The Poisoned Island (30 page)

Hooke:
He saith, moreover, that ’tis commonly made Use of, by the Heathen Priests, or rambling Mendicant Heathen Friars, who will many of them meet together, and every one of them dose themselves with this Medicine, and then ramble several ways, talking they know not what, pretending after that, they were inspired.

I remember only impressions of the visions which followed my initial consumption and preceded the deep sleep I fell into: a boat heading towards an island, and a preacher, no doubt my Father, standing on a staircase and shouting, from passion, from fear or from revelation I cannot recall. Most powerful of all are two images: being chased through an alien forest by someone who wished evil upon me; and a bizarre theory, as it were, about the internal structures of plant cells and their unity, a thought which has never before struck me but which cries out to be investigated. And everything suffused with an intense light, a bright white cloud which surrounded me even while I dreamed. I did not succeed in writing down any words while the vision had me in its grasp, but Leary ran in and was able to tell me some of the things I said. His recollections are strange and fragmentary but seem to confirm what memories I have. What I did write during the vision is incomprehensible, the hand an alien one, as if I were possessed of another’s personality.

Hooke:
The Plant is so like to Hemp, in all its Parts, both Seed, Leaves, Stalk, and Flower, that it may be said to be only
Indian
Hemp. Here are divers of the Seeds, which I intend to try this Spring, to see if the Plant can be here produced, and to examine, if it can be raised, whether it will have the same Vertues. Several Trials have been lately made with some of this, which I here produce, but hath lost its Vertue, producing none of the Effects before-mentioned; nor had it any other Operations, good or bad, since I receiv’d it with this Account I have related; imagining I had met with somewhat like it in
Linscotten’s
Voyages, which the Reader may peruse at his Leisure.

The effect of the leaf is, of course, extraordinary. But also extraordinary, I think, is the suddenness of its cessation. Apart from the clarity of my physical senses and this raw hunger for more, there are no other after effects. Nothing remains of that strange dreamlike state. I wonder if perhaps the dose was too small (but I must not allow myself to intensify it), or if there are perhaps other ways of consuming it which will prolong the effect—the Chinese smoke opium, and I have even heard tell of the Indians making
bhang
with milk, which seems to intensify the experience. It is perhaps significant that Hooke talks of a dose of
bhang
being “enough to fill a Tobacco pipe”—did he in fact attempt to smoke the
Cannabis sativa
?

Hooke:
I have formerly given an Account of the Effects of the Roots of
Hemlock
, accidentally eaten by some young Children, which, at first, had an Operation on them much of the like Nature with this Vegetable; and possibly the last Effects might not have been much differing, if they had not made Use of Medicines, to recover them out of the Trance, before the Period of its Operation, tho’ that be uncertain, and wants Experiences to ascertain it. Whereas this I have here produced, is so well known and experimented by Thousands; and the Person that brought it has so often experimented it himself, that there is no Cause of Fear, tho’ possibly there may be of Laughter.

It is now five hours since I took the tea, and my body and, as it were, my appetites are returning to their normal states.
The old headache behind my eyes has begun again, a familiar but unwelcome acquaintance. And I seem to have persevered in the face of the gnawing hunger which came on when I woke up; it no longer seems to me that I need to take more of the tea, even though it remains in my power to do so. The odd thing is this: I miss the hunger. It seemed to be of a piece with that extraordinary sense of clarity which accompanied it, as if one could not exist without the other. I wonder if there is not perhaps some greater truth in this.

Hooke:
It may therefore, if it can be here produced, possibly prove as considerable a Medicine in Drugs, as any that is brought from the
Indies
; and may possibly be of considerable Use for Lunaticks, or for other Distempers of the Head and Stomach, for that it seemeth to put a Man into a Dream, or make him asleep, whilst yet he seems to be awake, but at last ends in a profound Sleep, which rectifies all; whereas Lunaticks are much in the same Estate, but cannot obtain that, which should, and all Probability would, cure them, and that is a profound and quiet Sleep.

The hour is now late. The fire is out and the lid is back upon the jar. My body and my mind feel as heavy as a wet sail, and I can write no more. I shall retire to bed, and consider these findings in the morning.

And may not light also, by freely entering the expanded surfaces of leaves and flowers, contribute much to the ennobling of the principles of vegetables? For Sir Isaac Newton puts it as a very probable query: “Are not gross bodies and light convertible into one another? And may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light, which enter their composition?”

Stephen Hales,
Vegetable Staticks,
1727

Up on the high plateau the young prince sat and took in the view. It had never been particularly impressive. The trees obscured everything almost all the way around the clearing, but by positioning himself just
so
he could see across towards Tahiti Iti, the smaller of the two peaks which formed the island.

He was feeling nostalgic. Today was the day he would leave the island. Down in Matavai Bay the English ship was waiting. His blue-eyed friend Jeremiah would be there as he had promised, waiting on the beach by the big wooden boat in which the English went from ship to shore. Together he and Jeremiah would sail to that dreamlike country in the north, where men built towers which climbed to the sky, and great vessels rode the waves, and fierce fishermen grappled with whales. Where
sugar
, that sweet drug of the prince’s longing, was so plentiful people would pour it out like rubbish into the streets.

It was because of this vision of England that he had introduced Jeremiah to the leaf. They had shared it now on a half-dozen occasions. Most recently other Englishmen had taken it with them. Jeremiah said these others had learned of the leaf, though he never said how. He said they needed to be given their own share of the leaf to be taken home, to ensure their silence. So yesterday the prince had lain down with the six Englishmen on the
marae
and taken the leaf on the island for the last time. The prince had given them all a small pouch as a token of his loyalty and friendship, and this was no small thing; the cult of the leaf strictly forbade taking the leaf down the mountain. He had made each of the Englishmen promise him to take the leaf with them off the island immediately and not to speak of it, because of his concerns that the cult members he would leave behind (who were, after all, only his friends) would be discovered by the other islanders and their secrets exposed.

He had other concerns, too. Since that first time with Jeremiah, he had been startled and a little frightened by the nature of the leaf’s effect on the Englishmen. For he and his island friends, the leaf brought visions of light-drenched peace. Drinking it was like lying down in the woods on a beautiful day with no work to be done and no worries to intrude. The leaf provided an escape from the pestilential present of Tahiti.

It was not the same for the Englishmen. For Jeremiah and his countrymen the effect was violently rapturous, and unexpectedly addictive. Since that first time Jeremiah had pestered him on every meeting for more of the leaf, and at times this pestering had been colored by desperation. And Jeremiah was strong, in body as well as character. Not all the other Englishmen were like him. Some of the other five had looked
like hungry dogs when they came back up to the
marae
after their first time.

Each of the Englishmen had assured him that they would take the leaf with them from the island. They assured him that they would take him as well. Was he not their friend? The prince, now so steeped in his original crime that there was no going back, became reckless and said he would find more of the leaf and would bring it with him, tomorrow, when the ship left. Their eyes had glittered with a strange animal greed which he did not recognize; all of them were now consumed by an endless longing for the leaf. The prince realized, of course, that this gave him enormous power over them, for only he knew where the leaf came from.

Which is why the prince was here, now, at the
marae
. The space beneath the little stone altar had been emptied, and what remained of the leaf which had been in the
tapa
bag beneath the altar was now in his own pouch, compressed and ready for use. This would mean there’d be none left for the cult, but they would not have to wait for long. The tree guaranteed a plentiful supply. His new friends, and particularly Jeremiah, would be delighted to see the full pouch, and delighted to see him. They would accept him as one of their own, and at the end of the great voyage they would introduce him to the wonders of England.

But first, he must say goodbye in the accepted fashion. He walked over to the
marae
’s altar and prostrated himself before it. He followed the established ritual of the cult—a new ritual by the standards of the island, invented by self-conscious young men and women only a generation before. He said a small prayer to the island gods before standing and walking over to the true object of veneration, the thing which had brought the cult members up to this point all these years.

Not the
marae
. The tree.

He hailed her in the traditional way, from a respectful distance:

Thank
You for letting us see You.

We who live upon this place are delighted, for we share it with You.

In this form
You are shown to us, and in this form we understand
You.

We thank You for the gift of this Home, this Island, and for the gift of the Life which you have breathed into us.

And we thank you for the Leaf, without which we would never have known You.

Those who went before us are now as one with
You. They swim in your Dreams and speak of us here. Soon we will see them, and once again we will be part of
You.

He was standing by the tree now. He put his hand against the tree’s bark, then his forehead, then his other hand, and he leaned into the tree and whispered the refrain of the Saying:

Thank you for showing yourself. Thank you for being here.

This is what they always whispered before they took the leaf and lay down to swim in its delights, beneath the gaze of the tree. His eyes were closed and his head was pressed into the bark, the words of the Saying in his ear, and his lips moving. So he was shocked by the sudden sound of someone walking up behind him, but this shock was over in an instant because hands grabbed his shoulders, pulled him back from the tree, and then smashed his forehead into its trunk, and for a while he saw no more.

When he recovered and opened his eyes he was tied to the tree, his back against its bark, his hands bound behind him. His head hurt abominably and there was something sticky in his eyes. He moved his feet and something scraped against
them. He looked down. A great pile of branches and twigs lay all around him, carefully arranged, some of them leaning against the tree, some of them even against him. He was held against the trunk by a rope—an
English
rope—which encircled his chest and his legs. The tree quivered in the breeze, and he realized with horror that it was now early evening, and he was in danger of missing the ship. Perhaps he had done so already. He began to shout for help.