[begin page 489]
CHAPTER 71
At
Ⓐ four o’clock in the afternoon we were winding down a mountain of dreary and desolate
lava to the sea, and closing our
pleasant land journey. This lava is the accumulation of ages; one torrent of fire
after another has rolled down here in old times, and
built up the island structure higher and higher. Underneath, it is honey-combed with
caves; it would be of no use to dig wells in such
a place; they would not hold water—you would not find any for them to hold, for that
matter. Consequently, the planters depend
upon cisterns.
The last lava flow occurred here so long ago that there are none now living who witnessed
it. In
one place it enclosedⒶ and burned down a grove of cocoanutⒶ trees, and the holes in the lava where the trunks stood are still visible; their
sides retain the impression of the bark; the
trees fell upon the burning river, and becoming partly submerged, left in it the perfect
counterpartⒶ of every knot and branch and leaf, and even nut, for curiosity seekers of a long
distant day to gaze upon and wonder at.
There were doubtless plenty of Kanaka sentinels on guard hereabouts at that time,
but they did
not leave casts of their figures in the lava as the Roman sentinels at Herculaneum
and Pompeii did. It is a pity it is so, because such
things are so interesting, but so it is. They probably went away. They went away early,
perhaps.Ⓐ However, they had their merits; the Romans exhibited the higher pluck, but the Kanakas
showed the sounder judgment.Ⓐ
Shortly we came in sight of that spot whose history is so familiar to every school-boy
in the
wide world—Kealakekua Bay—the place where Capt.Ⓐ Cook, the great circumnavigator, was killed by the natives nearly a hundred years
ago. The setting sun was flaming upon it, a
summerⒶ shower was falling, and it was spanned by two magnificent rainbows. Two menⒶ who were in advance of us [begin page 490] rode through one of these, and for a moment their garments shone with a
more than regal splendor. Why did not Capt.Ⓐ Cook have taste enough to call his great discovery the Rainbow Islands? These charming
spectacles are present to you at every
turn; they are commonⒶ in all the islandsⒶ; they are visible every day, and frequently at night also—not the silvery bow we
see once in an age in the States, by
moonlight, but barred with all bright and beautiful colors, like the children of the
sun and rain. I saw one of them a few nights ago.
What the sailors call “rain-dogs”—little patches of rainbow—are often seen drifting
about the heavens in
these latitudes, like stained cathedral windows.
Kealakekua Bay is a little curve like the last kink of a snail shell, winding deep
into the
land, seemingly not more than a mile wide from shore to shore. It is bounded on one
side—where the murder was done—by a
little flat plain, on which stands a cocoanut grove and some ruined houses; a steep
wall of lava, a thousand feet high at the upper end
and three or four hundred at the lower, comes down from the mountain and bounds the
inner extremity of it. From this wall the place
takes its name, Kealakekua, which in the native tongue signifies “The Pathway of the Gods.” They
say (and still believe, in spite of their liberal education in Christianity), that
the great god
LonoⒺ
Ⓐ
Ⓐ, who used to live upon the hillside, always traveled that causeway when urgent business
connected with heavenly affairs called
him down to the seashore in a hurry.
As the red sun looked across the placid ocean through the tall, clean stems of the
cocoanut
trees, like a blooming whisky bloat through the bars of a city prison, I went and
stood in the edge of the water on the flat rock
pressed by Capt.Ⓐ Cook’s feet when the blow was dealt whichⒶ took away his life, and tried to picture in my mind the doomed man struggling in
the midst of the multitude of exasperated
savages—the men in the ship crowding to the vessel’s side and gazing in anxious dismay
toward the shore—the—butⒶ I discovered that I could not do it.
It was growing dark, the rain began to fall, we could see that the distant Boomerang
was
helplessly becalmed at sea, and so I adjourned to the cheerless little box of a warehouse
and sat down to smoke and think, and wish the
ship would make the land—for we had not eaten much for tenⒶ hours and were viciously hungry.
PlainⒶ unvarnished history takes the romance out of Capt.Ⓐ Cook’s [begin page 491] assassination, and renders a deliberate verdict of justifiable homicide. Wherever
he
went among the islands he was cordially received and welcomed by the inhabitants,
and his ships lavishly supplied with all manner of
food. He returned these kindnesses with insult and ill-treatment. Perceiving that the people took
him for the long vanished and lamented god Lono, he encouraged them in the delusion
for the sake of the limitless power it gave him;
but during the famous disturbance at this spot, and while he and his comrades were
surrounded by fifteen thousand maddened savages, he
received a hurt and betrayed his earthly origin with a groan.Ⓐ It was his death-warrant. Instantly a shout went up:Ⓐ
“He groans!—he is not a god!”Ⓔ
So they closed in upon him and dispatchedⒶ him.
His flesh was stripped from the bones and burned (except nine
pounds of it which were sent on board the ships).Ⓐ The heart was hung up in a native hut, where it was found and eaten by three children,
who mistook it for the heart of a dog.
One of these children grew to be a very old man, and diedⒶ in Honolulu a few years ago. SomeⒶ of Cook’s bones were recovered and consigned to the deepⒺ by the officers
of the ships.
Small blame should attach to the natives for the killing of Cook. They treated him
well. In
return, he abused them.Ⓐ He and his men inflicted bodily injury upon many of them at different times, and
kilied at least three of them before they
offered any proportionate retaliation.Ⓔ
Ⓔ
Ⓐ
Near the shore we found
“Cook’s Monument”—only aⒶ cocoanut stump, fourⒶ feet high, and about a foot in diameter at the butt. It had lava bouldersⒶ piled around its base to hold it up and keep it in its place, and it was entirely
sheathed over, from top to bottom, with rough,
discolored sheets of copper, such as ships’ bottoms are coppered with. Each sheet
had a rude inscription scratched upon
it—with a nail, apparently—and in every case the execution was wretched. Most of
these merely recorded the visits of British naval commanders to the spot, but one
of them bore this legend:Ⓐ
“Near this spot fell
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK,
The Distinguished Circumnavigator, who
Discovered these
Islands A. D. 1778.”Ⓐ
After Cook’s murder, his second in command, on board the ship, opened fire upon the
swarms of natives on the beach, and one of [begin page 492] his cannon balls cut this cocoanut tree short off and left this
monumental stump standing. It looked sad and lonely enough to us,Ⓐ out there in the rainy twilight. But there is no other monument to Capt.Ⓐ Cook. True, up on the mountain side we had passed by a large enclosureⒶ like an ample hog-pen, built of lava blocks, which marks the spot where Cook’s flesh
was stripped from his bones and
burned; but this is not properly a monument, since it was erected by the natives themselves,
and less to do honor to the
circumnavigator than for the sake of convenience in roasting him. A thing like a guide-board
was elevated above this pen on a tall
pole, and formerly there was an inscription upon it describing the memorable occurrence
that had there taken place; but the sun and the
wind have long ago so defaced it as to render it illegible.
Toward midnightⒶ a fine breeze sprang up and the schooner soon worked herselfⒶ into the bay and cast anchor. The boat came ashore for us, and in a little while
the clouds and the rain were allⒶ gone. The moon was beaming tranquilly down on land and sea, and we two were stretched
upon the deck sleeping the refreshing
sleep and dreaming the happy dreams that are only vouchsafed to the weary and the
innocent.Ⓔ
Ⓐ
Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 71
Ⓐ
At
(A) ●
centered
Nature’s Printed Record
in the Lava. [¶] At (SU)
Ⓐ
enclosed (A) ●
inclosed (SU)
Ⓐ
cocoanut (C) ●
cocoa-
| nut (SU)
Ⓐ
counterpart (A) ●
counterfeit (SU)
Ⓐ
perhaps. (A) ●
perhaps. It was very bad. (SU)
Ⓐ
judgment. (A) ●
judgment. [¶] As usual, Brown loaded his unhappy horse with fifteen or twenty pounds
of “specimens,”
to be cursed and worried over for a time, and then discarded for new toys of a similar
nature. He is like most people who visit these
Islands; they are always collecting specimens, with a wild enthusiasm, but they never
get home with any of them.
centered
Captain Cook’s Death-place.
(SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) ●
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
summer (C) ●
Summer (SU)
Ⓐ
men (A) ●
gentlemen (SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) ●
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
common (A) ●
as common (SU)
Ⓐ
islands (A) ●
islands as fogs and wind in San Francisco (SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) ●
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
the—but (A) ●
the——But (SU)
Ⓐ
Plain (A) ●
centered
The Story of Captain Cook.
[¶] Plain (SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) ●
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
Perceiving . . . groan. (A) ●
[¶] When he landed at Kealakekua Bay, a multitude of natives, variously estimated
at from ten to fifteen thousand,
flocked about him and conducted him to the principal temple with more than royal honors—with
honors suited to their chiefest
god, for such they took him to be. They called him Lono—a deity who had resided at
that place in a former age, but who had gone
away and had ever since been anxiously expected back by the people. When Cook approached
the awe-stricken people, they prostrated
themselves and hid their faces. His coming was announced in a loud voice by heralds,
and those who had not time to get out of the way
after prostrating themselves, were trampled under foot by the following throngs. Arrived
at the temple, he was taken into the most
sacred part and placed before the principal idol, immediately under an altar of wood
on which a putrid hog was deposited. “This
was held toward him while the priest repeated a long and rapidly enunciated address,
after which he was led to the top of a partially
decayed scaffolding. Ten men, bearing a large hog and bundles of red cloth, then entered
the temple and prostrated themselves before
him. The cloth was taken from them by the priest, who encircled Cook with it in numerous
folds, and afterward offered the hog to him
in sacrifice. Two priests, alternately and in unison, chanted praises in honor of
Lono, after which they led him to the chief idol,
which, following their example, he kissed.” He was anointed by the high priest—that
is to say, his arms, hands and face,
were slimed over with the chewed meat of a cocoanut; after this nasty compliment,
he was regaled with awa manufactured in the mouths
of attendants and spit out into a drinking vessel; “as the last most delicate attention,
he was fed with swine-meat which had
been masticated for him by a filthy old man.” [¶] These distinguished civilities were
never offered by the islanders to
mere human beings. Cook was mistaken for their absent god; he accepted the situation
and helped the natives to deceive themselves. His
conduct might have been wrong, in a moral point of view, but his policy was good in
conniving at the deception, and proved itself so;
the belief that he was a god saved him a good while from being killed—protected him
thoroughly and completely, until, in an
unlucky moment, it was discovered that he was only a man. His death followed instantly.
Jarves, from whose history, principally, I am
condensing this narrative, thinks his destruction was a direct consequence of his
dishonest personation of the god, but unhappily for
the argument, the historian proves, over and over again, that the false Lono was spared
time and again when simple Captain Cook of the
Royal Navy would have been destroyed with small ceremony. [¶] The idolatrous worship
of Captain Cook, as above described, was
repeated at every heathen temple he visited. Wherever he went the terrified common
people, not being accustomed to seeing gods
marching around of their own free will and accord and without human assistance, fled
at his approach or fell down and worshipped him.
A priest attended him and regulated the religious ceremonies which constantly took
place in his honor; offerings, chants and addresses
met him at every point. “For a brief period he moved among them an earthly god—observed,
feared and worshiped.”
During all this time the whole island was heavily taxed to supply the wants of the
ships or contribute to the gratification of their
officers and crews, and, as was customary in such cases, no return expected. “The
natives rendered much assistance in fitting
the ships and preparing them for their voyages.” [¶] At one time the King of the island
laid a tabu upon his people,
confining them to their houses for several days. This interrupted the daily supply
of vegetables to the ships; several natives tried
to violate the tabu, under threats made by Cook’s sailors, but were prevented by a
chief, who, for thus enforcing the laws of
his country, had a musket fired over his head from one of the ships. This is related
in “Cook’s Voyages.” The
tabu was soon removed, and the Englishmen were favored with the boundless hospitality
of the natives as before, except that the Kanaka
women were interdicted from visiting the ships; formerly, with extravagant hospitality,
the people had sent their wives and daughters
on board themselves. The officers and sailors went freely about the island, and were
everywhere laden with presents. The King visited
Cook in royal state, and gave him a large number of exceeding costly and valuable
presents—in return for which the resurrected
Lono presented His Majesty a white linen shirt and a dagger—an instance of illiberality
in every way discreditable to a god.
[¶] “On the 2d of February, at the desire of his commander, Captain King proposed
to the priests to purchase for fuel the
railing which surrounded the top of the temple of
Lono! In this Cook manifested as little respect for the
religion in the mythology of which he figured so conspicuously, as scruples in violating
the divine precepts of his own. Indeed,
throughout his voyages a spirit regardless of the rights and feelings of others, when
his own were interested, is manifested,
especially in his last cruise, which is a blot upon his memory.” [¶] Cook desecrated
the holy places of the temple by
storing supplies for his ships in them, and by using the level grounds within the
inclosure as a general workshop for repairing his
sails, etc.—ground which was so sacred that no common native dared to set his foot
upon it. Ledyard, a Yankee sailor, who was
with Cook, and whose journal is considered the most just and reliable account of this
eventful period of the voyage says two iron
hatchets were offered for the temple railing, and when the sacreligious proposition
was refused by the priests with horror and
indignation, it was torn down by order of Captain Cook and taken to the boats by the
sailors, and the images which surmounted it
removed and destroyed in the presence of the priests and chiefs. [¶] The abused and
insulted natives finally grew desperate under
the indignities that were constantly being heaped upon them by men whose wants they
had unselfishly relieved at the expense of their
own impoverishment, and angered by some fresh baseness, they stoned a party of sailors
and drove them to their boats. From this time
onward Cook and the natives were alternately friendly and hostile until Sunday, the
14th, whose setting sun saw the circumnavigator a
corpse. [¶] Ledyard’s account and that of the natives vary in no important particulars.
A Kanaka, in revenge for a blow he
had received at the hands of a sailor (the natives say he was flogged), stole a boat
from one of the ships and broke it up to get the
nails out of it. Cook determined to seize the King and remove him to his ship and
keep him a prisoner until the boat was restored. By
deception and smoothly-worded persuasion he got the aged monarch to the shore, but
when they were about to enter the boat a multitude
of natives flocked to the place, and one raised a cry that their King was going to
be taken away and killed. Great excitement ensued,
and Cook’s situation became perilous in the extreme. He had only a handful of marines
and sailors with him, and the crowd of
natives grew constantly larger and more clamorous every moment. Cook opened hostilities
himself. Hearing a native make threats, he had
him pointed out, and fired on him with a blank cartridge. The man, finding himself
unhurt, repeated his threats, and Cook fired again
and wounded him mortally. A speedy retreat of the English party to the boats was now
absolutely necessary; as soon as it was begun
Cook was hit with a stone, and discovering who threw it, he shot the man dead. The
officer in the boats observing the retreat, ordered
the boats to fire; this occasioned Cook’s guard to face about and fire also, and then
the attack became general. Cook and
Lieutenant Phillips were together a few paces in the rear of the guard, and perceiving
a general fire without orders, quitted the King
and ran to the shore to stop it; but not being able to make themselves heard, and
being close pressed upon by the chiefs, they joined
the guard, who fired as they retreated. Cook having at length reached the margin of
the water, between the fire and the boats, waved
with his hat for them to cease firing and come in; and while he was doing this a chief
stabbed him from behind with an iron dagger
(procured in traffic with the sailors), just under the shoulder-blade, and it passed
quite through his body. Cook fell with his face
in the water and immediately expired. [¶] The native account says that after Cook
had shot two men, he struck a stalwart chief
with the flat of his sword, for some reason or other; the chief seized and pinioned
Cook’s arms in his powerful gripe, and bent
him backward over his knee (not meaning to hurt him, for it was not deemed possible
to hurt the god
Lono, but
to keep him from doing further mischief) and this treat
| ment giving him pain, he betrayed his mortal nature
with a groan! (SU)
Ⓐ
Instantly a shout went up: (A) ●
The fraud which had served him so well was discovered at last. The natives shouted, (SU)
Ⓐ
So they closed in upon him and dispatched (A) ●
and instantly they fell upon him and killed (SU)
Ⓐ
ships). (A) ●
ships)
(SU)
Ⓐ
died (A) ●
died here (SU)
Ⓐ
Some (A) ●
A portion (SU)
Ⓐ
retaliation. (A) ●
retaliation.
indented from right MARK TWAIN. (SU)
Ⓐ
Near . . . a (A) ●
indented from right
Kealakekua
Bay (S. I.), 1866.
centered
Great
Britain’s Queer Monument to Captain Cook. [¶] When I digressed from my personal narrative to write about
Cook’s death I left myself, solitary, hungry and dreary, smoking in the little warehouse
at Kealakekua Bay. Brown was out
somewhere gathering up a fresh lot of specimens, having already discarded those he
dug out of the old lava flow during the afternoon.
I soon went to look for him. He had returned to the great slab of lava upon which
Cook stood when he was murdered, and was absorbed in
maturing a plan for blasting it out and removing it to his home as a specimen. Deeply
pained at the bare thought of such sacrilege, I
reprimanded him severely and at once removed him from the scene of temptation. We
took a walk then, the rain having moderated
considerably. We clambered over the surrounding lava field, through masses of weeds,
and stood for a moment upon the door-
| step
of an ancient ruin—the house once occupied by the aged King of Hawaii—and I reminded
Brown that that very stone step was
the one across which Captain Cook drew the reluctant old king when he turned his footsteps
for the last time toward his ship. [¶]
I checked a movement on Mr. Brown’s part: “No,” I said, “let it remain; seek specimens
of a less hallowed
nature than this historical stone.” [¶] We also strolled along the beach toward the
precipice of Kealakekua, and gazed
curiously at the semi-
| circular holes high up in its face—graves, they are, of ancient kings and chiefs—and
wondered how the natives ever managed to climb from the sea up the sheer wall and
make those holes and deposit their packages of
patrician bones in them. [¶] Tramping about in the rear of the warehouse, we suddenly
came upon another object of interest. It
was a (SU)
Ⓐ
four (A) ●
four or five (SU)
Ⓐ
boulders (A) ●
bowlders (SU)
Ⓐ
Most . . . legend: (A) ●
It was almost dark by this time, and the inscriptions would have been difficult to
read even at noonday, but with
patience and industry I finally got them all in my note-book. They read as follows: (SU)
Ⓐ
1778.” (C) ●
1778. (A)
1778.
centered His Majesty’s Ship Imogene,
October 17, 1837.” [¶] “Parties from H. M. ship Vixen visited this spot Jan. 25, 1858.”
[¶]
“This sheet and capping put on by Sparrowhawk, September 16, 1839, in order to preserve
this monument to the memory of
Cook.” [¶] “Captain Montressor and officers of H. M. S. Calypso visited this spot
the 13th of October,
1858.” [¶] “This tree having fallen, was replaced on this spot by H. M. S. V. Cormorant,
G. T. Gordon, Esq.,
Captain, who visited this bay May 18, 1846.” [¶] “This bay was visited, July 4, 1843,
by H. M. S. Carysfort, the
Right Honorable Lord George Paulet, Captain, to whom, as the representative of Her
Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, these islands
were ceded, February 25, 1843.” (SU)
Ⓐ
to us, (A) ●
not in
(SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) ●
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
enclosure (C) ●
inclosure (SU)
Ⓐ
Toward midnight (A) ●
centered
“Music Soothes the Sad
and Lonely.” [¶] The sky grew overcast, and the night settled down gloomily. Brown and I went
and sat on the little
wooden pier, saying nothing, for we were tired and hungry and did not feel like talking.
There was no wind; the drizzling, melancholy
rain was still falling, and not a sound disturbed the brooding silence save the distant
roar of the surf and the gentle washing of the
wavelets against the rocks at our feet. We were very lonely. No sign of the vessel.
She was still becalmed at sea, no doubt. After an
hour of sentimental meditation, I bethought me of working upon the feelings of my
comrade. The surroundings were in every way
favorable to the experiment. I concluded to sing—partly because music so readily touches
the tender emotions of the heart, and
partly because the singing of pathetic ballads and such things is an art in which
I have been said to excel. In a voice tremulous with
feeling, I began:
| “ ’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
| Be it ever so humble
there’s no place like home;
| H-o-m-e—ho-home—sweet, swe-he-he—” [¶] My poor friend rose
up slowly and came and stood before me and said: [¶] “Now look a-here, Mark—it ain’t
no time, and it
ain’t no place, for you to be going on in that way. I’m hungry, and I’m tired, and
wet; and I ain’t going
to be put upon and aggravated when I’m so miserable. If you was to start in on any
more yowling like that, I’d shove you
overboard—I would, by geeminy.” [¶] “Poor vulgar creature,” I said to myself, “he
knows no
better. I have not the heart to blame him. How hard a lot is his, and how much he
is to be pitied, in that his soul is dead to the
heavenly charm of music. I cannot sing for this man; I cannot sing for him while he
has that dangerous calm in his voice, at any rate.
centered
Hunger Driveth to Desperate
Enterprises. [¶] We spent another hour in silence and in profound depression of spirits; it was
so gloomy and so still, and
so lonesome, with nothing human anywhere near save those bundles of dry kingly bones
hidden in the face of the cliff. Finally Brown
said it was hard to have to sit still and starve with plenty of delicious food and
drink just beyond our reach—rich young
cocoanuts! I said, “what an idiot you are not to have thought of it before. Get up
and stir yourself; in five minutes we shall
have a feast and be jolly and contented again!” [¶] The thought was cheering in the
last degree, and in a few moments we
were in the grove of cocoa palms, and their ragged plumes were dimly visible through
the wet haze, high above our heads. I embraced
one of the smooth, slender trunks, with the thought of climbing it, but it looked
very far to the top, and of course there were no
knots or branches to assist the climber, and so I sighed and walked sorrowfully away.
[¶] “Thunder! what was that!”
[¶] It was only Brown. He had discharged a prodigious lava-block at the top of a tree,
and it fell back to the earth with a crash
that tore up the dead silence of the palace like an avalanche. As soon as I understood
the nature of the case I recognized the
excellence of the idea. I said as much to Brown, and told him to fire another volley.
I cannot throw lava-blocks with any precision,
never having been used to them, and thereforefore I apportioned our labor with that
fact in view, and signified to Brown that he would
only have to knock the cocoanuts down—I would pick them up myself. [¶] Brown let drive
with another bowlder. It went
singing through the air and just grazed a cluster of nuts hanging fifty feet above
ground. [¶] “Well done!” said I;
“try it again.” [¶] He did so. The result was precisely the same. [¶] “Well done again!”
said I;
“move your hind-sight a shade to the left, and let her have it once more.” [¶] Brown
sent another bowlder hurling
through the dingy air—too much elevation—it just passed over the cocoanut tuft. [¶]
“Steady, lad,”
said I; “you scatter too much. Now—one, two, fire!” and the next missile clove through
the tuft and a couple of
long, slender leaves came floating down to the earth. “Good!” I said; “depress your
piece a line.”
[¶] Brown paused and panted like an exhausted dog; then he wiped some perspiration
from his face—a quart of it, he
said—and discarded his coat, vest and cravat. The next shot fell short. He said, “I’m
letting down; them large
bowlders are monstrous responsible rocks to send up there, but they’re rough on the
arms.” [¶] He then sent a dozen
smaller stones in quick succession after the fruit, and some of them struck in the
right place, but the result was—nothing. I
said he might stop and rest awhile. [¶] “Oh, never mind,” he said, “I don’t care to
take any
advantage—I don’t wan’t to rest until you do. But it’s singular to me how you always
happen to divide up
the work about the same way. I’m to knock ’em down, and you’re to pick ’em up. I’m
of the opinion
that you’re going to wear yourself down to just nothing but skin and bones on this
trip, if you ain’t more careful. Oh,
don’t mind about me resting—I can’t be tired—I ain’t hove only about eleven ton of
rocks up into
that liberty pole.” [¶] “Mr. Brown, I am surprised at you. This is mutiny.” [¶] “Oh,
well, I
don’t care what it is—mutiny, sass or what you please—I’m so hungry that I don’t care
for
nothing.” [¶] It was on my lips to correct his loathsome grammar, but I considered
the dire extremity he was in, and
withheld the deserved reproof. [¶] After some time spent in mutely longing for the
coveted fruit, I suggested to Brown that if he
would climb the tree I would hold his hat. His hunger was so great that he finally
concluded to try it. His exercise had made him
ravenous. But the experiment was not a success. With infinite labor and a great deal
of awkwardly-constructed swearing, he managed to
get up some thirty feet, but then he came to an uncommonly smooth place and began
to slide back slowly but surely. He clasped the tree
with arms and legs, and tried to save himself, but he had got too much sternway, and
the thing was impossible; he dragged for a few
feet and then shot down like an arrow. [¶] “It is
tabu,” he said, sadly.
“Let’s go back to the pier. The transom to my trowsers has all fetched away, and the
legs of them are riddled to rags
and ribbons. I wish I was drunk, or dead, or something—anything so as to be out of
this misery.” [¶] I glanced over
my shoulders, as we walked along, and observed that some of the clouds had parted
and left a dim lighted doorway through to the skies
beyond; in this place, as in an ebony frame, our majestic palm stood up and reared
its graceful crest aloft; the slender stem was a
clean, black line; the feathers of the plume—some erect, some projecting horizontally,
some drooping a little and others
hanging languidly down toward the earth—were all sharply cut against the smooth gray
background. [¶] “A beautiful,
beautiful tree is the cocoa-palm!” I said, fervently. [¶] “I don’t see it,” said Brown,
resentfully.
“People that haven’t clumb one are always driveling about how pretty it is. And when
they make pictures of these hot
countries they always shove one of the ragged things into the foreground. I don’t
see what there is about it that’s
handsome; it looks like a feather-duster struck by lightning.” [¶] Perceiving that
Brown’s mutilated pantaloons
were disturbing his gentle spirit, I said no more.
centered
Providentially Saved from Starvation. [¶] Toward midnight a native boy came down from the uplands to see if the
Boomerang had got in yet, and we chartered him for subsistence service. For the sum
of twelve and a half cents in coin he agreed to
furnish cocoanuts enough for a dozen men at five minutes notice. He disappeared in
the murky atmosphere, and in a few seconds we saw a
little black object, like a rat, running up our tall tree and pretty distinctly defined
against the light place in the sky; it was our
Kanaka, and he performed his contract without tearing his clothes—but then he had
none on, except those he was born in. He
brought five large nuts and tore the tough green husks off with his strong teeth,
and thus prepared the fruit for use. We perceived
then that it was about as well that we failed in our endeavors, as we never could
have gnawed the husks off. I would have kept Brown
trying, though, as long as he had any teeth. We punched the eye-holes out and drank
the sweet (and at the same time pungent) milk of
two of the nuts, and our hunger and thirst were satisfied. The boy broke them open
and we ate some of the mushy, white paste inside
for pastime, but we had no real need of it. [¶] After a while (SU)
Ⓐ
herself (A) ●
not in
(SU)
Ⓐ
innocent. (A) ●
innocent.
indented from right MARK TWAIN. (SU)
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 71
Ⓔ At
. . . retaliation.] Mark Twain based this portion of the text on the second half of
his letter in the Sacramento
Union of 24 August 1866, revising it for inclusion in
Roughing It; he used the beginning
of this letter in chapter 69 (
SLC 1866cc; see the note at 480.3–24).
Ⓔ the great god Lono] Lono
was one of the four major Hawaiian male deities. Associated with clouds and storms,
he was worshiped as the god of fertility. Hawaiian
tradition merges the god Lono with an ancient
[begin page 729] chief of the same name, who for a time lived at Kealakekua
long before Captain Cook’s arrival. Chapter 72 (495.15–496.11) contains Mark Twain’s
summary of Lono’s
legendary history (
Beckwith, 31–41;
Kuykendall 1938, 7–8;
Kamakau, 61).
Ⓔ Plain unvarnished
history . . . justifiable homicide . . . proportionate retaliation] Mark Twain’s assessment
of Captain Cook’s relations with the Sandwich Islands natives was clearly influenced
by Jarves’s account in his
History.
“While it is not my desire to detract from the fame lawfully
Cook’s due,” wrote Jarves, “yet I cannot, with his biographers, gloss over the events which
occurred
at the Hawaiian Islands” (
Jarves 1847, 68). Jarves—in language somewhat
less emphatic than Clemens’s—points out Cook’s intemperate and high-handed behavior,
and his abuse of the
deference accorded him by the worshipful Hawaiians. The foremost contemporary British
accounts of Cook’s actions were by James
King, Cook’s lieutenant, and by John Ledyard, a marine corporal on Cook’s flagship,
the
Resolution. Jarves found Ledyard’s account, the more critical of the two, to be substantiated
by the account of native
historians (
Jarves 1847, 65–70;
Cook and
King, 3:25–82;
Ledyard, 143–55;
Malo et al., 64–67).
Ⓔ “He
groans!—he is not a god!”] Mark Twain encountered this detail of Cook’s death struggle,
though not these
words, in Jarves’s
History, which quotes the account of native historians.
He found the remark quoted here either in Sheldon Dibble’s
History of the Sandwich
Islands, where it first appeared, or in Henry T. Cheever’s
Life in the Sandwich Islands (
Malo et al., 66;
Jarves 1847, 68;
Dibble 1843, 39;
Cheever 1851b, 24).
Ⓔ His flesh was stripped
from the bones and burned . . . Some of Cook’s bones were . . . consigned to the deep]
The
natives’ treatment of Cook’s remains was the customary one accorded a dead king. Mark
Twain probably learned most of the
particulars from Jarves, who repeats and affirms the account of native historians.
Jarves, however, does not report the detail about
the survival of one child to be “a very old man,” which can be found in Dibble’s
History
and in Cheever’s
Life (
Kuykendall 1938, 19;
Malo, 141–43;
Jarves 1847, 68–70;
Dibble 1843, 39;
Cheever 1851b, 24).
Ⓔ Near
. . . innocent.] Mark Twain based this portion of the text on his letter in the Sacramento
Union of 30 August 1866, revising it for inclusion in
Roughing It (
SLC 1866ee).