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Sailor and beachcomber / Confessions of a life at sea, in Australia, and amid the islands of the Pacific cover

Sailor and beachcomber / Confessions of a life at sea, in Australia, and amid the islands of the Pacific

Chapter 16: XIII
By A. Safroni-Middleton
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About This Book

A first-person maritime memoir traces the author's early years abroad, detailing life aboard sailing ships and tramp steamers, episodes ashore in Australia and in South Sea island communities, and the hardships of working passages. The narrative combines vivid travel anecdotes, sketches of bush and island life, reflections on lost comrades, and musical pieces and marches, presenting rough humor and camaraderie alongside moments of loss. Rather than moralizing, it offers candid, atmospheric recollections of drifting, labor, and the rewards and costs of a roving life.

XIII

I tramp through the South Sea Forest alone—Play my Violin to the Natives—The Trader’s Vision—The Rivals

Marmona was a faithful friend, and led me through the forest, down the mountainous steep with the certain instinct of a blood-hound. Once on the track we called at a tiny South Sea home wherein lived some friends of Marmona’s and to please him I took the violin out and played to them all. There were two daughters and several sons, and as they stood listening they jabbered and eyed me with wonder, for I made the violin wail and scream hideously as I found that, notwithstanding their love of natural song, the shrill notes pleased them the best. They gave us a good feed of baked plantains and other mixed food, and we could easily have lodged there for a week had I wished to do so. I cannot describe to you the beauty of the landscape that we tramped across. The bright winged birds whirred overhead, and often perched on the tropic trees around us and preened their blossom-like feathers, making strange noises, as though their beaks touched tinkling bells.

At sunset through the trees we saw the Pacific heaving far away and the white rising breakers for ever charging the shoreward reefs. It was a lovely spot, and nestled below in the hollow, between the shore and the forest, was a small native village and the homes of a few traders. A little distance from the shore, by the promontory, a schooner lay anchored, and hovering around it the natives paddled in their out-rigged canoes. Arriving in the village, Marmona introduced me to some friends of his and I was glad of a rest; I had tramped a long way and my feet were a bit blistered, for my boots were getting rather thin. That night Marmona bade me farewell, and I gave him several shillings and he was very delighted indeed. Though I have read that the natives are very proud, and scorn to take money in return for a kindness, I never had the pleasure of running across those refined temperaments; indeed they all seemed to be true brothers to the white man in that respect, and the only little disagreements I ever had with my brown friends were in my “hard-up times,” but I generally got into their good graces when the wherewithal was once more in my possession.

I stayed in that shore village for three days and four nights. There were several white traders living there, and I also got into conversation with the crew of the schooner that lay outside. It was an isolated little village and I got to know almost every one of the inhabitants during my short stay there, and I especially remember that little village because of the old white trader I met there. He lived alone in a small den hut by the sea; he had earnest thoughtful eyes, and as I sat and talked to him in the shadow of his one room I could see by his face that he had been a very handsome man in his time. There was something in his voice that was musical and emotional, and as I played to him on the violin he made remarks about the operatic selections that told me he had seen better days and in a sense was originally a refined and educated man. Whether he was mad or not I cannot say, but when the village was all asleep that night he gazed in a frightened way all about him and told me to play certain old tunes, and as the moonlight crept over the sleeping village and perfect stillness lay over everything, excepting for the noise of the breakers beating down on the shore reefs at intervals, he would put his finger up to his grey-bearded mouth and say “Play softly, mate, they are coming!” Then with staring eyes he would gaze towards the forest and down shorewards, begging me not to stop playing as he stood by his hut door with eager eyes watching something going on that I could not see. After it was all over, and the terrible look had gone from his face, to my relief he bent his head on to his knee and cried like a child. So intense was his sorrow as I stood there by him that I almost felt the tears rise in my own eyes. I could not make it all out, for though his manner seemed insane yet there was something so earnest and manly in his eyes and in his actions that I felt safe with him by that lonely hut as the village slept. Then he told me the history of his life; and till I die I will remember that old white trader of the South Seas, and from the poem that I have written, inspired by that strange sight and the tale he told me, you, reader, may gather all that I heard, which he swore before his Maker was absolute truth.

In my wattle hut by Maffalo I lie nor can I sleep,
Deep waters beat against my heart, thro’ my head the night winds sweep,
For the brown one sleeps by the forest track with the banyans overhead,
And the white girl sleeps by the channel cliffs where the white men bury their dead.
And the tin roofs shine, as the traders rest by the beach and still canoes,
Where the shore-line huts in silence stand by the waveless straight bamboos,
And when the moonlight whitely falls slantwise across the hill,
And the palms and shore lagoons for miles, with the sleeping winds, are still,
The brown one from the forest runs, the white girl from the sea—
With shining eyes by my hut door in silence gaze on me.
And I cannot sleep as the dead eyes meet, fierce eyes of ebon-flame!
The grey eyes gleam thro’ shadowy hair, as of old she moans my name.
In moonlight struggling silently they glimmer in the gloom,
As wails the native dead child far in the forest deep of doom;
And the wistful unborn children rise down by the shoreward palms,
Peep from the sea with anxious eyes, and toss their small white arms!
But deep in my heart the dead one screams—from its grave across the steep,
And I know it will with frightened eyes soon out of the forest creep!
As I watch the figures, ebon and gold, oft brighten by moonlight,
Till the white one wins and the brown one runs back to the forest night;
And, in vain, I leap to shadowy arms, as she crying flees from me,
Down shoreward runs, in a flash of flame dives back to the moonlit sea.
So, I drink and drink as the nights go by and the schooners day by day
Taking my heart with the white sails home where the sunsets fade away.
Till the sea-winds cease and the trees all sleep, and the hushed waves are all still,
And the moonlight slantwise falls across the forest track and hill
As I listening wait for the rustling sound with my dreaming eyes—unshut!
Till out in the night by the pale moonlight their shadows seek my hut—
Out of the forest depth one runs, and the white girl up the shore
Till the dead child screams and the unborn watch the shadows by my door.

I stayed in that village all the next day, and at sunset I bade Marmona’s friends good-bye. Also I bade that sad trader farewell, and he held my hand for a long time before he said good-bye.

It seemed like some enchanted village of fairyland as I looked back over the slopes and saw the sun like a large ball of blood sink into the sea and the moon rise over the mountainous country inland, peeping through the heavens of shadow and stars that brightened out in the east. I passed away from the place with a strange feeling in my heart for that lonely man and all that would happen when the sea-shore village lay once more asleep in the moonlight. I have heard many strange tales of spirits and “ju-jus” from men in my travels, but never one so strangely sad and impressive as his, and I have often wondered if all that that old man told me was the outcome of a delirious brain or really some haunting truth that can be seen by the eyes of those hearts that sorrow.

Native Bamboo Bridge