On the afternoon before it was intended we should sail, a
valedictory party came on board: nine of our particular friends
equipped with gifts and dressed as for a festival. Hoka, the chief
dancer and singer, the greatest dandy of Anaho, and one of the
handsomest young fellows in the world-sullen, showy, dramatic,
light as a feather and strong as an ox--it would have been hard, on
that occasion, to recognise, as he sat there stooped and silent,
his face heavy and grey. It was strange to see the lad so much
affected; stranger still to recognise in his last gift one of the
curios we had refused on the first day, and to know our friend, so
gaily dressed, so plainly moved at our departure, for one of the
half-naked crew that had besieged and insulted us on our arrival:
strangest of all, perhaps, to find, in that carved handle of a fan,
the last of those curiosities of the first day which had now all
been given to us by their possessors--their chief merchandise, for
which they had sought to ransom us as long as we were strangers,
which they pressed on us for nothing as soon as we were friends.
The last visit was not long protracted. One after another they
shook hands and got down into their canoe; when Hoka turned his
back immediately upon the ship, so that we saw his face no more.
Taipi, on the other hand, remained standing and facing us with
gracious valedictory gestures; and when Captain Otis dipped the
ensign, the whole party saluted with their hats. This was the
farewell; the episode of our visit to Anaho was held concluded; and
though the Casco remained nearly forty hours at her moorings, not
one returned on board, and I am inclined to think they avoided
appearing on the beach. This reserve and dignity is the finest
trait of the Marquesan.