"Can it be that they are presenting us with all that?" Charmian whispered.
"Impossible," I muttered back."Why should they be giving it to us?
Besides, there is no room on the Snark for it.We could not eat a tithe of it.The rest would spoil.Maybe they are inviting us to the feast.At any rate, that they should give all that to us is impossible."Nevertheless we found ourselves once more in the high seat of abundance.The orator, by gestures unmistakable, in detail presented every item in the mountain to us, and next he presented it to us in toto.It was an embarrassing moment.What would you do if you lived in a hall bedroom and a friend gave you a white elephant?
Our Snark was no more than a hall bedroom, and already she was loaded down with the abundance of Tahaa.This new supply was too much.We blushed, and stammered, and mauruuru'd.We mauruuru'd with repeated nui's which conveyed the largeness and overwhelmingness of our thanks.At the same time, by signs, we committed the awful breach of etiquette of not accepting the present.The himine singers' disappointment was plainly betrayed, and that evening, aided by Tehei, we compromised by accepting one chicken, one bunch of bananas, one bunch of taro, and so on down the list.
But there was no escaping the abundance.I bought a dozen chickens from a native out in the country, and the following day he delivered thirteen chickens along with a canoe-load of fruit.The French storekeeper presented us with pomegranates and lent us his finest horse.The gendarme did likewise, lending us a horse that was the very apple of his eye.And everybody sent us flowers.The Snark was a fruit-stand and a greengrocer's shop masquerading under the guise of a conservatory.We went around flower-garlanded all the time.When the himine singers came on board to sing, the maidens kissed us welcome, and the crew, from captain to cabin-boy, lost its heart to the maidens of Bora Bora.Tehei got up a big fishing expedition in our honour, to which we went in a double canoe, paddled by a dozen strapping Amazons.We were relieved that no fish were caught, else the Snark would have sunk at her moorings.
The days passed, but the abundance did not diminish.On the day of departure, canoe after canoe put off to us.Tehei brought cucumbers and a young papaia tree burdened with splendid fruit.Also, for me he brought a tiny, double canoe with fishing apparatus complete.
Further, he brought fruits and vegetables with the same lavishness as at Tahaa.Bihaura brought various special presents for Charmian, such as silk-cotton pillows, fans, and fancy mats.The whole population brought fruits, flowers, and chickens.And Bihaura added a live sucking pig.Natives whom I did not remember ever having seen before strayed over the rail and presented me with such things as fish-poles, fish-lines, and fish-hooks carved from pearl-shell.
As the Snark sailed out through the reef, she had a cutter in tow.
This was the craft that was to take Bihaura back to Tahaa--but not Tehei.I had yielded at last, and he was one of the crew of the Snark.When the cutter cast off and headed east, and the Snark's bow turned toward the west, Tehei knelt down by the cockpit and breathed a silent prayer, the tears flowing down his cheeks.A week later, when Martin got around to developing and printing, he showed Tehei some of the photographs.And that brown-skinned son of Polynesia, gazing on the pictured lineaments of his beloved Bihaura broke down in tears.
But the abundance! There was so much of it.We could not work the Snark for the fruit that was in the way.She was festooned with fruit.The life-boat and launch were packed with it.The awning-guys groaned under their burdens.But once we struck the full trade-wind sea, the disburdening began.At every roll the Snark shook overboard a bunch or so of bananas and cocoanuts, or a basket of limes.A golden flood of limes washed about in the lee-scuppers.
The big baskets of yams burst, and pineapples and pomegranates rolled back and forth.The chickens had got loose and were everywhere, roosting on the awnings, fluttering and squawking out on the jib-boom, and essaying the perilous feat of balancing on the spinnaker-boom.They were wild chickens, accustomed to flight.
When attempts were made to catch them, they flew out over the ocean, circled about, and came lack.Sometimes they did not come back.
And in the confusion, unobserved, the little sucking pig got loose and slipped overboard.
"On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district: they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest foods."
