one returned on board, and I am inclined to think they avoided

appearing on the beach. This reserve and dignity is the finest

trait of the Marquesan.

CHAPTER III--THE MAROON

Of the beauties of Anaho books might be written. I remember waking

about three, to find the air temperate and scented. The long swell

brimmed into the bay, and seemed to fill it full and then subside.

Gently, deeply, and silently the Casco rolled; only at times a

block piped like a bird. Oceanward, the heaven was bright with

stars and the sea with their reflections. If I looked to that

side, I might have sung with the Hawaiian poet:

Ua maomao ka lani, ua kahaea luna,

Ua pipi ka maka o ka hoku.

(The heavens were fair, they stretched above,

Many were the eyes of the stars.)

And then I turned shoreward, and high squalls were overhead; the

mountains loomed up black; and I could have fancied I had slipped

ten thousand miles away and was anchored in a Highland loch; that

when the day came, it would show pine, and heather, and green fern,

and roofs of turf sending up the smoke of peats; and the alien

speech that should next greet my ears must be Gaelic, not Kanaka.

And day, when it came, brought other sights and thoughts. I have

watched the morning break in many quarters of the world; it has

been certainly one of the chief joys of my existence, and the dawn

that I saw with most emotion shone upon the bay of Anaho. The

mountains abruptly overhang the port with every variety of surface

and of inclination, lawn, and cliff, and forest. Not one of these

but wore its proper tint of saffron, of sulphur, of the clove, and

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>