70. CHAPTER LXX.
Finding the society at Loohooloo very pleasant, the young
ladies, in particular, being extremely sociable; and, moreover,
in love with the famous good cheer of old Marharvai, we acquiesced
in an invitation of his, to tarry a few days longer.
We might then, he said, join a small canoe party, which was
going to a place a league or two distant. So averse to all
exertion are these people, that they really thought the prospect
of thus getting rid of a few miles' walking, would prevail with
us, even if there were no other inducement.
The people of the hamlet, as we soon discovered, formed a
snug little community of cousins; of which our host seemed
the head. Marharvai, in truth, was a petty chief, who owned
the neighboring lands. And as the wealthy, in most cases,
rejoice in a numerous kindred, the family footing upon which
every body visited him, was, perhaps, ascribable to the fact, of
his being the lord of the manor. Like Captain Bob, he was, in
some things, a gentleman of the old school—a stickler for the
customs of a past and pagan age.
Nowhere else, except in Tamai, did we find the manners
of the natives less vitiated by recent changes. The old-fashioned
Tahitian dinner they gave us on the day of our
arrival, was a fair sample of their general mode of living.
Our time passed delightfully. The doctor went his way, and
I mine. With a pleasant companion, he was forever strolling
inland, ostensibly to collect botanical specimens; while I, for
the most part, kept near the sea; sometimes taking the girls an
aquatic excursion in a canoe.
Often we went fishing; not dozing over stupid hooks and
lines, but leaping right into the water, and chasing our prey
over the coral rocks, spear in hand.
Spearing fish is glorious sport. The Imeeose, all round the
island, catch them in no other way. The smooth shallows between
the reef and the shore, and, at low water, the reef itself,
being admirably adapted to this mode of capturing them. At
almost any time of the day—save ever the sacred hour of noon
—you may see the fish-hunters pursuing their sport; with loud
halloos, brandishing their spears, and splashing through the
water in all directions. Sometimes a solitary native is seen,
far out upon a lonely shallow, wading slowly along, with eye
intent and poised spear.
But the best sport of all, is going out upon the great reef itself,
by torch-light. The natives follow this recreation with as
much spirit as a gentleman of England does the chase; and
take full as much delight in it.
The torch is nothing more than a bunch of dry reeds, bound
firmly together: the spear, a long, light pole, with an iron
head, on one side barbed.
I shall never forget the night, that old Marharvai and the
rest of us, paddling off to the reef, leaped at midnight upon the
coral ledges with waving torches and spears. We were more
than a mile from the land; the sullen ocean, thundering upon
the outside of the rocks, dashed the spray in our faces, almost
extinguishing the flambeaux; and, far as the eye could reach,
the darkness of sky and water was streaked with a long, misty
line of foam, marking the course of the coral barrier. The wild
fishermen, flourishing their weapons, and yelling like so many
demons to scare their prey, sprang from ledge to ledge, and
sometimes darted their spears in the very midst of the
breakers.
But fish-spearing was not the only sport we had at Loohooloo.
Right on the beach was a mighty old cocoa-nut tree, the
roots of which had been underwashed by the waves, so that the
trunk inclined far over its base. From the tuft of the tree, a
stout cord of bark depended, the end of which swept the water
several yards from the shore. This was a Tahitian swing. A
native lad seizes hold of the cord, and, after swinging to and fro
quite leisurely, all at once sends himself fifty or sixty feet from
the water, rushing through the air like a rocket. I doubt
whether any of our rope-dancers would attempt the feat. For
my own part, I had neither head nor heart for it; so, after
sending a lad aloft with an additional cord, by way of security,
I constructed a large basket of green boughs, in which I and
some particular friends of mine, used to swing over sea and
land by the hour
