The por ten Of The Thunder
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
Thunder
(Found in an old note-book of the late Trader Macfarlane, who was at one time a resident on Moorea, French Oceania. His grave is on Tupuai.) THE clouds had been gathering into heavy masses of a dull leaden hue and slowly drifting up from the north since early morning. Now, the lowest of them occasionally swooped down upon Potui and obscured the summit with swirling, eddying wreaths of vapor, rising again and showing the sharp outline of the mountain, with its lace-like fringe of trees, marvellously clear and distinct against the blackness beyond.
The surf broke on the reef with an apparent sullen tone to its roar, rising in a line of inky blackness and curling over to break—not, as usual, in a mass of sparkling brightness, which pained the eye with its brilliance, but in foam, to which the clouds had lent some of their blackness, till it, too, appeared sombre in hue. The ocean beyond, also gaining its
colour from the clouds, gradually became darker, till it was difficult to distinguish the dividing line of the horizon. Occa sionally faint flashes of lightning lit up momentarily the distant masses of cloud while the sullen rumble of thunder could now and then be heard.
A thin white line on the ocean, behind which the clouds seemed to merge them selves in the sea, showed, at last, where the squall, the precurser of the storm, was coming; and the long fronds of the coconuts began to ripple in the first light gusts. The squall reached the reef which, suddenly, was apparently obliter ated, and it could then be seen that, close upon the heels of the wind, was a wall of rain, utterly impossible to see through. The lightning had by this time increased in brilliance, while the thun der changed its rumble to a roar.
Then the squall reached us, and the ripple of the coconuts changed to a com plaining sound, as the leaves threshed around, while the long trunks bent to the fury of the wind, and then to the rain. The rattle of it on the roof was almost louder than the thunder, which kept up peal after peal, with hardly an interval between.
“Well, Tarie”, I said, “This seems to be quite a little thunder shower”.
“Yes”, she said, seriously. “Some one of the family of the kings (high chiefs) is dead”.
“Why?” said I.' “Does a prince die every time there is a thunderstorm?”
“Now”, she said, “You want to laugh at me. But if you listen I will tell you, and you will learn some more that you did not learn in Meriti. You have been here a long time now, and have you ever seen a storm like this before? No, I know you have not. Sometimes there is thunder, but not much; but, when it comes like this, to-day, then we know that a child of the kings is dead.
“It has always been so. Long before the white men came it was so, and it will still be so while any of the kings are left in Tahiti. When Pomare V. died I was in Huahine, and a storm like this came there, only it was a worse storm than this and a very old man there said: ‘This is a storm of the kings.
When the next ship comes from Tahiti, they will tell you that Pomare is dead’.
And he bought black cloth and made himself a black pareu and a black shirt, and he made his wife and daughter cut off their hair and make themselves black clothes, for he was a fetii (relation) of the king. And, true, when a ship did come, they said that Pomare had died on that day the old man said he did”.
Pomare V. died on June 12, 1891.
In confirmation of this native belief, there was a local happening of the same character in Papeete in January, 1901, which is worth recording. An earth quake and a veritable tornado struck the little town. Two women of mature age, each the mother of many children, were together in one of their homes. One was a pure native, the other a half-caste, with British blood in her veins. They talked of the portent in the presence of one who related the story to the writer; and from its great severity, they were certain that some very great personage in the world had died. The half-caste was fully convinced that it must be the greatest ruler of that day, Beretania’s Queen.
It was so. Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901.