PART II: THE PAUMOTUS
CHAPTER I--THE DANGEROUS ARCHIPELAGO--ATOLLS AT A DISTANCE
In the early morning of 4th September a whale-boat manned by
natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round
the spouting promontory. On the shore level it was a hot,
breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of
Atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades
streamed without pause. As we crawled from under the immediate
shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of their
influence. The wind fell upon our sails in puffs, which
strengthened and grew more continuous; presently the Casco heeled
down to her day's work; the whale-boat, quite outstripped, clung
for a noisy moment to her quarter; the stipulated bread, rum, and
tobacco were passed in; a moment more and the boat was in our wake,
and our late pilots were cheering our departure.
This was the more inspiriting as we were bound for scenes so
different, and though on a brief voyage, yet for a new province of
creation. That wide field of ocean, called loosely the South Seas,
extends from tropic to tropic, and from perhaps 123 degrees W. to
150 degrees E., a parallelogram of one hundred degrees by forty-
seven, where degrees are the most spacious. Much of it lies
vacant, much is closely sown with isles, and the isles are of two
sorts. No distinction is so continually dwelt upon in South Sea
talk as that between the 'low' and the 'high' island, and there is
none more broadly marked in nature. The Himalayas are not more
different from the Sahara. On the one hand, and chiefly in groups
of from eight to a dozen, volcanic islands rise above the sea; few
reach an altitude of less than 4000 feet; one exceeds 13,000; their
tops are often obscured in cloud, they are all clothed with various
forests, all abound in food, and are all remarkable for picturesque
and solemn scenery. On the other hand, we have the atoll; a thing
of problematic origin and history, the reputed creature of an
insect apparently unidentified; rudely annular in shape; enclosing
a lagoon; rarely extending beyond a quarter of a mile at its chief
width; often rising at its highest point to less than the stature
of a man--man himself, the rat and the land crab, its chief
inhabitants; not more variously supplied with plants; and offering
to the eye, even when perfect, only a ring of glittering beach and
verdant foliage, enclosing and enclosed by the blue sea.
In no quarter are the atolls so thickly congregated, in none are
they so varied in size from the greatest to the least, and in none
is navigation so beset with perils, as in that archipelago that we
were now to thread. The huge system of the trades is, for some
reason, quite confounded by this multiplicity of reefs, the wind
intermits, squalls are frequent from the west and south-west,
hurricanes are known. The currents are, besides, inextricably
intermixed; dead reckoning becomes a farce; the charts are not to
be trusted; and such is the number and similarity of these islands
that, even when you have picked one up, you may be none the wiser.
The reputation of the place is consequently infamous; insurance
offices exclude it from their field, and it was not without
misgiving that my captain risked the Casco in such waters. I
believe, indeed, it is almost understood that yachts are to avoid
this baffling archipelago; and it required all my instances--and
all Mr. Otis's private taste for adventure--to deflect our course
across its midst.
For a few days we sailed with a steady trade, and a steady westerly
current setting us to leeward; and toward sundown of the seventh it
was supposed we should have sighted Takaroa, one of Cook's so-
called King George Islands. The sun set; yet a while longer the
old moon--semi-brilliant herself, and with a silver belly, which
was her successor--sailed among gathering clouds; she, too,
deserted us; stars of every degree of sheen, and clouds of every
variety of form disputed the sub-lustrous night; and still we gazed
in vain for Takaroa. The mate stood on the bowsprit, his tall grey
figure slashing up and down against the stars, and still
'nihil astra praeter
Vidit et undas.
The rest of us were grouped at the port anchor davit, staring with
no less assiduity, but with far less hope on the obscure horizon.
Islands we beheld in plenty, but they were of 'such stuff as dreams
are made on,' and vanished at a wink, only to appear in other
places; and by and by not only islands, but refulgent and revolving
lights began to stud the darkness; lighthouses of the mind or of
the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shining and winking as we passed.
At length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again from
his unrestful perch, and announced that we had missed our
destination. He was the only man of practice in these waters, our
sole pilot, shipped for that end at Tai-o-hae. If he declared we
had missed Takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with the fact,
but, if we could, to explain it. We had certainly run down our
southing. Our canted wake upon the sea and our somewhat drunken-
looking course upon the chart both testified with no less certainty
to an impetuous westward current. We had no choice but to conclude
we were again set down to leeward; and the best we could do was to
bring the Casco to the wind, keep a good watch, and expect morning.
I slept that night, as was then my somewhat dangerous practice, on
deck upon the cockpit bench. A stir at last awoke me, to see all
the eastern heaven dyed with faint orange, the binnacle lamp
already dulled against the brightness of the day, and the steersman
leaning eagerly across the wheel. 'There it is, sir!' he cried,
and pointed in the very eyeball of the dawn. For awhile I could
see nothing but the bluish ruins of the morning bank, which lay far
along the horizon, like melting icebergs. Then the sun rose,
pierced a gap in these debris of vapours, and displayed an
inconsiderable islet, flat as a plate upon the sea, and spiked with
palms of disproportioned altitude.
So far, so good. Here was certainly an atoll; and we were
certainly got among the archipelago. But which? And where? The
isle was too small for either Takaroa: in all our neighbourhood,
indeed, there was none so inconsiderable, save only Tikei; and
Tikei, one of Roggewein's so-called Pernicious Islands, seemed
beside the question. At that rate, instead of drifting to the
west, we must have fetched up thirty miles to windward. And how
about the current? It had been setting us down, by observation,
all these days: by the deflection of our wake, it should be
setting us down that moment. When had it stopped? When had it
begun again? and what kind of torrent was that which had swept us
eastward in the interval? To these questions, so typical of
navigation in that range of isles, I have no answer. Such were at
least the facts; Tikei our island turned out to be; and it was our
first experience of the dangerous archipelago, to make our landfall
thirty miles out.
The sight of Tikei, thrown direct against the splendour of the
morning, robbed of all its colour, and deformed with
disproportioned trees like bristles on a broom, had scarce prepared
us to be much in love with atolls. Later the same day we saw under
more fit conditions the island of Taiaro. Lost in the Sea is
possibly the meaning of the name. And it was so we saw it; lost in
blue sea and sky: a ring of white beach, green underwood, and
tossing palms, gem-like in colour; of a fairy, of a heavenly
prettiness. The surf ran all around it, white as snow, and broke
at one point, far to seaward, on what seems an uncharted reef.
There was no smoke, no sign of man; indeed, the isle is not
inhabited, only visited at intervals. And yet a trader (Mr. Narii
Salmon) was watching from the shore and wondering at the unexpected
ship. I have spent since then long months upon low islands; I know
the tedium of their undistinguished days; I know the burden of
their diet. With whatever envy we may have looked from the deck on
these green coverts, it was with a tenfold greater that Mr. Salmon
and his comrades saw us steer, in our trim ship, to seaward.
The night fell lovely in the extreme. After the moon went down,
the heaven was a thing to wonder at for stars. And as I lay in the
cockpit and looked upon the steersman I was haunted by Emerson's
verses:
'And the lone seaman all the night
Sails astonished among stars.'
By this glittering and imperfect brightness, about four bells in
the first watch we made our third atoll, Raraka. The low line of
the isle lay straight along the sky; so that I was at first
reminded of a towpath, and we seemed to be mounting some engineered
and navigable stream. Presently a red star appeared, about the
height and brightness of a danger signal, and with that my simile
was changed; we seemed rather to skirt the embankment of a railway,
and the eye began to look instinctively for the telegraph-posts,
and the ear to expect the coming of a train. Here and there, but
rarely, faint tree-tops broke the level. And the sound of the surf
accompanied us, now in a drowsy monotone, now with a menacing
swing.
The isle lay nearly east and west, barring our advance on Fakarava.
We must, therefore, hug the coast until we gained the western end,
where, through a passage eight miles wide, we might sail southward
between Raraka and the next isle, Kauehi. We had the wind free, a
lightish air; but clouds of an inky blackness were beginning to
arise, and at times it lightened--without thunder. Something, I
know not what, continually set us up upon the island. We lay more
and more to the nor'ard; and you would have thought the shore
copied our manoeuvre and outsailed us. Once and twice Raraka headed
us again--again, in the sea fashion, the quite innocent steersman
was abused--and again the Casco kept away. Had I been called on,
with no more light than that of our experience, to draw the
configuration of that island, I should have shown a series of bow-
window promontories, each overlapping the other to the nor'ard, and
the trend of the land from the south-east to the north-west, and
behold, on the chart it lay near east and west in a straight line.
We had but just repeated our manoeuvre and kept away--for not more
than five minutes the railway embankment had been lost to view and
the surf to hearing--when I was aware of land again, not only on
the weather bow, but dead ahead. I played the part of the
judicious landsman, holding my peace till the last moment; and
presently my mariners perceived it for themselves.
'Land ahead!' said the steersman.
'By God, it's Kauehi!' cried the mate.
And so it was. And with that I began to be sorry for
cartographers. We were scarce doing three and a half; and they
asked me to believe that (in five minutes) we had dropped an
island, passed eight miles of open water, and run almost high and
dry upon the next. But my captain was more sorry for himself to be
afloat in such a labyrinth; laid the Casco to, with the log line up
and down, and sat on the stern rail and watched it till the
morning. He had enough of night in the Paumotus.
By daylight on the 9th we began to skirt Kauehi, and had now an
opportunity to see near at hand the geography of atolls. Here and
there, where it was high, the farther side loomed up; here and
there the near side dipped entirely and showed a broad path of
water into the lagoon; here and there both sides were equally
abased, and we could look right through the discontinuous ring to
the sea horizon on the south. Conceive, on a vast scale, the
submerged hoop of the duck-hunter, trimmed with green rushes to
conceal his head--water within, water without--you have the image
of the perfect atoll. Conceive one that has been partly plucked of
its rush fringe; you have the atoll of Kauehi. And for either
shore of it at closer quarters, conceive the line of some old Roman
highway traversing a wet morass, and here sunk out of view and
there re-arising, crowned with a green tuft of thicket; only
instead of the stagnant waters of a marsh, the live ocean now
boiled against, now buried the frail barrier. Last night's
impression in the dark was thus confirmed by day, and not
corrected. We sailed indeed by a mere causeway in the sea, of
nature's handiwork, yet of no greater magnitude than many of the
works of man.
The isle was uninhabited; it was all green brush and white sand,
set in transcendently blue water; even the coco-palms were rare,
though some of these completed the bright harmony of colour by
hanging out a fan of golden yellow. For long there was no sign of
life beyond the vegetable, and no sound but the continuous grumble
of the surf. In silence and desertion these fair shores slipped
past, and were submerged and rose again with clumps of thicket from
the sea. And then a bird or two appeared, hovering and crying;
swiftly these became more numerous, and presently, looking ahead,
we were aware of a vast effervescence of winged life. In this
place the annular isle was mostly under water, carrying here and
there on its submerged line a wooded islet. Over one of these the
birds hung and flew with an incredible density like that of gnats
or hiving bees; the mass flashed white and black, and heaved and
quivered, and the screaming of the creatures rose over the voice of
the surf in a shrill clattering whirr. As you descend some inland
valley a not dissimilar sound announces the nearness of a mill and
pouring river. Some stragglers, as I said, came to meet our
approach; a few still hung about the ship as we departed. The
crying died away, the last pair of wings was left behind, and once
more the low shores of Kauehi streamed past our eyes in silence
like a picture. I supposed at the time that the birds lived, like
ants or citizens, concentred where we saw them. I have been told
since (I know not if correctly) that the whole isle, or much of it,
is similarly peopled; and that the effervescence at a single spot
would be the mark of a boat's crew of egg-hunters from one of the
neighbouring inhabited atolls. So that here at Kauehi, as the day
before at Taiaro, the Casco sailed by under the fire of unsuspected
eyes. And one thing is surely true, that even on these ribbons of
land an army might lie hid and no passing mariner divine its
presence.
