We Walked About Everywhere And Saw
Everything Until At Last We Approached A Large Tree Trunk That
Served As A Bridge Across A Shallow Estuary.
The blacks formed a
wall in front of us and refused to let us pass.
We wanted to know
why we were stopped. The blacks said we could go on. We
misunderstood, and started. Explanations became more definite.
Captain Jansen and I, being men, could go on. But no Mary was
allowed to wade around that bridge, much less cross it. "Mary" is
beche de mer for woman. Charmian was a Mary. To her the bridge was
tambo, which is the native for taboo. Ah, how my chest expanded!
At last my manhood was vindicated. In truth I belonged to the
lordly sex. Charmian could trapse along at our heels, but we were
MEN, and we could go right over that bridge while she would have to
go around by whale-boat.
Now I should not care to be misunderstood by what follows; but it is
a matter of common knowledge in the Solomons that attacks of fever
are often brought on by shock. Inside half an hour after Charmian
had been refused the right of way, she was being rushed aboard the
Minota, packed in blankets, and dosed with quinine. I don't know
what kind of shock had happened to Wada and Nakata, but at any rate
they were down with fever as well. The Solomons might be
healthfuller.
Also, during the attack of fever, Charmian developed a Solomon sore.
It was the last straw. Every one on the Snark had been afflicted
except her. I had thought that I was going to lose my foot at the
ankle by one exceptionally malignant boring ulcer. Henry and Tehei,
the Tahitian sailors, had had numbers of them. Wada had been able
to count his by the score. Nakata had had single ones three inches
in length. Martin had been quite certain that necrosis of his
shinbone had set in from the roots of the amazing colony he elected
to cultivate in that locality. But Charmian had escaped. Out of
her long immunity had been bred contempt for the rest of us. Her
ego was flattered to such an extent that one day she shyly informed
me that it was all a matter of pureness of blood. Since all the
rest of us cultivated the sores, and since she did not - well,
anyway, hers was the size of a silver dollar, and the pureness of
her blood enabled her to cure it after several weeks of strenuous
nursing. She pins her faith to corrosive sublimate. Martin swears
by iodoform. Henry uses lime-juice undiluted. And I believe that
when corrosive sublimate is slow in taking hold, alternate dressings
of peroxide of hydrogen are just the thing. There are white men in
the Solomons who stake all upon boracic acid, and others who are
prejudiced in favour of lysol. I also have the weakness of a
panacea. It is California. I defy any man to get a Solomon Island
sore in California.
We ran down the lagoon from Langa Langa, between mangrove swamps,
through passages scarcely wider than the Minota, and past the reef
villages of Kaloka and Auki. Like the founders of Venice, these
salt-water men were originally refugees from the mainland. Too weak
to hold their own in the bush, survivors of village massacres, they
fled to the sand-banks of the lagoon. These sand-banks they built
up into islands. They were compelled to seek their provender from
the sea, and in time they became salt-water men. They learned the
ways of the fish and the shellfish, and they invented hooks and
lines, nets and fish-traps. They developed canoe-bodies. Unable to
walk about, spending all their time in the canoes, they became
thick-armed and broad-shouldered, with narrow waists and frail
spindly legs. Controlling the sea-coast, they became wealthy, trade
with the interior passing largely through their hands. But
perpetual enmity exists between them and the bushmen. Practically
their only truces are on market-days, which occur at stated
intervals, usually twice a week. The bushwomen and the salt-water
women do the bartering. Back in the bush, a hundred yards away,
fully armed, lurk the bushmen, while to seaward, in the canoes, are
the salt-water men. There are very rare instances of the market-day
truces being broken. The bushmen like their fish too well, while
the salt-water men have an organic craving for the vegetables they
cannot grow on their crowded islets.
Thirty miles from Langa Langa brought us to the passage between
Bassakanna Island and the mainland. Here, at nightfall, the wind
left us, and all night, with the whale-boat towing ahead and the
crew on board sweating at the sweeps, we strove to win through. But
the tide was against us. At midnight, midway in the passage, we
came up with the Eugenie, a big recruiting schooner, towing with two
whale-boats. Her skipper, Captain Keller, a sturdy young German of
twenty-two, came on board for a "gam," and the latest news of
Malaita was swapped back and forth. He had been in luck, having
gathered in twenty recruits at the village of Fiu. While lying
there, one of the customary courageous killings had taken place.
The murdered boy was what is called a salt-water bushman - that is, a
salt-water man who is half bushman and who lives by the sea but does
not live on an islet. Three bushmen came down to this man where he
was working in his garden. They behaved in friendly fashion, and
after a time suggested kai-kai. Kai-kai means food. He built a
fire and started to boil some taro. While bending over the pot, one
of the bushmen shot him through the head. He fell into the flames,
whereupon they thrust a spear through his stomach, turned it around,
and broke it off.
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