A Modern Buccaneer

CHAPTER III

IN SAMOA

From what I have said about Hayston, it will readily be understood that every tale relating to him was strangely exciting to my boyish mind. For me he was the incarnation of all that was utterly reckless, possibly wicked, and of course, as such, possessed a fascination that a better man would have failed to inspire.

My hero, however, had disappeared, and with him all zest seemed to have gone out of life at Frisco. So after mooning about for a few weeks I resolved on returning to Sydney.

My friends on the Pacific slope did their best to dissuade me, trying to instil the idea into my head that I was cut out for a merchant prince by disposition and intellect. But I heeded not the voice of the charmer. The only walk in life for which I felt myself thoroughly fitted was that of an armed cruiser through the South Sea Islands. All other vocations were tame and colourless in comparison. I could fancy myself parading the deck of my vessel, pistol at belt, dagger in sheath, a band of cut-throats trembling at my glance, and a bevy of dark-skinned princesses ready to die for me at a moment's notice, or to keep the flies from bothering, whichever I preferred.

I may state "right here," as the Yankees have it, that I did not become a "free trader," though at one time I had a close shave of being run up to the yardarm of a British man-of-war in that identical capacity. But this came later on.

I returned, therefore, to my native Sydney in due course of time, and as a wholesome corrective after my somewhat erratic experiences, was placed by my father in a merchant's office. But the colourless monotony became absolutely killing. It was awful to be stuck there, adding up columns of pounds, shillings, and pence, and writing business letters, while there was stabbing, shooting, and all sorts of wild excitement going on "away down in the islands."

It was about this time that I made the acquaintance of certain South Sea Islanders belonging to whalers or trading vessels. With one of them, named George, a native of Raratonga, I became intimate. He impressed me with his intelligence, and amused me with his descriptions of island life. He had just returned from a whaling voyage in the barque Adventurer belonging to the well-known firm of Robert Towns & Company.

So when George, having been paid off in Sydney with a handsome cheque, confided to me that he intended going back to the Navigators' Islands, where he had previously spent some years, in order to open a small trading station, my unrest returned. He had a hundred pounds which he wished to invest in trade-goods, so I took him round the Sydney firms and saw him fairly dealt with. A week afterwards he sailed to Samoa viâ Tonga, in the Taoji Vuna, a schooner belonging to King George of that ilk.

Before he left he told me that two of his countrymen were trading for Captain Hayston – one at Marhiki, and one at Fakaofo, in the Union group. Both had made money, and he believed that Captain Hayston had fixed upon Apia, the chief port of Samoa, as his head-quarters.

Need I say that this information interested me greatly, and I asked George no end of questions. But the schooner was just leaving the wharf in tow of a tug, and my dark-skinned friend having shipped as an A. B., was no longer of the "leisure classes." So, grasping my hand, and tell ing me where to hear of him if I ever came to Samoa, we parted.

Before going further let me explain the nature of a Polynesian trader's mission.

On the greater number of the islands white men are resident, who act as agents for a firm of merchants, for masters of vessels, or on their own account. In some cases a piece of ground is rented from the king or chief whereon to make the trading station. In others the rulers are paid a protection fee. Then, if a trader is murdered, his principal can claim blood for blood. This, however, is rarely resorted to. A trader once settled on his station proceeds to obtain cocoa-nuts from the natives, for which he pays in dollars or "trade." He further employs them to scrape the fruit into troughs exposed to the sun, by which process the cocoa-nut oil is extracted. Of late years "copra" has taken the place of the oil. This material – the dried kernel of the nut – has become far more valuable; for when crushed by powerful machinery the refuse is pressed into oil-cake, and proved to be excellent food for cattle.

To be a good trader requires pluck, tact, and business capacity. Many traders meet their death for want of one or other of these attributes. All through the South Seas, more especially in the Line Islands, are to be found the most reckless desperadoes living. Their uncontrolled passions lead them to commit acts which the natives naturally resent; the usual result being that if the trader fails to kill or terrorise them, they do society a kindness by ridding it of him. Then comes the not infrequent shelling of a native village by an avenging man-of-war. And thus civilisation keeps ever moving onwards.

The traders were making fortunes in the South Seas at that time, according to George. I returned to business with a mind full of projects. The glamour of the sea, the magic attraction of blue water, was again upon me; I was powerless to resist. My father smiled. My mother and sisters wept afresh. I bowed myself, nevertheless, to my fate. In a fortnight I bade my relations farewell – all unworthy as I felt myself of their affection. Inwardly exultant, though decently uncheerful, I took passage a fortnight later in a barque trading to the Friendly and Navigators' Islands. She was called the Rotumah, belonging to Messrs. M'Donald, Smith, & Company, of Hunter Street, Sydney. Her captain was a Canadian named Robertson, of great experience in the island trade.

There were two other passengers – a lady going to join her brother who was in business at Nukulofa, in Tonga, and a fine old French priest whom we were taking to Samoa. The latter was very kind to me, and during our passage through the Friendly Islands I was frequently the guest of his brother missionaries at their various stations in the groups.

How shall I describe my feelings, landed at last among the charmed isles of the South, where I had come to stay, I told myself? Generally speaking, how often is there a savour of disappointment, of anticipation unrealised, when the wish is achieved! But the reality here was beyond the most brilliant mental pictures ever painted. All things were fresh and novel; the coral reefs skirting the island shore upon which the surf broke ceaselessly with sullen roar; cocoa-palms bowed with their feathery crests above a vegetation richly verdurous. The browns and yellows of the native villages, so rich in tone, so foreign of aspect, excited my unaccustomed vision. Graceful figures, warm and dusky of colouring, passed to and fro. The groves of broad leafed bananas; the group of white mission houses; the balmy, sensuous air; the transparent water, in which the very fish were strange in form and hue, – all things soever, land and water, sea and sky, seemed to cry aloud to my eager, wondering soul, "Hither, oh fortunate youth, hast thou come to a world new, perfect, and complete in itself – to a land of Nature's fondness and profuse luxuriance, to that Aïdenn, long lost, mysteriously concealed for ages from all mankind."

At the Marist Mission at Tongatabu I was received most kindly by the venerable Father Chevron, the head of the Church in Tonga. His had been a life truly remarkable. For fifty years he had laboured unceasingly among the savage races of Polynesia, had had hairbreadth escapes, and passed through deadliest perils. Like many of his colleagues he was unknown to fame, dying a few years later, beloved and respected by all, yet comparatively "unhonoured and unsung." During the whole course of my experiences in the Pacific I have never heard the roughest trader speak an ill word of the Marist Brothers. Their lives of ceaseless toil and honourable poverty tell their own tale. The Roman Catholic Church may well feel proud of these her most devoted servants.

One morning Captain Robertson joined me; the Father seemed pleased to see him. On my mentioning how kindly they had treated me, a stranger and a Protestant, he replied, —

"Ay, ay, my lad; they are different from most of the missionaries in Tonga, anyway, as many a shipwrecked sailor has found. If a ship were cast away, and the crew hadn't a biscuit apiece to keep them from starving, they wouldn't get so much as a piece of yam from some of the reverend gentlemen."

I asked Father Chevron if he knew Captain Peese and Captain Hayston.

"Yes! I am acquainted with both; of the latter I can only say that when I met him here I forgot all the bad reports I had heard about him. He cannot be the man he is reputed to be."

I was sorry to part with the good Father when the time came to leave. But a native messenger arrived next day with a note from the captain, who intended sailing at daylight.

So I said farewell and went on board.

We called at Hapai and Vavau, the two other ports of the Friendly Islands, sighting the peak of Upolu, in the Navigators', three days after leaving the latter place.

We rounded the south-east point of Upolu next day, running in so close to the shore that we could see the natives walking on the beaches. Saw a whaleboat, manned by islanders and steered by a white man, shoot through an opening in the reef opposite Flupata. For him we tarried not, in spite of a signal, running in as we were with the wind dead aft, and at four o'clock in the afternoon anchored in Apia harbour, opposite the American consulate.

The scenery around Apia harbour is beauteous beyond description. Spacious bays unfold themselves as you approach, each revealing the silvery white-sanded beach fringed with cocoa-palms; stretching afar towards the hills lies undulating forest land chequered with the white houses of the planters. The harbour itself consists of a horseshoe bay, extending from Matautu to Mullinu Point. Fronting the passage a mountain rears its summit cloud-enwrapped and half-hidden, narrow paths wind through deep gorges, amid which you catch here and there the sheen of a mountain-torrent. On the south the land heads in a graceful sweep to leeward, until lost in the all-enveloping sea-mists of the tropics, while the straggling town, white-walled, reed-roofed, peeps through a dark-green grove of the bananas and cocoa-palms which fringe the beach.

At this precise period I paid but little attention to the beauties of Apia, for in a canoe paddled by a Samoan boy sat my friend George. I hailed him; what a look of joy and surprise rippled over his dark countenance as he recognised me! With a few strokes of the paddle the canoe shot alongside and he sprang on deck.

"I knew you would come," he said; "I boarded every ship that put in here since I landed. Going to live here?"

"I think so, George! I have some money and trade with me; if I get a chance I'll start somewhere in Samoa."

He was delighted, and said I would make plenty of money by and by. He wouldn't hear of my going to an hotel. I must come with him. He had a Samoan wife at Lellepa, a village about a mile from Apia on the Matautu side.

It was dark when we landed. As we walked towards his home George pointed out a house standing back from the beach, which, he said, belonged to Captain Hayston.

That personage had just left Samoa, and was now cruising in the Line Islands, where he had a number of traders. He was expected back in two months. A short time before I arrived, the American gunboat Narraganset had suddenly put in an appearance in Apia where Hayston's brig was lying. Her anchor had barely sounded bottom, before an armed boat's crew left her side, boarded, took Hayston prisoner, and kept possession of the Leonora.

There was wild excitement that day in Apia. Many of the residents had a strong liking for Hayston and expressed sympathy for him. Others, particularly the German element, were jubilant, and expressed a hope that he would be taken to America in irons.

The captain of the Narraganset then notified his seizure to the foreign consuls, and solicited evidence regarding alleged acts of piracy and kidnapping. During this time Hayston was, so the Americans stated, in close confinement on board the man-of-war, but it was the general opinion that he was treated more as a guest than a prisoner. The trial came on at the stated time, but resulted in his acquittal. Either the witnesses were unreliable or afraid of vengeance, for nothing of a criminal nature could be elicited from them. Hayston was then conducted back to his brig, and in half-an-hour he had "dressed ship" in honour of the event. The next act was to give his crew liberty – when those bright particular stars sallied forth on shore, all more or less drunk, in company with the blue jackets from the man-of-war, and immediately set about "painting the town red," and looking for the witnesses who had testified against their commander. On the next night Hayston gave a ball to the officers, and, doubtless, from that time felt his position secure, as far as danger from warships of his own country was concerned.

All this was told to me by George as we walked along the track to his house, where we arrived just in time for a good supper. The place was better built than the ordinary native houses. The floor was covered with handsome clean mats on which, on the far end of the room, his wife and two daughters by a former marriage were sitting. They seemed so delighted at the idea of having me to live with them, that in a few minutes I felt quite at home. The evening meal was ready on the mats; the smell of roast pork and bread-fruit whetted my appetite amazingly; nor was it appeased until George and his wife had helped me to food enough to satisfy a boarding-school.

After supper the family gathered round the lamp which was placed in the middle of the room. There they went through the evening prayers; a hymn was sung, after which a chapter was read from a Samoan Testament, followed by a prayer from the master of the house.

I found that the custom of morning and evening prayers was never neglected in any Samoan household; for, whether the Samoans are really religious or no, they keep up a better semblance of it than many who have whiter skins.

That night George, who by the way was called Tuluia by his wife and daughters, made plans for our future. As we sat talking the others retired to a far corner, where they sat watching us, their big dark eyes dilated with interest. We agreed to buy a boat between us and make trading trips to the windward port as far as Aleipata. Then after smoking a number of "salui" or native cigarettes, we turned in.

All next day we were incommoded by crowds of inquisitive visitors, who came to have a look at me and learn why I had come to Samoa – George having told them merely that I was his "uo," or friend, treated most of them with scant courtesy, explaining that the natives about Apia are thorough loafers and beggars, and warning me not to sell any of them my "trade" unless I received cash in return. In the afternoon I landed my effects, but could scarcely get into the house for the crowds.

George's wife, it appeared, had been so indiscreet as to tell some of her relations that I had rifles for sale; as a consequence there were fully a hundred men eager to see them. Some had money, others wanted credit, others desired loose powder, and kept pointing to a shed close by, saying, "Panla pana fanua" (powder for the cannon). I discovered that under the shed lay a big gun which Patiole and Asi, two chiefs, had bought from Captain Hayston for six hundred dollars, but had run out of ammunition.