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riotous; rather than land and lose his crew, who would certainly desert and thus cost him a cargo of whale oil, the captain kept them cruising out at sea. Discipline was maintained by a daily allowance of rum and the kicks and cuffs of the chief mate. When at last the sailors laid their case before the English Consul at Tahiti the fountain of justice seemed to them impure. At any rate, Melville and others who had insisted upon their legal rights found themselves given into the charge of an old native who was directed to keep their legs in the stocks. But his notion of discipline was vague, and somehow or other, what with the beauty of the place and the kindness of the natives, Melville began once more, curiously and perhaps dangerously, to feel content. Again there was freedom and indolence; torches brandished in the woods at night; dances under the moon, rainbow fish sparkling in the water, and women stuck about with variegated flowers. But something was wrong. Listening, Melville heard the aged Tahitians singing in a low, sad tone a song which ran: The palm trees shall grow, the coral shall spread, but man shall cease’; and statistics bore them out. The population had sunk from two hundred thousand to nine thousand in less than a century. The Europeans had brought the diseases of civilization along with its benefits. The missionaries followed, but Melville did not like the missionaries. There is, perhaps, no race on earth,’ he wrote, ‘less disposed, by nature, to the monitions of Christianity’ than the Tahitians, and to teach them any useful trade is an impossibility. Civilization and savagery blended in the strangest way in the palace of Queen Pomaree. The great leaf-hung hall, with its mats and screens and groups of natives, was furnished with rosewood writing desks, cut-glass decanters, and gilded candelabras. A coconut kept open the pages of a volume of Hogarth’s prints. And in the evenings the Queen herself would put on a crown which Queen Victoria had good-naturedly sent her from London, and walk up and down the road raising her hand as people passed her to the symbol of majesty in what she thought a military salute. So Marheyo had been profoundly grateful for the present of a pair of old boots. But this time, somehow, Melville did not laugh.
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TO LEMUEL SHAW, CHIEF JUSTICE OF TILE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, THIS LITTLE WORK IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE
