79. CHAPTER LXXIX.
TALOO CHAPEL.—HOLDING COURT IN POLYNESIA.
In Partoowye is to be seen one of the best constructed and
handsomest chapels in the South Seas. Like the buildings of
the palace, it stands upon an artificial pier, presenting a semicircular
sweep to the bay. The chapel is built of hewn blocks
of coral; a substance which, although extremely friable, is said
to harden by exposure to the atmosphere. To a stranger,
these blocks look extremely curious. Their surface is covered
with strange fossil-like impressions, the seal of which must
have been set before the flood. Very nearly white when hewn
from the reefs, the coral darkens with age; so that several
churches in Polynesia now look almost as sooty and venerable
as famed St. Paul's.
In shape, the chapel is an octagon, with galleries all round.
It will seat, perhaps, four hundred people. Every thing within
is stained a tawny red; and there being but few windows, or
rather embrasures, the dusky benches and galleries, and the
tall spectre of a pulpit look any thing but cheerful.
On Sundays, we always went to worship here. Going in the
family suite of Po-Po, we, of course, maintained a most decorous
exterior; and hence, by all the elderly people of the village,
were doubtless regarded as pattern young men.
Po-Po's seat was in a snug corner; and it being particularly
snug, in the immediate vicinity of one of the Palm pillars supporting
the gallery, I invariably leaned against it: Po-Po and
his lady on one side, the doctor and the dandy on the other,
and the children and poor relations seated behind.
As for Loo, instead of sitting (as she ought to have done) by
her good father and mother, she must needs run up into the
gallery, and sit with a parcel of giddy creatures of her own
age; who, all through the sermon, did nothing but look down
on the congregation; pointing out, and giggling at the queer-looking
old ladies in dowdy bonnets and scant tunics. But
Loo, herself, was never guilty of these improprieties.
Occasionally during the week, they have afternoon service in
the chapel, when the natives themselves have something to say;
although their auditors are but few. An introductory prayer
being offered by the missionary, and a hymn sung, communicants
rise in their places, and exhort in pure Tahitian, and with wonderful
tone and gesture. And among them all, Deacon Po-Po,
though he talked most, was the one whom you would have
liked best to hear. Much would I have given to have understood
some of his impassioned bursts; when he tossed his arms
overhead, stamped, scowled, and glared, till he looked like the
very Angel of Vengeance.
“Deluded man!” sighed the doctor, on one of these occasions,
“I fear he takes the fanatical view of the subject.” One
thing was certain: when Po-Po spoke, all listened; a great deal
more than could be said for the rest; for under the discipline
of two or three I could mention, some of the audience napped;
others fidgeted; a few yawned; and one irritable old gentleman,
in a night-cap of cocoa-nut leaves, used to clutch his long
staff in a state of excessive nervousness, and stride out of the
church; making all the noise he could, to emphasize his disgust.
Right adjoining the chapel is an immense, rickety building,
with windows and shutters, and a half-decayed board flooring
laid upon trunks of palm-trees. They called it a school-house;
but as such we never saw it occupied. It was often used as a
court-room, however; and here we attended several trials;
among others, that of a decayed naval officer, and a young girl
of fourteen; the latter, charged with having been very naughty
on a particular occasion, set forth in the pleadings; and the
former, with having aided and abetted her in her naughtiness,
and with other misdemeanors.
The foreigner was a tall, military-looking fellow, with a dark
cheek and black whiskers. According to his own account, he
had lost a colonial armed brig on the coast of New Zealand;
and since then, had been leading the life of a man about town,
among the islands of the Pacific.
The doctor wanted to know why he did not go home and
report the loss of his brig; but Captain Crash, as they called
him, had some incomprehensible reasons for not doing so, about
which he could talk by the hour, and no one be any the wiser.
Probably, he was a discreet man, and thought it best to waive
an interview with the lords of the admiralty.
For some time past, this extremely suspicious character had
been carrying on the illicit trade in French wines and brandies,
smuggled over from the men-of-war lately touching at Tahiti.
In a grove near the anchorage, he had a rustic shanty and
arbor; where, in quiet times, when no ships were in Taloo, a
stray native once in a while got boozy, and staggered home,
catching at the cocoa-nut trees as he went. The captain himself
lounged under a tree during the warm afternoons, pipe in
mouth; thinking perhaps, over old times, and occasionally feeling
his shoulders for his lost epaulets.
But, sail ho! a ship is descried coming into the bay. Soon,
she drops her anchor in its waters; and the next day Captain
Crash entertains the sailors in his grove. And rare times they
have of it:—drinking and quarreling together, as sociably as
you please.
Upon one of these occasions, the crew of the Leviathan made
so prodigious a tumult, that the natives, indignant at the insult
offered their laws, plucked up a heart, and made a dash at the
rioters, one hundred strong. The sailors fought like tigers; but
were at last overcome, and carried before a native tribunal;
which, after a mighty clamor, dismissed every body but
Captain Crash, who was asserted to be the author of the disorders.
Upon this charge, then, he had been placed in confinement
against the coming on of the assizes; the judge being expected to
lounge along in the course of the afternoon. While waiting his
Honor's arrival, numerous additional offenses were preferred
against the culprit (mostly by the old women); among others
was the bit of a slip in which he stood implicated along with
the young lady. Thus, in Polynesia as elsewhere;—charge a
man with one misdemeanor, and all his peccadilloes are raked
up and assorted before him.
Going to the school-house for the purpose of witnessing the
trial, the din of it assailed our ears a long ways off; and upon
entering the building, we were almost stunned. About five
hundred natives were present; each, apparently, having something
to say, and determined to say it. His Honor—a
handsome, benevolent-looking old man—sat cross-legged on
a little platform; seemingly resigned with all Christian submission
to the uproar. He was an hereditary chief in this
quarter of the island, and judge for life in the district of
Partoowye.
There were several cases coming on; but the captain and
girl were first tried together. They were mixing freely with
the crowd; and as it afterward turned out that every one—no
matter who—had a right to address the court, for aught we
knew they might have been arguing their own case. At what
precise moment the trial began, it would be hard to say.
There was no swearing of witnesses, and no regular
jury.
[21]
Now and then somebody leaped up and shouted out
something which might have been evidence; the rest, meanwhile,
keeping up an incessant jabbering. Presently, the old judge
himself began to get excited; and springing to his feet, ran in
among the crowd, wagging his tongue as hard as any body.
The tumult lasted about twenty minutes; and toward the
end of it, Captain Crash might have been seen, tranquilly regarding,
from his Honor's platform, the judicial uproar, in which
his fate was about being decided.
The result of all this was, that both he and the girl were
found guilty. The latter was adjudged to make six mats for
the queen; and the former, in consideration of his manifold
offenses, being deemed incorrigible, was sentenced to eternal
banishment from the island. Both these decrees seemed to
originate in the general hubbub. His Honor, however, appeared
to have considerable authority, and it was quite plain that
the decision received his approval.
The above penalties were by no means indiscriminately inflicted.
The missionaries have prepared a sort of penal tariff
to facilitate judicial proceedings. It costs so many days' labor
on the Broom Road to indulge in the pleasures of the calabash;
so many fathoms of stone wall to steal a musket; and so on to the
end of the catalogue. The judge being provided with a book, in
which all these matters are cunningly arranged, the thing is vastly
convenient. For instance: a crime is proved,—say, bigamy;
turn to letter B.—and there you have it. Bigamy:—forty days
on the Broom Road, and twenty mats for the queen. Read the
passage aloud, and sentence is pronounced.
After taking part in the first trial, the other delinquents present
were put upon their own; in which, also, the convicted
culprits seemed to have quite as much to say as the rest. A
rather strange proceeding; but strictly in accordance with the
glorious English principle, that every man should be tried by
his peers.
They were all found guilty.
