The Floating Island (20 page)

“Mr. Governor,” said the captain
in a suppliant tone, “you have rescued us, and we don’t know how to show our
gratitude. But yet we beg you will assure our return under better
circumstances.”

“And in what manner?” asked Cyrus
Bikerstaff.

“At Honolulu it was said that
Floating Island after going south was to visit the Marquesas, Paumotu, the
Society Islands, and then make for the west of the Pacific.”

“That is true,” said the Governor,
“and very probably we shall get as far as the Fijis before returning to
Madeleine Bay.”

“The Fijis,” continued the
captain, “are an English archipelago, where we should easily find a ship to
take us to the New Hebrides, which are not far off, and if you could keep us
until then
—
”

“I cannot promise you anything
with regard to that,” said the Governor. “We are forbidden to give passages to
foreigners. You must wait till we reach Nuka-Hiva. I will consult the
administration by cable, and if they consent we will take you on to Fiji,
whence you could get home more easily.”

That is the reason why the Malays
were on Floating Island when it came within sight of the Marquesas on the 29th
of August.

This archipelago is situated in
the belt of the trade winds, as are also the Paumotu and Society Islands, which
owe to these winds a moderate temperature and a salubrious climate.

It was off the north-west of this
group that Commodore Simcoe appeared in the early hours of the morning. He
first sighted a sandy atoll which the maps called Coral Islet, and against
which the sea, driven by the currents, beats with extreme violence.

This atoll being left to port,
the look-outs now signalled the first island, Fetuhuhu, very steep, surrounded
by perpendicular cliffs four hundred metres in height. Beyond is Hiau, six
hundred metres high, of a barren aspect on this side, while on the other it is
fresh and verdant, and has two creeks practicable for small vessels.

Frascolin, Yvernès, and
Pinchinat, leaving Sebastien Zorn to his chronic ill-humour, took their places
on the tower, in company with Ethel Simcoe and several of his officers.

One need not be astonished that
this name of Hiau had excited his Highness to emit several strange onomatopes.

“Assuredly,” said he, “it is a
colony of cats which inhabits that island with a tom for chief.”

Hiau was left to port. There was
no intention of stopping there, and the course was continued towards the
principal island of the group, to which it had given its name, and which was
now to be temporarily increased by this extraordinary Floating Island.

Next morning, that of the 30th of
August, at daybreak our Parisians returned to their port. The heights of Nuka-Hiva
had been visible the evening before. In fine weather the mountain chains of
this archipelago can be seen from a distance of eighteen or twenty leagues, for
the altitude of certain summits exceeds twelve hundred metres, and they lie
like a gigantic backbone along the length of the islands.

“You will notice,” said the
Commodore to his guests, “a peculiarity common to all this archipelago. The
summits are singularly bare, and the vegetation which begins about two-thirds
up the mountain slopes penetrates to the very bottom of the ravines and gorges,
and spreads magnificently down to the white beaches of the coast.”

“And yet,” said Frascolin, “it
seems that Nuka-Hiva is an exception to the general rule, at least as regards
the verdure of the intermediate zones. It appears barren!”

“Because we are approaching it
from the north-west,” said the Commodore, “but when we turn at the south, you
will be surprised at the contrast. Everywhere, verdant plains, forests,
cascades of three hundred metres.”

“Eh!” exclaimed Pinchinat, “a
mass of water falling from the top of the Eiffel Tower, that is worth
considering! Niagara should be jealous.”

“Not at all,” said Frascolin, “it
prides itself on its width, and its fall extends for nine hundred metres, from
the American shore to the Canadian. You know that well, Pinchinat, for we have
visited it.”

“That is so, and I beg to
apologize to Niagara,” replied his Highness.

That day Floating Island coasted
along about a mile away from the island. Always the barren slopes rising to the
central plateau of Tovii, rocky cliffs which seemed to have no break in them.
Nevertheless, according to the navigator Brown, there are good anchorages,
which, in fact, have recently been discovered.

In short, the aspect of
Nuka-Hiva, the name of which evokes such pleasant landscapes, is rather
mournful. But, as has been justly observed by Dumoulin and Desgraz, the
companions of Dumont d’Urville during his voyage to the South Pole and in
Oceania, “all its natural beauties are confined to the interior of its bays,
into the valleys formed by the ramifications of the chain of mountains which
rise in the centre of the island.”

After following this desert shore
beyond the acute angle projecting to the west, Floating Island gradually
changed its direction by diminishing the speed of its starboard screws, and
rounding Cape Tchitchagoff, so called by the Russian navigator Krusenstern. The
coast then runs in, describing an elongated curve, in the course of which a
narrow inlet gives access to the port of Taiva or Akaui, one of the creeks of
which offers a shelter against the most terrible storms of the Pacific.

Commodore Simcoe did not stop
there. To the south are two other bays, that of Anna Maria or Taio-Hae in the
centre, and that of Comptroller or Taipis on the other side of Cape Martin, the
extreme south-westerly point of the island. Is was off Taio-Hae that they were
to make a stay of twelve days.

A little distance from the shore
of Nuka-Hiva the sea is of great depth. Near the bays there is anchorage at a
depth of forty or fifty fathoms. It was thus easy for the Commodore to bring up
very close. to Taio-Hae Bay, which he did in the afternoon of the 31st of
August.

As soon as they arrived in sight
of the port, reports were heard on the right, and a circling smoke appeared
above the cliffs to the east.

“Hallo!” said Pinchinat. “Are
they firing the guns to welcome our arrival?”

“Not so,” said the Commodore. “Neither
the Tais nor the Happas, the two principal tribes of the island, possess
artillery capable of firing the simplest salutes. What you hear is the noise of
the sea plunging into the depths of a cavern half-way up Cape Martin, and the smoke
is the spray hurled aloft from it.”

The island of Nuka-Hiva has many
names
—
we might
say many baptismal names
—
given
it by its successive godfathers: Federal Island by Ingraham, Beaux Island by
Marchand, Sir Henry Martin Island by Hergert, Adam Island by Roberts, Madison
Island by Porter. It measures seventeen miles from east to west and ten miles
from north to south, its circumference being about fifty-four miles.

Its climate is healthy; its
temperature that of the tropical zone moderated by the trade winds. At this
anchorage Floating Island would not be subject to the formidable tempests and
pluvial cataracts which occur during the winter, for it was not going to be
there from April to October, when the easterly and south-easterly winds, known
to the natives as tuatuka, prevail. It is in October that the heat is greatest,
the months of November and December being the driest. At other times the
prevailing winds range from east to north-east.

For the population of the
Marquesas Islands, we must reject the exaggerations of their early discoverers,
who estimated it at a hundred thousand. Elisée Reclus, relying on official
documents, says that it does not exceed six thousand for the whole group, and
that the great majority are in Nuka-Hiva. If at the time of Dumont d’Urville
the Nuka-Hivans numbered eight thousand, divided into Tais, Happas, Taionas,
and Taipis, the number must have continued to decrease. Whence results this
depopulation? From the extermination of natives by wars, the carrying off of
the males to the plantations of Peru, the abuse of strong liquors, and, it must
also be confessed, to the evils which conquest brings, even when the conquerors
belong to civilized races.

During their stay here the
Milliardites made numerous visits to Nuka-Hiva, and the principal Europeans, by
the Governor’s permission, had free access to Floating Island.

On their side, Sebastien Zorn and
his comrades undertook several long excursions, the pleasure of which amply
paid them for their fatigues.

The bay of Taio-Hae describes a
circle, cut by the narrow inlet, in which Floating Island could not have found
room, so much is this bay cut up by the two sandy beaches. These beaches are
separated by a sort of hill with rugged escarpments, where still exist the
remains of a fort, built here by Porter in 1812. It was at this period that
this sailor made the conquest of the island, the American camp occupying the
eastern beach
—
a
capture which was not ratified by the Federal Government.

In place of a town, on the
opposite beach, our Parisians found a small village; the Marquesan habitations
being, for the most part, scattered under the trees. But what admirable valleys
ran up from it, among others that of Taio-Hae, in which the Nuka-Hivans had
placed most of their dwellings. It was a pleasure to explore beneath the clumps
of cocoanut trees, bananas, casuarinas, guavas, breadfruit trees, hibiscus, and
other species rich in overflowing sap. The tourists were hospitably received in
the huts, where a century earlier they might have appreciated banana cakes and
mei pastry and breadfruit, and the yellowish fecula of the taro, sweet when
fresh and sour when stale, and the edible roots of the tacca. As to the hanu, a
species of large ray which was eaten raw, and filets of shark, esteemed most highly
the higher they are, our tourists declined to taste them.

Athanase Dorémus occasionally
went with them on their walks. The year before this good man had visited this
archipelago and was able to act as guide. Perhaps he was not very strong in
natural history or botany, perhaps he confounded the superb
Spondia cytherea
,
whose fruits resemble the apple, with the
Pandanus odoratissimus
, which
justifies this superlative epithet; with the casuarina, whose bark is as hard
as iron; with the hibiscus, whose bark yields the garments worn by the natives;
with the papaw tree; with the
Gardenia
florida!
It is true that
the quartette had no necessity to have recourse to his somewhat suspicious
knowledge, when the Marquesan flora displayed its magnificent ferns, its superb
polypodies, its China roses, red and white, its grasses, its solanaceous
plants, among others tobacco, its labiates in violet clusters, which form the
cherished finery of the Nuka-Hivans, its castor-oil plants a dozen feet high,
its dracænas, its sugar-canes, its oranges, its lemon trees of recent
importation, which had succeeded marvellously in a soil impregnated by summer
heat and watered by the many mountain streams.

One morning when the quartette
had ascended beyond the village of Tais along the banks of a torrent to the
summit of the chain, and beneath their feet and before their eyes lay spread
the valleys of the Tais, the Taipis, and the Happas, a shout of admiration
escaped them. If they had had their instruments with them they could not have
resisted their desire to reply by the execution of some lyric masterpiece to
this spectacle of one of the masterpieces of nature. Doubtless the executants
would have had but a few birds for their audience! But how beautiful is the
kurukuru pigeon which flies at these heights, how charming the little
salangane, which beats the air with so capricious a wing, and the tropic-bird,
the habitual visitor to these Nuka-Hivan gorges. Besides, no venomous reptile
was to be feared in the depths of these forests. There was no fear of the boas,
barely two feet long, as inoffensive as a common snake, nor of the simquas,
whose blue tail is indistinguishable among the flowers.

The natives are of a remarkable
type. There is a sort of Asiatic character about them, on account of which they
are assigned a very different origin to that of the other races of Oceania.
Their extremities are well shaped, their face oval, their forehead high, their
black eyes with long lashes, their nose aquiline, their teeth white and
regular, their colour neither black nor red, but brown like that of the Arabs,
a physiognomy marked by cheerfulness and gentleness.

Tattooing had almost disappeared
—
tattooing obtained
not by cutting into the flesh, but by prickings, dusted with carbon and the
aleurite triloba, and now replaced by the cotton cloth of the missionaries.

“Very fine, these men,” said Yvernès,
“but not so much so as when they were simply clothed in their skins, wore their
own hair, and brandished bows and arrows!”

This remark was made during an
excursion to Comptroller Bay in the Governor’s company. Cyrus Bikerstaff had
expressed a wish to take his guests to this bay, divided into several harbours
like Valetta, and doubtless in the hands of the English Nuka-Hiva would become
a Malta of the Pacific Ocean. In this district the Happas are principally
found, among the gorges of a fertile country, with a small river fed by a noisy
cascade. This was the chief theatre of the struggle between Porter, the
American, and the natives.

The remark of Yvernès required a
reply, and the Governor made answer:

“Perhaps you are right, Monsieur Yvernès.
The Marquesans must have looked well in their cotton drawers, with the maro and
pareo of brilliant colours, the alm bun, a kind of flying scarf, and the
tiputa, a sort of Mexican poncho. It is certain that the modern costume hardly
becomes them. What would you have? Decency is the consequence of civilization!
At the same time, as our missionaries endeavour to instruct the natives, they
encourage them to clothe themselves in a more or less rudimentary fashion.”