Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
Bingham
say, with the highest indignation, to a Yankee trader who was trying to
persuade him to keep his money to himself--"No! We no all 'e same a'
you!--Suppose one got money, all got money. You;--suppose one got
money--lock him up in chest.--No good!"--"Kanaka all 'e same a' one!"
This principle they carry so far, that none of them will eat anything
in the sight of others without offering it all round. I have seen one
of them break a biscuit, which had been given him, into five parts, at
a time when I knew he was on a very short allowance, as there was but
little to eat on the beach.
My favorite among all of them, and one who was liked by both officers
and men, and by whomever he had anything to do with, was Hope. He was
an intelligent, kind-hearted little fellow, and I never saw him angry,
though I knew him for more than a year, and have seen him imposed upon
by white people, and abused by insolent officers of vessels. He was
always civil, and always ready, and never forgot a benefit. I once
took care of him when he was ill, getting medicines from the ship's
chests, when no captain or officer would do anything for him, and he
never forgot it. Every Kanaka has one particular friend, whom he
considers himself bound to do everything for, and with whom he has a
sort of contract,--an alliance offensive and defensive,--and for whom
he will often make the greatest sacrifices. This friend they call
aikane; and for such did Hope adopt me. I do not believe I could have
wanted anything which he had, that he would not have given me. In
return for this, I was always his friend among the Americans, and used
to teach him letters and numbers; for he left home before he had
learned how to read. He was very curious about Boston (as they call
the United States); asking many questions about the houses, the people,
etc., and always wished to have the pictures in books explained to him.
They were all astonishingly quick in catching at explanations, and many
things which I had thought it utterly impossible to make them
understand, they often seized in an instant, and asked questions which
showed that they knew enough to make them wish to go farther. The
pictures of steamboats and railroad cars, in the columns of some
newspapers which I had, gave me great difficulty to explain. The
grading of the road, the rails, the construction of the carriages, they
could easily understand, but the motion produced by steam was a little
too refined for them. I attempted to show it to them once by an
experiment upon the cook's coppers, but failed; probably as much from
my own ignorance as from their want of apprehension; and, I have no
doubt, left them with about as clear an idea of the principle as I had
myself. This difficulty, of course, existed in the same force with the
steamboats and all I could do was to give them some account of the
results, in the shape of speed; for, failing in the reason, I had to
fall back upon the fact.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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