders; but as it was impossible
to quiet him, we swept by the ships of the squadron with
this strange fellow performing his antics in full view of all the
French officers.

We afterwards learned that our eccentric friend had been a
lieutenant in the English navy; but having disgraced his flag by
some criminal conduct in one of the principal ports on the main,
he had deserted his ship, and spent many years wandering among
the islands of the Pacific, until accidentally being at Nukuheva
when the French took possession of the place, he had been appointed
pilot of the harbor by the newly constituted authorities.

As we slowly advanced up the bay, numerous canoes pushed
off from the surrounding shores, and we were soon in the midst
of quite a flotilla of them, their savage occupants struggling to
get aboard of us, and jostling one another in their ineffectual
attempts. Occasionally the projecting out-riggers of their slight
shallops running foul of one another, would become entangled beneath
the water, threatening to capsize the canoes, when a scene
of confusion would ensue that baffles description. Such strange
outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard or
saw before. You would have thought the islanders were on the
point of flying at one another's throats, whereas they were only
amicably engaged in disentangling their boats.

Scattered here and there among the canoes might be seen

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numbers of cocoa-nuts floating closely together in circular groups, and
bobbing up and down with every wave. By some inexplicable
means these cocoa-nuts were all steadily approaching towards the
ship. As I leaned curiously over the side, endeavoring to solve
their mysterious movements, one mass far in advance of the rest
attracted my attention. In its centre was something I could take
for nothing else than a cocoa-nut, but which I certainly considered
one of the most extraordinary specimens of the fruit I had ever
seen. It kept twirling and dancing about among the rest in the
most singular manner, and as it drew nearer I thought it bore a
remarkable resemblance to the brown shaven skull of one of the
savages. Presently it betrayed a pair of eyes, and soon I became
aware that what I had supposed to have been one of the fruit was
nothing else than the head of an islander, who had adopted this
singular method of bringing his produce to market. The cocoa-nuts
were all attached to one another by strips of the husk, partly
torn from the shell and rudely fastened together. Their proprietor
inserting his head into the midst of them, impelled his necklace
of cocoa-nuts through the water by striking out beneath the
surface with his feet.

I was somewhat astonished to perceive that among the number
of natives that surrounded us, not a single female was to be seen.
At that time I was ignorant of the fact that by the operation of the
“taboo,” the use of canoes in all parts of the island is rigorously
prohibited to the entire sex, for whom it is death even to be seen
entering one when hauled on shore; consequently, whenever a
Marquesan lady voyages by water, she puts in requisition the
paddles of her own fair body.

We had approached within a mile and a half perhaps of the
foot of the bay, when some of the islanders, who by this time had
managed to scramble aboard of us at the risk of swamping their
canoes, directed our attention to a singular commotion in the water
ahead of the vessel. At first I imagined it to be produced by a

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shoal of fish sporting on the surface, but our savage friends
assured us that it was caused by a shoal of “whinhenies” (young
girls), who in this manner were coming off from the shore to
welcome us. As they drew nearer, and I watched the rising and
sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm bearing
above the water the girdle of tappa, and their long dark hair trailing
beside them as they swam, I almost fancied they could be
nothing else than so many mermaids:—and very like mermaids
they behaved too.

We were still some distance from the beach, and under slow
headway, when we sailed right into the midst of these swimming
nymphs, and they boarded us at every quarter; many seizing
hold of the chain-plates and springing into the chains; others, at
the peril of being run over by the vessel in her course, catching
at the bob-stays, and wreathing their slender forms about the
ropes, hung suspended in the air. All of them at length succeeded
in getting up the ship's side, where they clung dripping with the
brine and glowing from the bath, their jet-black tresses streaming
over their shoulders, and half enveloping their otherwise naked
forms. There they hung, sparkling with savage vivacity, laughing
gaily at one another, and chattering away with infinite glee.
Nor were they idle the while, for each one performed the simple
offices of the toilet for the other. Their luxuriant locks, wound
up and twisted into the smallest possible compass, were freed from
the briny element; the whole person carefully dried, and from a
little round shell that passed from hand to hand, anointed with a
fragrant oil: their adornments were completed by passing a few
loose folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around the waist.
Thus arrayed they no longer hesitated, but flung themselves
lightly over the bulwarks, and were quickly frolicking about the
decks. Many of them went forward, perching upon the headrails
or running out upon the bowsprit, while others seated themselves
upon the taffrail, or reclined at full length upon the boats.

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Their appearance perfectly amazed me; their extreme youth,
the light clear brown of their complexions, their delicate features,
and inexpressibly graceful figures, their softly moulded limbs, and
free unstudied action, seemed as strange as beautiful.

The “Dolly” was fairly captured; and never I will say was
vessel carried before by such a dashing and irresistible party of
boarders? The ship taken, we could not do otherwise than yield
ourselves prisoners, and for the whole period that she remained
in the bay, the “Dolly,” as well as her crew, were completely in
the hands of the mermaids.

In the evening after we had come to an anchor the deck was
illuminated with lanterns, and this picturesque band of sylphs,
tricked out with flowers, and dressed in robes of variegated tappa,
got up a ball in great style. These females are passionately fond
of dancing, and in the wild grace and spirit of their style excel
everything that I have ever seen. The varied dances of the Marquesan
girls are beautiful in the extreme, but there is an abandoned
voluptuousness in their character which I dare not attempt
to describe.

Our ship was now wholly given up to every species of riot and
debauchery. The grossest licentiousness and the most shameful
inebriety prevailed, with occasional and but short-lived interruptions,
through the whole period of her stay. Alas for the poor
savages when exposed to the influence of these polluting examples!
Unsophisticated and confiding, they are easily led into every vice,
and humanity weeps over the ruin thus remorselessly inflicted
upon them by their European civilizers. Thrice happy are they
who, inhabiting some yet undiscovered island in the midst of the
ocean, have never been brought into contaminating contact with
the white man.

p273-043

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