CHAPTER XIV. TISSEMOA AND THE CUTTLE-FISH 265
Impressionistic Scene in Nuka Hiva—Tissemao listens to the Luring Voice of a Cuttle-fish—The Love-stricken Cuttle-fish—When Crabs are Brave
CHAPTER XV. CHARITY ORGANIZATION OF THE SOUTH SEAS 273
I fall from Space—Court Violinist—Arrive in Fiji—With the Great Missing
The Wild White Girl—The Wagner of Storms—A Pagan Citadel—Pagan Democracy—Ye Old Britisher—A Battle in the Dark
Poetry’s Legitimate Child—Music’s Fairyland—A Civilized Old Man of the Sea—A Clerical Hat is the Symbol of Modern Religion
The Modern Old Man of the Sea—Fifty Pounds!—A Human Octopus—Adrift at Sea—Sorrow—Saved—In Tonga—Our Old Man’s last Hiding-place—Retrospect
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Come! follow me o’er the sun-bleached sands by the seas where the small grog-shanty stands On the Wallaby track to Falaboo. Come! drink of the sunsets, rich old wine from the wandering sinful days of mine, For ’tis only in dreams the world rings true. Come! dream of some magic, far-off day, some lone backyard in the Milky way! I’ll fiddle; how the wandering stars will dance! We’ll sing together—“Yo ho! yo ho!” as on the mighty God-winds blow Through the dreams of my world of gay romance.
I’ve tramped the tracks to Malabo, I’ve been the way the fallen go! When times were bad my fiddle wailed their grief— Till, by the camp-fires on the steep, one by one they fell asleep: (I’ve buried three, dead in their boots beneath The breadfruit trees, with all their dreams and Heaven knows what thwarted schemes!) We’d tramped the cities, then we sought the huts. And now?—secure on heathen isles, my pals still sport their hopeful smiles: We’re looking thin on rum and coco-nuts!
So read these pioneer strains of mine, and drink deep, friend, as men do wine, Of sunsets on the ocean’s foaming rim, Of far-away and long ago where the scented trade winds blow Till skylines sigh the stars full to the brim! As on I tramp through sun-parched days or camp beside the trackless ways, Here with my fiddle in the jungle curl’d,
Weighed down with wealth!—my tropic seas, my roof of stars above palm trees, My home the hills and highways of the world! But—if you men of far-off towns have got a few spare old half-crowns, Just buy my book, it’s really not the worst Man ever wrote, but nearly so, and that’s quite near enough, you know; So, be my friend—and read it “till you burst.”