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_ HOW far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas, or what
might have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time, or
how many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti, are matters
about which, I am sorry to say, I cannot with any accuracy enlighten
the reader. Jermin, as navigator, kept our reckoning; and, as hinted
before, kept it all to himself. At noon, he brought out his quadrant,
a rusty old thing, so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an
astrologer.
Sometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went
staggering about deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the
sun--a phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right
overhead. How upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle
his latitude, is more than I can tell. The longitude he must either
have obtained by the Rule of Three, or else by special revelation. Not
that the chronometer in the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was
any ways fidgety; quite the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by
that means, no doubt, the true Greenwich time--at the period of
stopping, at least--was preserved to a second.
The mate, however, in addition to his "Dead Reckoning," pretended to
ascertain his meridian distance from Bow Bells by an occasional lunar
observation. This, I believe, consists in obtaining with the proper
instruments the angular distance between the moon and some one of the
stars. The operation generally requires two observers to take sights,
and at one and the same time.
Now, though the mate alone might have been thought well calculated for
this, inasmuch as he generally saw things double, the doctor was
usually called upon to play a sort of second quadrant to Jermin's
first; and what with the capers of both, they used to furnish a good
deal of diversion. The mate's tremulous attempts to level his
instrument at the star he was after, were comical enough. For my own
part, when he did catch sight of it, I hardly knew how he managed to
separate it from the astral host revolving in his own brain.
However, by hook or by crook, he piloted us along; and before many
days, a fellow sent aloft to darn a rent in the fore-top-sail, threw
his hat into the air, and bawled out "Land, ho!"
Land it was; but in what part of the South Seas, Jermin alone knew,
and some doubted whether even he did. But no sooner was the
announcement made, than he came running on deck, spy-glass in hand,
and clapping it to his eye, turned round with the air of a man
receiving indubitable assurance of something he was quite certain of
before. The land was precisely that for which he had been steering;
and, with a wind, in less than twenty-four hours we would sight
Tahiti. What he said was verified.
The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group--sometimes
called the Coral Islands--perhaps the most remarkable and interesting
in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a
day's sail of that place.
They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes
wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped;
others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. These last are nothing more
than narrow circles of land surrounding a smooth lagoon, connected by
a single opening with the sea. Some of the lagoons, said to have
subterranean outlets, have no visible ones; the inclosing island, in
such cases, being a complete zone of emerald. Other lagoons still,
are girdled by numbers of small, green islets, very near to each
other.
The origin of the entire group is generally ascribed to the coral
insect.
According to some naturalists, this wonderful little creature,
commencing its erections at the bottom of the sea, after the lapse of
centuries, carries them up to the surface, where its labours cease.
Here, the inequalities of the coral collect all floating bodies;
forming, after a time, a soil, in which the seeds carried thither by
birds germinate, and cover the whole with vegetation. Here and there,
all over this archipelago, numberless naked, detached coral
formations are seen, just emerging, as it were from the ocean. These
would appear to be islands in the very process of creation--at any
rate, one involuntarily concludes so, on beholding them.
As far as I know, there are but few bread-fruit trees in any part of
the Pomotu group. In many places the cocoa-nut even does not grow;
though, in others, it largely flourishes. Consequently, some of the
islands are altogether uninhabited; others support but a single
family; and in no place is the population very large. In some
respects the natives resemble the Tahitians: their language, too, is
very similar. The people of the southeasterly clusters--concerning
whom, however, but little is known--have a bad name as cannibals; and
for that reason their hospitality is seldom taxed by the mariner.
Within a few years past, missionaries from the Society group have
settled among the Leeward Islands, where the natives have treated
them kindly. Indeed, nominally, many of these people are now
Christians; and, through the political influence of their
instructors, no doubt, a short time since came tinder the allegiance
of Pomaree, the Queen of Tahiti; with which island they always
carried on considerable intercourse.
The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell
fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five
or six men.
For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout, the French
Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said
to have sent to France fifty thousand dollars' worth of shells. The
oysters are found in the lagoons, and about the reefs; and, for
half-a-dozen nails a day, or a compensation still less, the natives
are hired to dive after them.
A great deal of cocoa-nut oil is also obtained in various places. Some
of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves; and the
ungathered nuts which have fallen year after year, lie upon the
ground in incredible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the
necessary apparatus for trying out the oil, will, in the course of a
week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large sea-canoes.
Cocoa-nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South
Seas, and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading
vessels. A considerable quantity is annually exported from the
Society Islands to Sydney. It is used in lamps and for machinery,
being much cheaper than the sperm, and, for both purposes, better
than the right-whale oil. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or
eight feet long; and these form part of the circulating medium of
Tahiti.
To return to the ship. The wind dying away, evening came on before we
drew near the island. But we had it in view during the whole
afternoon.
It was small and round, presenting one enamelled level, free from
trees, and did not seem four feet above the water. Beyond it was
another and larger island, about which a tropical sunset was throwing
its glories; flushing all that part of the heavens, and making it
flame like a vast dyed oriel illuminated.
The Trades scarce filled our swooning sails; the air was languid with
the aroma of a thousand strange, flowering shrubs. Upon inhaling it,
one of the sick, who had recently shown symptoms of scurvy, cried out
in pain, and was carried below. This is no unusual effect in such
instances.
On we glided, within less than a cable's length of the shore which was
margined with foam that sparkled all round. Within, nestled the
still, blue lagoon. No living thing was seen, and, for aught we
knew, we might have been the first mortals who had ever beheld the
spot. The thought was quickening to the fancy; nor could I help
dreaming of the endless grottoes and galleries, far below the reach of
the mariner's lead.
And what strange shapes were lurking there! Think of those arch
creatures, the mermaids, chasing each other in and out of the coral
cells, and catching their long hair in the coral twigs! _
Read next: PART I: CHAPTER XVIII. TAHITI
Read previous: PART I: CHAPTER XVI. WE ENCOUNTEB A GALE
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