Cumner's Son & Other South Sea Folk: An Amiable Revenge

An Amiable Revenge

Whenever any one says to me that civilisation is a failure, I refer him
to certain records of Tonga, and tell him the story of an amiable
revenge. He is invariably convinced that savages can learn easily the
forms of convention and the arts of government--and other things. The
Tongans once had a rough and coarsely effective means for preserving
order and morality, but the whole scheme was too absurdly simple. Now,
with a Constitution and a Sacred Majesty, and two Houses of Parliament,
and a native Magistracy, they show that they are capable of becoming
European in its most pregnant meaning. As the machinery has increased the
grist for the mill has grown. There was a time when a breach of the
Seventh Commandment was punished in Tonga with death, and it was
therefore rarely committed. It is no rarity now--so does law and
civilisation provide opportunities for proving their existence.

On landing at Nukalofa, the capital of Tonga, some years ago, I naturally
directed my steps towards the residence of the British consul. The route
lay along an arc of emerald and opal shore, the swaying cocoa-palms
overhead, and native huts and missionary conventicles hidden away in
coverts of ti-trees, hibiscus bushes, and limes; the sensuous,
perfume-ladened air pervading all. I had seen the British flag from the
coral-bulwarked harbour, but could not find it now. Leaving the indolent
village behind, I passed the Palace, where I beheld the sacred majesty of
Tonga on the veranda sleepily flapping the flies from his aged calves,
and I could not find that flag. Had I passed it? Was it yet to come? I
leaned against a bread-fruit tree and thought upon it. The shore was
deserted. Nobody had taken any notice of me; even the German steamer
Lubeck had not brought a handful of the population to the Quay.

I was about to make up my mind to go back to the Lubeck and sulk, when a
native issued from the grove at my left and blandly gazed upon me as he
passed. He wore a flesh-coloured vala about the loins, a red pandanus
flower in his ear, and a lia-lia of hibiscus blossoms about his neck.
That was all. Evidently he was not interested in me, for he walked on. I
choked back my feelings of hurt pride, and asked him in an off-hand kind
of way, and in a sort of pigeon English, if he could tell me where the
British consul lived. The stalwart subject of King George Tabou looked at
me gravely for an instant, then turned and motioned down the road. I
walked on beside him, improperly offended by his dignified airs, his
coolness of body and manner, and what I considered the insolent plumpness
and form of his chest and limbs.

He was a harmony in brown and red. Even his hair was brown. I had to
admit to myself that in point of comeliness I could not stand the same
scrutiny in the same amount of costume. Perhaps that made me a little
imperious, a little superior in manner. Reducing my English to his
comprehension as I measured it--he bowed when I asked him if he
understood--I explained to him many things necessary for the good of his
country. Remembering where I was, I expressed myself in terms that were
gentle though austere regarding the King, and reproved the supineness and
stupidity of the Crown Prince. Lamenting the departed puissance of the
sons of Tongatabu, I warmed to my subject, telling this savage who looked
at me with so neutral a countenance how much I deplored the decadence of
his race. I bade him think of the time when the Tongans, in token of
magnanimous amity, rubbed noses with the white man, and of where those
noses were now--between the fingers of the Caucasian. He appeared
becomingly attentive, and did me the honour before I began my peroration
to change the pandanus flower from the ear next to me to the other.

I had just rounded off my last sentence when he pointed to a house,
half-native, half-European, in front of which was a staff bearing the
British flag. With the generosity which marks the Englishman away from
home I felt in my pockets and found a sixpence. I handed it to my
companion; and with a "Talofa" the only Tongan I knew--I passed into the
garden of the consulate. The consul himself came to the door when I
knocked on the lintel. After glancing at my card he shook me by the hand,
and then paused. His eyes were intently directed along the road by which
I had come. I looked back, and there stood the stalwart Tongan where I
had left him, gazing at the sixpence I had placed in his hand. There was
a kind of stupefaction in his attitude. Presently the consul said
somewhat tartly: "Ah, you've been to the Palace--the Crown Prince has
brought you over!"

It was not without a thrill of nervousness that I saw my royal guide flip
the sixpence into his mouth--he had no pocket--and walk back towards the
royal abode.

I told the consul just how it was. In turn he told his daughter, the
daughter told the native servants, and in three minutes the place was
echoing with languid but appreciative laughter. Natives came to the door
to look at me, and after wide-eyed smiling at me for a minute gave place
to others. Though I too smiled, my thoughts were gloomy; for now it
seemed impossible to go to the Palace and present myself to King George
and the Heir-Apparent. But the consul, and, still more, the consul's
daughter, insisted; pooh-poohing my hesitation. At this distance from the
scene and after years of meditation I am convinced that their efforts to
induce me to go were merely an unnatural craving for sensation.

I went--we three went. Even a bare-legged King has in his own house an
advantage over the European stranger. I was heated, partly from
self-repression, partly from Scotch tweed. King George was quite, quite
cool, and unencumbered, save for a trifling calico jacket, a pink
lava-lava, and the august fly-flapper. But what heated me most, I think,
was the presence of the Crown Prince, who, on my presentation, looked at
me as though he had never seen me before. He was courteous, however,
directing a tappa cloth to be spread for me. The things I intended to say
to King George for the good of himself and his kingdom, which I had
thought out on the steamer Lubeck and rehearsed to my guide a few hours
before, would not be tempted forth. There was silence; for the consul did
not seem "to be on in the scene," and presently the King of Holy Tonga
nodded and fell asleep. Then the Crown Prince came forward, and beckoned
me to go with him. He led me to a room which was composed of mats and
bamboo pillars chiefly. At first I thought there were about ten pillars
to support the roof, but my impression before I left was that there were
about ten thousand. For which multiplication there were good reasons.

Again a beautiful tappa cloth was spread for me, and then ten maidens
entered, and, sitting in a semi-circle, began to chew a root called kava,
which, when sufficiently masticated, they returned into a calabash, water
being poured on the result. Meanwhile, the Prince, dreamily and ever so
gently, was rolling some kind of weed between his fingers. About the time
the maidens had finished, the Crown Prince's cigarette was ready. A small
calabash of the Result was handed to me, and the cigarette accompanied
it. The Crown Prince sat directly opposite me, lit his own cigarette, and
handed the matches. I distinctly remember the first half-dozen puffs of
that cigarette, the first taste of kava it had the flavour of soft soap
and Dover's powder. I have smoked French-Canadian tobacco, I have puffed
Mexican hair-lifters, but Heaven had preserved me till that hour from the
cigarettes of a Crown Prince of Tonga. As I said, the pillars multiplied;
the mats seemed rising from the floor; the maidens grew into a leering
army of Amazons; but through it all the face of the Crown Prince never
ceased to smile upon me gently.

There were some incidents of that festival which I may have forgotten,
for the consul said afterwards that I was with his Royal Highness about
an hour and a half. The last thing I remember about the visit was the
voice of the successor to the throne of Holy Tonga asking me blandly in
perfect English: "Will you permit me to show you the way to the consul's
house?"

To my own credit I respectfully declined.

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