While our whaleboat shot across the Bordelaise Channel pursued by a
brisk breeze, Ugh! a wisp of a man of fifty, held the helm. He was
for all the world like a Malay pirate; I have seen his double
steering a proa off the Borneo coast, slim, high-cheeked, with a
sashful of saw-like knives. Ugh! had no weapon, but his eye was a
small flaming coal that made me thankful cannibalism is a thing of
the past. He had been carried through the surf to his perch upon the
stern because one of his legs was useless for walking, but once he
grasped the tiller, he was a seaman of skill.

The oarsmen wore turbans of pink, blue, and white muslin to protect
their heads from the straight rays of the white sun. Bright-colored
_pareus_ were about their loins, and several wore elastic
sleeve-holders as ornaments on tawny arms and legs, while one, the
son of Ugh! sported earrings, great hoops of gold that flashed in
the sunshine. With their dark skins, gleaming eyes, and white teeth,
they were a brilliant picture against the dazzling blue of the sea.
Straight across the channel we steered for Hana Hevane, a little bay
and valley guarded by sunken coral rocks over which the water foamed
in white warning. Two of the men leaped out into the waves and hunted
on these rocks for squids, while we beached the boat on a shore
uninhabited by any living creature but rats, lizards, and centipedes.
Several small octopi were soon brought in, and one of the men placed
them on some boulders where the tide had left pools of water, and
cleaned them of their poison. He rubbed them on the stone exactly as
a washerwoman handles a flannel garment, and out of them came a
lather as though he had soaped them. Suds, bubbles, and froth--one
would have said a laundress had been at work there. He dipped them
often in a pool of salt water, and not until they would yield no
more suds did he give each a final rinsing and throw it on the fire