The Floating Island

by Jules Verne

  At first their attention, and then their horror was provoked by a sound of creeping among the herbage.

  What did they see? A crustacean of enormous size.

  Their first movement was to jump up, their second to look at the animal.

  “The ugly beast!” said Yvernès.

  “It is a crab,” said Frascolin.

  A crab it was, the crab called “birgo” by the natives. Its front claws form two strong pincers or shears with which it opens the nuts on which it chiefly feeds. These birgos live in a kind of cave dug deeply in among the roots, the fibres of cocoanut being heaped up to form a bed. During the night more particularly they seek about for fallen nuts, and even catch hold of the trunk and branches to shake the fruit down. The crab must have been seized with wolfish hunger, as Pinchinat said, to have left his dark retreat in broad daylight.

  They let the animal alone, for the operation promised to be extremely curious. He found a large nut among the bushes, he tore off gradually the fibres with his pincers; then when the nut was bare, he attacked the hard skin, knocking it, hammering it at the same place. When he had made the opening the birgo picked out the interior substance, using his hind pincers, which are very narrow at the end.

  “It is certain,” observed Yvernès, “that nature has created this birgo for opening cocoanuts.”

  “And that nature created the cocoanut for feeding the birgo,” added Frascolin.

  “Well, suppose we frustrate the intentions of nature by preventing this crab from eating this nut, and this nut from being eaten by this crab?” proposed Pinchinat.

  “I beg you will not disturb him,” said Yvernès. “Do not even to a birgo give a bad impression of Parisians on their travels.”

  They consented, and the crab, who had doubtless given an angry look at his Highness, gave a grateful glance at the first violin of the Quartette Party.

  After a stay of sixty hours at Anaa, Floating Island moved off towards the north. It passed through the thicket of islets and islands, Commodore Simcoe following the channel with perfect sureness of hand. It need hardly be said that under these circumstances Milliard City was rather abandoned by its inhabitants for the shore, and especially that part of it about Prow Battery. Islands were constantly in view, or rather baskets of verdure which seemed to float on the surface of the waters. It looked like a flower market on one of the Dutch canals. Numerous canoes tacked about at the entrances to the harbours, but were not permitted to enter, the custom-house officers having received formal notice with regard to this. Numbers of native women came swimming towards the island, when it went close to the madreporic cliffs. If they did not accompany the men in the canoes, it was because their vessels are tabooed to the Paumotuan fair sex, and they are forbidden to enter them.

  On the 4th of October Floating Island stopped off Farakava, at the opening of the southern passage. Before the boats were got ready to take visitors ashore the French Resident presented himself at Starboard Harbour, whence the Governor gave orders to conduct him to the town hall.

  The interview was very cordial. Cyrus Bikerstaff put on his official manner—which he kept for ceremonies of this nature. The resident, an old officer of infantry of marine, was in no way behind him. Impossible to imagine anything more serious, more dignified, more proper, more wooden on both sides!

  The reception over, the Resident was invited to look round Milliard City, Calistus Munbar doing the honours. As Frenchmen, the Parisians and Athanase Dorémus asked to accompany the superintendent.

  Next day the Governor went to Farakava, to return the visit, and did so in the style of the day before. The quartette landed and went to the residency. It was a very simple habitation, occupied by a garrison of twelve old sailors, and from the mast was displayed the flag of France.

  Although Farakava has become the capital, it cannot compare with its rival, Anaa. The principal village is not as picturesque under the verdure of the trees, and the people move about more.

  Besides the manufacture of cocoanut oil, the centre of which is at Farakava, the natives are employed in pearl fishing. The mother-o’-pearl trade obliges them to frequent the neighbouring island of Toau, which is specially devoted to this industry. Bold divers, these natives do not hesitate to plunge to depths of twenty and thirty metres, accustomed as they are to support such pressures without inconvenience and to hold their breath for more than a minute.

  A few of these fishermen were authorized to offer the products of their fishery, mother-o’-pearl or pearls, to the notables of Milliard City. Assuredly it was not jewels that these opulent dames were in want of. But these natural productions in their rough state were not easily procurable, and the opportunity presenting itself, the fishers were able to sell at unheard-of prices, The moment Mrs. Tankerdon bought a pearl of great price, Mrs. Coverley must have another. Fortunately there was no opportunity of outbidding one another on some one thing different to anything else, for no one knows when the bidding would have stopped. Other families took heart to imitate their friends, and that day the Farakavans had a good time.

  After twelve days, on the 13th of October, the Pearl of the Pacific started early. In leaving the capital of the Paumotu it had reached the western limit of the archipelago. Commodore Simcoe had no longer to be anxious regarding such a wonderful maze of isles and islets, reefs and atolls. He had come out of it without a scratch. Beyond extended that portion of the Pacific which over a space of four degrees separates the Paumotu group from the Society Islands. It was in heading south-west that Floating Island, driven by the million horses of its engines proceeded towards the island so poetically celebrated by Bougainville, as the enchantress Tahiti.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE Society Islands, otherwise the Tahiti Archipelago are comprised between the fifteenth and seventeenth degrees of south latitude and the hundred and fiftieth and hundred and fifty-sixth west longitude. The area of the archipelago is two thousand two hundred superficial kilometres.

  There are two groups; first the Windward Islands, Taiti or Tahiti Tahau, Tapamanoa, Moorea or Simeo, Tetiaroa, Meetia, which are under the protectorate of France; and secondly the Leeward Islands, Tubuai, Manu, Huahmi, Kaiateathao, Bora-Bora, Moffy-Iti, Maupiti, Mapetia, Bellinghausen, Scilly, governed by native sovereigns. Cook, their discoverer, called them the Society Islands, in honour of the Royal Society of London. Situated some two hundred and fifty marine leagues from the Marquesas, this group, according to the most recent census, contains but forty thousand inhabitants.

  Coming from the north-east, Tahiti is the first of the Windward Islands to be sighted by navigators. And it was Tahiti that the look-outs of the observatory reported at a great distance, thanks to Mount Maiao or Diadem, which rises for a thousand two hundred and thirty-nine metres above the level of the sea.

  The voyage was accomplished without incident. Aided by the trade winds, Floating Island crossed these admirable waters above which the sun moves as it descends towards the tropic of Capricorn. Still two months and a few days more and it would reach the tropic and return towards the equatorial line, and Floating Island would have it in its zenith during several weeks of burning heat; then the island would follow it as a dog follows his master, keeping it at the regulation distance.

  It was the first time the Milliardites were to put in at Tahiti. The preceding year their voyage had begun too late; they had not gone so far to the westward, and after leaving Paumotu they had steered for the equator. Yet this archipelago of the Society Islands is the most beautiful in the Pacific. As they passed through it our Parisians would realize all that was enchanting in the moving island, free to choose its anchorages and its climate.

  “Yes; but we shall see what will be the end of this absurd adventure!” was the invariable conclusion of Sebastien Zorn.

  “May it never finish! That is all I ask!” exclaimed Yvernès.

  Floating Island arrived in sight of Tahiti at dawn on the 17th of October. It was the north shore of the island that was seen first.
During the night the lighthouse on Point Venus had been sighted. During the day they could reach Papaete, situated in the north-west, beyond the point. But the council of notables had assembled under the presidency of the governor. Like every well-balanced council it was divided into two camps. One section with Jem Tankerdon wished to go west; the other with Nat Coverley wished to go east. Cyrus Bikerstaff, having a vote when the sides were equal, decided to reach Papaete by passing round the south of the island. This decision could but satisfy the quartette, for it would allow of their admiring in all its beauty this Jewel of the Pacific, the New Cythera of Bougainville.

  Tahiti possesses an area of a hundred and four thousand two hundred and fifteen hectares, about nine times that Paris. Its population, which in 1875 comprised seven thousand six hundred natives, three hundred French and eleven hundred foreigners, is now but seven thousand.

  In shape it is exactly like a flask turned upside down, the body of the flask being the principal island, joined to the mouth, represented by the peninsula of Tatarapu, by the narrow isthmus of Taravao.

  It was Frascolin who made this comparison in studying the large scale map of the archipelago, and his comrades thought it so good that they christened Tahiti “the Flask of the Tropics.”

  Administratively, Tahiti is divided into six sections, subdivided into twenty-one districts, since the establishment of the protectorate on the 9th of September, 1842. It will be remembered what difficulties occurred between Admiral Dupetit-Thouars, Queen Pomare, and England at the instigation of that abominable trafficker in bibles and cotton goods who called himself Pritchard, and was so humorously caricatured in the Guêpes of Alphonse Karr.

  But that is ancient history, quite as much fallen into oblivion as the performances of the famous Anglo-Saxon apothecary.

  Floating Island could venture without danger within a mile of the shore of the Flask of the Tropics. This flask reposes on a coral base, whose foundations descend sheer down into the depths of the ocean. But before approaching so near, the Milliardites were able to contemplate its imposing mass, its mountains more generously favoured by nature than those of the Sandwich Islands, its verdant summits, its wooded gorges, its peaks rising like the pinnacles of some vast cathedral, its belt of cocoanut trees watered by the white foam of the surf on the ridge of breakers.

  During the day the course lay along the western side; the sightseers, glasses in hand, gathered in the environs of Starboard Harbour, watching the thousand details of the shore. The district of Papenoo, the river of which they saw across, the wide valley from the base of the mountains, and which falls into the sea where there is a break of several miles in width; Hitiia, a safe port from which millions and millions of oranges are exported to San Francisco; Mahaeua, where the conquest of the island was completed in 1845, after a terrible battle with the natives.

  In the afternoon, they had arrived off the narrow isthmus of Taravao. In rounding the peninsula the Commodore approached close enough for the fertile fields of the Tautira district, the numerous water-courses of which make it one of the richest in the archipelago, to be admired in all its splendour. Tatarapu, reposing on its plate of coral, lifts majestically the rugged cones of its extinct craters. As the sun sinks on the horizon, the summits grow purple for the last time, and the colours fade into the hot transparent mist. Soon it is no more than a confused mass from which the evening breeze arises laden with the fragrance of oranges and lemons, and after a short twilight the darkness is profound.

  Floating Island then rounded the extreme south-east point of the peninsula, and next morning at daybreak was moving up the western side of the island.

  The district of Taravao, much cultivated, and thickly populated, displayed its fine roads among the orange woods which link it to the district of Papeiri. At the highest point is a fort, commanding both sides of the isthmus, defended by a few cannon, whose muzzles project from the embrasures like gargoyles of bronze. Below is Port Phaeton.

  “Why has the name of that presumptuous driver of the solar chariot lighted on this isthmus?” asked Yvernès.

  The day was spent in coasting at slow speed along the more varied contours of the coralline substructure which distinguishes the west of Tahiti. New districts rose into view—Papeiri with its marshy plains, Mataiea with its excellent harbour of Papeiriri, then a wide valley watered by the river Vaihiria, and at the head this mountain of five hundred metres, as a sort of washstand supporting a basin half a kilometre in circumference. This ancient crater, doubtless full of fresh water, did not appear to have any communication with the sea.

  After the district of Ahauraono, devoted to vast cotton fields, after the district of Papara, which is principally given over to agriculture, Floating Island, beyond Point Mara, opened the wide valley of Paruvia, cut off from the Diadem, and watered by the Punarnu. Beyond Tapuna, Cape Tatao and the mouth of the Faa, the Commodore headed slightly to the north-east, cleverly avoiding the islet of Motu-Uta, and at six o’clock in the evening stopped before the gap giving access to the Bay of Papaete.

  At the entrance lay in capricious windings through the coral reef the channel buoyed with obsolete guns up to Point Fareute. Ethel Simcoe, thanks to his charts, had no need for the services of the pilots who cruise in whale-boats off the entrance of the channel. A boat, however, came out, with a yellow flag at its stern. This was the quarantine boat, bound for Starboard Harbour. People are strict at Tahiti, and no one can land before the health officer accompanied by the harbour master has given free pratique.

  Landing at Starboard Harbour, the doctor put himself in communication with the authorities. It was only mere formality. Sick there were none, either in Milliard City or its environs. In any case epidemic maladies, cholera, influenza, yellow fever, were absolutely unknown. A clear bill of health was given according to custom. But as the night was rapidly closing in, landing was postponed until the morning, and Floating Island slept until daybreak.

  At dawn there were reports of cannon. It was Prow Battery saluting with twenty-one guns the group of the Windward Islands and Tahiti the capital of the French Protectorate. At the same time, on the observatory tower, the red flag with the golden sun rose and fell three times.

  Immediately an identical salvo was given by the Ambuscade Battery at the head of the main passage into Tahiti.

  Starboard Harbour was crowded from the earliest hour. The trams had brought a considerable crowd of tourists, on their way to the capital of the archipelago. Doubt not that Sebastien Zorn and his friends were as impatient as any. As the boats were not numerous enough to take all this crowd, the natives were busy offering their services to cross the six cables’ length which separated Starboard Harbour from the port.

  At the same time it was necessary for the Governor to be the first to land. He must have the customary interview with the civil and military authorities of Tahiti, and pay the no less official visit to the Queen.

  Consequently about nine o’clock Cyrus Bikerstaff and his assistants, Barthélemy Ruge, and Hubley Harcourt, all in full uniform, the chief notables of both sections, among others Nat Coverley and Jem Tankerdon, Commodore Simcoe and his officers in brilliant uniforms, Colonel Stewart and his escort, took their places in the boats and were rowed towards Papaete.

  Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Yvernès, Pinchinat, Athanase Dorémus, and Calistus Munbar occupied another boat with a certain number of functionaries.

  Canoes and native boats formed in procession behind the official world of Milliard City, worthily represented by its Governor, its authorities, its notables, of whom the two chief were rich enough to buy Tahiti right out, and even the Society Islands, including their sovereign.

  This harbour of Papaete is an excellent one, and of such depth that ships of heavy tonnage can anchor there. There are three channels into it: the main channel on the north, seventy metres wide and eighty long, narrowed by a small bank marked with buoys, the Tanoa channel on the east, and Tapuna channel on the west.

  The electric launch
es majestically skirted the beach dotted with villas and country houses, and the quays at which the vessels were moored. The landing took place at the foot of an elegant fountain which serves as a watering-place and is fed by the streams from the neighbouring mountains, on one of which is a semaphore.

  Cyrus Bikerstaff and his suite landed amid a large crowd of the French, native and foreign population, who welcomed the Pearl of the Pacific as the most extraordinary of the marvels made by the genius of man. After the first outbursts of enthusiasm the procession moved towards the palace of the Governor of Tahiti.

  Calistus Munbar, superb in his state costume, which he only wore on ceremony days, invited the quartette to follow him, and they were only too happy to accept the superintendent’s invitation.

  The French protectorate not only embraces the island of Tahiti and the island of Moorea, but also the neighbouring group. The chief is a commandant-commissioner, having under his orders an “ordonnateur” who manages the troops, the shipping, the colonial and local finances and the judicial administration. The general secretary of the commissioner has charge of the civil affairs of the country. Several Residents are located in the islands, at Moorea, at Farakava in the Paumotus, at Taio-Hahè, at Nuka-Hiva, and a justice of the peace, whose jurisdiction extends over the Marquesas. Since 1861 there has been a consultative committee for agriculture and trade, which sits once a year at Papaete. There also are the headquarters of the artillery and the engineers. The garrison comprises detachments of colonial gendarmerie, artillery, and marine infantry. A curé and a vicar appointed by the government, and nine missionaries scattered among the islands, assure the practice of the Catholic religion. In truth the Parisians might believe themselves in France, in a French port, and there was nothing displeasing to them in that.

  As to the villages on the different islands, they are administered by a sort of native municipal council presided over by a tarana, assisted by a judge, a chief mutoi, and two councillors elected by the inhabitants.,