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.
