The Cruise of the Cachalot [124]
without their priest, I could not find out. Every evening they had prayers together, accompanied by many crossings and genuflexions, and wound up by the singing of a hymn in such queer Latin that it was almost unrecognizable. After much wondering I did manage to make out "O Salutaris Hostia!" and "Tantum Ergo," but not until their queer pronunciation of consonants had become familiar. Some of the hymns were in their own tongue, only one of which I call now remember. Phonetically, it ran thus--
"Mah-lee-ah, Kollyeea leekee; Obselloh mo mallamah. Alofah, keea ma toh; Fah na oh, Mah lah ee ah"--
which I understood to be a native rendering of "O Stella Maris!" It was sung to the well-known "Processional" in good time, and on that account, I suppose, fixed itself in my memory.
Whenever any of them were ordered aloft, they never failed to cross themselves before taking to the rigging, as if impressed with a sense of their chance of not returning again in safety. To me was given the congenial task of teaching them the duties required, and I am bound to admit that they were willing, biddable, and cheerful learners. Another amiable trait in their characters was especially noticeable: they always held everything in common. No matter how small the portion received by any one, it was scrupulously shared with the others who lacked, and this subdivision was often carried to ludicrous lengths.
As there was so reason to hurry south, we, took a short cruise on the Vasquez ground, more, I think, for the purpose of training our recruits than anything else. As far as the results to our profit were concerned, we might almost as well have gone straight on, for we only took one small cow-cachalot. But the time spent thus cruising was by no means wasted. Before we left finally for New Zealand, every one of those Kanakas was as much at home in the whale-boats as he would have been in a canoe. Of course they were greatly helped by their entire familiarity with the water, which took from them all that dread of being drowned which hampers the white "greenie" so sorely, besides which, the absolute confidence they had in our prowess amongst the whales freed them from any fear on that head.
Tui proved himself to be a smart harpooner, and was chosen for the captain's boat. During our conversations, I was secretly amused to hear him allude to himself as Sam, thinking how little it accorded with his SOI-DISANT Kanaka origin. He often regaled me with accounts of his royal struggles to maintain his rule, all of which narrations I received with a goodly amount of reserve, though confirmed in some particulars by the Kanakas, when I became able to converse with them. But I was hardly prepared to find, as I did many years after, upon looking up some detail in Findlay's "South Pacific Directory," this worthy alluded to as "the celebrated Sam," in a brief account of Futuna. There he was said to be king of the twin isles; so I suppose he found means to oust his rival, and resume his sovereignty; though, how an American negro, as Sam undoubtedly was, ever managed to gain such a position, remains to me an unfathomable mystery. Certainly he did not reveal any such masterful attributes as one would have expected in him, while he served as harpooner on board the CACHALOT.
Gradually we crept south, until one morning we sighted the towering mass of Sunday Island, the principal member of the small Kermadec group, which lies nearly on the prime meridian of one hundred and eighty degrees, and but a short distance north of the extremity of New Zealand. We had long ago finished the last of our fresh provisions, fish had been very scarce, so the captain seized the opportunity to give us a run ashore, and at the same time instructed us to do such foraging as we could. It was rumoured that there were many wild pigs to be found, and certainly abundance of goats; but if both these sources of supply failed, we could fall back on fish, of which we were almost sure to get a good haul.
The island is a stupendous mass of rock, rising sheer from the
"Mah-lee-ah, Kollyeea leekee; Obselloh mo mallamah. Alofah, keea ma toh; Fah na oh, Mah lah ee ah"--
which I understood to be a native rendering of "O Stella Maris!" It was sung to the well-known "Processional" in good time, and on that account, I suppose, fixed itself in my memory.
Whenever any of them were ordered aloft, they never failed to cross themselves before taking to the rigging, as if impressed with a sense of their chance of not returning again in safety. To me was given the congenial task of teaching them the duties required, and I am bound to admit that they were willing, biddable, and cheerful learners. Another amiable trait in their characters was especially noticeable: they always held everything in common. No matter how small the portion received by any one, it was scrupulously shared with the others who lacked, and this subdivision was often carried to ludicrous lengths.
As there was so reason to hurry south, we, took a short cruise on the Vasquez ground, more, I think, for the purpose of training our recruits than anything else. As far as the results to our profit were concerned, we might almost as well have gone straight on, for we only took one small cow-cachalot. But the time spent thus cruising was by no means wasted. Before we left finally for New Zealand, every one of those Kanakas was as much at home in the whale-boats as he would have been in a canoe. Of course they were greatly helped by their entire familiarity with the water, which took from them all that dread of being drowned which hampers the white "greenie" so sorely, besides which, the absolute confidence they had in our prowess amongst the whales freed them from any fear on that head.
Tui proved himself to be a smart harpooner, and was chosen for the captain's boat. During our conversations, I was secretly amused to hear him allude to himself as Sam, thinking how little it accorded with his SOI-DISANT Kanaka origin. He often regaled me with accounts of his royal struggles to maintain his rule, all of which narrations I received with a goodly amount of reserve, though confirmed in some particulars by the Kanakas, when I became able to converse with them. But I was hardly prepared to find, as I did many years after, upon looking up some detail in Findlay's "South Pacific Directory," this worthy alluded to as "the celebrated Sam," in a brief account of Futuna. There he was said to be king of the twin isles; so I suppose he found means to oust his rival, and resume his sovereignty; though, how an American negro, as Sam undoubtedly was, ever managed to gain such a position, remains to me an unfathomable mystery. Certainly he did not reveal any such masterful attributes as one would have expected in him, while he served as harpooner on board the CACHALOT.
Gradually we crept south, until one morning we sighted the towering mass of Sunday Island, the principal member of the small Kermadec group, which lies nearly on the prime meridian of one hundred and eighty degrees, and but a short distance north of the extremity of New Zealand. We had long ago finished the last of our fresh provisions, fish had been very scarce, so the captain seized the opportunity to give us a run ashore, and at the same time instructed us to do such foraging as we could. It was rumoured that there were many wild pigs to be found, and certainly abundance of goats; but if both these sources of supply failed, we could fall back on fish, of which we were almost sure to get a good haul.
The island is a stupendous mass of rock, rising sheer from the