The Cannibal Islands: Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas, Ballantyne [top 10 novels txt] 📗

a quarter of an hour; but at the end of that time the pain of so many hundred punctures became unbearable. She first complained in murmurs, then wept, and at last burst into loud lamentations, earnestly beseeching the operator to stop. He, however, firmly refused, and when she began to struggle, she was held down by two women, who sometimes soothed and sometimes scolded her, and, now and then, when she became very unruly, gave her a smart blow. Mr Banks stayed in a neighbouring house an hour, and the operation was not over when he went away, yet it was performed only on one side of the back; the other had been tattooed some time before, and the loins had still to be done.

Tahiti is now one of the civilised islands of the South Seas. At the time of Cook’s visit the natives were absolutely savages. They lived in a state of partial nakedness, and their manners and customs were of the grossest description. Their religion and superstitions were degrading in the extreme, and, until Christianity obtained a hold upon them, they delighted in war, and practised horrible cruelties on their enemies.

Yet, even in their low condition, there were good points about those islanders. Cook says that they were as large as the largest-sized Europeans. The men were tall, strong, well-limbed, and finely shaped. The tallest he saw, on a neighbouring island, was a man who measured six feet three inches and a half. The women of the superior rank were above our middle stature, but those of the inferior class rather below it. Their complexion was a kind of clear olive or brunette, and the skin of the women was smooth and soft. They had no colour in their cheeks, but their faces were comely; the cheekbones were not high, neither were the eyes hollow. Their eyes were sparkling and full of expression, and their teeth good, but their noses being flat did not correspond with his ideas of beauty. Their hair was black and coarse. The men had beards, which they wore in many fashions, always, however, plucking out great part of them, and keeping the rest perfectly clean and neat.

In most countries it is the custom of the men to wear short and the women long hair. Here, however, Cook found this custom reversed. The women cut it short round the ears, and the men—except the fishermen, who were almost continually in the water—suffered it to flow in large waves over their shoulders, or tied it up in a bunch on the top of their heads. They were in the habit of anointing it with cocoa-nut oil, which had the effect of rendering their heads very filthy; but in other respects the natives of Tahiti were remarkable for cleanliness.

Their clothing consisted of native-made cloth or matting, and was very scanty, but in many cases was tastefully put on and intermingled with flowers. Some of the men wore a feather in their hair; others wore a wig made of the hair of men and dogs. Both sexes wore ear-rings made of pieces of stones, shells, or berries, which were speedily exchanged, however, for the beads given them by the sailors, for, like all other savages, they delighted in gay ornaments.

The houses of these people were very simple. They consisted of nothing more than a thatched roof mounted upon pillars. They had no walls whatever, and were open to every wind of heaven, but in so warm a climate this was not considered a disadvantage. There were no rooms or partitions of any kind in them, and they were usually large. Some belonged to families, others were the public property of a district, and these last were sometimes two hundred feet long by thirty broad.

All the houses were built in the woods that lay between the sea and the mountains. No more ground was cleared for each house than was just sufficient to prevent the droppings of the branches from falling on the roof; so that the inhabitant could step at once from his cottage into the shade of the forest, which was the most delightful and romantic that could be imagined. It consisted of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees without underwood, and paths led in all directions through it from one house to another. Only those travellers who have experienced the intense overpowering heat of tropical countries can form a just conception of the enjoyableness of a ramble through the shady groves of Tahiti.

The food eaten by the natives was chiefly vegetable. They had tame hogs, dogs, and poultry, but these were not plentiful, and the visit of Cook’s ship soon diminished the numbers of animals very considerably. When a chief killed a hog it was divided almost equally amongst his dependants, and as these were numerous, the share of each individual at a feast was not large. Dogs and fowls fell to the lot of the lower classes. Cook says that he could not commend the flavour of their fowls, but he and his crew unanimously agreed that a South-Sea dog was little inferior to English lamb! He conjectured that their excellence was owing to the fact that they were fed exclusively upon vegetables.

Like everything else in Tahiti, the art of cooking was somewhat peculiar. The preparation of a dog for dinner is thus described:—

“The dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook. He killed him by holding his hands close over his mouth and nose, an operation which continued above a quarter of an hour. While this was going on, a hole was made in the ground about a foot deep, in which a fire was kindled, and some small stones were placed in layers alternately with the wood to get heated. The dog was then singed by holding him over the fire, and by scraping him with a shell the hair came off as clean as if he had been scalded in hot water. He was then cut up with the same instrument, and his entrails being taken out, were sent to the sea, where, being carefully washed, they were put into cocoa-nut shells with what blood came from the body.

“When the hole was sufficiently heated, the fire was removed, and some of the stones,—which were not so hot as to discolour anything that touched them,—being placed in the bottom, were covered with green leaves. The dog and the entrails were then placed upon the leaves, other leaves were placed above them, the whole was covered up with the remainder of the hot stones, and the mouth of the hole was closed with mould. In somewhat less than four hours it was again opened and the dog taken out excellently baked. Nearly all the fish and flesh eaten by the inhabitants is dressed in this way.”

The sea in those regions affords the natives great variety of fish; the smaller of which they usually eat raw. They have also lobsters, crabs, and other shell-fish, all of which they are very fond of. Indeed, nothing seems to come amiss to them. They even eat what sailors call blubbers, though some of these are so tough that they have to allow them to become putrid before they can chew them.

Their chief vegetable, the bread-fruit, is so curious a plant that it merits particular notice. It costs them no more trouble or labour to procure it than the climbing of a tree. In regard to this tree Cook says that it does not indeed shoot up spontaneously, but if a man plants ten of them in his lifetime, which he may do in about an hour, he will sufficiently fulfil his duty to his own and to future generations. True, the bread-fruit is not always in season; but when its ready-made loaves are not to be had, the South-Sea islander has plenty of cocoa-nuts, bananas, plantains, and other fruits to supply its place.

The bread-fruit tree is large and beautiful. Its trunk, which is light-coloured and rough, grows to a height of twelve or twenty feet, and is sometimes three feet in diameter. Its leaves are broad, dark green, and a foot or eighteen inches long. The fruit, about the size of a child’s head, is round, covered with a rough rind, and is at first of a light pea-green hue; subsequently it changes to brown, and when fully ripe, assumes a rich yellow colour. It hangs to the branches singly, or in clusters of two or three together. One of these magnificent trees, clothed with its dark shining leaves and loaded with many hundreds of large light green or yellowish fruit, is one of the most beautiful objects to be met with among the islands of the south.

The pulp of the bread-fruit between the rind and the core is all eatable. The core itself, which is about the size and shape of the handle of a knife, is uneatable. The bread-fruit is never eaten raw. The usual mode of dressing it is to remove the rind and the core, divide the pulp into three or four pieces, and bake it in an oven similar to the one just described. When taken out, in somewhat less than an hour, the outside of the fruit is nicely browned, and the inner part so strongly resembles the crumb of wheaten bread as to have suggested the name of the tree. It is not, however, quite so pleasant to the taste, being rather insipid and slightly sweet. Nevertheless it is extremely good for food, and is much prized by the natives, to whom it may almost be said to be the staff of life.

The tree on which this excellent fruit grows, besides producing two, and, in some cases, three crops in a year, furnishes a species of gum, or resin, which oozes from the bark when cut, and hardens when exposed to the sun. It is used for pitching the seams of canoes. The bark of the young branches is employed in making several varieties of native cloth. The wood of the tree is also valuable for building houses and canoes. There are nearly fifty varieties of the bread-fruit tree, for which the natives have distinct names, and as these varieties ripen at different times, there are few months in the year in which the fruit is not to be had.

Not less valuable to the natives of these islands is the cocoa-nut tree, the stem of which is three or four feet in diameter at the root, whence it tapers gradually without branch or leaf to the top, where it terminates in a beautiful tuft or plume of long green leaves which wave gracefully in every breeze.

One of the singular peculiarities of this tree is its power of flourishing in almost any soil. It grows equally well on the mountain-side, in the rich valleys beside the streams, and on the barren sea-beach of the coral reefs, where its only soil is sand, and where its roots are watered by the waves of every rising tide. Another peculiarity is, that fruit in every stage may be seen on the same tree at one time—from the first formation, after the falling of the blossom, to the ripe nut. As the tree is slow in growth, the nuts do not probably come to perfection until twelve months after the blossoms have fallen. The successive ripening of the nuts, therefore, seems to have been purposely arranged by our beneficent Creator, with a special view to the comfort of man. Each nut is surrounded by a tough husk, or shell, nearly two inches thick, and when it has reached its full size it contains a pint, or a pint and a half, of the juice usually called cocoa-nut milk.

The kernels of the tough outer husks, above referred to, are the “cocoa-nuts” which we see exposed for sale in this country, but these nuts give no idea of the delightful fruit when plucked from