Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XX.

JUPITER TO­NANS--THE THUN­DERS OF THE PI­LOT--WOR­SHIP­PERS OF THE FAR WEST--A LATE BREAK­FAST--RONO THE GREAT--A POLY­NE­SIAN LEG­END--MAN­NERS AND CUS­TOMS OF OCEA­NIA--MR. AND MRS. TAMAI­DI--RE­GAL POMP--EL­BOW ROOM--KATZEN­MUSIK--QUEEN TON­ICO AND THE SHAV­ING GLASS--CON­SE­QUENCES OF A PINCH OF SNUFF--DIS­GRACE OF THE GREAT RONO--MAR­IUS--CORI­OLANUS--HAN­NI­BAL--AL­CIB­IADES--CI­MON--ARIS­TIDES--A SOP FOR THE THIRSTY--AIR SOME­THING ELSE BE­SIDES OXY­GEN AND HY­DRO­GEN--MARY­LAND AND WHITECHAPEL--HALF-​WAY UP THE CORDILLERAS--HU­MAN MA­CHINES--STAR OF THE SEA, PRAY FOR US!

Was he on his way to the Capi­tol or to the Gemo­ni­ae? The so­lu­tion of this ques­tion be­came, for the mo­ment, of greater im­por­tance to Willis than the “to be or not to be” of Ham­let to the State of Den­mark. This in­cer­ti­tude was all the more painful, that it was ac­com­pa­nied by myr­iads of in­sects, cre­at­ed by the re­cent rains; these swarmed in the air to such an ex­tent, that it was ut­ter­ly im­pos­si­ble to in­hale the one with­out swal­low­ing the oth­er. The sailor, notwith­stand­ing his el­evat­ed and some­what per­ilous po­si­tion, true to his in­stincts and tor­ment­ed by the flies, took out his pipe, filled it, and struck a light. As soon as the first col­umn of smoke is­sued from his mouth, the cav­al­cade halt­ed spon­ta­neous­ly, the na­tives fell on their faces, their noses touch­ing the ground, and in an at­ti­tude of the pro­found­est fear and ap­pre­hen­sion. Jupiter thun­der­ing nev­er cre­at­ed such a sen­sa­tion as Willis smok­ing. The sav­ages seemed glued to the earth with ter­ror. If the Pi­lot had thought it ad­vis­able to es­cape, he might have walked over the pros­trate bod­ies of his cap­tors, not one of whom would have been bold enough to fol­low what ap­peared to be a hu­man vol­cano, vom­it­ing fire and smoke,--the fire of course be­ing un­der­stood.

Willis, how­ev­er, now saw that he pos­sessed in his pipe a ready means of aw­ing them. Be­sides, it was clear that, through some for­tu­nate co­in­ci­dence, the na­tives had mis­tak­en him for a di­vin­ity. There was, con­se­quent­ly, no im­me­di­ate dan­ger to be ap­pre­hend­ed; he there­fore be­came him­self again, and be­gan to en­joy the nov­el­ty of his new dig­ni­ty.

It was cer­tain­ly a cu­ri­ous con­trast. Willis, seat­ed on a sort of throne, crowned with a wav­ing plume of feath­ers, shroud­ed in a fiery man­tle, and sur­round­ed by a crowd of pros­trate fig­ures, was qui­et­ly puff­ing rib­bons of smoke from the tips of his lips. There he sat, for all the world like a crane in a duck-​pond. From time to time the more dar­ing of the wor­ship­pers slight­ly raised their heads to see whether Jupiter was still thun­der­ing; but when their eye caught a whiff of smoke, they speed­ily re­sumed their for­mer pos­ture. Some of them even thrust their heads in­to holes, or be­hind stones, as if more ef­fec­tu­al­ly to shel­ter them­selves from the fury of the fiery fur­nace. At last the erup­tion ceased, Willis knocked the ash­es out of his pipe, re­placed it in his pock­et, and the con­voy re­sumed its route. Af­ter half an hour's march, the pro­ces­sion halt­ed near a clump of plan­tains, in front of a struc­ture more am­bi­tious than any of those in the neigh­bor­hood. A fe­male, laden with rude or­na­ments, was stand­ing at the door. This la­dy, who ri­valled the cel­ebrat­ed Daniel Lam­bert in di­men­sions, would have cre­at­ed quite a _furore_ at Bartholomew Fair; ac­cord­ing to Jack, she was so amaz­ing­ly fat, that it would have tak­en full five min­utes to walk round her. She took the Pi­lot re­spect­ful­ly by the hand, and led him in­to the in­te­ri­or of the build­ing, which was crowd­ed with im­ages of var­ious forms, and was ev­ident­ly a tem­ple. Willis, at a sign from his con­duc­tress, seat­ed him­self in a chair, raised on a dais, and sur­mount­ed by a ter­rif­ic fig­ure sim­ilar to the one al­ready de­scribed, but draped in white feath­ers in­stead of red.

The fat la­dy, or rather the high priest­ess--for she was the reign­ing po­ten­tate in this mag­azine of idols--took a suck­ing pig that was held by one of the priests. Af­ter mut­ter­ing a prayer or homi­ly of some sort, she stran­gled the poor an­imal, and re­turned it to the priest. By and by, the pig was brought in again cooked, and pre­sent­ed with great cer­emo­ny to Willis. There were like­wise sundry dish­es of fruit, nuts, and sev­er­al small cups con­tain­ing some kind of liq­uid. One of the priests cut up the pig, and lift­ed pieces of it to Willis's mouth; these, how­ev­er, he re­fused to eat. The fat priest­ess, ob­serv­ing this, chewed one or two mouth­fuls, which she af­ter­wards hand­ed to the Pi­lot. This was putting the sailor's gal­lantry to rather a rude test. He was equal to the emer­gen­cy, and did not refuse the of­fer­ing. But he must have felt at the time, that be­ing a di­vin­ity was not en­tire­ly with­out its at­ten­dant in­con­ve­niences.

Nor was this the on­ly in­flic­tion of the kind he was doomed to with­stand. One of the priests took up a piece of ka­va-​root, put it in­to his mouth, chewed it, and then dropped a bit in­to each of the cups al­ready no­ticed. One of these, con­tain­ing this nec­tar, was pre­sent­ed to Willis by the fat Hebe who presid­ed at the feast, and he had the for­ti­tude to taste it. An­oth­er of the cups was hand­ed to Jack.

“No, I thank you,” said he, shak­ing his head; “I break­fast­ed rather late this morn­ing.”

Mean­time, an­oth­er per­son­age had en­tered up­on the scene. Af­ter hav­ing per­formed an obei­sance to Willis like the rest, this in­di­vid­ual backed him­self to where Jack was stand­ing, by this means adroit­ly avoid­ing both the ka­va and the nose-​rub­bings. He was dis­tin­guished from the oth­er na­tives by an or­na­ment round his waist, which fell to his knees. His skin seemed a tri­fle less dark, his fea­tures less marked; but his body was tat­tooed and stained af­ter the com­mon fash­ion.

The new com­er turned out to be a Por­tuguese de­sert­er, who had aban­doned his ship twen­ty years be­fore, and had mar­ried the daugh­ter of a chief of the is­land on which he now was. At the present mo­ment, he filled the part of prime min­is­ter to the king, an of­fice be could not have held in his own un­grate­ful coun­try, since he could nei­ther read nor write. These ac­com­plish­ments, it ap­peared, were not, how­ev­er, ab­so­lute­ly in­dis­pens­able in Poly­ne­sia. It has been found that when a sav­age is trans­ferred to Eu­rope, he read­ily ac­quires the habits of civ­ilized life. By a sim­ilar adap­ta­tion of things to cir­cum­stances, this Eu­ro­pean had iden­ti­fied him­self with the sav­ages. He had adopt­ed their man­ners, their cus­toms, and their cos­tume. When he thought of his own coun­try, it was on­ly to won­der why he ev­er sub­mit­ted to the con­straint of a coat, or put him­self to the trou­ble of han­dling a fork and spoon. He had not, how­ev­er, en­tire­ly for­got­ten his moth­er tongue, and, more­over, still re­tained in his mem­ory a few En­glish words. He was like­wise very com­mu­nica­tive, and told Jack that they were in the Is­land of Hawai; that the name of the king was Toubowrai Tamai­di, who, he added, in­tend­ed vis­it­ing the pin­nace with the queen next day, to pay his re­spects in per­son to the great Rono. “His Majesty,” said the Por­tuguese, “would have been amongst the first to throw him­self at his feet, but un­for­tu­nate­ly the roy­al res­idence is a good way off; and though both the king and the queen are on the way, run­ning as fast as they can, it may take them some time yet to reach the shore.”

“But who is the great Rono?” in­quired Jack.

“Well,” replied the prime min­is­ter, “you ought to know best, since you ar­rived with him.”

Jack felt that he was touch­ing on del­icate ground, and saw that it was nec­es­sary to diplo­ma­tise a lit­tle.

“True,” said he; “but I am not ac­quaint­ed with the po­si­tion that il­lus­tri­ous per­son holds in re­la­tion to Hawai.” The Por­tuguese then made a very long, ram­bling, and not very lu­cid state­ment, from which Jack gleaned the fol­low­ing de­tails. About a hun­dred years be­fore, dur­ing the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great war­rior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very pop­ular, but he was very jeal­ous. In a mo­ment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was pas­sion­ate­ly fond. The re­gret and grief that re­sult­ed from this act drove him out of his sens­es; he wan­dered dis­con­so­late­ly about the is­land, fought and quar­relled with ev­ery one that came near him. At last, in a fit of de­spair, he em­barked in a large ca­noe, and, af­ter promis­ing to re­turn at the ex­pi­ra­tion of twelve hun­dred moons, with a white face and on a float­ing is­land, he put out to sea, and was nev­er heard of more.

This tra­di­tion, it ap­pears, had been pi­ous­ly hand­ed down from fam­ily to fam­ily. The na­tives of Hawai--who are not more ex­trav­agant in the mat­ter of idols than some na­tions who boast a larg­er amount of civ­iliza­tion, but who do not de­stroy them so of­ten--en­rolled Rono amongst the list of their di­vini­ties. An im­age of him was set up, sac­ri­fices were in­sti­tut­ed in his hon­or. Ev­ery year the day of his de­par­ture was kept sa­cred, and de­vot­ed to re­li­gious cer­emonies. The twelfth hun­dred moon had just set, when a large boat ap­peared in the bay, and a man came ashore. The high priest of the tem­ple, Raou, and his daugh­ter, On La, priest­ess of Rono, solemn­ly de­clared that the man in ques­tion was Rono him­self, who had re­turned at the pre­cise time named, and in the man­ner he promised.

It was, there­fore, clear from this state­ment that Willis was to be hence­for­ward Rono the Great.

Jack was rather pleased than oth­er­wise to learn that he was the com­pan­ion of a re­al live di­vin­ity. It as­sured him, in the first place, that the dan­ger of his be­ing con­vert­ed in­to a stew or a fric­as­see was not im­mi­nent. He did not for­get, how­ev­er, that the con­se­quences might be per­ilous if, by any chance, the il­lu­sion ceased; for he knew that the greater the height from which a man falls, the less the mer­cy shown to him when he is down. As soon, there­fore, as the cer­emonies had a lit­tle re­laxed, and Willis was left some free­dom of ac­tion, Jack went for­ward, and knelt be­fore him in his turn.

“O sub­lime Rono,” said he, “I know now why your nose has es­caped all the rub­bings that mine has had to un­der­go.”

“Do you?” said Willis; “glad to hear it, for I am as much in the dark as ev­er.”

Jack then re­lat­ed to him the fab­ulous leg­end he had just heard.

Af­ter a while, Willis shook off his _en­tourage_ as gen­tly as pos­si­ble, and suc­ceed­ed in get­ting out of the tem­ple. Ac­com­pa­nied by Jack, he pro­ceed­ed to­wards the shore, re­ceiv­ing, as he went, the ado­ra­tion of the peo­ple. The route was strewn with fruit, co­coa-​nuts, and pigs, and the na­tives were high­ly de­light­ed when any of their of­fer­ings were ac­cept­ed by the de­ified Rono.

The is­landers ap­peared mild, docile, and in­tel­li­gent, notwith­stand­ing the sin­gu­lar delu­sion that pos­sessed them. Liv­ing from day to day, they were, doubt­less, ig­no­rant of those con­tin­ual cares and cal­cu­la­tions for the fu­ture that in the old world pur­sue us even in­to the hours of sleep. Were they hap­pi­er in con­se­quence? Yes, if the child is hap­pi­er than the man, and if we ad­mit that we of­ten loose in tran­quil­li­ty and hap­pi­ness what we gain in knowl­edge and per­fec­tion: yes, if hap­pi­ness is not ex­clu­sive­ly at­tached to cer­tain peo­ples and cer­tain cli­mates; yes, if it is true that, with con­tent­ment, hap­pi­ness is ev­ery­where to be found.

The hous­es of the Hawa­ians are sin­gu­lar struc­tures, and scarce­ly can be called dwellings. They con­sist of three rows of posts, two on each side and one in the mid­dle, the whole cov­ered with a slant­ing roof, but with­out any kind of wall what­ev­er.

They do not bury their dead, but swing them up in a sort of ham­mock, abun­dant­ly sup­plied with pro­vi­sions. It is sup­posed that this is done with a view to en­able the souls of the de­part­ed to take their flight more read­ily to heav­en. The prac­tice, con­se­quent­ly, seems to in­di­cate that the na­tives pos­sess a con­fused idea of a fu­ture state. When a child dies, flow­ers are placed in the ham­mock along with the pro­vi­sions--a touch of the na­ture com­mon to us all. They ex­press deep grief by in­flict­ing wounds up­on their faces with a shark's tooth; and, when they feel them­selves in dan­ger of dy­ing, they cut off a joint of the lit­tle fin­ger to ap­pease the anger of the Di­vin­ity. There was scarce­ly one of the adult is­landers who was not mu­ti­lat­ed in this way.

Though the wor­ship­pers of the great Rono ap­peared gen­tle and peace­able enough, there were to be seen here and there a hu­man jaw-​bone, seem­ing­ly fresh, with the teeth en­tire, sus­pend­ed over the en­trances to the huts. These ghast­ly ob­jects sent a shud­der quiv­er­ing through Jack's frame, and made Willis aware that it would not be ad­vis­able rash­ly to throw off his sa­cred char­ac­ter.

As it was now late, and as they knew that Fritz would be un­easy about them, they put off lay­ing in their stock of wa­ter till next day. Jack told the prime min­is­ter that the great Rono would be pre­pared to re­ceive their majesties when­ev­er they chose to vis­it him. This done, Willis and his com­pan­ion seat­ed them­selves in the ca­noe, and rowed out to the pin­nace.

“God be thanked, you have re­turned in safe­ty!” cried Fritz; “I nev­er was so un­easy in the whole course of my life.”

“Well, broth­er, we have not been with­out our anx­ieties as well, and had we not hap­pened to have had a di­vin­ity amongst us, we might not have come off scath­less.”

Jack then re­lat­ed their ad­ven­tures, which grad­ual­ly brought a smile to the pale lips of Fritz.

“But the wa­ter?” in­quired Fritz, af­ter he had heard the sto­ry.

“Oh, wa­ter; they of­fered us some­thing to drink on shore that will pre­vent us be­ing thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that to-​mor­row.”

To­wards dark, some fire­works were dis­charged on board the pin­nace, by way of demon­strat­ing that Willis's pipe was not the on­ly fiery ter­ror the great Rono had at his com­mand.

Ear­ly next morn­ing a flotil­la of ca­noes were ob­served round­ing one of the points that formed the bay. The one in ad­vance was larg­er than the oth­ers, and was ev­ident­ly the trunk of a large tree hol­lowed out. Jack's new friend, the Por­tuguese, hailed the pin­nace, and an­nounced the King and Queen of Hawai, who there­upon scram­bled in­to the pin­nace. His majesty King Toubowrai had prob­ably felt it in­cum­bent up­on him­self to do hon­or to the il­lus­tri­ous Rono, for he wore an old uni­form coat, very like­ly the pro­duce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the an­gu­lar knobs of his cop­per-​col­ored el­bows pro­ject­ed. He did not seem very much at his ease in this gar­ment, which con­trast­ed odd­ly with the tight-​fit­ting tat­tooed skin that served him for pan­taloons.

His wife, Queen Ton­ico, princess-​like was half sti­fled in a thick blan­ket or mat of co­coa-​nut fi­bre. Her ears were heav­ily laden with teeth and or­na­ments of var­ious kinds, made out of bone, moth­er of pearl, and tor­toise-​shell. Her nails were two or three inch­es long; and, to judge by the num­ber of fin­ger-​joints that were want­ing, she was ei­ther trou­bled with del­icate nerves, or was slight­ly hypochon­dri­ac.

The roy­al pair were ac­com­pa­nied by a band of mu­sic: for­tu­nate­ly, this re­mained in the re­gal barge. It con­sist­ed of a flute with four holes, a non­de­script in­stru­ment, seem­ing­ly made of stones; a drum made out of the hol­low trunk of a tree, cov­ered at each end with skin, of what kind it is need­less to in­quire. The sounds emit­ted by this or­ches­tra were of an ear-​rend­ing na­ture, and of a kind graph­ical­ly termed by the Ger­mans Katzen­musik.

“Il­lus­tri­ous Rono,” cried Jack, “for good­ness sake, tell these gen­tle­men you are not a lover of sweet sounds.”

“Be­lay there!” roared Willis.

This com­mand, how­ev­er, had no ef­fect; the artists con­tin­ued thump­ing and blow­ing away as be­fore. Willis, think­ing to make him­self bet­ter heard, placed his hands on his mouth, and roared the same or­der through them. This ac­tion seemed to be re­ceived as a mark of ap­pro­ba­tion, for the noise be­came ab­so­lute­ly ter­rif­ic.

“No use,” said Willis: “I can make noth­ing of them. You try what you can do.”

“Very good,” said Jack, light­ing what is tech­ni­cal­ly termed an _ar­ti­choke_, but bet­ter known as a zig-​zag crack­er; “if they do not un­der­stand En­glish, per­haps they may com­pre­hend py­rotech­nics.”

The ar­ti­choke was thrown in­to the roy­al barge. At first there was on­ly a slight whiz, fi­nal­ly it gave an an­gry bound and leaped in­to the midst of the mu­si­cians. Star­tled, they tried to get out of its way; but they were no soon­er at what they thought to be a safe dis­tance, than the thing was amongst them again. Their majesties, who were just then en­gaged in kiss­ing the Rono's feet, start­ed up in alarm; but when they saw the dan­ger did not men­ace them­selves, they burst in­to a hearty laugh at the an­tics of their suite.

This episode over, and the or­ches­tra si­lenced, the Sovereign of Hawai pro­ceed­ed to in­spect the pin­nace. He ex­pressed his de­light ev­ery now and then by ut­ter­ing the syl­la­bles “_ta-​ta_.” Fritz hand­ed one of those shav­ing glass­es to the Queen that length­en the ob­jects they re­flect. This as­ton­ished her Majesty vast­ly, and caused her to _ta-​ta_ at a great rate. She looked be­hind the mir­ror, turned it up­side down, and at last, when she felt as­sured that it was the roy­al per­son it car­ica­tured, she com­menced mea­sur­ing her cheeks to ac­count for the ex­traor­di­nary dis­pro­por­tion.

They next all sat down to a repast that was spread on deck. Their Majesties ob­serv­ing Rono use a fork, did so like­wise; but though they stuck a piece of meat on the end of it, and held it in one hand, they con­tin­ued car­ry­ing the viands to their mouths with the oth­er. At the con­clu­sion of the feast, Willis took a pinch of snuff out of a can­is­ter. Their Majesties in­sist­ed up­on do­ing so like­wise. Willis hand­ed them the can­is­ter, and they filled their noses with the treach­er­ous pow­der. Then fol­lowed a duet of sneez­ing, ac­com­pa­nied with fa­cial con­tor­tions. The roy­al per­son­ages think­ing, prob­ably, that they were poi­soned, leaped in­to the sea like a cou­ple of frogs, and swam to the roy­al barge.

“Hol­loa, sire,” cried Jack, “where are you off to?”

This was an­swered by the barge pad­dling away rapid­ly to­wards land. Hith­er­to, the whole af­fair had been a farce; but now the na­tives, who had col­lect­ed in great num­bers along the shore, see­ing their king and queen leap in­to the wa­ter with a ter­ri­fied air, sup­posed that an at­tempt had been made to cut short their roy­al lives, and, un­der this im­pres­sion, dis­charged a cloud of ar­rows at the pin­nace, and mat­ters be­gan to as­sume a se­ri­ous as­pect.

“What!” ex­claimed Jack, “shoot­ing at the great Rono!”

“That,” said Fritz, “on­ly proves they are men like our­selves. He who is cov­ered with in­cense one day, is very of­ten im­mo­lat­ed the next.”

“And that sim­ply be­cause Rono treat­ed Mr. and Mrs. What's-​their-​names to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to dis­charge the con­tents of the four-​pounder amongst them.”

“No, no,” cried Willis; “the wor­thy peo­ple are, per­haps, fond of their king and queen.”

“Wor­thy peo­ple or not,” said Fritz, draw­ing out an ar­row that had sunk in­to the cap­stan, “it is very like­ly that if this dart had hit one of us, there would on­ly have been two in­stead of three in the crew of the pin­nace.”

“Well,” said Willis, “Mas­ter Jack thought the voy­age rather dull; now some­thing has turned up to re­lieve the monotony of his log.”

“We are still with­out fresh wa­ter though, Willis; I wish you could say that had turned up as well.”

“It will be pru­dent to go in search of that some­where else now,” said Willis, un­furl­ing the sails. “For­tu­nate­ly the wind is fresh, and we can make con­sid­er­able head­way be­fore night.”

As they steered gen­tly out of the bay a sec­ond cloud of ar­rows was sent af­ter them, but this time they fell short.

“The be­lief in Rono is about to be se­ri­ous­ly com­pro­mised,” re­marked Fritz; “I should ad­vise the priest­ess to re­tire in­to pri­vate life.”

“Im­pos­si­ble.”

“Why?”

“Be­cause she is too fat to live in an or­di­nary house, she could on­ly breathe in a tem­ple. But, O hu­man vi­cis­si­tudes!” added Jack, rolling him­self up in a sail af­ter the man­ner of the Ro­man sen­ators; “be­hold Rono the Great ban­ished from his coun­try, and com­pelled to go and pil­low his head on a for­eign sail, like Mar­ius at Mintur­nus--like Cori­olanus amongst the Vol­cians--like Han­ni­bal at the house of An­ti­ochus--like Al­cib­iades at the cas­tle of Gruni­um in Phry­gia, giv­en to him out of char­ity by the benev­olent Pharn­abazus, and in which he was burnt alive by his coun­try­men--like Ci­mon, vot­ed in­to ex­ile by bal­lot and uni­ver­sal suf­frage--like Aris­tides, whom the peo­ple got tired of hear­ing called the Just, and many oth­ers.”

“Who are all these per­son­ages?” in­quired Willis.

“They were wor­thies of an­oth­er age,” replied Fritz; “very ex­cel­lent men in their way, and you are in no way dis­hon­ored by be­ing num­bered amongst them.”

“Yes­ter­day,” con­tin­ued Jack, “an en­tire peo­ple were up­on their knees be­fore you; they of­fered up sac­ri­fices, and poured out in­cense on their al­tars for you; fruit and pigs were scat­tered in heaps, like flow­ers, up­on your path; the crowd were pros­trat­ed by the fumes of your pipe. To-​day--alas, the change!--a cloud of ar­rows, and not a sin­gle glass of cold wa­ter!”

“That gives you an op­por­tu­ni­ty of quench­ing your thirst with the nec­tar of­fered to you yes­ter­day,” said Fritz; “as for my­self, I have no such re­source.”

“Yes, that was a pos­set to quench one's thirst with­al; I on­ly wish I had a cup­ful to give you. I do not re­gret hav­ing had an op­por­tu­ni­ty of be­com­ing ac­quaint­ed with the peo­ple though. They have en­abled me to rec­ti­fy some er­ro­neous no­tions I for­mer­ly en­ter­tained. If, for ex­am­ple, I were to ask you what air con­sists of? you would, no doubt, re­ply that is a com­pound body made of oxy­gen and hy­dro­gen or azote, in the pro­por­tion of twen­ty-​one of the one to sev­en­ty-​nine of the oth­er.”

“Yes, most un­doubt­ed­ly.”

“Well, such is not the case; there are oth­er el­ements in the air be­sides these.”

“If you mean that the air ac­ci­den­tal­ly, or even per­ma­nent­ly, holds in so­lu­tion a cer­tain quan­ti­ty of wa­ter, or a por­tion of car­bon­ic acid gas, and pos­si­bly some par­ti­cles of dust aris­ing from ter­res­tri­al bod­ies, then I grant your premis­es.”

“No; what I mean is, that the air of Hawai is com­posed of three dis­tinct el­ements.”

“Pos­si­bly; but if so, the air in ques­tion is not known to chemists.”

“These three el­ements are oxy­gen, hy­dro­gen, and in­sects.”

“Ah, in­sects! I might have fan­cied you were driv­ing at some hy­poth­esis of that sort.”

“I in­tend to com­mu­ni­cate this dis­cov­ery to the first learned so­ci­ety we fall in with.”

“In the Pa­cif­ic Ocean?”

“Yes: there or else­where.”

“I al­ways un­der­stood,” ob­served Willis, “that air was a sort of cloud, one and in­di­vis­ible.”

“A cloud if you like, Willis; but do you know the weight of it you car­ry on your shoul­ders?”

“Well, it can­not be very great, oth­er­wise I should feel it.”

“What do you say to a ton or so, old fel­low?”

“If you wish me to be­lieve that, you will have to ex­plain how, where, when, why, and where­fore.”

“Very good. Willis; you have bathed some­times?”

“Yes, cer­tain­ly.”

“In the sea?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what wa­ter weighs?”

“No, but I know that it is heavy.”

“Well, a square yard of air weighs two pounds and a half, but a square yard of wa­ter weighs two thou­sand pounds. Now, can you cal­cu­late the weight of the wa­ter that is on your back and press­ing on your sides when you swim?”

“No, I can­not.”

“You are not suf­fi­cient­ly up in arith­metic to do that, Willis?”

“No.”

“Nor am I ei­ther, Willis; but let me ask you how it is that the waves do not car­ry you along with them?”

“Be­cause one wave neu­tralis­es the ef­fect of an­oth­er.”

“Very good; but how is it that these pon­der­ous waves, com­ing down up­on you, do not crush you to atoms by their mere weight?”

“Well, I sup­pose that liq­uids do not op­er­ate in the same way as solids: per­haps there is some­thing in our bod­ies that coun­ter­bal­ances the ef­fect of the wa­ter.”

“Very like­ly; and if such be the case as re­gards wa­ter, may it not be so al­so as re­gards air?”

“But I do not feel air; where­as, if I go in­to wa­ter, I not on­ly feel it, but taste it some­times, and I can­not force my way through it with­out con­sid­er­able ex­er­tion.”

“That is be­cause you are or­ga­nized to live in air and not in wa­ter. You ask the small­est sprat or stick­le­bake if it does not, in the same way feel the air ob­struct its progress.”

“But would the stick­le­back an­swer me, Mas­ter Fritz?”

“Why not, if it is po­lite and well bred?”

“By the way, Willis,” in­quired Jack, “do you ev­er rec­ol­lect hav­ing lived with­out breath­ing?”

“Can't say I do.”

“Very well, then; had you felt the weight of the air at any giv­en mo­ment, it must have pro­duced an im­pres­sion you nev­er felt be­fore, but you have not, be­cause cir­cum­stances have nev­er var­ied. A sen­sa­tion sup­pos­es a con­trast, whilst, ev­er since you ex­ist­ed, you have al­ways been sub­ject to at­mo­spher­ic pres­sure.”

“Ah, now I be­gin to get at the gist of your ar­gu­ment. You mean, for ex­am­ple, that I would nev­er have ap­pre­ci­at­ed the del­icate fla­vor of Mary­land or Ha­van­na, had I not been ac­cus­tomed to smoke the cab­bage-​leaf man­ufac­tured in Whitechapel.”

“Pre­cise­ly so; and take for an­oth­er ex­am­ple the farm of An­ti­sana, which is sit­uat­ed about mid­way up the Cordilleras, moun­tains of South Amer­ica. When trav­ellers, ar­riv­ing there from the sum­mits which are cov­ered with per­pet­ual snow, meet oth­ers ar­riv­ing from the plain where the heat is in­tense, those that de­scend are in­vari­ably bathed in per­spi­ra­tion, whilst those that have come up are shiv­er­ing with cold and cov­ered with furs. The rea­son of this is, that we can­not feel warm till we have been cold, and _vice ver­sâ_.”

“Our bod­ies,” re­sumed Fritz, “how­ev­er much the ther­mome­ter de­scends, nev­er mark less than thir­ty-​five de­grees above ze­ro. In win­ter the skin shrinks, and be­comes a bad con­duc­tor of heat from with­out; but, at the same time, does not al­low so much gas and va­por to es­cape from with­in. In sum­mer, on the con­trary, the skin di­lates and al­lows per­spi­ra­tion to form, a pro­cess that con­sumes a con­sid­er­able amount of la­tent heat. Start­ing from this prin­ci­ple, it has been cal­cu­lat­ed that a man, breath­ing twen­ty times in a minute, gen­er­ates as much heat in twen­ty-​four hours as would boil a buck­et of wa­ter tak­en at ze­ro.”

“If means could be found,” re­marked Jack, “to fur­nish him with a boil­er, by fix­ing a pis­ton here and a pipe there man might be con­vert­ed in­to one of the ma­chines we were talk­ing about the oth­er day.”

“Were I dis­posed to phi­los­ophize,” added Fritz, “I might prove to you that for a long time men have been lit­tle else than mere ma­chines.”

Be­fore night they had run about thir­ty miles fur­ther to the north-​east, with­out see­ing any thing be­yond a formidable bluff, guard­ed by a fringe of break­ers, that would soon have swal­lowed up the _Mary_ had she ven­tured to reach the land. It was nec­es­sary how­ev­er to ob­tain fresh wa­ter at any price be­fore they re­sumed their voy­age.

It was to be feared that all the is­landers of the Pa­cif­ic were not in ex­pec­ta­tion of a great Rono, con­se­quent­ly Willis sug­gest­ed that it would be as well to search for an un­in­hab­it­ed spot. The on­ly ques­tion was, how long they might have to search be­fore they suc­ceed­ed; for they knew that there were plen­ty of small is­lands in these lat­itudes un­en­cum­bered by sav­ages, and fur­nished with pools and springs of wa­ter.

Night at length closed in up­on them, and with it came a dense mist, that en­veloped the _Mary_ as if in a triple veil of muslin.

“Willis,” in­quired Jack, “what dif­fer­ence is there be­tween a mist and a cloud?”

“None that I know of,” replied the Pi­lot, “ex­cept that a cloud which we are in is mist, and mist that we are not in is a cloud. And now, my lads,” he added, “you may turn in, for I in­tend to take the first watch.”

Be­fore turn­ing in, how­ev­er, all three joined in a short prayer. The young men had not yet for­got­ten the pi­ous pre­cepts of their fa­ther. Prayer is beau­ti­ful ev­ery­where, but nowhere is it so beau­ti­ful as on the open sea, with in­fin­ity above and an abyss be­neath. Then, when all is silent save the roar of the waves and the howl­ing of the winds, it is sub­lime to hear the hum­ble voice of the sailor mur­mur­ing, “Star of the night, pray for us!”

That night the star of the night did pray for the three voy­agers, for the rays of the moon burst through the dark­ness and the mist, and fell up­on a long line of reefs un­der the lee of the pin­nace. Had they held on their course a few min­utes longer, our sto­ry would have been end­ed.