Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (829 page)

I may seem to praise too much; here is a passage from my wife’s diary, which proves that I was not alone in being moved, and completes the picture:- ‘The conductor gave the cue, and all the dancers, waving their arms, swaying their bodies, and clapping their breasts in perfect time, opened with an introductory.  The performers remained seated, except two, and once three, and twice a single soloist.  These stood in the group, making a slight movement with the feet and rhythmical quiver of the body as they sang.  There was a pause after the introductory, and then the real business of the opera - for it was no less - began; an opera where every singer was an accomplished actor.  The leading man, in an impassioned ecstasy which possessed him from head to foot, seemed transfigured; once it was as though a strong wind had swept over the stage - their arms, their feathered fingers thrilling with an emotion that shook my nerves as well: heads and bodies followed like a field of grain before a gust.  My blood came hot and cold, tears pricked my eyes, my head whirled, I felt an almost irresistible impulse to join the dancers.  One drama, I think, I very nearly understood.  A fierce and savage old man took the solo part.  He sang of the birth of a prince, and how he was tenderly rocked in his mother’s arms; of his boyhood, when he excelled his fellows in swimming, climbing, and all athletic sports; of his youth, when he went out to sea with his boat and fished; of his manhood, when he married a wife who cradled a son of his own in her arms.  Then came the alarm of war, and a great battle, of which for a time the issue was doubtful; but the hero conquered, as he always does, and with a tremendous burst of the victors the piece closed.  There were also comic pieces, which caused great amusement.  During one, an old man behind me clutched me by the arm, shook his finger in my face with a roguish smile, and said something with a chuckle, which I took to be the equivalent of “O, you women, you women; it is true of you all!”  I fear it was not complimentary.  At no time was there the least sign of the ugly indecency of the eastern islands.  All was poetry pure and simple.  The music itself was as complex as our own, though constructed on an entirely different basis; once or twice I was startled by a bit of something very like the best English sacred music, but it was only for an instant.  At last there was a longer pause, and this time the dancers were all on their feet.  As the drama went on, the interest grew.  The performers appealed to each other, to the audience, to the heaven above; they took counsel with each other, the conspirators drew together in a knot; it was just an opera, the drums coming in at proper intervals, the tenor, baritone, and bass all where they should be - except that the voices were all of the same calibre.  A woman once sang from the back row with a very fine contralto voice spoilt by being made artificially nasal; I notice all the women affect that unpleasantness.  At one time a boy of angelic beauty was the soloist; and at another, a child of six or eight, doubtless an infant phenomenon being trained, was placed in the centre.  The little fellow was desperately frightened and embarrassed at first, but towards the close warmed up to his work and showed much dramatic talent.  The changing expressions on the faces of the dancers were so speaking, that it seemed a great stupidity not to understand them.’

Our neighbour at this performance, Karaiti, somewhat favours his Butaritarian majesty in shape and feature, being, like him, portly, bearded, and Oriental.  In character he seems the reverse: alert, smiling, jovial, jocular, industrious.  At home in his own island, he labours himself like a slave, and makes his people labour like a slave-driver.  He takes an interest in ideas.  George the trader told him about flying-machines.  ‘Is that true, George?’ he asked.  ‘It is in the papers,’ replied George.  ‘Well,’ said Karaiti, ‘if that man can do it with machinery, I can do it without’; and he designed and made a pair of wings, strapped them on his shoulders, went to the end of a pier, launched himself into space, and fell bulkily into the sea.  His wives fished him out, for his wings hindered him in swimming.  ‘George,’ said he, pausing as he went up to change, ‘George, you lie.’  He had eight wives, for his small realm still follows ancient customs; but he showed embarrassment when this was mentioned to my wife.  ‘Tell her I have only brought one here,’ he said anxiously.  Altogether the Black Douglas pleased us much; and as we heard fresh details of the king’s uneasiness, and saw for ourselves that all the weapons in the summer parlour had been hid, we watched with the more admiration the cause of all this anxiety rolling on his big legs, with his big smiling face, apparently unarmed, and certainly unattended, through the hostile town.  The Red Douglas, pot-bellied Kuma, having perhaps heard word of the debauch, remained upon his fief; his vassals thus came uncommanded to the feast, and swelled the following of Karaiti.

Friday
,
July
26. - At night in the dark, the singers of Makin paraded in the road before our house and sang the song of the princess.  ‘This is the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunave was born to-day - a beautiful princess, Queen of Butaritari.’  So I was told it went in endless iteration.  The song was of course out of season, and the performance only a rehearsal.  But it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves from our new friend, Karaiti.

Saturday
,
July
27. - We had announced a performance of the magic lantern to-night in church; and this brought the king to visit us.  In honour of the Black Douglas (I suppose) his usual two guardsmen were now increased to four; and the squad made an outlandish figure as they straggled after him, in straw hats, kilts and jackets.  Three carried their arms reversed, the butts over their shoulders, the muzzles menacing the king’s plump back; the fourth had passed his weapon behind his neck, and held it there with arms extended like a backboard.  The visit was extraordinarily long.  The king, no longer galvanised with gin, said and did nothing.  He sat collapsed in a chair and let a cigar go out.  It was hot, it was sleepy, it was cruel dull; there was no resource but to spy in the countenance of Tebureimoa for some remaining trait of
Mr. Corpse
the butcher.  His hawk nose, crudely depressed and flattened at the point, did truly seem to us to smell of midnight murder.  When he took his leave, Maka bade me observe him going down the stair (or rather ladder) from the verandah.  ‘Old man,’ said Maka.  ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and yet I suppose not old man.’  ‘Young man,’ returned Maka, ‘perhaps fo’ty.’  And I have heard since he is most likely younger.

While the magic lantern was showing, I skulked without in the dark.  The voice of Maka, excitedly explaining the Scripture slides, seemed to fill not the church only, but the neighbourhood.  All else was silent.  Presently a distant sound of singing arose and approached; and a procession drew near along the road, the hot clean smell of the men and women striking in my face delightfully.  At the corner, arrested by the voice of Maka and the lightening and darkening of the church, they paused.  They had no mind to go nearer, that was plain.  They were Makin people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary and his works.  Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; next moment three had followed him; the next it was a covey of near upon a score, all pelting for their lives.  So the little band of the heathen paused irresolute at the corner, and melted before the attractions of a magic lantern, like a glacier in spring.  The more staunch vainly taunted the deserters; three fled in a guilty silence, but still fled; and when at length the leader found the wit or the authority to get his troop in motion and revive the singing, it was with much diminished forces that they passed musically on up the dark road.

Meanwhile inside the luminous pictures brightened and faded.  I stood for some while unobserved in the rear of the spectators, when I could hear just in front of me a pair of lovers following the show with interest, the male playing the part of interpreter and (like Adam) mingling caresses with his lecture.  The wild animals, a tiger in particular, and that old school-treat favourite, the sleeper and the mouse, were hailed with joy; but the chief marvel and delight was in the gospel series.  Maka, in the opinion of his aggrieved wife, did not properly rise to the occasion.  ‘What is the matter with the man?  Why can’t he talk?’ she cried.  The matter with the man, I think, was the greatness of the opportunity; he reeled under his good fortune; and whether he did ill or well, the exposure of these pious ‘phantoms’ did as a matter of fact silence in all that part of the island the voice of the scoffer.  ‘Why then,’ the word went round, ‘why then, the Bible is true!’  And on our return afterwards we were told the impression was yet lively, and those who had seen might be heard telling those who had not, ‘O yes, it is all true; these things all happened, we have seen the pictures.’  The argument is not so childish as it seems; for I doubt if these islanders are acquainted with any other mode of representation but photography; so that the picture of an event (on the old melodrama principle that ‘the camera cannot lie, Joseph,’) would appear strong proof of its occurrence.  The fact amused us the more because our slides were some of them ludicrously silly, and one (Christ before Pilate) was received with shouts of merriment, in which even Maka was constrained to join.

Sunday
,
July
28. - Karaiti came to ask for a repetition of the ‘phantoms’ - this was the accepted word - and, having received a promise, turned and left my humble roof without the shadow of a salutation.  I felt it impolite to have the least appearance of pocketing a slight; the times had been too difficult, and were still too doubtful; and Queen Victoria’s son was bound to maintain the honour of his house.  Karaiti was accordingly summoned that evening to the Ricks, where Mrs. Rick fell foul of him in words, and Queen Victoria’s son assailed him with indignant looks.  I was the ass with the lion’s skin; I could not roar in the language of the Gilbert Islands; but I could stare.  Karaiti declared he had meant no offence; apologised in a sound, hearty, gentlemanly manner; and became at once at his ease.  He had in a dagger to examine, and announced he would come to price it on the morrow, to-day being Sunday; this nicety in a heathen with eight wives surprised me.  The dagger was ‘good for killing fish,’ he said roguishly; and was supposed to have his eye upon fish upon two legs.  It is at least odd that in Eastern Polynesia fish was the accepted euphemism for the human sacrifice.  Asked as to the population of his island, Karaiti called out to his vassals who sat waiting him outside the door, and they put it at four hundred and fifty; but (added Karaiti jovially) there will soon be plenty more, for all the women are in the family way.  Long before we separated I had quite forgotten his offence.  He, however, still bore it in mind; and with a very courteous inspiration returned early on the next day, paid us a long visit, and punctiliously said farewell when he departed.

Monday
,
July
29. - The great day came round at last.  In the first hours the night was startled by the sound of clapping hands and the chant of Nei Kamaunava; its melancholy, slow, and somewhat menacing measures broken at intervals by a formidable shout.  The little morsel of humanity thus celebrated in the dark hours was observed at midday playing on the green entirely naked, and equally unobserved and unconcerned.

The summer parlour on its artificial islet, relieved against the shimmering lagoon, and shimmering itself with sun and tinned iron, was all day crowded about by eager men and women.  Within, it was boxed full of islanders, of any age and size, and in every degree of nudity and finery.  So close we squatted, that at one time I had a mighty handsome woman on my knees, two little naked urchins having their feet against my back.  There might be a dame in full attire of
holoku
and hat and flowers; and her next neighbour might the next moment strip some little rag of a shift from her fat shoulders and come out a monument of flesh, painted rather than covered by the hairbreadth
ridi
.  Little ladies who thought themselves too great to appear undraped upon so high a festival were seen to pause outside in the bright sunshine, their miniature ridis in their hand; a moment more and they were full-dressed and entered the concert-room.

At either end stood up to sing, or sat down to rest, the alternate companies of singers; Kuma and Little Makin on the north, Butaritari and its conjunct hamlets on the south; both groups conspicuous in barbaric bravery.  In the midst, between these rival camps of troubadours, a bench was placed; and here the king and queen throned it, some two or three feet above the crowded audience on the floor - Tebureimoa as usual in his striped pyjamas with a satchel strapped across one shoulder, doubtless (in the island fashion) to contain his pistols; the queen in a purple
holoku
, her abundant hair let down, a fan in her hand.  The bench was turned facing to the strangers, a piece of well-considered civility; and when it was the turn of Butaritari to sing, the pair must twist round on the bench, lean their elbows on the rail, and turn to us the spectacle of their broad backs.  The royal couple occasionally solaced themselves with a clay pipe; and the pomp of state was further heightened by the rifles of a picket of the guard.

With this kingly countenance, and ourselves squatted on the ground, we heard several songs from one side or the other.  Then royalty and its guards withdrew, and Queen Victoria’s son and daughter-in-law were summoned by acclamation to the vacant throne.  Our pride was perhaps a little modified when we were joined on our high places by a certain thriftless loafer of a white; and yet I was glad too, for the man had a smattering of native, and could give me some idea of the subject of the songs.  One was patriotic, and dared Tembinok’ of Apemama, the terror of the group, to an invasion.  One mixed the planting of taro and the harvest-home.  Some were historical, and commemorated kings and the illustrious chances of their time, such as a bout of drinking or a war.  One, at least, was a drama of domestic interest, excellently played by the troop from Makin.  It told the story of a man who has lost his wife, at first bewails her loss, then seeks another: the earlier strains (or acts) are played exclusively by men; but towards the end a woman appears, who has just lost her husband; and I suppose the pair console each other, for the finale seemed of happy omen.  Of some of the songs my informant told me briefly they were ‘like about the
weemen
’; this I could have guessed myself.  Each side (I should have said) was strengthened by one or two women.  They were all soloists, did not very often join in the performance, but stood disengaged at the back part of the stage, and looked (in
ridi
, necklace, and dressed hair) for all the world like European ballet-dancers.  When the song was anyway broad these ladies came particularly to the front; and it was singular to see that, after each entry, the
première
danseuse
pretended to be overcome by shame, as though led on beyond what she had meant, and her male assistants made a feint of driving her away like one who had disgraced herself.  Similar affectations accompany certain truly obscene dances of Samoa, where they are very well in place.  Here it was different.  The words, perhaps, in this free-spoken world, were gross enough to make a carter blush; and the most suggestive feature was this feint of shame.  For such parts the women showed some disposition; they were pert, they were neat, they were acrobatic, they were at times really amusing, and some of them were pretty.  But this is not the artist’s field; there is the whole width of heaven between such capering and ogling, and the strange rhythmic gestures, and strange, rapturous, frenzied faces with which the best of the male dancers held us spellbound through a Gilbert Island ballet.