Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [4]
Many scavenger nations—among them the Spanish, the Dutch, the French; oh, and the biggest troublemakers of them all, I'm sorry to say: the British—came barreling through the Tropics at some point, colonizing every lump of land they could find. Perhaps the most notable visitor of all was Captain James Cook in 1774. Bright guy. Though very full of himself, from what I hear. Also a bit of a prancing dandy if you believe the rumors. Spent a lot of his life sailing cavalierly back and forth across the globe chasing down someplace called Terra Australis Incognito, a legendary land that people raved about and said was really worth finding, but without ever finding it. In portraits, he's often seen in tights and a wig, poring over a map like an expert. But don't be fooled; he had absolutely no idea where he was going.
According to records, many early visitors, including Cook, when they first stepped off their ship onto Vanuatu's mist-enshrouded, palm-fringed beaches pounded by ten-foot waves, were held spellbound by the primitive, uninhabited magnificence of everything—its untouched savanna overrun with wild horses, the brooding hinterland embroidered with groves of coconut and banana, waterfalls tumbling into clear pools shaded by lush banyan trees and neck-high vegetation—and driven to conclude that they'd found Paradise.
What records don't show, however, is if, once these visitors had settled in, their enthusiasm faltered any, or they had second thoughts. Especially when:
a. It became clear that the islands weren't uninhabited at all and were in fact littered with indigenous tribes, known collectively as the ni-Vanuatu—or ni-Van—most of whom were distinctly hostile to intruders; and
b. They were subsequently set upon by the ni-Van, thrashed with sticks and clubs, run through with spears, dragged by their hair into the hills, and finally—just when they thought it was over and the natives were roughing them up merely as a precursor to releasing them back to their ship with a stern warning never to return—boiled alive and eaten, a common fate in those days for anyone who stopped off in Vanuatu to say hello.
Though not Captain James Cook, you'll be pleased to hear.
Sensing a certain antagonism from the welcoming committee—“They by no means seem reconciled to the liberty we took in landing upon their coast,” he wrote in his journal at the time2—he made his escape, giving the place a sparkling new name as he left.
Explorers used to do that a lot. Upon arriving in a new country, and overriding all wishes of the locals, they'd sweep aside centuries of tradition and instantly rename it, the way you might a litter of puppies. “This one I shall call Whitsuntide,” Cook would say as he wafted by, “and this one over here Desolation, and that one Cape Circumcision.” He was a menace. And, true to form, the day he saw Vanuatu, he cried, “From now on this shall be called the New Hebrides—because it reminds me of Scotland, which I discovered while I was looking for Brazil.” Then he pranced off back to his ship, HMS Disoriented, and sailed out to sea once again to renew his quest for Antarctica.3
Having plunged out of the sky like a torn kite, we're down at last.
Spontaneous applause trickles through the cabin and the pilot grins broadly.
Following a short taxi along a surprisingly smooth, freshly mown runway, the propellers' last few guttural sputters give way to total silence, interrupted only by the occasional buzz of an insect or a bird's staccato trill.
It's like someone suddenly switched off your hearing aid.
Once we're fully at rest, the pilot runs around to drag out the bags, aided by Mark and his soundman, Todd, a well-built guy of Polish descent with a balding head, big heart, and downtrodden smile, who claims he's the least important of the crew, there to make up the numbers. “Oh, I'm just tagging along with Mark,” he'll mutter, disingenuously, bottom lip pushed into a pout. “I'm not important.” But that's not so.