Twenty years before the mast/Chapter XI
CHAPTER XI.
While here, besides the vessels, seventeen boats had been actively engaged in surveying the different islands, reefs, and bays. We were sometimes absent from the ship fifteen or eighteen days at a time, without ever being out of the boats, and were continually in danger from the treachery of the natives, who were ever watching for an opportunity to entrap us.
The ship’s launch, Lieutenant Oliver H. Perry, grandson of Commodore Perry of Lake Erie fame, and the first cutter, Lieutenant Samuel R. Knox, grandson of General Knox, one of the old Revolutionary heroes, while surveying one of the Windward Islands experienced a very heavy gale from the south. We sought shelter in Sualib Bay. Here we lay five days waiting for the gale to abate. During this time we saw but few natives. Our store of provisions was exhausted, and we subsisted upon the few fish we could catch, and those we were obliged to eat raw. Occasionally we would secure a few cocoanuts which were drifting by the boats. The third night the rain came down in torrents, and we filled our ten-gallon breaker. This precious supply we used sparingly. On the fourth day a native swam out to the cutter with five bananas, which were equally divided between the two boats’ crews, numbering fourteen men. Our boats had left the ship with ten days’ provisions, and this was the twenty-first day we had been absent. At noon the weather was a little more moderate, and we prepared to leave the bay.
When we got under way to beat out, standing close in shore, in going about we missed stays and the cutter was thrown upon the reef. After several ineffectual efforts, we found it quite impossible to get the boat off. When Lieutenant Perry saw our condition he dropped anchor a quarter of a mile away, in order to assist us if necessary. At the time of the accident not a native was in sight, but soon after they were seen flocking down to the beach in scores, armed with war-clubs and spears. All our arms and ammunition were soaked with salt water. We were trying to save something in the cutter when Lieutenant Knox sang out, "They are coming! the ‘devils’ are coming! Make for the launch, my men!" It was fortunate that all could swim, and that, too, on our backs, for the splashing of the water with our hands and feet frightened away those horrible shovel-nosed sharks that are so numerous about the coral reefs.
Even in our perilous position we could not help feeling amused to see the "devils" trampling one another underfoot in their eagerness to secure whatever plunder there was to be found in the cutter. In their greed they even allowed us to escape, only throwing a few spears, and ulas, or short clubs, at us, which we managed to dodge. After stripping the cutter of everything, they dragged her over the reef, up into a grove of mangrove bushes.
As soon as all were safe in the launch we got under way and stood out; but, making no headway against the wind and sea, we anchored a good gunshot from the shore. Late in the evening the "devils" built fourteen separate fires on the beach opposite our boat. Any ship or boat, or even one of their own canoes, when driven on shore, was by them considered an offering to the gods. The crews of these fated crafts, even though they numbered among them the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of those on shore, were also accounted as offerings to the gods, and, accordingly, were clubbed, roasted, and eaten. This, of course, would have been our fate had we been taken.
The savages had quite a number of muskets, and, after building their fires, they waded out on the reef to windward and fired at us, but we were too far away to receive injury from their volleys, though several of the spent balls fell in our boat. During the night many of the natives swam out and, diving, tried to lift our anchor or cut our cable, and thus cause us to drift ashore. We shot quite a number of them and captured two. Of the latter, one proved to be a great chief, the other an inferior one. They had swum towards us to spy out our weakness. We bound them hand and foot and placed them in the bottom of the boat. As soon as those on shore missed their chief they danced and wailed around their fires like so many fiends.
Sunday morning was ushered in with clear weather and scarcely a breath of wind. At sunrise we got under way and stood out. When going over the bar a big roller came head on, which filled our boat half full of water, and came very near swamping us. The two chiefs in the bottom of the boat floundered about like two big lamprey eels on dry land. We soon bailed the boat out and proceeded in quest of our ships.
At six bells, eleven o’clock, we made Mbua Bay. In doubling the point we saw our ships lying quietly at anchor. How our hearts bounded with joy at the sight, and how we cheered the dear old flags floating from the mizzen peaks! It was the hour of Divine service on board, but this was soon brought to a close. The rigging was soon manned, and we were hailed with cheers, for all hands had given us up for lost. After "splicing the mainbrace" and eating a hearty dinner of plum duff, we were given our hammocks, and, turning in, very soon visited "Beulah Land" (home) in our dreams.
A little past midnight the schooner and eight boats, well manned and armed, set out for Sualib Bay, arriving early in the morning. After an early breakfast on board the Flying Fish, all hands went ashore, except the boats’ keepers and a dog-watch on board the schooner. Soon after landing we met a small party of the natives, and among them the chief of Sualib. Through the interpreter, Mr. Whippy, Captain Wilkes demanded of the chief the cutter and everything that was stolen with her. The chief replied that it was a tradition of theirs, handed down from their fathers, that when a ship, boat, or one of their own canoes was cast away on their islands they had a right to take possession of both boat and crew in the name of the Great Spirit to whom they belonged, and offer up the crew as a sacrifice to him.
Captain Wilkes with great patience explained to him how he should act in such cases. To this parley the chief paid very little attention, but wanted to rub noses with the commodore and be friends. The commodore, finding the chief deaf to all reason and all demands, piped all hands to quarters. Then it was, "Boarders, away!" and two hundred jolly tars armed with cutlasses, bowie-knives, and pistols, were soon running up a hill, inland from the beach about a half a mile, through a beautiful grove of palms, to a town of about sixty houses. As we advanced towards the town the natives retreated into a grove of banana bushes a few hundred yards in the rear. Occasionally they would run out from their hiding-places among the bushes and jungles, and brandish their war-clubs at us in a defiant manner. Finding their women and children had fled, we set fire to the village, and it was soon laid in ashes.
The natives fired a few random shots at us from the bushes, but their powder was poor, and no damage was done; but when they showed their dusky forms they felt the deadly power of our carbine rifles. Many sky-rockets were also thrown into the bushes among them, which nearly frightened them to death. We could see them leap up into the air, and hear them yell out, "Curlew, curlew, curlew," meaning "spirits, spirits, spirits."
After seeing the town of Sualib reduced to ashes, we followed our file leader and returned to our boats. On our way we burned the town of Tye, containing about a hundred dwelling-houses, and many yam houses built of bamboo. We also came across our cutter, covered with many leaves and bushes.
All hands returned to the beach without receiving even a scratch. We felt very jolly because we had, as we thought, taught the savages a lesson which they would not be likely soon to forget. Arriving on board the schooner we "spliced the mainbrace" and partook of a lunch strongly resembling gun-flints and mahogany. Our ship’s bread was extraordinarily hard, and in small pieces about the size of a flint, and our salt junk was as hard and dry as a piece of old mahogany. Jack before the mast can, at a glance, determine to a certainty whether the so-called "beef" set before him is really bovine or horse flesh. Old Jack Weaver, after taking an observation of the sun with the thigh-bone of a horse, soliloquized as follows:
"Old horse, old horse, what brought you here,
From Saccarappa to Portland pier,
Where you’ve carted stones for many a year?
They treated you with much abuse,
Then salted you down for sailors’ use.
They curse your eyes when they’ve picked your bones;
Then give you a toss to Davy Jones."
We returned to Mbua Bay, arriving at midnight. The next morning the chief came on board our ship and demanded the two chiefs whom we had captured at Sour Laib, saying that they were their prisoners, and that they wanted to roast and eat them as a sacrifice to the gods. The request was not granted. A few days afterward the commodore learned that they belonged to another town, and that they swam off to assist us. We gave them some presents and sent them home. In the afternoon we got under way and proceeded farther up the bay, coming to anchor in twenty-eight fathoms of water off Waimea, or the boiling springs.
July 4. The commodore allowed us to celebrate the Glorious Fourth by visiting the springs. There were quite a number of them, eleven on the beach above high-water mark, some below, and some on the hillside, from which flowed a streamlet, three feet wide, of delicious cold water. This streamlet flowed in such close proximity to the springs that a person could place one hand in the cold water and the other in the hot at the same time.
The latter experiment one would scarcely care to try, as the water was so hot that the yams and taro which we boiled in one of them were cooked through in twenty minutes; and the natives do all their cooking in them. They vary somewhat in size, but are about three feet in diameter. The largest was held sacred by the natives, and was used only for cooking human flesh. In the neighborhood we saw piles of the bleached bones of their victims.
The coral beach was so hot that we could not walk on it with our bare feet. While we were at the springs many people came to do their cooking. They were all young people. On inquiring for their old people we were told that they were all buried. These natives appeared very friendly, though the young men were wild and savage-looking fellows. The women were much more prepossessing in appearance than those at the other islands.
While here we mastered much of their language and had many social chats with them. They favored us with the K. K. U. dance, which was very pleasing.
After the dance was over they chanted the following, their manner reminding us of Jews chanting in their synagogues:
"Antiko maina tambu tang-ane
To-ahula katan gita kare andratha
Ha-ti-ke kaung-ai tang-i kow-m lau tu na
Se-ni-kun-dra-vi sa-lu ni vu-thu ma ke va ke."
The chief of this bay had twenty wives. He lived at the foot of a hill, in a house surrounded by those of his wives, each of whom had a separate house. He spent the most of his time lounging in these, one after another. Mrs. Tandi Muthuata, the head wife, was over six feet in height and very stout. She fully understood her posision, and kept all the others in subjection, ruling them as with a rod of iron. His seventeenth wife was called Henrietta. She was a young Tahitian with whom the chief had become smitten. In order to secure her he had killed and eaten her husband, and then compelled her to become one of his wives. She was of fair complexion, and very good looking. Her hair was naturally black and straight, but, by twitching, twisting, frizzing, and coloring, it had become very bushy.
Having finished our surveys here we weighed anchor and stood for Waialaithake, or Waia Island, Bay of Waialailai, or Porpoise Bay. This island was the most hilly, broken, and romantic of any in the group. On landing we saw no natives, and thought the island uninhabited, but while ascending a hill we fell in with several who were skulking in the groves, and keeping close upon us. The constant fear of being surprised by these savages was very far from pleasant. The more knowledge we obtained of them, the less disposed were we to trust them.
As soon as we had reached the top of the hill, we fired off several sky-rockets and discharged our muskets, the reports of which seemed to frighten the natives. It was amusing to see them jump from their hiding-places in the groves and call on their gods, "Curlew, curlew, curlew."
The observations taken while up here proved quite satisfactory. The height from the level of the ocean was fifteen hundred feet, and the view of the ocean and the numerous islands and reefs, with the sea dashing over them, was truly grand.
The Waia-no were independent of all authority except that of their own chiefs. All endeavors to subjugate them proved unavailing; and they kept themselves close in their own fastnesses, shunning all communication with all other natives, except making occasional incursions, with a strong force, on the defenseless towns of some other islands. Owing to their cruel conduct and treachery, they were called by their cannibal neighbors savages!
Nearly all the chiefs kept a turtle pen. When they had a chance to dispose of the shell, they removed it from the living turtle by holding a burning brand close to the outer shell until the edge curled up; then a wooden wedge was inserted, by which the whole head of shell was removed from the back of the living turtle. This was, in every sense of the word, cruelty to turtles. Each turtle is covered with thirteen pieces, which together are termed a head. Tortoise-shell was the chief article of trade in these islands, and its export was the principal business of the whites who lived on this group, and endeavored to monopolize the trade.
The traders in tortoise-shell came here in small vessels, and at great risk, as the natives resorted to every expedient to capture them. The crews were compelled to be on the lookout night and day. Sometimes, when the winds blew fresh towards the shore, the natives would swim off by the hundreds, dive down and endeavor to lift her anchor, part or cut her cable, or tie a rope to it, by which means the vessel would be dragged to the shore, when she was considered and treated as a prize sent by their gods. Another way was to board her by climbing up over her side. Unless the crew were surprised, an attack was often repelled by the use of the vessel’s boarding-pikes and cutlasses.