There was something about Hotoo-Otoo that struck my fancy; and I
registered a vow to plant my foot upon its soil, notwithstanding an
old bareheaded sentry menaced me in the moonlight with an unsightly
musket. As my canoe drew scarcely three inches of water, I could
paddle close up to the parapet without grounding; but every time I
came near, the old man ran toward me, pushing his piece forward, but
never clapping it to his shoulder. Thinking he only meant to frighten
me, I at last dashed the canoe right Up to the wall, purposing a
leap. It was the rashest act of my life; for never did cocoa-nut come
nearer getting demolished than mine did then. With the stock of his
gun, the old warder fetched a tremendous blow, which I managed to
dodge; and then falling back, succeeded in paddling out of harm's
reach.
He must have been dumb; for never a word did he utter; but grinning
from ear to ear, and with his white cotton robe streaming in the
moonlight, he looked more like the spook of the island than anything
mortal.
I tried to effect my object by attacking him in the rear - but he was
all front; running about the place as I paddled, and presenting his
confounded musket wherever I went. At last I was obliged to retreat;
and to this day my vow remains unfulfilled.
It was a few days after my repulse from before the walls of Hotoo-Otoo
that I heard a curious case of casuistry argued between one of the
most clever and intelligent natives I ever saw in Tahiti, a man by
the name of Arheetoo, and our learned Theban of a doctor.
It was this: - whether it was right and lawful for anyone, being a
native, to keep the European Sabbath, in preference to the day set
apart as such by the missionaries, and so considered by the islanders
in general.
It must be known that the missionaries of the good ship Duff, who more
than half-a-century ago established the Tahitian reckoning, came
hither by the way of the Cape of Good Hope; and by thus sailing to
the eastward, lost one precious day of their lives all round, getting
about that much in advance of Greenwich time. For this reason,
vessels coming round Cape Horn - as they most all do nowadays - find it
Sunday in Tahiti, when, according to their own view of the matter, it
ought to be Saturday. But as it won't do to alter the log, the
sailors keep their Sabbath, and the islanders theirs.
