Up on his
plantation he lives on fruit the labour cost of which, in cash, he
estimates at five cents a day. At present, because of his
obstructed road and because he is head over heels in the propaganda
of socialism, he is living in town, where his expenses, including
rent, are twenty-five cents a day. In order to pay those expenses
he is running a night school for Chinese.
The Nature Man is not bigoted. When there is nothing better to eat
than meat, he eats meat, as, for instance, when in jail or on
shipboard and the nuts and fruits give out. Nor does he seem to
crystallize into anything except sunburn.
"Drop anchor anywhere and the anchor will drag - that is, if your
soul is a limitless, fathomless sea, and not dog-pound," he quoted
to me, then added: "You see, my anchor is always dragging. I live
for human health and progress, and I strive to drag my anchor always
in that direction. To me, the two are identical. Dragging anchor
is what has saved me. My anchor did not hold me to my death-bed. I
dragged anchor into the brush and fooled the doctors. When I
recovered health and strength, I started, by preaching and by
example, to teach the people to become nature men and nature women.
But they had deaf ears. Then, on the steamer coming to Tahiti, a
quarter-master expounded socialism to me. He showed me that an
economic square deal was necessary before men and women could live
naturally. So I dragged anchor once more, and now I am working for
the co-operative commonwealth. When that arrives, it will be easy
to bring about nature living.
"I had a dream last night," he went on thoughtfully, his face slowly
breaking into a glow. "It seemed that twenty-five nature men and
nature women had just arrived on the steamer from California, and
that I was starting to go with them up the wild-pig trail to the
plantation."
Ah, me, Ernest Darling, sun-worshipper and nature man, there are
times when I am compelled to envy you and your carefree existence.
I see you now, dancing up the steps and cutting antics on the
veranda; your hair dripping from a plunge in the salt sea, your eyes
sparkling, your sun-gilded body flashing, your chest resounding to
the devil's own tattoo as you chant: "The gorilla in the African
jungle pounds his chest until the noise of it can be heard half a
mile away." And I shall see you always as I saw you that last day,
when the Snark poked her nose once more through the passage in the
smoking reef, outward bound, and I waved good-bye to those on shore.
Not least in goodwill and affection was the wave I gave to the
golden sun-god in the scarlet loin-cloth, standing upright in his
tiny outrigger canoe.
CHAPTER XII - THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE
On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as
a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is
treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the
district; they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance
of the finest food. - Polynesian Researches.
The Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of
Uturoa. She had arrived the night before, after dark, and we were
preparing to pay our first visit ashore. Early in the morning I had
noticed a tiny outrigger canoe, with an impossible spritsail,
skimming the surface of the lagoon. The canoe itself was coffin-
shaped, a mere dugout, fourteen feet long, a scant twelve inches
wide, and maybe twenty-four inches deep. It had no lines, except in
so far that it was sharp at both ends. Its sides were
perpendicular. Shorn of the outrigger, it would have capsized of
itself inside a tenth of a second. It was the outrigger that kept
it right side up.
I have said that the sail was impossible. It was. It was one of
those things, not that you have to see to believe, but that you
cannot believe after you have seen it. The hoist of it and the
length of its boom were sufficiently appalling; but, not content
with that, its artificer had given it a tremendous head. So large
was the head that no common sprit could carry the strain of it in an
ordinary breeze. So a spar had been lashed to the canoe, projecting
aft over the water. To this had been made fast a sprit guy: thus,
the foot of the sail was held by the main-sheet, and the peak by the
guy to the sprit.
It was not a mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a sailing machine.
And the man in it sailed it by his weight and his nerve - principally
by the latter. I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in
toward the village, its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and
luffing up and spilling the wind in the puffs.
"Well, I know one thing," I announced; "I don't leave Raiatea till I
have a ride in that canoe."
A few minutes later Warren called down the companionway, "Here's
that canoe you were talking about."
Promptly I dashed on deck and gave greeting to its owner, a tall,
slender Polynesian, ingenuous of face, and with clear, sparkling,
intelligent eyes. He was clad in a scarlet loin-cloth and a straw
hat. In his hands were presents - a fish, a bunch of greens, and
several enormous yams. All of which acknowledged by smiles (which
are coinage still in isolated spots of Polynesia) and by frequent
repetitions of mauruuru (which is the Tahitian "thank you"), I
proceeded to make signs that I desired to go for a sail in his
canoe.
