CHAPTER V--KING AND COMMONS
We saw but little of the commons of the isle. At first we met them
at the well, where they washed their linen and we drew water for
the table. The combination was distasteful; and, having a tyrant
at command, we applied to the king and had the place enclosed in
our tapu. It was one of the few favours which Tembinok' visibly
boggled about granting, and it may be conceived how little popular
it made the strangers. Many villagers passed us daily going
afield; but they fetched a wide circuit round our tapu, and seemed
to avert their looks. At times we went ourselves into the village-
-a strange place. Dutch by its canals, Oriental by the height and
steepness of the roofs, which looked at dusk like temples; but we
were rarely called into a house: no welcome, no friendship, was
offered us; and of home life we had but the one view: the waking
of a corpse, a frigid, painful scene: the widow holding on her lap
the cold, bluish body of her husband, and now partaking of the
refreshments which made the round of the company, now weeping and
kissing the pale mouth. ('I fear you feel this affliction deeply,'
said the Scottish minister. 'Eh, sir, and that I do!' replied the
widow. 'I've been greetin' a' nicht; an' noo I'm just gaun to sup
this bit parritch, and then I'll begin an' greet again.') In our
walks abroad I have always supposed the islanders avoided us,
perhaps from distaste, perhaps by order; and those whom we met we
took generally by surprise. The surface of the isle is diversified
with palm groves, thickets, and romantic dingles four feet deep,
relics of old taro plantation; and it is thus possible to stumble
unawares on folk resting or hiding from their work. About pistol-
shot from our township there lay a pond in the bottom of a jungle;
here the maids of the isle came to bathe, and were several times
alarmed by our intrusion. Not for them are the bright cold rivers
of Tahiti or Upolu, not for them to splash and laugh in the hour of
the dusk with a villageful of gay companions; but to steal here
solitary, to crouch in a place like a cow-wallow, and wash (if that
can be called washing) in lukewarm mud, brown as their own skins.
Other, but still rare, encounters occur to my memory. I was
several times arrested by a tender sound in the bush of voices
talking, soft as flutes and with quiet intonations. Hope told a
flattering tale; I put aside the leaves; and behold! in place of
the expected dryads, a pair of all too solid ladies squatting over
a clay pipe in the ungraceful ridi. The beauty of the voice and
the eye was all that remained to those vast dames; but that of the
voice was indeed exquisite. It is strange I should have never
heard a more winning sound of speech, yet the dialect should be one
remarkable for violent, ugly, and outlandish vocables; so that
Tembinok' himself declared it made him weary, and professed to find
repose in talking English.
The state of this folk, of whom I saw so little, I can merely guess
at. The king himself explains the situation with some art. 'No; I
no pay them,' he once said. 'I give them tobacco. They work for
me ALL THE SAME BROTHERS.' It is true there was a brother once in
Arden! But we prefer the shorter word. They bear every servile
mark,--levity like a child's, incurable idleness, incurious
content. The insolence of the cook was a trait of his own; not so
his levity, which he shared with the innocent Uncle Parker. With
equal unconcern both gambolled under the shadow of the gallows, and
took liberties with death that might have surprised a careless
student of man's nature. I wrote of Parker that he behaved like a
boy of ten: what was he else, being a slave of sixty? He had
passed all his years in school, fed, clad, thought for, commanded;
and had grown familiar and coquetted with the fear of punishment.
By terror you may drive men long, but not far. Here, in Apemama,
they work at the constant and the instant peril of their lives; and
are plunged in a kind of lethargy of laziness. It is common to see
one go afield in his stiff mat ungirt, so that he walks elbows-in
like a trussed fowl; and whatsoever his right hand findeth to do,
the other must be off duty holding on his clothes. It is common to
see two men carrying between them on a pole a single bucket of
water. To make two bites of a cherry is good enough: to make two
burthens of a soldier's kit, for a distance of perhaps half a
furlong, passes measure. Woman, being the less childish animal, is
less relaxed by servile conditions. Even in the king's absence,
even when they were alone, I have seen Apemama women work with
constancy. But the outside to be hoped for in a man is that he may
attack his task in little languid fits, and lounge between-whiles.
So I have seen a painter, with his pipe going, and a friend by the
studio fireside. You might suppose the race to lack civility, even
vitality, until you saw them in the dance. Night after night, and
sometimes day after day, they rolled out their choruses in the
great Speak House--solemn andantes and adagios, led by the clapped
hand, and delivered with an energy that shook the roof. The time
was not so slow, though it was slow for the islands; but I have
chosen rather to indicate the effect upon the hearer. Their music
had a church-like character from near at hand, and seemed to
European ears more regular than the run of island music. Twice I
have heard a discord regularly solved. From farther off, heard at
Equator Town for instance, the measures rose and fell and
crepitated like the barking of hounds in a distant kennel.
The slaves are certainly not overworked--children of ten do more
without fatigue--and the Apemama labourers have holidays, when the
singing begins early in the afternoon. The diet is hard; copra and
a sweetmeat of pounded pandanus are the only dishes I observed
outside the palace; but there seems no defect in quantity, and the
king shares with them his turtles. Three came in a boat from Kuria
during our stay; one was kept for the palace, one sent to us, one
presented to the village. It is the habit of the islanders to cook
the turtle in its carapace; we had been promised the shells, and we
asked a tapu on this foolish practice. The face of Tembinok'
darkened and he answered nothing. Hesitation in the question of
the well I could understand, for water is scarce on a low island;
that he should refuse to interfere upon a point of cookery was more
than I had dreamed of; and I gathered (rightly or wrongly) that he
was scrupulous of touching in the least degree the private life and
habits of his slaves. So that even here, in full despotism, public
opinion has weight; even here, in the midst of slavery, freedom has
a corner.
Orderly, sober, and innocent, life flows in the isle from day to
day as in a model plantation under a model planter. It is
impossible to doubt the beneficence of that stern rule. A curious
politeness, a soft and gracious manner, something effeminate and
courtly, distinguishes the islanders of Apemama; it is talked of by
all the traders, it was felt even by residents so little beloved as
ourselves, and noticeable even in the cook, and even in that
scoundrel's hours of insolence. The king, with his manly and plain
bearing, stood out alone; you might say he was the only Gilbert
Islander in Apemama. Violence, so common in Butaritari, seems
unknown. So are theft and drunkenness. I am assured the
experiment has been made of leaving sovereigns on the beach before
the village; they lay there untouched. In all our time on the
island I was but once asked for drink. This was by a mighty
plausible fellow, wearing European clothes and speaking excellent
English--Tamaiti his name, or, as the whites have now corrupted it,
'Tom White': one of the king's supercargoes at three pounds a
month and a percentage, a medical man besides, and in his private
hours a wizard. He found me one day in the outskirts of the
village, in a secluded place, hot and private, where the taro-pits
are deep and the plants high. Here he buttonholed me, and, looking
about him like a conspirator, inquired if I had gin.
I told him I had. He remarked that gin was forbidden, lauded the
prohibition a while, and then went on to explain that he was a
doctor, or 'dogstar' as he pronounced the word, that gin was
necessary to him for his medical infusions, that he was quite out
of it, and that he would be obliged to me for some in a bottle. I
told him I had passed the king my word on landing; but since his
case was so exceptional, I would go down to the palace at once, and
had no doubt that Tembinok' would set me free. Tom White was
immediately overwhelmed with embarrassment and terror, besought me
in the most moving terms not to betray him, and fled my
neighbourhood. He had none of the cook's valour; it was weeks
before he dared to meet my eye; and then only by the order of the
king and on particular business.
The more I viewed and admired this triumph of firm rule, the more I
was haunted and troubled by a problem, the problem (perhaps) of to-
morrow for ourselves. Here was a people protected from all serious
misfortune, relieved of all serious anxieties, and deprived of what
we call our liberty. Did they like it? and what was their
sentiment toward the ruler? The first question I could not of
course ask, nor perhaps the natives answer. Even the second was
delicate; yet at last, and under charming and strange
circumstances, I found my opportunity to put it and a man to reply.
It was near the full of the moon, with a delicious breeze; the isle
was bright as day--to sleep would have been sacrilege; and I walked
in the bush, playing my pipe. It must have been the sound of what
I am pleased to call my music that attracted in my direction
another wanderer of the night. This was a young man attired in a
fine mat, and with a garland on his hair, for he was new come from
dancing and singing in the public hall; and his body, his face, and
his eyes were all of an enchanting beauty. Every here and there in
the Gilberts youths are to be found of this absurd perfection; I
have seen five of us pass half an hour in admiration of a boy at
Mariki; and Te Kop (my friend in the fine mat and garland) I had
already several times remarked, and long ago set down as the
loveliest animal in Apemama. The philtre of admiration must be
very strong, or these natives specially susceptible to its effects,
for I have scarce ever admired a person in the islands but what he
has sought my particular acquaintance. So it was with Te Kop. He
led me to the ocean side; and for an hour or two we sat smoking and
talking on the resplendent sand and under the ineffable brightness
of the moon. My friend showed himself very sensible of the beauty
and amenity of the hour. 'Good night! Good wind!' he kept
exclaiming, and as he said the words he seemed to hug myself. I
had long before invented such reiterated expressions of delight for
a character (Felipe, in the story of Olalla) intended to be partly
bestial. But there was nothing bestial in Te Kop; only a childish
pleasure in the moment. He was no less pleased with his companion,
or was good enough to say so; honoured me, before he left, by
calling me Te Kop; apostrophised me as 'My name!' with an
intonation exquisitely tender, laying his hand at the same time
swiftly on my knee; and after we had risen, and our paths began to
separate in the bush, twice cried to me with a sort of gentle
ecstasy, 'I like you too much!' From the beginning he had made no
secret of his terror of the king; would not sit down nor speak
above a whisper till he had put the whole breadth of the isle
between himself and his monarch, then harmlessly asleep; and even
there, even within a stone-cast of the outer sea, our talk covered
by the sound of the surf and the rattle of the wind among the
palms, continued to speak guardedly, softening his silver voice
(which rang loud enough in the chorus) and looking about him like a
man in fear of spies. The strange thing is that I should have
beheld him no more. In any other island in the whole South Seas,
if I had advanced half as far with any native, he would have been
at my door next morning, bringing and expecting gifts. But Te Kop
vanished in the bush for ever. My house, of course, was
unapproachable; but he knew where to find me on the ocean beach,
where I went daily. I was the Kaupoi, the rich man; my tobacco and
trade were known to be endless: he was sure of a present. I am at
a loss how to explain his behaviour, unless it be supposed that he
recalled with terror and regret a passage in our interview. Here
it is:
'The king, he good man?' I asked.
'Suppose he like you, he good man,' replied Te Kop: 'no like, no
good.'
That is one way of putting it, of course. Te Kop himself was
probably no favourite, for he scarce appealed to my judgment as a
type of industry. And there must be many others whom the king (to
adhere to the formula) does not like. Do these unfortunates like
the king? Or is not rather the repulsion mutual? and the
conscientious Tembinok', like the conscientious Braxfield before
him, and many other conscientious rulers and judges before either,
surrounded by a considerable body of 'grumbletonians'? Take the
cook, for instance, when he passed us by, blue with rage and
terror. He was very wroth with me; I think by all the old
principles of human nature he was not very well pleased with his
sovereign. It was the rich man he sought to waylay: I think it
must have been by the turn of a hair that it was not the king he
waylaid instead. And the king gives, or seems to give, plenty of
opportunities; day and night he goes abroad alone, whether armed or
not I can but guess; and the taro-patches, where his business must
so often carry him, seem designed for assassination. The case of
the cook was heavy indeed to my conscience. I did not like to kill
my enemy at second-hand; but had I a right to conceal from the
king, who had trusted me, the dangerous secret character of his
attendant? And suppose the king should fall, what would be the
fate of the king's friends? It was our opinion at the time that we
should pay dear for the closing of the well; that our breath was in
the king's nostrils; that if the king should by any chance be
bludgeoned in a taro-patch, the philosophical and musical
inhabitants of Equator Town might lay aside their pleasant
instruments, and betake themselves to what defence they had, with a
very dim prospect of success. These speculations were forced upon
us by an incident which I am ashamed to betray. The schooner H. L.
Haseltine (since capsized at sea, with the loss of eleven lives)
put into Apemama in a good hour for us, who had near exhausted our
supplies. The king, after his habit, spent day after day on board;
the gin proved unhappily to his taste; he brought a store of it
ashore with him; and for some time the sole tyrant of the isle was
half-seas-over. He was not drunk--the man is not a drunkard, he
has always stores of liquor at hand, which he uses with
moderation,--but he was muzzy, dull, and confused. He came one day
to lunch with us, and while the cloth was being laid fell asleep in
his chair. His confusion, when he awoke and found he had been
detected, was equalled by our uneasiness. When he was gone we sat
and spoke of his peril, which we thought to be in some degree our
own; of how easily the man might be surprised in such a state by
grumbletonians; of the strange scenes that would follow--the royal
treasures and stores at the mercy of the rabble, the palace
overrun, the garrison of women turned adrift. And as we talked we
were startled by a gun-shot and a sudden, barbaric outcry. I
believe we all changed colour; but it was only the king firing at a
dog and the chorus striking up in the Speak House. A day or two
later I learned the king was very sick; went down, diagnosed the
case; and took at once the highest medical degree by the exhibition
of bicarbonate of soda. Within the hour Richard was himself again;
and I found him at the unfinished house, enjoying the double
pleasure of directing Rubam and making a dinner of cocoa-nut
dumplings, and all eagerness to have the formula of this new sort
of pain-killer--for pain-killer in the islands is the generic name
of medicine. So ended the king's modest spree and our anxiety.
On the face of things, I ought to say, loyalty appeared unshaken.
When the schooner at last returned for us, after much experience of
baffling winds, she brought a rumour that Tebureimoa had declared
war on Apemama. Tembinok' became a new man; his face radiant; his
attitude, as I saw him preside over a council of chiefs in one of
the palace maniap's, eager as a boy's; his voice sounding abroad,
shrill and jubilant, over half the compound. War is what he wants,
and here was his chance. The English captain, when he flung his
arms in the lagoon, had forbidden him (except in one case) all
military adventures in the future: here was the case arrived. All
morning the council sat; men were drilled, arms were bought, the
sound of firing disturbed the afternoon; the king devised and
communicated to me his plan of campaign, which was highly elaborate
and ingenious, but perhaps a trifle fine-spun for the rough and
random vicissitudes of war. And in all this bustle the temper of
the people appeared excellent, an unwonted animation in every face,
and even Uncle Parker burning with military zeal.
Of course it was a false alarm. Tebureimoa had other fish to fry.
The ambassador who accompanied us on our return to Butaritari found
him retired to a small island on the reef, in a huff with the Old
Men, a tiff with the traders, and more fear of insurrection at home
than appetite for wars abroad. The plenipotentiary had been placed
under my protection; and we solemnly saluted when we met. He
proved an excellent fisherman, and caught bonito over the ship's
side. He pulled a good oar, and made himself useful for a whole
fiery afternoon, towing the becalmed Equator off Mariki. He went
to his post and did no good. He returned home again, having done
no harm. O si sic omnes!
