Part 29

With time, as the natives change, the laws and ordinances that they have made themselves, for most things, that have seemed good to them and which are not contrary to the absolute essentials of English law, have been left, and will change as they change, and may fit themselves to an unknown future.

This will explain the naturally sensible reason for which the Governor differed with some of the Catholic missionaries, or rather their bishop, about which things I have heard, if not complainingly, at least with suggestion of arbitrariness from one or two good old Samoan priests. For instance, it is a great chief’s privilege and marks him that he should be “_tama’d_” to in passing--that is what marks him, and establishes his position in the hierarchy of rule.

But there is no reason why a bishop should claim it; even if in old days the confusion with regard to power of sacredness, of respect, and worship had always existed here as it has been all through the world. So also the case of the missionaries objecting to the chief receiving the first fruits of the land, often symbolized nowadays by a mere few pieces of some growth, because long ago it bore a religious as well as civil meaning. I fear me that our old friends, the Jesuits of China, were the only very wise men that served as missionaries, so that they alone never went by their personal whims or measured matters by their own fast rule.

But this is far off from my natural path of mere record of what happens or what I see. For some things at least the sketches will help you. I may succeed in making some note of the cheerful clearness of colour and tone all about me, though of course I can only make a choice. If I give you the day, then the veiled charms of morning or of evening, the enveloping of distances in misty colour, must remain unattempted of record. Or if I try the haze of the beginning or end of day, then I shall not have anything for you of the lightness and gayety of the brighter hours. But the sketches will give you the shape of the houses. You will sympathize with the inconvenience of getting in or out, in the dark or wet weather, excellent as it must have been as a device for protection against too sudden intrusion of doubtful friends.

We wait one whole day: then we enter the mountains for good, and pass over them to make our way to the coast which will be a matter of four days or so. It may be warmer higher up, as there may be more cloud; so far it has been cool at night, the thermometer going down as low as 56.

In Camp in the Bush.

Saturday night, July 4th.

We left Nasogo (pronounced Nasongo) early this morning in the mist; going down into the river-bed, among the boulders, and crossing the stream several times: the same river that rushed down around the little point or promontory of Nasombo--a streak of black or blue or green or white, among the black stones spread out between the rocky bluffs. Then we attacked the mountain and the forest--stumbling and slipping over rocks and moss, and matted tree roots. The path had been somewhat cleared for us here and there, but it was hard travelling through the wildwood; all damp above and below with the continuous moisture. In this desert of leaves and tree trunks, the passages of former torrents served for paths. Over us were quite high tall trees, but between their upper branches and the mossy wet earth spread a broken canopy of tall ferns, and lianas and the branches of smaller trees and plants. Here and there a great fern connected with the tree fern, but unlike it, spread or lifted long fronds like canes some twenty feet in length. Upon every tree hung innumerable mosses and parasites. Below, all over, a tangle of ferns; beautiful as ferns are, though you know that I care little for them; I am even so unworthy, that the prospects of rare orchids does not stir my blood; I would give them all for roses, violets or for apple trees or the cherry. I am essentially and absolutely European in these things, and retreat behind my rights as an artist to have preferences and keep to my instincts. But for you who love such things, I can say that there were many rare plants; a creeping lily, for instance, and innumerable ferns.

The fatigue of the ascent became greater: we halted at noon on a little open space above a high precipice, from which we could look back at the whole course of the river sunk far into the mountains and curving in the far distance around the amphitheatre, stands on its little bluff the village of Nasogo which we had left in the morning some four hours before. Beyond it the river ran, a black thread in the dark grey shingle, below the big bluff, and around the little promontory by which we had bathed for two days. Then we had lunch and Sir John on this Fourth of July proposed the health of the President--and drank to that of Mr. Harrison. Then the “Armed Native Constabulary” gave a salute of six guns which echoed far away down the valley and into the grass country that we hope to reach to-morrow perhaps. No doubt there will be stories afloat that we have been attacked. We were then some 2,300 feet up--the thermometer indicated 62°.

Later, as I was very tired, I was carried in the rough palanquin of boughs down the steep hills--the path so narrow that much ingenuity and noise and discussion was expended by my carriers to pass through the trees: fortunately the conveyance was elastic and could be sloped any way. In fact at times I stood up or sloped back so as to have to catch on, but I fell asleep and the men carefully moved along the hanging branches and lianas so that they should not strike me. Almost everything that came down merely hung in an elastic way. Rarely did a big tree stretch over the path. The last thing that I saw before closing my eyes was the file of our party beneath me: Their heads just visible between my feet; the “Native Constabulary” in their uniform of bushy yellow hair, and blue shirts, and red _sulus_ worn like sashes.

The little British flag had been stowed away to prevent it striking, and I missed its flutter or dazzle in the green. One of my big black attendants was hanging upon a small sapling dragging it down from the path and dropping far below afterward. The noise of the axes of the scouts sounded in advance and started the parrots cawing in response; the sun broke upon us and so I fell asleep in the more grateful warmth.

We reached the place chosen for camping in the early afternoon after another couple of hours’ march. Our halt was upon a little bluff right on the line of march--where trees had been cut down, and huts and sheds built for us, and where already many of our people were resting. Here had come the women sent in the morning by the other road, if one can call it so--the bed of the stream. They were to carry food for our people--for we had by this time some two hundred men along--many really of use, carrying boxes and trunks and provisions, all distributed, so that every little while I could notice in the long procession, the man with the frying pan--the man with the governor’s chair and so forth. But there were also amateurs who carried a club, or a little packet of food done up in a leaf, or an odd umbrella for one of us--or like the last page in the “Chanson de Malbrouck,” “Et l’autre ne portait rien.” Some were so called prisoners--viz., men condemned to labour for a time--and I was much amused at the story of three of them who were encamped in a long shed alongside of the magistrate (Mr. Carew) who had brought them as servants. They were all three in it owing to the eternal cause--“la femme”--who in Fiji seems to be “_teterrima causa_”. In fact, as there are not women enough to go around, it was not astonishing to hear that one great influence of the recent heathen revival in this wild region of cannibals was the hope of the young men, that if there were rows and trouble, some stray women might fall to their share. This evening I wandered out along the sheds and saw a good many--not more agreeable to look at than those I had seen before and certainly far uglier than the average ugly men. One youngster, another “prisoner” was preparing to oil himself, surrounded by a little group of female admirers, reversing apparently the fact of there being few women for the men.

We warmed ourselves at the fires, for, though the temperature was about the same, all was wet and damp, the firewood all covered with green moss. Our little hut was a fairly good one, made of wild banana, and the interstices filled up, or rather covered up with the great leaves of the wild ginger.

July 5th.

The night was rainy and all was damp in the morning, when after prayers we started again into the wet woods. The cry of the parrots like a wild _flapping_ of voices had been the first sound of early dawn. Then the camp had begun to move with chattering and laughter; people filed along all the morning.

When our time came, I had again the use of the loose palanquin in which I was taken for the first two miles down the deep side of the mountain. It was interesting to look up at the trees above, and to notice how much more of the vegetation grew in the air above than in the earth below.

Every tree was covered with plants, mosses, creepers; the vines and lianas that hung about were themselves covered with smaller growths. Perpendiculars of gigantic vines hung, though they looked as if they held themselves up, but the least pushing of our party would send great spaces of green trembling far off. The branches that were in my way were loose and swinging, and rarely did we meet so low down the branches of a solid tree. High up through the great loops and festoons and upright stretches of the creepers, or here and there the great leaves of the wild ginger, the light was delicately stencilled with the pattern of the leaves of the great ferns. But high as everything seemed above head in the trembling wall of green our occasional passing of some mighty trunk of the _da kua_ tree, whose branches began far up above everything, made still smaller the caravan passing below. Upon the branches and curves of the great trees, in every nook of protection they could afford, flourished other small forests of air plants, ferns and creepers for whose support the great oak-like limbs of this giant of the pines seemed to spread. Lifted high in relation to the plunge beneath, I spent half the time in looking at the details of this upper picture, unseizable otherwise in our rapid marching--but after our rest in mid-journey I preferred the tramp, and walked on with the others, slipping and sliding up and down, until we reached camp (after five hours’ walk) on a little open space. Just before this we had passed through a little park-like country all different from the sharp edges, ascents and descents of our usual travelling--the grass grew high, trees dotted the swellings here and there, the sun kept all dry so that it was hard to believe that only a few feet behind lay the eternally wet forest. In the tall grass grew orchids like lilies, orchids large and small of the _fagus_ variety. Butterflies and moths flitted about. The open country smiled after the sadness of the woods. Our resting place was not quite so open, but yet it had a similar appearance. It had evidently once been inhabited--there had been taro patches at one extremity of the open space. Here again, as throughout what we had seen of Fiji, the inhabitants had been chased away from their holdings in the perpetual wars. Indeed only twelve or fifteen years ago these good people here were cannibals and liable to be eaten if they did not eat others. The advantages of their present lot in this way were referred to in the sermon of the native preacher who had accompanied us, for this was Sunday and we had prayers in the morning and service and sermon in the afternoon. Of course I get all this at second hand, or even further; but the good man took also occasion to lecture his travelling flock, a flock as I understand, not his natural audience, upon the folly of returning to devil worship, of which there had been cases in this part of the country, as I have mentioned, I think, and pointed out to them that it was only an agitation brought up by people who wished to kindle trouble for their peculiar ends, as, for instance, that in the scarcity of women, some of them might fall to the share of fomenters of trouble, in case of any upsetting of things, however momentary--for there are fewer women than men, as I think I was telling you.

Here the desolateness of this open space (with our pretty and comfortable temporary huts it is true), but still indicating a once large population, brought up this question of the relation of the women in connection with agricultural work. They appear “sat upon” and not joyful and free as in other islands that we have seen. But of course appearances are only for _us_; they are certainly kept away and take a secondary position. But then of course they have to be put away from the mass of our men who are beginning to number heavily. Mr. Joski says that we are as many as four hundred. These women, who look so saddened, did a great deal of the heavy work, if not all--a matter which seems unnecessary at first, as the men used to idle and fight, but perhaps it might be worth while to look at the matter from inside and see how things must have stood in old times.

In the morning, when, as to-day, the mist hung over all the valley, over every point that could be cultivated or was so--when the little village alone above would be lighted up distinctly, it would have been impossible for the warriors to plunge into these shadows to look to these plantations, offering themselves as an easy prey to any ambuscade or attacking party. No; the right thing, of course, was to wait until the sun rose far enough. Meanwhile skirmishers looked about and travelled through the neighbourhood, armed against any foe. When they were satisfied that there was no immediate danger the women and children could go out and work in the fields or attend to anything necessary, while the men were about, ready to protect them in case of danger; certainly, this was to the woman’s advantage; had she, when travelling or going about, shared with the man the carrying of weights, how easily would they both have fallen a prey to the enemy. No, she would naturally have said, “you go before with your lance and club and see that the path is clear; I follow with the food.” All this is a picture of what was once, and here no more than elsewhere, except that here things were upon such a scale that there was no chance for anything but this perpetual war. By such considerations the past of _all_ nations comes back.

July 6th.

People of the neighbouring district came here to do homage to the governor and present food and they added still more to the number, filling the neighbouring hollows and moving about in and out of the lovely little brook all shaded by trees, in which we bathed in cold water, for the temperature remained pretty steadily the same, in the neighbourhood of 63° to 68°.

In the morning we left Ngalawana, and made a short and desperate plunge through the woods in the hollow to the N. W. and up the mountainside. It was raining and had rained, and anything more slippery than the road over which all these hundred of people had been travelling I cannot think of. The steepness was bad enough, and one could have rolled down if one had a good start; but some of the paths might have been “tobogganed” over. The bare feet of the natives managed it well enough, though with much slipping. And their ideas of direction of a road are peculiar, the straighter the better and across country; so that recently about the very roads that are in consideration, they say to the governor that of course they will make him _his_ roads to travel on as it suits him, following easy paths, but that he must not expect

[Illustration: FIJIAN BOY]

that _they_ will use them. Still easy ways are great persuaders, and notwithstanding this conservatism, the new roads in other parts are travelled over by the now converted heathen.

We arrived at length at a little village on a spur or ridge in a large valley where we are to rest for a few days--the first village, small as it is, since Nasogo. Here the governor was waited on by two deputations who presented whales’ teeth and food and who were received in the usual way by the Mata ni Vanua (the herald) and the other attendants with the usual voices of _ah! wui! wui!--wu--u! wooe--wooe!_ and so forth, making everything look more and more African as we go along; for all the way through in these mountain tribes, the negro colour and look, and woolly hair on head and shoulders and legs, and I am sorry to add the smell, marks how far we are from our smooth brown Polynesians.

In the evening all was bathed in the afterglow; pigeons called in the trees; through the air that seemed thickened with the light-green, long-tailed parrots sailed slowly, with an occasional flap of wings.

Matakula, July 7th.

We are resting here to-day; while the governor explores the neighbourhood for the purposes of his establishment of a sanitarium. We are not so high on the present ridge as he would desire: only 2,200 feet while it might be possible to find a plateau or wide ridge as high as 3,000. It is much warmer than before and dry at least. The night was cool--as low as 54°. The day is warm. I rose early, with the cries of the parrots in the wooded hill behind us; looked at the mist in lakes about us, out of which stepped the high trees and the mountains in the distance--even the dark conical huts of the little village built along the ridge at whose extreme end we are, were still wisped with moisture. The sun rose slowly behind the mountains, bathing everything in mildly pale varieties of wet colour--and all was lit long before the sun came over the hill behind us, and poured heat and dry light upon the scene.

We have been doing nothing: sitting out under umbrellas--then under a mock grove which the men suddenly made for us, digging up neighbouring trees and tree ferns and planting them around us in the soft soil.

For this they used the digging sticks they had, merely heavy bits of wood with pointed ends, in some cases turned up at the sides. We are here in primitive country: the boys of the village brought the water in bamboo joints this morning: the huts are of a peculiar hay-mow character--the features of the people, as I said before, are remarkably “African,” though often the colour is of a rich brown--but more usually a

[Illustration: STUDY OF HUTS AT END OF VILLAGE. MATAKULA, FIJI]

chocolate, that is negroish, is the type of colour, passing to a blackish grey. Most of the old people here have been cannibals; and fifteen years ago all this part was then still dangerous: on some attacks of theirs, upon the coast people and upon the whites, two of whom were eaten, war was made upon the villagers in this direction; their villages burned, and their people driven out and divided among other places. Some of the gentlemen with us talked at night of those days and of the fighting. If I have more time, I shall try to join together some memoranda or to jot them down as they come up.

At night, when there is no rush for bed, around a fire in the open the talk goes on, always interesting and rich in anecdote, and it is only a pity that we are not more acquainted with the places and people and past story: it is like looking at an embroidery that has no foundation.

But last night a story reminded me of the dream of Pomaré Vahine, told us by the old lady, Hinarii, in Tahiti, which I sent you, I believe. This is not a record of the pagan underworld, as that was, but one of a new Christianity, and as such makes a curious “pendant.” It is one of the late things reported about, and a source of comment and of influence. It appears that the wife of one of the principal people of some neighbouring place--perhaps a _mbuli_, but I was very sleepy when I heard it, and details are misty--appeared to be dead, was duly watched and prayed over--and then suddenly she called out aloud; when naturally enough, the entire assemblage scampered out of the house: at length the husband took courage and came up near the house, and heard his wife call out “Mbuli Mandrae” (I don’t remember the right name, let us call him so) “is that you?” “Yes”--“Well then I must tell you what I have seen.” So to those who returned, the good woman said that after death she found herself on the path, and crying, to find the road to Heaven. The road forked: at the one fork were a number of men dressed in white--at the other a number in black, and when she expressed a wish to go the road to Heaven, the white men passed her on, tossing her as it were from one to the other, until she reached a great gate which was made of looking-glass or mirror. There she knocked, but was told that she must go to one side, where a scribe asked who she was and what she wanted. She wished to get into Heaven. So her book was consulted, and she was asked if she was free from sin. “Yes” she replied--“I have been faithful to my husband.” (Sin with these good people is of _one_ kind.) “No indeed,” said the judge, “do you not remember one mid-day when so--and so----” The poor woman admitted her fault and was immediately handed from one white being to another, until she reached the fatal corner, when the black-clad people tossed her along as rapidly, until

[Illustration: RATU MANDRAE--FIJIAN CHIEF]