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Updated: June 4, 2025
The Portuguese then made a very long, rambling, and not very lucid statement, from which Jack gleaned the following details. About a hundred years before, during the reign of one of the first kings, there lived a great warrior, whose name was Rono. This chief was very popular, but he was very jealous. In a moment of anger he killed his wife, of whom he was passionately fond.
Some of the populace conceived themselves entitled to appropriate a portion of the presents which Rono, according to his promise, had brought them a licence which was immediately punished by Cook with great severity: the offenders taken in the fact were whipped; those who fled were fired upon; and several persons, some of whom were innocent, lost their lives.
His majesty King Toubowrai had probably felt it incumbent upon himself to do honor to the illustrious Rono, for he wore an old uniform coat, very likely the produce of a wreck, through the sleeves of which the angular knobs of his copper-colored elbows projected.
The natives advanced, and, while he was in the act of ordering his people to desist, he was pierced through the body by a spear. Grief and dismay took possession of the hearts of both parties when he fell. By the then superstitious natives he had been looked upon as their deified and long-lost sovereign, Rono.
After his death some of the people naturally doubted that he could be Rono, but others still affirmed that he was; and it is believed that the priests took some of his bones and preserved them in a wicker basket covered over with red feathers, which are highly prized by the natives.
On the 15th a man who had been his constant attendant came off with some human flesh, saying that the rest had been burnt, but that the head and bones and hands were in possession of the king. The natives even now would not believe that Rono was killed. When they saw him fall they cried out, "This is not Rono!" Others inquired when he would come back, and whether he would punish them.
"What!" exclaimed Jack, "shooting at the great Rono!" "That," said Fritz, "only proves they are men like ourselves. He who is covered with incense one day, is very often immolated the next." "And that simply because Rono treated Mr. and Mrs. What's-their-names to a pinch of snuff. Serve them right to discharge the contents of the four-pounder amongst them."
"I have written lots of letters on board ship for my comrades," remarked Willis, "and I invariably commenced by saying I take a pen in my hand to let you know I am well, hoping you are the same." "What else could you take in your hand for such a purpose, O Rono?" inquired Jack. "Sometimes, after this preamble, I added, 'but I am afraid."
"But the water?" inquired Fritz, after he had heard the story. "Oh, water; they offered us something to drink on shore that will prevent us being thirsty for a month to come, but we shall see to that to-morrow." Towards dark, some fireworks were discharged on board the pinnace, by way of demonstrating that Willis's pipe was not the only fiery terror the great Rono had at his command.
But it is an unlikely spot, and I doubt if his "boom" will develop to the corner-lot stage. Rono, Ind., a mile below, with its limewashed buildings set in a bower of trees, at the base of a bald bluff, is a rather pretty study in gray and green and white.
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