Part 28

In a small way nothing could be more picturesque. At places where the bank had sloped and made some little flats, men and women were collected, bathing or washing clothes: many of them East Indians, women clothed in the flowing garments, of bright or “entire” colours looking in their favourite yellow, like great birds; occasionally running along the shore beach, their drapery swelling behind them, impeding and showing the motion of the limbs, and recalling the correctness of the drawings and paintings of Delacroix, who alone, so far, had made the Oriental that he saw, look like anything else than a geographical or artistic curiosity. When I think that a few weeks sufficed to store his mind with all that he had done or implied in this way, I return to my admiration for his work, which sometimes for a man of the eighties of this century looks too much like the doings of a man of the thirties.

Once along a high bank near some station (government station), a row of constabulary stood up and then sat down in a row, respectfully on a platform of the bank, to do honour to the _Kovana_--the Governor.

Late in the afternoon we turned at one of the confluents and reached our destination for the night. A high sandy beach all broken over with footsteps, looking like a Nile embankment--many natives sitting about on it--then disembarkment and a little walk through some sugar-cane and banana, on a little raised road, and we came to a native town or village, inside of a deep ditch of circumvallation, filled with trees, and inside of a big waste space, the house we were to occupy, alongside of a few others. The same method of entrance--the trunk of a tree made into a plank with the natural curve, with notches and holes occasionally in the wood, as the tree has grown. This wooden path led quite high up, and some eight feet or so to the base running around the house--the _yavu_ or permanent base, which is allowed to remain when the house is dismantled by time or by man.

The house, the usual one with the walls covered with leaves. In one place a _ti_ branch in full bloom of yellow-red, projecting from its side as if it grew there (a decoration for our coming). The doorposts of trunk of tree-fern, all dark grey and corrugated, looking like stone; and above the doors a false lintel, engaged in the wall and smaller than the door, looking like a round bulging stone (as if so cut by a pre-Romanseque architect); the cutting of the chisel admirably indicated, but in reality nothing but a bunch of grey dried leaves, so brushed together that they suggested the grain of stone under the chisel.

In front of the door, or rather at its edges, engaged in the platform, shells disposed in a pattern, and the same disposed in a half circle in front of the stairway plank deeply sunk in the earth, so that only their ridges were visible. All this exquisite good taste in spite of the repeated assertion, which may be true, that these good people are not at all sensitive to æsthetic feelings.

The interior as usual: yellow cane in patterns on the walls, and dark columns of tree-fern, and rafters covered with sennit. Soft mats on the floor were made softer with leaves thickly strewn under them.

Here there was a presentation of whale’s teeth, of _kava_ and of food; and here the Governor listened to reports of the place, and talked to the _mbulis_ (prounounced bulis) (local chiefs of a certain degree), and later listened to some petitioner of a neighbouring place, who in the twilight had come to him while standing out in the open; and had squatted down and mumbled and whispered, and offered some written petition. Then we ate and slept and in the morning, walked along the outside upper base, and looked upon the hazy scene--then bathed in the river while the mist still floated above the tallest trees.

When the sun was well up our party divided, three of us going by canoe, and the Governor and officials and retinue walking or riding on.

Here then we parted, A. & T. taking the canoe, while the Governor and the magistrates went on foot and horse by land, to Vunidawa. There was a little thatched awning upon the canoe’s deck, large enough for three to manage to stretch under. Six men, three at each end, poled or paddled in the canoe as the water was deep or shallow; while one man, in this case I think a sergeant of the “armed native constabulary” (A. N. C.), stood on the outrigger, or sat about and took charge.

The low roof prevented one’s seeing much of the shores, for to sit up was to have one’s view absolutely excluded. But all the more important became the little details of vision, the beauties of line and colour that one sees everywhere in the movement or the rest of water, its breaks upon shore or upon rocks, the reflections that it carries with it, and the near banks or little distant escapes of vision, all framed within the cane posts of the sun shelter. It was all much the same as the day before, but the shores became bolder, the breaks greater. Rapids rushed around us, and our men poled hard against the force of the water. We passed or were left behind by the other boats carrying the enormous luggage and accumulation of provisions for such a party. The profiles of the men in the other boats stood up in contradictory curves and lines against the shadows and fights of the distance, or the darkness and glistening of the water. They shouted and called and got all the fun and excitement out of the hard work that could be had. As the slopes increased and the river-bed showed more gravel and boulders in large patches, the talk and chatter of the men reminded me of former days in Japan, up in the high lands and by the rivers that run there on great gravel beds.

At every step this impression of reminiscence increases and must increase, as it occurred to me on the very first morning of arrival, upon seeing the many small hills and mounds fringed with trees, behind which came down great slopes of distance; even an occasional waterfall was there to remind me. The heat was great, the silence also, even though the men shouted; for occasionally we heard nothing but the movement of the poles and the ripple of the water. A hawk would flutter off from some tree. Dragon-flies lighted on the deck or upon one’s outstretched legs. A spider, folding up like a pair of scissors, so as to look all long instead of circular, began to build its web, for there were flies; and all little things became of interest by the time we had reached our first halt. We were helped up some very high banks of red clay, partly covered with green bushes and trees, and found ourselves at the entrance of a pretty little place, with plants and trees neatly set out, for colour spots. We lunched most comfortably in a native house.

With this break we began again our river course, the rapids increasing, and the difference between the shoal water and the pools becoming more evident. Occasionally a large spot of river greened or darkened into what was depth. In such we longed to bathe, when the moment of halting would arrive, or before departure, but in none such of these did we swim. Indeed, little by little, one felt the influence of the assurance that sharks visited these deep holes, and that to some fifty miles or more up these rivers there was a possible danger. The shape of the river banks, the marks on the shore, the thickness of the dry parts of the river, the size of its boulders and pebbles, the manner in which the tongues of conglomerate that ran along with the river-bank were cut down, the sudden cuttings and hollows and ravines of the bank, all showed what a mass of water, in wet seasons and years, must pour down these rivers. Then when the tides are high and the waters give access, great sharks come up and bide their time in the deep pools. No year passes but that some natives are attacked. Here then the smaller ones remain when the river runs lower, and change their colour and become fresh-water sharks, and sometimes when small are harmless; but the impression of danger is there. I am told that they are seen far up, and that even as far as we shall get on Monday night, they are occasional.

We landed in the afternoon at Vunidawa, some thirteen miles by land from our morning’s stay; again coming up high red clay banks, of a beautiful slope most charmingly set out and arranged, upon which stands the “station.” I was told that the arrangement of cuts and breaks and ditches was all modern or recent, but that at one place there were the remains of the old cut or moat on the upper hillside. But the place had a fortified look--one looked down from high banks (below and around which ran paths) upon a hollow centre in which stood native houses and great trees. In the distance, mountains across the river; toward the west, one great streaked mass, with an outline vaguely like the Aorai of Tahiti, the smaller ridges in front of it showing high precipices that looked violet in the dawn, with occasional shiny white spots; all else with a faint haze of green, except where far off, further to the west, a pointed peak looked blue. Along the bight of the curved river a line of cocoanuts stood near the high banks. Further on one could discern to-morrow’s road, that disappeared behind a turn of the river, and up the edges of the intermediate hills in the distance yellow patches and markings modelled the slopes of the first uplands.

Sunday.

All next day we rested. The sitting-room of the pretty native house was decorated with native _tappa_ (_masi_) of many patterns. Books and magazines were upon the tables and shelves of cane. The Governor and the resident magistrate, Mr. Joski, whose house this was, received reports from the _mbulis_ (chiefs) of the neighbourhood, while sitting out in the evening on the green slope of the garden.

We left again Monday morning for the first beginnings of mountain country and more inland manners. Our party again divided. Atamo and myself and the momentarily ill Awoki took to the water and again went up stream. The weather was exquisite, the draught of the river just cooled the heat. Constant animation and struggle on the part of the boatmen for the rapids became more and more frequent. Half the time, with the strength of the current and the shallowness of the water, four of the six men plunged in and pulled and tugged at the boat, pulling it through the boiling water, lifting their legs high, one after another for stepping over the boulders, every muscle strained with effort, the poles bending against the rocky bottom. Occasionally the man who stood at bow or stern, upon the little vantage nook of the thickness of the canoe, would be slung off by a swerving of the current, and his own stretching far away to the side, and would retain some place from which he could join us. The other boats passed us or were left behind. We saw them far off on the slopes of the torrents, lifting shining poles against the shadow of the banks. Sometimes the water swept over and our own little planking was wet with it. As the rapids increased so did the spread of the stones and boulders of the remainder of the river. We rested once for midday meal. Then in the afternoon we landed and walked a little way along a causeway road to a little village on a bluff, where the wide river turned. Then passing through many houses and turning around a deep moat, filled with bananas and other greenery, we came upon the edge of the little hill. Here stood a house of a different type, more like the type of the mountains; a very high, dark, thatched roof, more than twice the height of the wall together with the stone base, or mound embedded with stones, called _yavu_, out of it grew bunches of the red _ti_. This mound embedded with stones is kept and has its name; the house on top will be built and rebuilt.

At one corner a great palm tree rose above the high roof. From the little plateau, planted with occasional trees and rising steep from the river, a sloping and curved path led down between water and village, separated from the latter by the deep moat filled with trees, and coming at length to sharp earthern steps (if one can so call anything as rude) that took us to the river end, to our bath in shallow water, the edge of the deep pool under the cliff. Far back behind us spread the river-bed with the stream between, and in the distance behind the hills a line or shoulder of mountain streaked perpendicularly with great shiny patches of rock. In this house we spent the night. It was inside, like all those we have yet seen, charmingly finished with patterns of fastening on the reeds of the walls, and sennit decorations on beams and lintels and posts. A rude representation of a cow or bull had been worked into the roof.

The next day we began our walk, leaving the canoes for good; and after a few hours over clay ground and some rocky streams, we came to a wide space of the river; across which we were carried in rough litters made of bamboo tied together, then, walking up a clay bank between trees, came upon the little village around which the river curves. This was Navuna.

Here the view was confined to our huts and those of our neighbours. Behind us a plantation of bananas; visible partly around the corner of a neighbouring house, a great tree shading the centre of the _rara_, the village place, where in the morning the Governor and the two magistrates interviewed the representatives of this place and of others. I could make out fairly well that a certain court of reproof was going on; for all through these places was something which explained itself a little further along.

Nasogo, July 3rd.

The midday saw us off from Navuna, and through similar scenery to a little village on the edge of a river running far below it. The village is Navu (n) (di Waiwaivule) in the district of Boboutho.

Now we began to be helped by being carried in the litters provided us by Mr. Joski; for crossing and recrossing streams, it was perhaps as easy a way as being carried pick-a-back. But where it was both a triumph and an excitement was when we were lifted up the steep sides of the gorges; then the looking back or forward, and seeing below one’s feet the toiling carriers of the other litters, swaying to and fro with their burden; and behind them again the long file of what was getting to be an enormous retinue. For a background the distant mountains, or the bottom of the gorge, black shingle and rushing water, or shallow pools reflecting the green above. But prettier than all was some passage along the stream; the men in the water; the mass of the party sometimes in the water near us, or disappearing around picturesque frames of corner rocks, over shingles and boulders; and reflected all about us the entire picture--the distant mountains and rocks in sun and mist, the near rocks covered with green, or with purple and grey of conglomerate; and the song of the rapids ahead in a black and white streak counting against the trembling green.

But when we walked then much did we regret our litters. To the native our good path was for the most part on the dry river-bed, and lengthily and wearily we picked a precarious footing over innumerable pebbles and stones and boulders; sometimes thinking that the walk was easier on the big ones, because one went from one to another; sometimes on the smaller and more rolling ones, because one got several under one’s slipping foot. But my neighbours always helped me: sometimes Lingani, one of the Governor’s men, or one of the “Army,” as we called them (the armed constabulary), or some _mbuli_ who accompanied the escort, or some newly accidental neighbour; so that all went well enough, and we reached our night’s destination without the sprained ankle that had discomfited Mr. Spence early in the trip.

All is a little hazy to me up to where we are now. I remember the look down the ravine and up the other river. I remember that huts began to be more peaked or more like

[Illustration: EDGE OF VILLAGE OF NASOGO IN MOUNTAIN OF THE NORTHEAST OF VITI LEVU, FIJI]

beehives. I remember one which had been fitted up as a heathen temple or devil house, and from whose roof many strings hung down--as conductors, one may say of influences. There had been a basket attached to one of them, which the Governor cut down. I remember, of course, but one running into the other, presentations of whales’ teeth and food, and _tappa_, and dances (_mekke mekke_), with or without the dancers being wrapped in the enormous folds of cloth, that afterward were unwound with more or less difficulty, to be piled up high as a man’s height into great masses of presents. (And by the by, though all that is extinct to-day, some thirty or forty years ago a return to this old manner of making gifts of _tappa_ came near to bringing on a civil war in Tahiti.) The Tahitian custom referred to came up again some while after Queen Pomaré (Aimata) was on the throne, her brother Pomaré III having died quite young, and leaving her, who had not been trained entirely by missionaries, exposed to the passing influences that come up with new conditions. At some time or other she capriciously desired that upon certain occasions she should be received in Tahiti (on her arrival, I think, from Eimeo--Moorea--but that is unimportant) in the old way. Among other customs would have been that of presenting her with _tappas_ offered by a number of young women, who, having danced before her all swathed in this native cloth, should then gradually be unwound, and having nothing upon them, continue the dance to an end. This was part of the thing, and I only remember this detail. It was then that Tati of Papara, the grandfather of our old chiefess, came to the front, and in a most remarkable manner, both by threatening armed opposition, and by the use of an eloquence worthy of the greatest examples, broke down the will of the Queen and the plotting of her then advisers. It is thus greatly to Tati that peace and the final quiet prevailing of Christianity was due.

As to Aimata, or Queen Pomaré, that she remained more or less of a pagan at least for a long time, the fact or report that she destroyed two of her children (probably base born) is in the direction of a testimony. Of course the meaning of the word Christian is variable according to time and place and especially according to date, so that the geographical and historical limit of the meaning should never be insisted upon in too set a manner.

The next day’s tramp brought us here, but apart from certain geological facts in which Adams was enormously interested--for example, the superposition of the conglomerate upon everything else, and the finding of shells in the softish rock at this height--all was pretty much the same.

Our present place is very charming, reminding me of the last. It is at a corner again, with the river turning round one side of it, and the stream up which we came on the other. Between them a bluff covered with trees, the space of the bed of the river mostly filled with boulders and gravel and rocks, though we roll the rapids, or slide the quiet waters; a great rock just facing the village, as an advance buttress of the mountain behind it, which melts tier upon tier into an entanglement of foliage; and the town or village itself, built on a succession of terraces, all worked over and planted, and edged with walls that seem part of the natural structure; here and there, even right in the village, a boulder black or grey, almost of the colour of the thatch of neighbouring houses, and protected, shaded, encompassed with trees or high decorative plants as they usually are. As always everywhere apparently, the projection of any tongue of land makes itself into a knife edge; so that the idea of a ditch or moat would be suggested to the savage engineer by the very make of the land. Therefore from each side the slopes go down, and below you see tops of trees, banana, palm or what not, and tops of huts staged down.[28]

Then where the land rises again on the slopes, big boulders stand up, reminding you again of the thatched roofs; and far away on heights are places where villages stood, and where some years ago these very savages were attacked and driven off.

For all these parts of the country were once a stronghold of the more savage tribes; if not the more powerful, who sometimes came down and attacked the lower places. And all through here some of the gentlemen who were with us had gone, when the time had come to make an end of it, destroying the towns and reducing the wild people to forced peace. Occasionally I overheard these reminiscences, which do not date so many years ago--fifteen or sixteen, I think. The Governor had headed or accompanied expeditions, and one or more of our companions had been on such attacks, after having suffered the loss of a number of relatives and friends. But all that is over now; only, as in all mountain countries, there is a sort of regrowing of that bad seed, such as we saw in this recurrence of the old devil worship.

Here we saw of course again more ceremonies and presentations of food, the latter becoming a serious necessity with the great number of men accompanying us. The Governor is not only a representative of the Queen, he is as such the chief of chiefs, and most wisely his policy, whether or not it has been the policy of his predecessors, has insisted upon this point. Every ceremonial of observance, everything that would belong to the native ruler, is encouraged and kept up. Not only such natural observances must exercise an indefinable prestige on the native mind, but they also must allow, in what is a personal government, the use of an apparatus of control exactly suited to the native mind: thus any subordinate chief can be reprimanded, talked to and put in his place in such a way, that he feels it from ancestral habit; he can be removed or set aside. A man serving out a sentence can be kept a prisoner behind the paling of a bamboo house that he could break through as easily as he can see through it.