uccess wins glory, but it kills
affection, which misfortune fosters. And the misfortune which overtook
the captain's enterprise was truly singular. He was at the top of his
career. Ile Masse belonged to him, given by the French as an indemnity
for the robberies at Taahauku. But the Ile Masse was only suitable for
cattle; and his two chief stations were Anaho, in Nuka-hiva, facing the
north-east, and Taahauku in Hiva-oa, some hundred miles to the
southward, and facing the south-west. Both these were on the same day
swept by a tidal wave, which was not felt in any other bay or island of
the group. The south coast of Hiva-oa was bestrewn with building timber
and camphor-wood chests, containing goods; which, on the promise of a
reasonable salvage, the natives very honestly brought back, the chests
apparently not opened, and some of the wood after it had been built into
their houses. But the recovery of jetsam could not affect the result. It
was impossible the captain should withstand this partiality of fortune;
and with his fall the prosperity of the Marquesas ended. Anaho is truly
extinct, Taahauku but a shadow of itself; nor has any new plantation
arisen in their stead.

CHAPTER XIII

CHARACTERS

There was a certain traffic in our anchorage at Atuona; different indeed
from the dead inertia and quiescence of the sister-island, Nuka-hiva.
Sails were seen steering from its mouth; now it would be a whale-boat
manned with native rowdies, and heavy with copra for sale; now perhaps a
single canoe come after commodities to buy. The anchorage was besides
frequented by fishers; not only the lone females perched in niches of
the cliff, but whole parties, who would sometimes camp and build a fire
upon the beach, and sometimes lie in their canoes in the midst of the
haven and jump by turns in the water; which they would cast eight or
nine feet high, to drive, as we supposed, the fish into their nets. The
goods the purchasers came to buy were sometimes quaint. I remarked one
outrigger returning with a single ham swung from a pole in the stern.
And one day there came into Mr. Keane's store a charming lad,
excellently mannered, speaking French correctly though with a babyish
accent; very handsome too, and much of a dandy, as was shown not only in
his shining raiment, but by the nature of his purchases. These were five
ship-biscuits, a bottle of scent, and two balls of washing blue. He was
from Tauata, whither he returned the s