We donned the garments; and what
with the meal, the nap, and the bath, we now came forth like a couple
of bridegrooms.
Evening drawing on, lamps were lighted. They were very simple; the
half of a green melon, about one third full of cocoa-nut oil, and a
wick of twisted tappa floating on the surface. As a night lamp, this
contrivance cannot be excelled; a soft dreamy light being shed
through the transparent rind.
As the evening advanced, other members of the household, whom as yet
we had not seen, began to drop in. There was a slender young dandy in
a gay striped shirt, and whole fathoms of bright figured calico
tucked about his waist, and falling to the ground. He wore a new
straw hat also with three distinct ribbons tied about the crown; one
black, one green, and one pink. Shoes or stockings, however, he had
none.
There were a couple of delicate, olive-cheeked little
girls - twins - with mild eyes and beautiful hair, who ran about the
house, half-naked, like a couple of gazelles. They had a brother,
somewhat younger - a fine dark boy, with an eye like a woman's. All
these were the children of Po-Po, begotten in lawful wedlock.
Then there were two or three queer-looking old ladies, who wore shabby
mantles of soiled sheeting, which fitted so badly, and withal had
such a second-hand look that I at once put their wearers down as
domestic paupers - poor relations, supported by the bounty of My Lady
Arfretee. They were sad, meek old bodies; said little and ate less;
and either kept their eyes on the ground, or lifted them up
deferentially. The semi-civilization of the island must have had
something to do with making them what they were.
I had almost forgotten Monee, the grinning old man who prepared our
meal. His head was a shining, bald globe. He had a round little
paunch, and legs like a cat. He was Po-Po's factotum - cook, butler,
and climber of the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees; and, added to all
else, a mighty favourite with his mistress; with whom he would sit
smoking and gossiping by the hour.
Often you saw the indefatigable Monee working away at a great rate;
then dropping his employment all at once - never mind what - run off to
a little distance, and after rolling himself away in a corner and
taking a nap, jump up again, and fall to with fresh vigour.
From a certain something in the behaviour of Po-Po and his household,
I was led to believe that he was a pillar of the church; though, from
what I had seen in Tahiti, I could hardly reconcile such a
supposition with his frank, cordial, unembarrassed air. But I was
not wrong in my conjecture: Po-Po turned out to be a sort of elder,
or deacon; he was also accounted a man of wealth, and was nearly
related to a high chief.
Before retiring, the entire household gathered upon the floor; and in
their midst, he read aloud a chapter from a Tahitian Bible. Then
kneeling with the rest of us, he offered up a prayer. Upon its
conclusion, all separated without speaking. These devotions took
place regularly, every night and morning. Grace too was invariably
said, by this family, both before and after eating.
After becoming familiarized with the almost utter destitution of
anything like practical piety upon these islands, what I observed in.
our host's house astonished me much. But whatever others might have
been, Po-Po was, in truth, a Christian: the only one, Arfretee
excepted, whom I personally knew to be such, among all the natives of
Polynesia.
CHAPTER LXXIV.
RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT - THE DOCTOR GROWS DEVOUT
THEY put us to bed very pleasantly.
Lying across the foot of Po-Po's nuptial couch was a smaller one made
of Koar-wood; a thin, strong cord, twisted from the fibres of the
husk of the cocoa-nut, and woven into an exceedingly light sort of
network, forming its elastic body. Spread upon this was a single,
fine mat, with a roll of dried ferns for a pillow, and a strip of
white tappa for a sheet. This couch was mine. The doctor was provided
for in another corner.
Loo reposed alone on a little settee with a taper burning by her side;
the dandy, her brother, swinging overhead in a sailor's hammock The
two gazelles frisked upon a mat near by; and the indigent relations
borrowed a scant corner of the old butler's pallet, who snored away
by the open door. After all had retired, Po-Po placed the illuminated
melon in the middle of the apartment; and so, we all slumbered till
morning.
Upon awaking, the sun was streaming brightly through the open bamboos,
but no one was stirring. After surveying the fine attitudes into
which forgetfulness had thrown at least one of the sleepers, my
attention was called off to the general aspect of the dwelling, which
was quite significant of the superior circumstances of our host.
The house itself was built in the simple, but tasteful native style.
It was a long, regular oval, some fifty feet in length, with low
sides of cane-work, and a roof thatched with palmetto-leaves. The
ridgepole was, perhaps, twenty feet from the ground. There was no
foundation whatever; the bare earth being merely covered with ferns; a
kind of carpeting which serves very well, if frequently renewed;
otherwise, it becomes dusty, and the haunt of vermin, as in the huts
of the poorer natives.
Besides the couches, the furniture consisted of three or four sailor
chests; in which were stored the fine wearing-apparel of the
household - the ruffled linen shirts of Po-Po, the calico dresses of
his wife and children, and divers odds and ends of European
articles - strings of beads, ribbons, Dutch looking-glasses, knives,
coarse prints, bunches of keys, bits of crockery, and metal buttons.
One of these chests - used as a bandbox by Arfretee - contained
several of the native hats (coal-scuttles), all of the same pattern,
but trimmed with variously-coloured ribbons.
