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In an open place, partially screened from the sun by the graceful leaves of palms and bananas, through which was obtained a glimpse of the sea, Otaheitan Sally was busily engaged in playing at "school." Seated on the end of a felled tree was Thursday October Christian, who had become, as Isaac Martin expressed it, a great lout of a boy for his age.
The former leaped up the companion ladder, the latter ran to the stern of the ship, but before either could gain the side one of the Otaheitan men, who had witnessed the accident, plunged into the sea and was soon close to Sally. The playful creature, after giving him a kick in the face, consented to be placed on his shoulders.
You go klect de jumpers. Me git de womans." Susannah referred to the older children by the term "Jumpers." Highly pleased, the urchin started off at once. He found one of the jumpers, namely, Otaheitan Sally, nursing Polly Young, while she delivered an oracular discourse to Charlie Christian, who sat at her feet, meekly receiving and believing the most outrageous nonsense that ever was heard.
There are several varieties, but the Otaheitan seems to be the most generally cultivated. Between the time when enough of the cane is ripe to warrant the getting up of steam at the grinding mill, and the time when the heat and the rain spoils its qualities, all the sugar for the season must be made, hence the necessity for great industry on large estates.
Some were quick and intelligent, others were slow and stupid, while a few were slow but by no means stupid. Charlie Christian was among these last. "Oh, Charlie, you are such a booby!" one day exclaimed Otaheitan Sally, who, being advanced to the dignity of monitor, devoted much of her time to the instruction of her old favourite. "What can be the matter with your brains?"
On the day of which we write, Young and Adams found the square above-mentioned in possession of the infantry, under command of their self-elected captain, Otaheitan Sally, who was now, according to John Adams, "no longer a chicken."
"I see 'im," cried Mills, with his head thrust down between a nail-cask and a bundle of Otaheitan roots. "Where?" from John Adams, who, with heels and legs in the air, and head and shoulders down somewhere about the keel, was poking a long stick into total darkness. "There, right under you, with a pair of eyes blazing like green lamps."
Banks notes the southern islanders appeared to be an inferior race to those of the north, the latter probably more closely allied to the Otaheitan type; many of their customs were similar, and their language practically identical. Tupia had no difficulty in making himself understood.
"An Otaheitan chief," says Cook, "who had got two nails in his possession, received no small emolument by letting out the use of them to his neighbours for the purpose of boring holes when their own methods failed, or were thought too tedious." The native methods referred to by Cook were of a very clumsy sort; the principal tools of the Otaheitans being of wood, stone, and flint.
This he appeared to succeed in doing, but when he was induced by them to give up his musket, he found out his mistake, for they soon turned it on himself and killed him. Then Young's wife, Susannah, was induced to kill Tetaheite with an axe, and Young himself immediately after shot Nehow. When McCoy and Quintal were told that all the Otaheitan men were dead they returned to the settlement.
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