A Lady’S Cruise in a French Man-of-War

32. The following paragraph is from a recent Hawaiian Gazette, showing the course of events in Samoa:—

“We learn, through the courtesy of Lieutenant Abbot of the Lackawanna, some interesting particulars in relation to the political condition of the Samoan archipelago. The chief Malietoa, whose name is identified with the sovereignty of Samoa, is dead, and his nephew and namesake has succeeded to his political authority and state; but a rival chief, Kepua Tomisasu, has been contesting the succession, and previous to the arrival of the Lackawanna there had been a series of desultory semi-barbarous war campaigns—not resulting in any decisive action or notable slaughter of men, but causing widespread ruin, robbery, and unrest. The American commander Gillis now presented his good offices in the way of reconciliation, and to establish between rival chiefs and peoples of the same land a more harmonious and patriotic spirit. And we are happy to say that, after many baffling discussions, a political unity and harmony on Samoa have been effected—Malietoa II. being proclaimed King of Samoa, and his rival, Kepua, the Premier of Samoa, with an authority on public questions somewhat like our former Kuhina Nui.

“The Samoan warriors have all dispersed and returned to peaceful pursuits. The terms of peace were drawn up and signed on board the Lackawanna in the harbour of Apia, and a royal salute of 21 guns was fired from the vessel in honour of the event.

“We are glad to recognise that in this instance the commander of an American man-of-war intervenes solely as a peacemaker, and to promote the best welfare of a Polynesian people.”

33. Colonial abbreviation for San Francisco.

34. Capital of Fiji.

35. An explanation which resulted in the complete exoneration of Captain Aube, and his appointment to the command of La Savoie,—a finer vessel than that from which he had been so summarily dismissed.

36. The good bishop had the satisfaction of reaching la belle France, and there effectually pleading the cause of his friend, ere he laid down the burden of life, which he had borne with so much anxious care for the weal of his people. He died very shortly after his return to Europe.

37. King Pomare II. was the first person who was publicly baptised in Tahiti. The service took place on 16th July 1819.

38. Vahine, a woman.

39. And in this year of 1882 still continue to crop up, greatly to the benefit of the lawyers, who find in the affairs of the Estate Brander, a harvest far too remunerative to be lightly abandoned.

40. Soon after my return to England, I heard that this happy home had been invaded by ophthalmia of a virulent type, necessitating an immediate return to France, and long and anxious care; but nevertheless resulting in the partial blindness for life of two of those merry boys. Even the Tahitian paradise has its thorns.

41. The late Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield, in the county of Elgin, married, firstly, my father’s sister, Miss Gordon Cumming of Altyre and Gordonstown; and secondly, Miss Brander, heiress of Pitgaveny, whom, consequently, we have known all our lives, and loved much.

43. My soul is defiled with sin.

44. Musa uranascopus.

45. Acanthaster solaris.

46. Acrocladia mamillata.

47. Conus textilis.

48. Let not the nations of the West sneer at these superstitions of the East. Faith in the efficacy of the king’s touch as a cure for scrofula was implicit both in France and England for many a long year. So early as A.D. 481 it was practised by Clovis. And it is recorded that on Easter Day, 1686, Louis XIV. touched 1600 persons, saying to each, “Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse!” This singular divine right was first claimed in England by Edward the Confessor in 1058, and his successors carried it on. Charles I. did, on St John’s Day, 1633, visit Holyrood Chapel, where “he heallit 100 persons, young and old, of the cruelles or king’s evil.” Charles II. actually touched 92,107 such patients—being an average of 12 per diem for twenty years. His exchequer must have suffered by this kingly privilege, as he presented a broad gold piece to each sufferer. The touch of Queen Elizabeth was declared “a sure relief when all other methods have failed.” Henry VIII., not content with miraculously curing all scrofula patients, also healed those afflicted with cruel cramps. Dr Johnson speaks of his earliest recollections of Queen Anne, into whose awful presence he had been ushered in his infancy, that by her royal touch she might cure him of his sore disease! The office appointed by the Church to be said on these occasions was actually retained in the English liturgy till 1719, when it was omitted by command of George I. But so late as 1745 many of the Jacobite party came secretly to Charles Edward, to crave his healing touch. See ‘From the Hebrides to the Himalayas’ (C. F. Gordon Cumming), vol. i. p. 264.

49. Dracæna terminalis.

50. Asplenium nidus.

51. Which proved to be the exact state of the case.

52. All of which I found to be strictly true. Undoubtedly, the ideal Pacific Isles lie south of the equator.

53. We can scarcely describe this proceeding as the thin end of the wedge, but it was obvious from the beginning that the assumption of the Protectorate was merely a cloak for forcibly taking possession of these gems of the Pacific. The cloak was finally thrown aside in June 1880, when King Pomare V. was persuaded by the commandant to cede the nominal sovereignty of the isles to those who had so long held its reality, and to accept a life-pension of 12,000 dollars a year, which he might enjoy in peace in his own fashion, and so escape from the continual tutoring, which made his kingly rank a wearisome burden, devoid of all honour.

The annexation of Tahiti was formally proclaimed in Papeete on 24th March 1881, and was made the occasion of a brilliant festival, such as the light-hearted crowds are ever ready to welcome. Great were the official rejoicings. From every ship in the harbour, and every corner of the town, floated the tricolour, which likewise adorned the raven tresses of the women and the button-holes of the men. Great was the noise of big guns, and the amount of powder expended on salutes. An imposing column of all branches of the service—sailors and marines, marine artillery, with their guns, infantry, and gendarmes—marched round the town, headed by the band: “A Tahiti, comme en France, on aime à voir passer nos soldats,” says the ‘Messager de Tahiti.’ So the lovely town was en fête. Every himène chorus had arrived from every corner of the isles, making the whole air musical. Thousands of natives, all in their brightest, freshest dresses, kept up incessant movement in the clear sunlight or cool shade. Everywhere games and feasting were the order of the day. In the governor’s beautiful gardens, a brilliant banquet for upwards of a hundred persons was served in a great tent, all as graceful as the combined taste of France and Tahiti could make it. Then followed a lovely garden festival, just such as that described by “The Earl and the Doctor,” a gay ball for the leading inhabitants, while “the people” danced no less joyously on the green, outside the sacred precincts. Games, music, dancing, and feasting, with a night of brilliant illuminations and fireworks,—all these, combined with lovely surroundings and perfect weather, made the great official festival of Tahiti a day which the French naval officers very naturally consider one to be remembered for ever, but which, perchance, may have caused some of the older inhabitants an angry and bitter pang, for the independence of their country thus lost for ever.

54. Immediately alter the declaration of the annexation of the Society Isles, comes the news that the French have also annexed the Gambier Isles, which lie to the south-west, in the direction of Pitcairn’s Isle. Our Gallic friends have thus secured a very admirable semicircle of the four finest groups in the Eastern Pacific. Here they can now consolidate their strength, and await the influx of commerce which must of necessity pass through this cordon, when M. Lesseps shall have opened the Panama Canal for the traffic of the world.

Here French ships will touch on their way to and from the Loyalty Isles and Cochin-China; while ships of all nations, plying between Europe and Australasia, will necessarily pass the same way, and contribute their quota to the wealth of the French Pacific.

The Gambier Islands have been gradually prepared for their adoption by France, the Catholic Mission having there ruled supreme for some twenty years.

Till quite recently, the Bible has been a prohibited book, but now, of the few remaining natives, a large proportion are learning to read Tahitian, in order to be able to study the Scriptures for themselves; and the Protestant Mission in Tahiti has responded to this desire, by sending copies of the New Testament for gratuitous distribution in the group. From one cause or another, however, a very small number of natives now exist, the islands having become wellnigh depopulated.

55. Although the French have had possession of the group for so many years, the natives of some of the islands have never been really in subjection to the authorities until last year, when Admiral Bergasse du Petit Thouars visited the group, and with the aid of volunteers, natives of Tahiti, and of the friendly isles of Marquesas, succeeded in disarming and bringing into subjection the hostile tribes, and that without firing a shot.

The admiral himself headed the troops across the mountains from village to village, arriving one night on the coast about midnight, having been conducted by natives who knew the passes: these passes were lighted up by the electric light from the frigate, which was anchored in the bay. The French took 600 muskets from the natives of the two islands, Hiva-oa and Fatuhiva. They say that the natives are really not a bad sort of people, but their curse, like that of all the islands, is “drink.” This, and the conduct of unprincipled foreigners, has been the real cause of all the trouble.

I affix a note which I copy from the ‘Messager de Tahiti’ for 30th of July 1880, which is all that has appeared in the paper on the subject:—

“Le Contre-Amiral commandant en chef le corps expéditionnaire aux Marquises, témoigne aux volontaires Tahitiens, aux volontaires Marquisiens, aux militaires de toutes armes, ainsi qu’aux marins qui ont pris part à l’expédition des Marquises, toute sa satisfaction.

“Grâce à leur esprit militaire, à leur dévouement et à leur discipline, l’île de Hiva-oa et celle de Fatuhiva ont été rapidement soumises et désarmés, et la paix régne partout aux Marquises.”

56. Sun-dried nut, exported for the manufacture of oil.

57. Holothuroides. Chinese name, Tripang.

58. The question was decided in her favour. She has been refitted and renamed and now sails the Pacific as the Annie Johnson.

59. I do not by this mean to suggest any trace of a common origin, merely founded on ancestor-worship, which prevailed in almost all countries, and which in the Pacific is to this day practised by the Papuan races. The islanders of the Torres Straits, in common with those of the Line islands, worship the skulls of their ancestors, and treasure them in their huts as reverently as did the Tahitians in heathen days.

60. For a trace of this custom, as practised in the Marquesas, see p. 257.

61. Whence has developed the Torii.

62. This is emphatically true of Fijian. See ‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. i. p. 136.

63. Calophyllum inophyllum.

64. Entada scandens.

65. If any are disposed to doubt this statement, they have only to refer to the circumstantial and thoroughly authenticated accounts published by the various missionary societies; those, for instance, of the American Board, which again and again, in the early days of the mission to the Sandwich Isles, have occasion to refer to the outrages committed by British and American seamen, who came in armed bands to attack the mission stations, in their rage at the influence acquired by the missionaries, and the consequent change in the morals of the people. Again and again life and property were threatened, and the mission premises were only saved from destruction by the timely arrival of determined chiefs and their retainers.

66. The gods also were supposed to feed on the essence of the food offered to them. Every evening the priest in the principal temple of Mangaia cooked an ovenful of taro for their use, and threw one root at a time into the scrub, dedicating each to one of the gods. When the thirteen principal deities had thus been recognised the priest threw one more, as an offering to all the lesser gods, of whose names and attributes he was ignorant. This ceremony exactly answers to one which I have seen practised at the Buddhist monasteries in China, where, ere the monks taste their own food, a small portion is set aside on a pillar, as an offering to any saintly or divine beings whom they have neglected in their temple-worship.

67. Erythrina corallodendrum.

68. The next I saw were at the British Legation in Pekin, where they were objects of intense interest, as being probably the first ever grown in the Celestial Empire.

69. The Malay apple, familiar to us in Fiji as the kaveeka.

70. Just before leaving Tahiti, I bestowed equal care on three cases containing 6000 stones, which were carried by sailing-ship to New Zealand and thence to Fiji. Their arrival there was anxiously expected, and all arrangements made for their speedy distribution throughout the group. Alas! alas! when, after long delays, the cases were opened, they were found to contain a mass of decay; poor dead plants, which had sprouted during the voyage, and straightway died. When this sad news reached me, I bethought me sorrowfully of the advice given me by Monseigneur Janssen—namely, that as plants require light and air to enable them to sprout, I would do well to compel them to sleep by packing them in soot, and then having the case carefully caulked. The mess involved in such work was so horrible, that I shrank from undertaking it, but I bequeath the good advice to my successors in the attempt.