beach. To surf-ride with the joy of confidence it is necessary to have
an acute sense of balance; it is even more necessary to be able to swim.
The base of the exercise is a flat surf-board, the shape of a snow-shoe,
with which the rider swims out to meet the approaching breaker. This,
with bewildering agility, he then mounts and strides, and the breaker
carries him poised and dramatic to the beach. The adventure was most
graceful when it succeeded, but it often ended in a considerable tumble
in which the swimmer was lucky to escape a bang upon the head from his
own capsized means of support.
The Prince was naturally enthusiastic for an initiation, and came off in
the end passing well, to the delight of the heterogeneous crowd that had
assembled in bathing costumes appropriate to the warmth of the occasion
to see him undergo it. Cinematograph men, in swaying surf-boats, made a
valiant effort for pictures alongside the swimmers, but, for once upon
the tour, were handsomely discomfited, for the rollers of the Waikiki
beach are no respecters of public purposes.
In the evening, H.R.H. was taken to an official ball, given by the
Governor, in the spacious town armoury, where the principal white
residents, now costumed in the garments of civilization, were formally
presented beneath a forest of national flags, amongst which predominated
the Stars and Stripes of the United States and the combined Union Jack
and tricolor of Honolulu. The ball was much as other balls, but it had
an unusual pendant. Before midnight struck the Prince was spirited away
ten miles across the island, through long shadowy aisles of pillared
cabbage-palms, shining ghost-like in dim starlight, beneath dense
foliage of bread-fruit, mango, and coco-nut trees, where sweet-scented
aloes perfumed the warm, still night, and on through grey cuttings in
volcanic rock, to the country-house of Mr. Robert Atkinson, to whom had
occurred the excellent idea of affording him an opportunity of seeing a
real "Hookupu" gathering, now a very rare event amongst the dwindling
race of Hawaiians. Stout, white-robed, brown-faced ladies, bearing the
coloured, feather-tipped sticks of royal state, and chanting the "aloa"
of welcome, lined the path leading to the deep-foliaged "ouhani" tree of
happiness which shaded the front of the bungalow, a self-sown visitant
that every Hawaiian prizes, provided only that it has not been
artificially planted, and that it is not at the back of the residence.
Here, in a large and reckless hole in the well-kept lawn, the entire
carcases of four pigs, quantities of chickens, fish, and sweet potatoes,
wrapped closely in green "ti" leaves, were in process of being roasted
by Hawaiian cooks, the heat being provided by boulders, previously made
red-hot, with which the sides and bottom of the pit had been lined.
Fruit was piled high in golden profusion, upon low, wooden platforms
around which, upon mats on the ground, the Prince and other guests took
their seats. Princess Kawananakoa, a lady of fine figure, in middle
life, dressed in the conventional garments of Bond Street,
representative of the Hawaiian Royal house, was given a place of honour
next to the guest of the occasion. Hawaiian soldiers in yellow robes,
with scarlet head-pieces that might have been patterned on the helmet of
Achilles, and gold-tipped "tabu" staves, the size of broom-sticks, which
represented life-and-death authority under the old regime, took up
stations in the background. Immense flower-garlands were hung round the
visitors' necks and they were served, upon plates of "ti" leaves, with
savoury viands from the still smoking pit.
Then from gourd-lutes of a weird band of musicians, tinkled out a soft
refrain. Suddenly, from the dim shelter of an aerial-rooted banyan tree,
human voices reinforced the chant, and four Hawaiian damsels,
voluminously clad in flaming yellow feather-mantles, ending in deep
ruffs over the ankles, leapt gracefully upon a mat in front, where they
were joined by two similarly caparisoned and equally agile male partners
with whom they proceeded to dance. The performance was like an Indian
_nautch_ run mad. The heads and busts of the dancers remained almost
stationary, thus forming a fulcrum around which the rest of their
persons seemed to gyrate, with serpentine arms, india-rubber hips, and
racing feet, the dancers, all the time, pouring out doleful melodies to
which the gourd-lutes twanged in solemn harmony. One could almost see,
as the weird notes rose and fell, Polynesian folk, in frail, palm-wood
canoes, blown out to sea by fierce Eastern typhoons, from fisheries on
the far coasts of the Malay, to perish mournfully and alone, in the vast
empty spaces of the Pacific, only an occasional wanderer, through the
centuries, finding refuge in some rare isle, and there building up a
race of mingled blood, whose high cheek-bones, soft tongue, swaying
dances and outrigged boats, speak of a Mongolian origin and an Eastern
home.
Another expedition, on which the Prince was taken before leaving
Honolulu, was to a grass-grown hill, once the scene of human sacrifice,
where a pageant was being held in honour of the centenary of the arrival
in Honolulu of the Christian missionaries, who have played so important
a part in the history of the island. Here he saw half-naked folk, with
conch-shell trumpets, similar to those in use to-day at festivals at the
mouth of the Ganges, also processions of queer idol images that would
not have jarred the decorative scheme of a Durga-Puja celebration in
Hindustan. Scenes were here enacted, in which shapely brown maidens,
clad in ancient, indigenous paper garments, reminiscent of Japan, took
part. European missionaries, some of them lineal descendants of those
who landed in Honolulu from the brig _Thaddeus_ in 1820, also appeared
in the garments of their predecessors of a hundred years ago. One of the
incidents depicted was the historical breaking up and burning of the
island idols in the days of Queen Kaahumanu, widow of King Kamshamcha,
"the lonely one." There was a tense moment in the audience when the
first image had to be flung upon the ground, for superstition dies hard
even after a century's banning; but the image was flung and went into
fifty pieces, at the feet of civilization. Christianity is now the only
religion actively practised in the island, but the Hawaiian prefers to
be on the safe side in case the old powers of darkness should not be
altogether dead. He is not a whole-hearted iconoclast.
VI
NEPTUNE BOARDS THE _RENOWN_
The relations between the Royal Navy and H.M. King Neptune are known to
partake of the spirit of compromise which so happily characterizes the
British Empire elsewhere. Neptune permits the suzerainty but demands a
certain ceremonial which acknowledges his ancient rights. The function
has a date and a determination and is observed by all King George's
vessels on crossing the Equatorial line. It is in the nature of an
initiation and lends itself to gruesome and alarmist description. For
days before the _Renown_ reached the specified spot our feelings were
harrowed and our dreams disturbed by foretellings of the unescapable
ordeal of all novices. There was no immunity in being a passenger, even
in being the Chief Passenger. Neptune was not aware of passengers. The
wardroom was horrid with boding. Mercifully we were preserved from the
imagination of the snotties.
The Royal Navy does nothing by half. Elaborate preparations were made
long in advance. Active brains in Wardroom, Gunroom, Warrant Officers',
Petty Officers', Engineers' and Stokers' messes and in the lower deck,
found a morning and an evening occupation inventing rhymed patter,
designing and making the weirdest of costumes, in which oakum, canvas,
ship's-paint, and stove-soot all largely figured. An extensive stage was
erected on the forecastle with a sail forty feet long, containing four
feet of sea water, convenient for the "baptizing" of all those on the
ship, of whom there must have been at least five hundred, who had not
previously crossed the line. Wooden razors the size of cutlasses,
barrels of lather made of coloured flour and water, whitewash brushes
for applying the same to the countenance were provided, also a
gauge-glass for a clinical thermometer, a cutlass for a lancet, and
quantities of dough-pills, the size of marbles, well flavoured with
bitter quinine, for physicking the victim before his ablution.
The Prince himself was one of the most active of the conspirators. To an
inquiry sent "up top" (i.e. to the Prince's quarters) a reply signed by
Captain Dudley North, R.N., was received by the "Father of the ship"
(i.e. the Commander), upon whose broad shoulders falls responsibility of
every kind.
It ran:
"His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has not yet crossed the
Line. I am desired by H.R.H. to say that he is looking forward with
interest to his meeting with His Majesty King Neptune and
Amphitrite, his wife, and also to his initiation as a Freeman of
His Majesty's domains.
The following members of the staff have crossed the Line, and are
entitled to wear the various classes of the Order of the Bath
bestowed on them by His Majesty:--
Rear-Admiral Sir Lionel Halsey has crossed the Line on upwards of
200 occasions; in fact, for some time this officer is understood to
have supported himself on it. It is understood that he has been
strongly recommended for the order of the 'Old Sea Dog.'
Captain Dudley North has crossed the Line nine times, and has been
personally decorated by His Majesty.
Lieut.-Colonel Grigg and Lord Claud Hamilton have already crossed
the Line--the former twice, the latter four times. These officers
have, however, stated that owing possibly to some special favour,
or else to some serious preoccupation on the part of His Majesty,
they were not privileged to undergo the full ceremony of
initiation. They are all the more anxious, therefore, on this
account, to pay every respect to His Majesty, and not to presume on
his former graciousness. In expressing their humble duty to His
Majesty they await, with great humility, the verdict of his most
excellent Court as to whether they will be required to be initiated
or not.
The following members of H.R.H.'s staff have not yet crossed the
Line or had the honour of an audience with His Majesty:--
Sir Godfrey Thomas, Bart. Captain the Hon. Piers Leigh. The Bears
will, no doubt, attend to these gentlemen."
Each novice upon the ship meanwhile received a notice summoning him to
present himself at noon on the 10th April:
"Before our Court, at the Equator, in order that we may confer upon
you the Freedom of the Seas, and our permission to enter the other
hemisphere."
The proceedings began after dinner over-night when the Prince and his
staff accompanied the Captain to the Bridge. The lights were turned off
and in the darkness one could feel the presence of the entire ship's
company crowded upon every vantage point.
Out of the blackness from in front came the shout
"Ship-ahoy!"
with the Captain's deep
"Aye, Aye,"
in reply, as searchlights swept the sea.
_Neptune_: "What ship are you?"
_Captain_: "His Britannic Majesty's Battle-Cruiser _Renown_."
_Neptune_: "I wish to come on board."
_Captain_ (to Officer of Watch): "Stop both." (To Neptune, shouting).
"My engines are stopped. I am sending an officer to conduct Your Majesty
to my Bridge."
Rockets went up, and in a falling shower of sparks a procession of
strange figures climbed into the ship from over the side. Neptune,
Amphitrite, judge, barber, and doctor, with attendant imps, bears, and
policemen were there in the most realistic of scales, fins, mermaids'
hair and ursine fur. They carried brobdingnagian batons, razors, shaving
brushes and trident. Their appearance was terrific.
The party was escorted with much formality to the Bridge, where Neptune
and Amphitrite were presented to the Prince and drinks were stood to
Their Majesties and the Court party, neither were there any heel-taps.
_Pourparlers_ were exchanged in ceremonial verse, Captain Taylor making
the following frank explanation:
"Our business is to take a Royal Prince
To see a portion of our Empire's land.
The Prince of Wales, he is our passenger
Who hopes to meet your Bears and clasp your hand."
It seemed impossible for the spirits of the deep to communicate in
anything less metrical than this, and Neptune acknowledged his reception
and announced his intention to hold an Investiture as well as a few
other things, the following day, in the same fashion.
Next morning the circumstance was even more elaborate. Proceedings began
upon the quarter-deck, where the "Companionship of the Royal Order of
the Equatorial Bath" was solemnly conferred upon the Prince, and a
"Knight Commandership of the Ancient Order of the Old Sea Dog" upon
Admiral Halsey. H.R.H. responded in lyrical strains which concluded:--
"I know I'm for it, King; so, boys,
Don't let me keep the party waiting"--
a touch of _panache_ that was duly applauded. The Court-Martial of two
selected prisoners came next to a roar from Neptune:
"And if they drown I do not care a fig.
Arrest Mountbatten and the Man called Grigg!"
For the moment these unhappy persons were roped and bound, while the
Investiture went forward. Captain Dudley North was made a Knight
Commander of the Aged Cod in these terms:
"Dudley dear, I'm pleased to meet you
Once again. Now let me treat you
To the old established Order of the Very Ancient Cod.
Its privilege is this,
That you may daily kiss
The most beauteous of my mermaids if you catch her on the nod."
A move was finally made to the forecastle where was duly performed the
physicking, shaving and ducking of the novices, beginning with the
Prince and members of his staff and going down to the youngest seamen on
the lower deck. The novices were marched up and seated, one after
another, in the barber's chair, where a pill was squeezed into each
one's mouth, despite the most lively struggles; the lather was laid on,
a rough scrape with the wooden razor followed, the chair was upset and
the now seasoned novice was sent head over heels into the swimming bath,
where the Bears ducked him handsomely to the cheerful rhyme:
"Shave him and bash him,
Duck him and splash him,
Torture and smash him,
And don't let him go!"
The Prince underwent a full share of the horse-play; and that he took a
"three-times-three ducking" with the best, was the opinion of every one
of the thirteen hundred sailor-men who looked on, and would have been
candour itself if the ritual had been in any way reduced or evaded.
It was a spectacle impossible to imagine anywhere but in the British
Navy, and helped hilariously to relieve the monotony of the voyage. The
cost of the material employed was probably less than a hundred
shillings. The labour and artistry voluntarily bestowed by the ship's
Company to make it what it was, cost nothing at all; the preparations,
from the elaborate embroidering of Amphitrite's scales and the careful
scenting of her golden hair, to the fine turning and engraving of the
Insignia of the Equatorial Order of the Royal Bath, were all the work of
off-duty hours when the sailor ordinarily would have been asleep. We are
but children of a larger growth and happy are the traditions that keep
us so in His Majesty's Navy.
VII
FIJI
Fiji was the next place of call. Warm rain drove blusterously into our
faces, while dense grey mist enveloped the land and shut out the sun, as
the _Renown_ felt her way between wreck-strewn barrier reefs, over which
the surf was breaking heavily, and dropped anchor, to the tick of the
appointed time, in the sheltered water of Suva Bay. As the ship cleared
the harbour entrance, a fleet of sailing craft, including a number of
decked, outrigged war-canoes, with pear-shaped mat-sails and half-naked
crews, tore dipping through the waves to escort her in. These war-canoes
tacked, in the stiff breeze, by a simple expedient. The sail was
reversed. The rudder, a big movable oar, was then carried from one end
of the canoe to the other, so that what had just been the prow became
the stern, the floating log, that served as outrigger, remaining always
to windward--apparently an attempt at realizing the historic account of
the bow-sprit that "got mixed with the rudder sometimes."
The little craft were identical with those that Tasman may have seen
when his brig cast anchor off these islands three hundred and seventy
years ago. But everything else has changed. Generations of Wesleyan
missionaries have transformed snake-worship into universal Christianity.
Sixty thousand coolies from India have rendered it possible for the
sugar-cane to replace unproductive forest. The ninety thousand
fuzzy-headed Fijians who have survived successive epidemics of measles
and influenza have given up the savoury heresies of roast long pig and
have taken on trousers, education, and wealth. The substantial
maroon-coloured roofs of their dwellings upon the shore, which emerged
from a tumbled background of cloud-topped mountain when the mist lifted,
were indicative of the prosperity and civilization which have been
steadily growing in the forty-six years since the British Government
took over the administration from King Thakombau.
Sir Cecil Rodwell, High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, and Mr.
Scott, Mayor of Suva, representatives of the present system of rule,
came out by launch to the _Renown_, to pay their respects as soon as the
anchor was down. There was no official landing till the following
morning, when in hot sunshine alternating with warm, driving rain the
Prince went ashore at Suva. The entire population of the town, a place
of some six thousand inhabitants, was there to welcome him. In front,
the principal European residents, with a contingent of leading Fijian
chiefs, and representatives of the large Indian community, all in
western dress, were lined up to be presented. Behind stood a
well-drilled guard-of-honour of Fijians, in khaki, with heads protected
from the fierce rays of the sun by hair that might be the despair and
envy of the boulevards, twelve inches _en brosse_, and of a ferocity!
Further on were a number of European returned soldiers, with hospital
nurses, and other war workers, also returned members of a Fijian labour
corps which had done good service in France and Italy. The whole
assemblage was surrounded by a polyglot crowd of Islanders and Indians
in all the picturesqueness of Polynesian and Oriental garb. Municipal,
Fijian, Indian, and missionary addresses were afterwards presented, and
inspections, investitures, and receptions held, a state dinner and a
ball being amongst the functions provided.
Fijian national ceremonies took place in the afternoon, the principal
being the solemn presentation by the chiefs and headmen of "tahua" (the
whale's tooth) in token of fealty. This was celebrated, immediately
after heavy rain, on a meadow crowded with aborigines. The actors were
half a hundred well-fed, semi-naked Fijians, clad in nothing but sooty
face-paint, white cloth bustles, and loin-robes of green, pink, and
white fibre-ribbons. The general effect produced was that of an animated
contingent of frilled ham-bones that waved, leapt, swayed and chanted,
sometimes upright, sometimes squatting upon the sodden turf, a scene of
almost disconcerting gaiety. The whale teeth were handed to the Prince
by a white-robed hereditary courtier, and were the size and shape of
yellow cucumbers, strung together with coloured thread. The acceptance
produced a chorus of deep resonant grunts of "Daweha"--"It is taken."
There followed the no less solemn ceremony of preparing and drinking the
"Kava," the produce of the Yaqona root, to cement the bonds of
friendship. The emptying of the last coco-nut cup of this
sharp-flavoured, cloudy liquid was greeted with loud cries of
"Mada"--"It is dry."
The yaqona root, from a twig or two of which the kava drink was brewed,
might have been an enormous ash-tree stool, with partly-grown
ground-shoots, uprooted from an English copse. The stripping of the
bark, the pounding it with stones, the macerating it with water in a big
carved wooden bowl, and its presentation to the Prince and other guests
in coco-nut shells, was performed with solemn chanting. The ceremony
included the stretching of a coco-nut fibre string, strung at intervals
of a few feet with cowrie-shells, in token of Royal authority, between
the Prince's chair and the men preparing the kava. To cross this string,
in days gone by, while the proceedings were in progress, would have
involved nothing less than to be clubbed to death. Those were doubtless
days when such functions were less chronicled and more respected.
Timed clapping, which sounded like the thuds of successive buckets of
water thrown from an upper window upon the pavement, completed the first
part of the performance. A "meke"--dance--by three hundred gorgeously
caparisoned Fijian warriors, wielding each an ancient battle-axe, which
followed, was a marvel of well-timed movement. The muddy ground shook as
the men stamped in unison, their bodies swaying in perfect rhythm as
they acted the spirited paddling of canoes, the hauling at ropes, the
pointing at the enemy, the leaping from the boat to the attack, and,
after the fight was over, the sad breaking of the waves upon the shore.
Their deep "Dua-ho," or grunt of welcome to the Prince, might have been
the roll of many drums.
The final stage in the performance came with the marching up of some
hundreds of white-garbed bearers, each carrying a locally woven mat.
These mats, some of them of a texture that challenged the fineness of a
Panama straw hat, were deposited upon the ground in front of the Prince
in a heap that grew to the dimensions of a small haystack before the
last had been laid upon it, and this, although special steps had been
taken to reduce the number of the offerings by restricting the issue of
permissions to contribute.
The size of the haystack indicated the prosperity, as well as the
loyalty, of the Fijian chiefs, who still own much of the land in the
islands. The rule of these hereditary potentates dates through centuries
prior to the advent of the missionaries and the taking on of
civilization. Their dislike of live intruders, combined with their
appreciation of them dead and roasted, kept their own Papuan stock
remarkably pure-blooded. The race to-day thus presents characteristics
of its own not found in other Pacific island groups. The only other
outside races, in addition to a few thousands of Europeans, now found in
Fiji, are coolies, of mixed descent, from India. These coolies were
originally imported under a system of indenture requiring them to work
for a definite number of years for planter masters. They have been the
means of developing sugar and copra industries which would not otherwise
have been established upon anything like their present scale. Of late
years the indenture system has been discontinued, and some trouble has
arisen in connexion with the question of wage-rates, riots having
occurred in which several lives were lost. The gradual appreciation of
the possibilities of peaceful bargaining, however, combined with the
enlightened efforts of the present administration to understand
grievances and to remedy them, is reducing the unrest, which is, in some
ways, a healthy one, since it connotes conditions of prosperity
enabling the coolie to assert claims he was not previously strong enough
to press.