The Floating Island (23 page)

After a stay of sixty hours at
Anaa, Floating Island moved off towards the north. It passed through the thicket
of islets and islands, Commodore Simcoe following the channel with perfect
sureness of hand. It need hardly be said that under these circumstances
Milliard City was rather abandoned by its inhabitants for the shore, and
especially that part of it about Prow Battery. Islands were constantly in view,
or rather baskets of verdure which seemed to float on the surface of the
waters. It looked like a flower market on one of the Dutch canals. Numerous
canoes tacked about at the entrances to the harbours, but were not permitted to
enter, the custom-house officers having received formal notice with regard to
this. Numbers of native women came swimming towards the island, when it went
close to the madreporic cliffs. If they did not accompany the men in the canoes,
it was because their vessels are tabooed to the Paumotuan fair sex, and they
are forbidden to enter them.

On the 4th of October Floating
Island stopped off Farakava, at the opening of the southern passage. Before the
boats were got ready to take visitors ashore the French Resident presented
himself at Starboard Harbour, whence the Governor gave orders to conduct him to
the town hall.

The interview was very cordial.
Cyrus Bikerstaff put on his official manner
—
which
he kept for ceremonies of this nature. The resident, an old officer of infantry
of marine, was in no way behind him. Impossible to imagine anything more
serious, more dignified, more proper, more wooden on both sides!

The reception over, the Resident
was invited to look round Milliard City, Calistus Munbar doing the honours. As
Frenchmen, the Parisians and Athanase Dorémus asked to accompany the
superintendent.

Next day the Governor went to
Farakava, to return the visit, and did so in the style of the day before. The
quartette landed and went to the residency. It was a very simple habitation,
occupied by a garrison of twelve old sailors, and from the mast was displayed
the flag of France.

Although Farakava has become the
capital, it cannot compare with its rival, Anaa. The principal village is not
as picturesque under the verdure of the trees, and the people move about more.

Besides the manufacture of cocoanut
oil, the centre of which is at Farakava, the natives are employed in pearl
fishing. The mother-o’-pearl trade obliges them to frequent the neighbouring
island of Toau, which is specially devoted to this industry. Bold divers, these
natives do not hesitate to plunge to depths of twenty and thirty metres,
accustomed as they are to support such pressures without inconvenience and to
hold their breath for more than a minute.

A few of these fishermen were
authorized to offer the products of their fishery, mother-o’-pearl or pearls,
to the notables of Milliard City. Assuredly it was not jewels that these
opulent dames were in want of. But these natural productions in their rough
state were not easily procurable, and the opportunity presenting itself, the
fishers were able to sell at unheard-of prices, The moment Mrs. Tankerdon
bought a pearl of great price, Mrs. Coverley must have another. Fortunately there
was no opportunity of outbidding one another on some one thing different to
anything else, for no one knows when the bidding would have stopped. Other
families took heart to imitate their friends, and that day the Farakavans had a
good time.

After twelve days, on the 13th of
October, the Pearl of the Pacific started early. In leaving the capital of the
Paumotu it had reached the western limit of the archipelago. Commodore Simcoe
had no longer to be anxious regarding such a wonderful maze of isles and islets,
reefs and atolls. He had come out of it without a scratch. Beyond extended that
portion of the Pacific which over a space of four degrees separates the Paumotu
group from the Society Islands. It was in heading south-west that Floating
Island, driven by the million horses of its engines proceeded towards the
island so poetically celebrated by Bougainville, as the enchantress Tahiti.

THE Society Islands, otherwise
the Tahiti Archipelago are comprised between the fifteenth and seventeenth degrees
of south latitude and the hundred and fiftieth and hundred and fifty-sixth west
longitude. The area of the archipelago is two thousand two hundred superficial
kilometres.

There are two groups; first the
Windward Islands, Taiti or Tahiti Tahau, Tapamanoa, Moorea or Simeo, Tetiaroa,
Meetia, which are under the protectorate of France; and secondly the Leeward
Islands, Tubuai, Manu, Huahmi, Kaiateathao, Bora-Bora, Moffy-Iti, Maupiti,
Mapetia, Bellinghausen, Scilly, governed by native sovereigns. Cook, their
discoverer, called them the Society Islands, in honour of the Royal Society of
London. Situated some two hundred and fifty marine leagues from the Marquesas,
this group, according to the most recent census, contains but forty thousand
inhabitants.

Coming from the north-east,
Tahiti is the first of the Windward Islands to be sighted by navigators. And it
was Tahiti that the look-outs of the observatory reported at a great distance,
thanks to Mount Maiao or Diadem, which rises for a thousand two hundred and
thirty-nine metres above the level of the sea.

The voyage was accomplished
without incident. Aided by the trade winds, Floating Island crossed these
admirable waters above which the sun moves as it descends towards the tropic of
Capricorn. Still two months and a few days more and it would reach the tropic
and return towards the equatorial line, and Floating Island would have it in
its zenith during several weeks of burning heat; then the island would follow
it as a dog follows his master, keeping it at the regulation distance.

It was the first time the
Milliardites were to put in at Tahiti. The preceding year their voyage had
begun too late; they had not gone so far to the westward, and after leaving
Paumotu they had steered for the equator. Yet this archipelago of the Society
Islands is the most beautiful in the Pacific. As they passed through it our
Parisians would realize all that was enchanting in the moving island, free to
choose its anchorages and its climate.

“Yes; but we shall see what will
be the end of this absurd adventure!” was the invariable conclusion of
Sebastien Zorn.

“May it never finish! That is all
I ask!” exclaimed Yvernès.

Floating Island arrived in sight
of Tahiti at dawn on the 17th of October. It was the north shore of the island
that was seen first. During the night the lighthouse on Point Venus had been
sighted. During the day they could reach Papaete, situated in the north-west,
beyond the point. But the council of notables had assembled under the
presidency of the governor. Like every well-balanced council it was divided
into two camps. One section with Jem Tankerdon wished to go west; the other
with Nat Coverley wished to go east. Cyrus Bikerstaff, having a vote when the
sides were equal, decided to reach Papaete by passing round the south of the
island. This decision could but satisfy the quartette, for it would allow of
their admiring in all its beauty this Jewel of the Pacific, the New Cythera of
Bougainville.

Tahiti possesses an area of a
hundred and four thousand two hundred and fifteen hectares, about nine times
that Paris. Its population, which in 1875 comprised seven thousand six hundred
natives, three hundred French and eleven hundred foreigners, is now but seven
thousand.

In shape it is exactly like a
flask turned upside down, the body of the flask being the principal island,
joined to the mouth, represented by the peninsula of Tatarapu, by the narrow
isthmus of Taravao.

It was Frascolin who made this
comparison in studying the large scale map of the archipelago, and his comrades
thought it so good that they christened Tahiti “the Flask of the Tropics.”

Administratively, Tahiti is
divided into six sections, subdivided into twenty-one districts, since the
establishment of the protectorate on the 9th of September, 1842. It will be
remembered what difficulties occurred between Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, Queen
Pomare, and England at the instigation of that abominable trafficker in bibles
and cotton goods who called himself Pritchard, and was so humorously
caricatured in the Guêpes of Alphonse Karr.

But that is ancient history,
quite as much fallen into oblivion as the performances of the famous
Anglo-Saxon apothecary.

Floating Island could venture
without danger within a mile of the shore of the Flask of the Tropics. This
flask reposes on a coral base, whose foundations descend sheer down into the
depths of the ocean. But before approaching so near, the Milliardites were able
to contemplate its imposing mass, its mountains more generously favoured by
nature than those of the Sandwich Islands, its verdant summits, its wooded
gorges, its peaks rising like the pinnacles of some vast cathedral, its belt of
cocoanut trees watered by the white foam of the surf on the ridge of breakers.

During the day the course lay
along the western side; the sightseers, glasses in hand, gathered in the
environs of Starboard Harbour, watching the thousand details of the shore. The
district of Papenoo, the river of which they saw across, the wide valley from
the base of the mountains, and which falls into the sea where there is a break
of several miles in width; Hitiia, a safe port from which millions and millions
of oranges are exported to San Francisco; Mahaeua, where the conquest of the
island was completed in 1845, after a terrible battle with the natives.

In the afternoon, they had
arrived off the narrow isthmus of Taravao. In rounding the peninsula the
Commodore approached close enough for the fertile fields of the Tautira
district, the numerous water-courses of which make it one of the richest in the
archipelago, to be admired in all its splendour. Tatarapu, reposing on its
plate of coral, lifts majestically the rugged cones of its extinct craters. As
the sun sinks on the horizon, the summits grow purple for the last time, and
the colours fade into the hot transparent mist. Soon it is no more than a
confused mass from which the evening breeze arises laden with the fragrance of
oranges and lemons, and after a short twilight the darkness is profound.

Floating Island then rounded the
extreme south-east point of the peninsula, and next morning at daybreak was
moving up the western side of the island.

The district of Taravao, much
cultivated, and thickly populated, displayed its fine roads among the orange
woods which link it to the district of Papeiri. At the highest point is a fort,
commanding both sides of the isthmus, defended by a few cannon, whose muzzles
project from the embrasures like gargoyles of bronze. Below is Port Phaeton.

“Why has the name of that
presumptuous driver of the solar chariot lighted on this isthmus?” asked Yvernès.

The day was spent in coasting at
slow speed along the more varied contours of the coralline substructure which
distinguishes the west of Tahiti. New districts rose into view
—
Papeiri with its
marshy plains, Mataiea with its excellent harbour of Papeiriri, then a wide
valley watered by the river Vaihiria, and at the head this mountain of five
hundred metres, as a sort of washstand supporting a basin half a kilometre in
circumference. This ancient crater, doubtless full of fresh water, did not
appear to have any communication with the sea.

After the district of Ahauraono,
devoted to vast cotton fields, after the district of Papara, which is
principally given over to agriculture, Floating Island, beyond Point Mara,
opened the wide valley of Paruvia, cut off from the Diadem, and watered by the
Punarnu. Beyond Tapuna, Cape Tatao and the mouth of the Faa, the Commodore
headed slightly to the north-east, cleverly avoiding the islet of Motu-Uta, and
at six o’clock in the evening stopped before the gap giving access to the Bay
of Papaete.

At the entrance lay in capricious
windings through the coral reef the channel buoyed with obsolete guns up to
Point Fareute. Ethel Simcoe, thanks to his charts, had no need for the services
of the pilots who cruise in whale-boats off the entrance of the channel. A
boat, however, came out, with a yellow flag at its stern. This was the
quarantine boat, bound for Starboard Harbour. People are strict at Tahiti, and
no one can land before the health officer accompanied by the harbour master has
given free pratique.

Landing at Starboard Harbour, the
doctor put himself in communication with the authorities. It was only mere
formality. Sick there were none, either in Milliard City or its environs. In
any case epidemic maladies, cholera, influenza, yellow fever, were absolutely
unknown. A clear bill of health was given according to custom. But as the night
was rapidly closing in, landing was postponed until the morning, and Floating
Island slept until daybreak.

At dawn there were reports of
cannon. It was Prow Battery saluting with twenty-one guns the group of the
Windward Islands and Tahiti the capital of the French Protectorate. At the same
time, on the observatory tower, the red flag with the golden sun rose and fell
three times.

Immediately an identical salvo
was given by the Ambuscade Battery at the head of the main passage into Tahiti.

Starboard Harbour was crowded
from the earliest hour. The trams had brought a considerable crowd of tourists,
on their way to the capital of the archipelago. Doubt not that Sebastien Zorn
and his friends were as impatient as any. As the boats were not numerous enough
to take all this crowd, the natives were busy offering their services to cross
the six cables’ length which separated Starboard Harbour from the port.

At the same time it was necessary
for the Governor to be the first to land. He must have the customary interview
with the civil and military authorities of Tahiti, and pay the no less official
visit to the Queen.