In My Account
Of The Speed I Was Supported By Tom, Who Had Been To Nantucket,
And Seen A Little Steamboat Which Ran Over To New Bedford.
A map of the world, which I once showed them, kept their attention
for hours; those who knew how to read pointing out the places
and referring to me for the distances.
I remember being much
amused with a question which Hope asked me. Pointing to the large
irregular place which is always left blank round the poles, to
denote that it is undiscovered, he looked up and asked. - "Pau?"
(Done? ended?)
The system of naming the streets and numbering the houses, they
easily understood, and the utility of it. They had a great desire to
see America, but were afraid of doubling Cape Horn, for they suffer
much in cold weather, and had heard dreadful accounts of the Cape,
from those of their number who had been round it.
They smoke a great deal, though not much at a time; using pipes
with large bowls, and very short stems, or no stems at all. These,
they light, and putting them to their mouths, take a long draught,
getting their mouths as full as they can hold, and their cheeks
distended, and then let it slowly out through their mouths and nostrils.
The pipe is then passed to others, who draw, in the same manner,
one pipe-full serving for half a dozen. They never take short,
continuous draughts, like Europeans, but one of these "Oahu puffs,"
as the sailors call them, serves for an hour or two, until some one
else lights his pipe, and it is passed round in the same manner.
Each Kanaka on the beach had a pipe, flint, steel, tinder, a hand
of tobacco, and a jack-knife, which he always carried about with him.
That which strikes a stranger most peculiarly is their style of
singing. They run on, in a low, guttural, monotonous sort of chant,
their lips and tongues seeming hardly to move, and the sounds modulated
solely in the throat. There is very little tune to it, and the
words, so far as I could learn, are extempore. They sing about
persons and things which are around them, and adopt this method
when they do not wish to be understood by any but themselves;
and it is very effectual, for with the most careful attention I never
could detect a word that I knew. I have often heard Mr. Mannini,
who was the most noted improvisatore among them, sing for an hour
together, when at work in the midst of Americans and Englishmen;
and, by the occasional shouts and laughter of the Kanakas,
who were at a distance, it was evident that he was singing about
the different men that he was at work with. They have great powers
of ridicule, and are excellent mimics; many of them discovering and
imitating the peculiarities of our own people, before we had seen
them ourselves.
These were the people with whom I was to spend a few months;
and who, with the exception of the officer, Nicholas the Frenchman,
and the boy, made the whole population of the beach.
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