George S. Chappell

“ A whole school of painters have attempted to reproduce the exotic color and charm of these entrancing isles. It remained for Herman Swank, by his now famous method of diagrammatic symbolism, to bring the truth fully home. This he accomplished by living, to the limit, the native life of the Filbertese. Clad only in the light lamitu, or afternoon wrap of the islands, it was the artist's custom to spend entire days inhaling the perfume of the fragment alova flower, a practice which undoubtedly accounts for the far-away, dreamy expression so evident in the photograph. ”

“ In all the history of great friendships there is nothing more touching and more noble than the beautiful bond which existed between Baahaabaa, the simple, primitive chief of the Filbertines and the white men who spent the happiest months of their lives on his island and then so strangely vanished. For several days after their departure he spoke no word. But every evening at sunset he took his place opposite an opening in the reef where the Kawa had first made her appearance and there he sat until darkness covered him. "Whom are you awaiting?" ”

“ In vain we reasoned, urged and argued.
"Don't you want to go back to your own people?" asked Swank weakly.
A mocking laugh was the reply.
"My own people! Who was I among my own people? Just a bunch of first names—no last name at all. William Henry Thomas! That's a hell of a bunch of names. Who am I here? Fatakahala—Flower of Darkness—I guess that'll be about all. Good night, gentlemen." ”

“ The death of the compass-plant. Lost! An orgy of desperation. Oblivion and excess. The "Kawa" brings us home. Our reception in Papeete. A celebration at the Tiare.
That Triplett's refitting of the Kawa had been thorough and seamanlike was amply proven by the speed with which she traveled under the favoring trades. When our saddened but still intrepid ship's company reassembled on our limited quarterdeck there was no sign of land visible in any direction. The horizon stretched about our collective heads like an enormous wire halo. It was as if the Filberts had never existed. ”

“ Whinney asked.
William Henry Thomas's head rose proudly as his wife replied in thrilling, woodland tones, "Fatakahala."
"Fatakahala!" repeated Baahaabaa, "Flower of Darkness," and William Henry Thomas raised his head as high as it would go.
"When does the ceremony take place?" asked Whinney. Baahaabaa pointed to the distant peak of the mountain.
"Tonight. Maka, the Tattooer, is ready; the fishbones are sharpened; the juice of the tupa-berries fills the holy shell. We go." ”

“ The hors d'oeuvre course of a Filbert Island banquet is one roar of laughter caused by the interior tickling of the agile food. This of course promotes good feeling and leads to many lasting friendships.
With one's meals thus always ready-to-serve, with no cook glowering at the clock, no cheese souffle ready to collapse, no dishes to wash or frying-pans to scour, life is one long gastronomic song.
In physical stature and beauty the Filbertines are far above the average. The men are six feet in height and upwards, and proportionately wide. ”

“ The later results are too well known to need recital, Swank's success, Whinney's position in the Academy of Sciences, my own recognition by the Royal Geographic Society.
The tight little Kawa still rides the seas, Triplett in command. She is kept fully stocked, ready to sail at a moment's notice. Soon, perhaps, the wanderlust will seize us again and, throwing down our lightly won honors, we will once more head for the trackless trail.
But we will not make for the Filberts. Too tender are the memories which wreathe those opal isles, too irrevocable the changes which must have taken place. ”

“ Stretching forth a trembling hand, Triplett plucked the blossom from Kippy's hair!
You can only imagine the commotion which ensued when I tell you that, in the Filberts, for a man to pluck a flower from a woman's hair means only one thing. Poor Kippy was torn between love of me and what she thought was duty to my chief. I had a most difficult time explaining to her that Triplett meant absolutely nothing by his action, a statement which he corroborated by all sorts of absurd "I don't care," gestures—but he clung to the flower. ”

“ The men, on their side, are equally free. The result is that a meeting with their wives is an event. Happiness, love and the elation of celebration are the harmonious notes of this beautiful domestic diapason.
Feast-days, banquets, picnics, swimming parties—the Filbertines adore salt water, which is not potable but thirst-producing—these are the occasions of a frank and joyous mingling of the sexes.
Before we left the clearing we were treated to a most graceful spectacle, a performance of the Ataboi, a dance descriptive of the growth and blossoming of the alova flower. ”

“ He unrolled a broad leaf on which he had drawn a rough sketch of the island, probable north and possible latitude and longitude.
Again the chill of dismay and apprehension which I had felt before in Triplett's presence ran up and down my spine. It was beginning to dawn upon me that Triplett was planning a get-away. "My God!" I cried, "take that thing away! What you trying to do, Triplett? Hook us up to civilization with all its deviltry and disease and damned conventions? Don't you appreciate the beauty of getting outside of the covers of a geography?" ”

“ Daughter of Pearl and Coral to the Moon up-goes, Stay, O stay, Moon with light unending, Coral, Pearl and Moonlight, guard them from falling cocoanuts.
I should stand convicted of ingratitude if I did not here and now pay tribute to the sound common-sense of Captain Triplett at whose instigation we had embarked upon this our great adventure. As Triplett had predicted, ere a few days had passed we found awakening within us the fires of ambition which had sunk lower and lower in our breasts during our two weeks of carousing. We were now responsible married men. ”

“ When the details were explained to Baahaabaa, he was in a frenzy of excitement. As judge, his decision was to be final, which should have warned Whinney, who, as the challenged party, had the right to select the subject. His choice was distinctly artful.
"I think I've got him!" he confided. "We're to do the 'lagoon at dawn.' You know what that means? Everything's gray and I can beat him a mile on gray; secondly, there won't be a gang of people around, and, thirdly, Swank simply loathes getting up early. They're all alike, these artists; any effort before noon is torture!" ”

“ On our cruises our wives spent a large part of their time overboard, sporting about the ship like porpoises, ever and anon diving deep under our counter only to appear on the other side decked with polyp buds as if crowned by Neptune himself. At this game Babai-Alova-Babai excelled. Never shall I forget the day she suddenly popped up close alongside and playfully tossed a magnificent pearl into Triplett's lap. ”

“ And then once more the vision of those deadly inroads of disease rose before me.
"Whinney," I asked, "is there no cure for this awful thing? No antitoxin?"
He shook his head sadly.
"We have been studying it for years. The only hope is in their complete isolation. If we stay here ... and a second epidemic breaks out.... "; he shrugged hopelessly and Swank buried his face in the bilge-sponge.
"Enough!" I said sternly. "Triplett, when can we leave?"
"Tonight, sir," he answered with his old subservience. "I've got her completely stored, watered and ready." ”

“ Baahaabaa was tireless in suggesting new subjects for him to paint. One day it would be a performance of the Ataboi, the languorously sensuous dance which we had first seen in the women's compound; again he would stage a scene of feasting, at which the men passed foaming shells of hoopa from hand to hand. A difficulty was that of preventing the artist from quitting work and joining his models which Swank always justified by saying that the greatest art resulted from submerging oneself with one's subject. ”

“ Two days after the Grand Banquet described in the last chapter, Whinney, Swank and I awoke with a sigh of simultaneous satisfaction, completely rested and restored. Ten minutes later we were engaged in a brisk debate in which the question before the house was, stated boldly, Should we or should we not "go native?" In other words, should we hold ourselves aloof, live contrary to the customs of the country and mortally offend our hosts,—to say nothing of our hostesses,—or should we fulfil our destinies, take unto ourselves island brides and eat our equatorial fruit, core and all? ”

“ I think it was the quiet, self-contained Whinney who brought the most reasoned philosophy to bear on the situation.
"They will forget," he said one evening, as we sat watching the Double Cross slowly revolve about its axis. "We must remember that they are a race of children. They have no written records of the past, no anticipations of the future. They live for the present. Childlike, they will grieve deeply, for a day maybe; then another sun will rise, Baahaabaa will give another picnic—" he sighed deeply. ”

“ We make a landing. Our first glimpse of the natives. The value of vaudeville.
There is nothing better, after a hurricane, than six hours' sleep. It was high noon when we were awakened by William Henry Thomas and the odor of coffee, which drew us to the quarter-deck. There, for the first time, we were able to make an accurate survey of our surroundings and realize the magnitude and importance of what had befallen us. While we slept Captain Triplett had warped the denuded Kawa through a labyrinth of coral and we now lay peacefully at anchor with the island lying close in-board. ”

“ As far as the eye could reach stretched the crowd. Under a gorgeous dais of panjandrus leaves respondent with alova blossoms sat Baahaabaa, on his right Captain Triplett, on his left Hanuhonu, the ranking visitor, and all about retinues of nobles, with their superb families, groups of dancers, slim and straight as golden birches, singers, orators and athletes. ”

“ I cannot speak more of what lies too deeply in my heart.
It was by the rarest good fortune that Dr. Traprock was able to secure what is probably the only living specimen now in captivity of the hitherto unknown fatu-liva bird. Immediately upon his arrival at Papeete efforts were made to secure a mother bird of any kind which would hatch out the four fatu-liva eggs then in the explorer's possession. Owing to their angular and uncomfortable shape it was found impossible to keep a bird brooding for more than three minutes at a time. ”

“ And no matter what art-juries of the future may do to me, my pictures were a success in the Filberts."
Blessed old Swank, he always looked on the bright side of things!
Day by day matters mended—and our spirits rose. We began to think more and more of getting in touch with civilization. What a tale we should have to tell. How we should put it over the other explorers with their trite Solomons and threadbare Marquesas!
"Where do you think we'll land, Captain?" I asked Triplett. ”

“ Herman Swank, bohemian, artist, and vagabond, forever in search of new sensations, and myself, Walter E. Traprock, of Derby, Connecticut, editor, war correspondent, and author, jack-of-all-trades, mostly literary and none lucrative.
Our object? What, indeed, but life itself!
I had known my companions for years. We had been class-mates at New Haven when our fathers were working our way through college. How far away it all seemed on that torrid Fourth of July as we sat on the Kawa's deck singing "Oralee", to which we had taught Triplett the bass. ”

“ Swank was gradually covering his canvas by squeezing the paint directly from the tubes, a method which has since been copied by many others—the "Tubistes" so called. Every few moments he would lurch forward and press his nose against the canvas, once falling flat on his masterpiece, most of which was transferred to his chest. But he persevered.
Whinney by this time had retired to his darkroom; Baahaabaa and Hitoia-Upa snored; Swank worked and I, from a near-by knoll, watched the miracle of a tropical dawn. ”

“ Of late the lure of the South Seas has laid its gentle spell rather overwhelmingly upon American readers. To be unread in Polynesiana is to be intellectually declasse.... In the face of this avid appetite for tropic-scented literature, one may well imagine the satisfaction of a publisher when offered opportunity of association with such an expedition as that of the Kawa, an association involving the exclusive privilege of publishing the manuscript of Walter E. Traprock himself. ”

“ I noticed also that Swank began to use his atelier jargon of "tonal values" and "integrity of line," while Whinney showed up one morning in the village circle with a splendid blossom of the bladder-campion (Silene latifolia) pinned to the center of his helmet.
It was doubtless this renaissance of mental activity that reminded us of the Kawa and of William Henry Thomas. Great heavens, what would he think of us? Here nearly a month had elapsed, we were mostly married and had never given him a thought. We were filled with compunction. ”

“ They are, reading from left to right, William Henry Thomas, the crew; Herman Swank, Walter E. Traprock, Reginald Whinney. At their feet lies Kippiputuona (Daughter of Pearl and Coral) . The black and white of photography can give no idea of the magnificent tropical coloring, nor of the exquisite sounds and odors which permeate every inch of the island paradise. At the moment of taking this picture, which was obligingly snapped by Captain Triplett, the entire party was listening to the thrilling cry of the fatu-liva bird. ”