Bungs was a man after a bar-keeper’s own heart. Drinking steadily, until just manageably tipsy, he contrived to continue so; getting neither more nor less inebriated, but, to use his own phrase, remaining “just about right.” When in this interesting state, he had a free lurch in his gait, a queer way of hitching up his waistbands, looked unnecessarily steady at you when speaking, and for the rest, was in very tolerable spirits. At these times, moreover, he was exceedingly patriotic; and in a most amusing way, frequently showed his patriotism whenever he happened to encounter Dunk, a good-natured, square-faced Dane, aboard.

  It must be known here, by the bye, that the cooper had a true sailor admiration for Lord Nelson.4 But he entertained a very erroneous idea of the personal appearance of the hero. Not content with depriving him of an eye, and an arm, he stoutly maintained that he had also lost a leg in one of his battles. Under this impression, he sometimes hopped up to Dunk, with one leg curiously locked behind him into his right arm, at the same time closing an eye.

  In this attitude he would call upon him to look up, and behold the man who gave his countrymen such a thrashing at Copenhagen. “Look you, Dunk,” says he, staggering about, and winking hard with one eye, to keep the other shut, “Look you; one man—hang me, half a man—with one leg, one arm, one eye—hang me, with only a piece of a carcass, flogged your whole shabby nation. Do you deny it, you lubber?”

  The Dane was a mule of a man, and understanding but little English, seldom made any thing of a reply; so the cooper generally dropped his leg, and marched off, with the air of a man who despised saying any thing further.

  CHAPTER 16

  WE ENCOUNTER A GALE

  The mild blue weather we enjoyed after leaving the Marquesas, gradually changed as we ran farther south and approached Tahiti. In these generally tranquil seas, the wind sometimes blows with great violence; though, as every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of the Pacific, is far different from a tempest in the howling North Atlantic. We soon found ourselves battling with the waves, while the before mild Trades, like a woman roused, blew fiercely, but still warmly, in our face.

  For all this, the mate carried sail without stint; and as for brave little Jule, she stood up to it well; and though once in a while floored in the trough of a sea, sprang to her keel again and showed play. Every old timber groaned—every spar buckled—every chafed cord1 strained; and yet, spite of all, she plunged on her way like a racer. Jermin, sea-jockey that he was, sometimes stood in the fore-chains,2 with the spray every now and then dashing over him, and shouting out, “Well done, Jule—dive into it, sweetheart. Hurrah!”

  One afternoon there was a mighty queer noise aloft, which set the men running in every direction. It was the main-t’-gallant-mast.3 Crash! it broke off just above the cap,4 and held there by the rigging, dashed with every roll, from side to side, with all the hamper5 that belonged to it. The yard hung by a hair, and at every pitch, thumped against the cross-trees;6 while the sail streamed in ribbons, and the loose ropes coiled, and thrashed the air, like whip-lashes. “Stand from under!” and down came the rattling blocks, like so many shot. The yard, with a snap and a plunge, went hissing into the sea, disappeared, and shot its full length out again. The crest of a great wave then broke over it—the ship rushed by—and we saw the stick no more.

  While this lively breeze continued, Baltimore, our old black cook, was in great tribulation.

  Like most South Seamen, the Julia’s “caboose,” or cook-house, was planted on the larboard side of the forecastle. Under such a press of canvas, and with the heavy sea running, the barque, diving her bows under, now and then shipped green glassy waves, which, breaking over the head-rails, fairly deluged that part of the ship, and washed clean aft. The caboose-house—thought to be firmly lashed down to its place—served as a sort of breakwater to the inundation.

  About these times, Baltimore always wore what he called his “gale-suit;” among other things, comprising a Sou’-Wester7 and a huge pair of well anointed sea-boots, reaching almost to his knees. Thus equipped for a ducking or a drowning, as the case might be, our culinary high-priest drew to the slides of his temple, and performed his sooty rites in secret.

  So afraid was the old man of being washed overboard, that he actually fastened one end of a small line to his waistbands, and coiling the rest about him, made use of it as occasion required. When engaged outside, he unwound the cord, and secured one end to a ring-bolt8 in the deck; so that if a chance sea washed him off his feet, it could do nothing more.

  One evening, just as he was getting supper, the Julia reared up on her stern, like a vicious colt, and when she settled again forward, fairly dished a tremendous sea. Nothing could withstand it. One side of the rotten head-bulwarks9 came in with a crash; it smote the caboose, tore it from its moorings, and after boxing it about, dashed it against the windlass, where it stranded. The water then poured along the deck like a flood, rolling over and over pots, pans, and kettles, and even old Baltimore himself, who went breaching along like a porpoise.

  Striking the taffrail,10 the wave subsided, and washing from side to side, left the drowning cook high and dry on the after-hatch:11 his extinguished pipe still between his teeth, and almost bitten in two.

  The few men on deck having sprung into the main-rigging, sailor-like, did nothing but roar at his calamity.

  The same night, our flying-jib-boom12 snapped off like a pipe-stem, and our spanker-gaff13 came down by the run.

  By the following morning, the wind in a great measure had gone down; the sea with it; and by noon we had repaired our damages as well as we could, and were sailing along as pleasantly as ever.

  But there was no help for the demolished bulwarks; we had nothing to replace them; and so, whenever it breezed again, our dauntless craft went along with her splintered prow dripping, but kicking up her fleet heels just as high as before.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE CORAL ISLANDS

  How far we sailed to the westward after leaving the Marquesas, or what might have been our latitude and longitude at any particular time, or how many leagues we voyaged on our passage to Tahiti, are matters, about which, I am sorry to say, I can not with any accuracy enlighten the reader. Jermin, as navigator, kept our reckoning;1 and, as hinted before, kept it all to himself. At noon, he brought out his quadrant, a rusty old thing, so odd-looking that it might have belonged to an astrologer.

  Sometimes, when rather flustered from his potations, he went staggering about deck, instrument to eye, looking all over for the sun—a phenomenon which any sober observer might have seen right overhead. How upon earth he contrived, on some occasions, to settle his latitude, is more than I can tell. The longitude, he must either have obtained by the Rule of Three,2 or else by special revelation. Not that the chronometer3 in the cabin was seldom to be relied on, or was any ways fidgety; quite the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by that means, no doubt, the true Greenwich time4—at the period of its stopping, at least—was preserved to a second.

  The mate, however, in addition to his “Dead Reckoning,”5 pretended to ascertain his meridian distance6 from Bow Bells7 by an occasional lunar observation.8 This, I believe, consists in obtaining with the proper instruments, the angular distance between the moon and some one of the stars. The operation generally requires two observers to take sights, at one and the same time.

  Now, though the mate alone might have been thought well calculated for this, inasmuch as he generally saw things double, the doctor was usually called upon to play a sort of second quadrant to Jermin’s first; and what with the capers of both, they used to furnish a good deal of diversion. The mate’s tremulous attempts to level his instrument at the star he was after, were comical enough. For my own part, when he did catch sight of it, I hardly knew how he managed to separate it from the astral host revolving in his own brain.

  However, by hook or by crook, he piloted us along; and before many days, a fellow sent aloft to darn a rent in the fore-top-sail, threw his hat into the air, and bawled out “Land, ho!”

  Land it was; but in what part of the South Seas, Jermin alone knew, and some doubted whether even he did. But no sooner was the announcement made, than he came running on deck, spy-glass in hand, and clapping it to his eye, turned round with the air of a man receiving indubitable assurance of something he was quite certain of before. The land was precisely that for which he had been steering; and, with a wind, in less than twenty-four hours we would sight Tahiti. What he said was verified.

  The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group—sometimes called the Coral Islands9—perhaps the most remarkable and interesting in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a day’s sail of that place.

  They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped; others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. These last are nothing more than narrow circles of land, surrounding a smooth lagoon, connected by a single opening with the sea. Some of the lagoons, said to have subterranean outlets, have no visible ones; the inclosing island, in such cases, being a complete zone of emerald. Other lagoons still, are girdled by numbers of small, green islets, very near to each other.

  The origin of the entire group is generally ascribed to the coral insect.

  According to some naturalists, this wonderful little creature, commencing its erections at the bottom of the sea, after the lapse of centuries, carries them up to the surface, where its labors cease. Here, the inequalities of the coral collect all floating bodies; forming, after a time, a soil, in which the seeds carried thither by birds, germinate, and cover the whole with vegetation. Here and there, all over this archipelago, numberless naked, detached coral formations are seen, just emerging, as it were, from the ocean. These would appear to be islands in the very process of creation—at any rate, one involuntarily concludes so, on beholding them.*

  As far as I know, there are but few bread-fruit10 trees in any part of the Pomotu group. In many places the cocoa-nut even does not grow; though, in others, it largely flourishes. Consequently, some of the islands are altogether uninhabited; others support but a single family; and in no place is the population very large. In some respects the natives resemble the Tahitians: their language, too, is very similar. The people of the southeasterly clusters—concerning whom, however, but little is known—have a bad name as cannibals; and for that reason their hospitality is seldom taxed by the mariner.

  Within a few years past, missionaries from the Society group11 have settled among the leeward islands, where the natives have treated them kindly. Indeed, nominally, many of these people are now Christians; and, through the political influence of their instructors, no doubt, a short time since came under the allegiance of Pomaree, the Queen of Tahiti;12 with which island they always carried on considerable intercourse.

  The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five or six men.

  For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout,13 the French Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said to have sent to France fifty thousand dollars’ worth of shells. The oysters are found in the lagoons, and about the reefs; and, for half-a-dozen nails a-day, or a compensation still less, the natives are hired to dive after them.

  A great deal of cocoa-nut oil is also obtained in various places. Some of the uninhabited islands are covered with dense groves; and the ungathered nuts which have fallen year after year, lie upon the ground in incredible quantities. Two or three men, provided with the necessary apparatus for trying out the oil, will, in the course of a week or two, obtain enough to load one of the large sea-canoes.

  Cocoa-nut oil is now manufactured in different parts of the South Seas, and forms no small part of the traffic carried on with trading vessels. A considerable quantity is annually exported from the Society Islands to Sydney. It is used in lamps and for machinery, being much cheaper than the sperm, and, for both purposes, better than the right-whale oil. They bottle it up in large bamboos, six or eight feet long; and these form part of the circulating medium of Tahiti.

  To return to the ship. The wind dying away, evening came on before we drew near the island. But we had it in view during the whole afternoon.

  It was small and round, presenting one enameled level, free from trees, and did not seem four feet above the water. Beyond it was another and larger island, about which a tropical sunset was throwing its glories; flushing all that part of the heavens, and making it flame like a vast dyed oriel illuminated.

  The Trades scarce filled our swooning sails; the air was languid with the aroma of a thousand strange, flowering shrubs. Upon inhaling it, one of the sick, who had recently shown symptoms of scurvy, cried out in pain, and was carried below. This is no unusual effect in such instances.

  On we glided, within less than a cable’s length of the shore, which was margined with foam that sparkled all round. Within, nestled the still, blue lagoon. No living thing was seen, and, for aught we knew, we might have been the first mortals who had ever beheld the spot. The thought was quickening to the fancy; nor could I help dreaming of the endless grottoes and galleries, far below the reach of the mariner’s lead.

  And what strange shapes were lurking there! Think of those arch creatures, the mermaids, chasing each other in and out of the coral cells, and catching their long hair in the coral twigs!

  CHAPTER 18

  TAHITI

  At early dawn of the following morning we saw the Peaks of Tahiti. In clear weather they may be seen at the distance of ninety miles.

  “Hivarhoo!”1 shouted Wymontoo, overjoyed, and running out upon the bowsprit when the land was first faintly descried in the distance. But when the clouds floated away, and showed the three peaks standing like obelisks against the sky; and the bold shore undulating along the horizon, the tears gushed from his eyes. Poor fellow! It was not Hivarhoo. Green Hivarhoo was many a long league off.

  Tahiti is by far the most famous island in the South Seas; indeed, a variety of causes has made it almost classic. Its natural features alone distinguish it from the surrounding groups. Two round and lofty promontories, whose mountains rise nine thousand feet above the level of the ocean, are connected by a low, narrow isthmus; the whole being some one hundred miles in circuit. From the great central peaks of the larger peninsula—Orohena, Aorai, and Pirohitee2—the land radiates on all sides to the sea in sloping green ridges. Between these are broad and shadowy valleys—in aspect, each a Tempe3—watered with fine streams, and thickly wooded. Unlike many of the other islands, there extends nearly all round Tahiti, a belt of low, alluvial soil, teeming with the richest vegetation. Here, chiefly, the natives dwell.

  Seen from the sea, the prospect is magnificent. It is one mass of shaded tints of green, from beach to mountain top; endlessly diversified with valleys, ridges, glens, and cascades. Over the ridges, here and there, the loftier peaks fling their shadows, and far down the valleys. At the head of these, the water-falls flash out into the sunlight as if pouring through vertical bowers of verdure. Such enchantment, too, breathes over the whole, that it seems a fairy world, all fresh and blooming from the hand of the Creator.

  Upon a near approach, the picture loses not its attractions. It is no exaggeration to say, that to a European of any sensibility, who, for the first time, wanders back into these valleys—away from the haunts of the natives—the ineffable repose and beauty of the landscape is such, that every object strikes him like something seen in a dream; and for a time he almost refuses to believe that scenes like these should have a commonplace existence. No wonder that the French bestowed upon the island the appellation of the New Cytherea.4 “Often,” says De Bougainville,5 “I thought I was walking in the Garden of Eden.”

  Nor, when first discovered, did the inhabitants of this charming country at all diminish the wonder and admiration of the voyager. Their physical beauty and amiable dispositions harmonized completely with the softness of their clime. In truth, every thing about them was calculated to awaken the liveliest interest. Glance at their civil and religious institutions. To their king, divine rights were paid; while for poetry, their mythology rivaled that of ancient Greece.

  Of Tahiti, earlier and more full accounts were given, than of any other island in Polynesia; and this is the reason why it still retains so strong a hold on the sympathies of all readers of South Sea voyages. The journals of its first visitors, containing, as they did, such romantic descriptions of a country and people before unheard of, produced a marked sensation throughout Europe; and when the first Tahitians were carried thither, Omai6 in London, and Aotooroo7 in Paris, were caressed by nobles, scholars, and ladies.

  In addition to all this, several eventful occurrences, more or less connected with Tahiti, have tended to increase its celebrity. Over two centuries ago, Quiros,8 the Spaniard, is supposed to have touched at the island; and at intervals, Wallis,9 Byron,10 Cook,11 De Bougainville, Vancouver,12 La Perouse,13 and other illustrious navigators, refitted their vessels in its harbors. Here the famous Transit of Venus14 was observed, in 1769. Here the memorable mutiny of the Bounty15 afterward had its origin. It was to the pagans of Tahiti that the first regularly constituted Protestant missionaries16 were sent; and from their shores also, have sailed successive missions to the neighboring islands.

  These, with other events, which might be mentioned, have united in keeping up the first interest which the place awakened; and the recent proceedings of the French have more than ever called forth the sympathies of the public.