Island Nights' EntertainmentsStevenson, Robert Louis
General
Island Nights' Entertainments
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Islands of the Pacific -- Fiction; Short stories
It was given out in the country they were gone pleasuring to the
States, which was thought a strange thing, and yet not so strange as
the truth, if any could have guessed it. So they went to Honolulu in
the _Hall_, and thence in the _Umatilla_ to San Francisco with a crowd
of Haoles, and at San Francisco took their passage by the mail
brigantine, the _Tropic Bird_, for Papeete, the chief place of the
French in the south islands. Thither they came, after a pleasant
voyage, on a fair day of the Trade Wind, and saw the reef with the surf
breaking, and Motuiti with its palms, and the schooner riding
within-side, and the white houses of the town low down along the shore
among green trees, and overhead the mountains and the clouds of Tahiti,
the wise island.
It was judged the most wise to hire a house, which they did
accordingly, opposite the British Consul’s, to make a great parade of
money, and themselves conspicuous with carriages and horses. This it
was very easy to do, so long as they had the bottle in their
possession; for Kokua was more bold than Keawe, and, whenever she had a
mind, called on the imp for twenty or a hundred dollars. At this rate
they soon grew to be remarked in the town; and the strangers from
Hawaii, their riding and their driving, the fine holokus and the rich
lace of Kokua, became the matter of much talk.
They got on well after the first with the Tahitian language, which is
indeed like to the Hawaiian, with a change of certain letters; and as
soon as they had any freedom of speech, began to push the bottle. You
are to consider it was not an easy subject to introduce; it was not
easy to persuade people you were in earnest, when you offered to sell
them for four centimes the spring of health and riches inexhaustible.
It was necessary besides to explain the dangers of the bottle; and
either people disbelieved the whole thing and laughed, or they thought
the more of the darker part, became overcast with gravity, and drew
away from Keawe and Kokua, as from persons who had dealings with the
devil. So far from gaining ground, these two began to find they were
avoided in the town; the children ran away from them screaming, a thing
intolerable to Kokua; Catholics crossed themselves as they went by; and
all persons began with one accord to disengage themselves from their
advances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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