Ships
seldom touched, and very few foreigners were living ashore. A
solitary whaler, however, was reported to be lying in the harbour,
wooding and watering, and to be in want of men.
All things considered, I could not help looking upon Taloo as offering
"a splendid opening" for us adventurers. To say nothing of the
facilities presented for going to sea in the whaler, or hiring
ourselves out as day labourers in the sugar plantation, there were
hopes to be entertained of being promoted to some office of high
trust and emolument about the person of her majesty, the queen.
Nor was this expectation altogether Quixotic. In the train of many
Polynesian princes roving whites are frequently found: gentleman
pensioners of state, basking in the tropical sunshine of the court,
and leading the pleasantest lives in the world. Upon islands little
visited by foreigners the first seaman that settles down is generally
domesticated in the family of the head chief or king; where he
frequently discharges the functions of various offices, elsewhere
filled by as many different individuals. As historiographer, for
instance, he gives the natives some account of distant countries; as
commissioner of the arts and sciences, he instructs them in the use of
the jack-knife, and the best way of shaping bits of iron hoop into
spear-heads; and as interpreter to his majesty, he facilitates
intercourse with strangers; besides instructing the people generally
in the uses of the most common English phrases, civil and profane;
but oftener the latter.
These men generally marry well; often - like Hardy of Hannamanoo - into
the Wood royal.
Sometimes they officiate as personal attendant, or First Lord in
Waiting, to the king. At Amboi, one of the Tonga Islands, a vagabond
Welshman bends his knee as cupbearer to his cannibal majesty. He
mixes his morning cup of "arva," and, with profound genuflections,
presents it in a cocoa-nut bowl, richly carved. Upon another island
of the same group, where it is customary to bestow no small pains in
dressing the hair - frizzing it out by a curious process into an
enormous Pope's head - an old man-of-war's-man fills the post of
barber to the king. And as his majesty is not very neat, his mop is
exceedingly populous; so that, when Jack is not engaged in dressing
the head intrusted to his charge, he busies himself in gently
titillating it - a sort of skewer being actually worn about in the
patient's hair for that special purpose.
Even upon the Sandwich Islands a low rabble of foreigners is kept
about the person of Tammahammaha for the purpose of ministering to
his ease or enjoyment.
Billy Loon, a jolly little negro, tricked out in a soiled blue jacket,
studded all over with rusty bell buttons, and garnished with shabby
gold lace, is the royal drummer and pounder of the tambourine.
