RAROTONGA
RAROTONGA is one of the fairest islands in the world. It has a white
sandy beach; within that lies a belt of rich land. On this land,
and even on the lower slopes of the mountains that tower one above
the other in the centre of the island, banana trees, chestnuts, and
cocoanut palms grow in clumps.
Tamate and Tamate Vaine quickly settled down to their work in
Rarotonga. The life there was very quiet after the constant change and
danger of the voyage.
The people who lived in Rarotonga called themselves Christians. They
had given up fighting and the worship of the strange wild spirits whom
their fathers had thought to be full of power. But though they had
done this, many of them were still selfish and lazy.
Tamate would have liked to go at once amongst men who were much wilder,
and who had never heard of the God who is love.
When he saw what his work in Rarotonga would be, he wrote to England
to those who had sent him. He asked them to send some one else to
Rarotonga, some one who would like to work quietly and to teach; and to
let him go to a more dangerous place, where he could make it easier for
others to follow him. But no one else could be sent then, and he could
not leave his post.
When he found that he must stay in Rarotonga, he made up his mind that
since he could not get the work he wished, he would throw all his
strength into the work he had to do.
Part of it was to train native lads so that they might become teachers
and go to other islands. Though they were men, he had to teach them a
great many things that boys and girls learn at home when they are very
little. He had to train them to be thrifty, and tidy too, because, when
they went away to teach they would have to till their own gardens, and
to grow their own crops, and to be at the head of a school without any
one to guide them.
As Tamate spoke to the people in church Sunday after Sunday he wondered
where all the young men were. There were old men and women, and young
women and children, and there were his students, but he scarcely ever
saw any other young men.
Where could they be?
He found that they spent their days, and often their nights too, in the
thick tanglewood that is called “the bush,” and that they drank orange
beer there, and sometimes foreign drinks too. These revels made them
useless for anything else.
The natives who knew Mr. Chalmers, and were beginning to love him,
begged him not to go near the young men when they were drinking,
because they were wild and fierce, and might kill him.
But Tamate never was afraid of any one. He went away alone, and plunged
here and there through the bush, until he came upon a band of young
men. Then he sat down and chatted with them. Very soon they liked him
so much that though they would not give up drinking, yet they could
forgive him when he knocked the bungs out of the beer barrels and let
the beer run away. He was so brave and fearless that he could do this
when the men were standing watching him.
Sometimes one or two of the young men gave up drinking, but Tamate
wished to get hold of them all, not of one or two only, so he kept on
winning their friendship, and waited.
His chance came. He heard that the young men were meeting to drill for
war, and that they called themselves volunteers. This was startling.
War had ceased on the island. No one was likely to attack them from
over the sea. Why should they drill?
Tamate thought of the battles of Glenaray. He knew it would be useless
to talk to these wild lads about peace and kindness, but he thought of
another plan. He said to them:
“Why do you drill out of sight like this? Why not let every one see
that you are ‘Volunteers.’ You must come to church, and sit together in
the gallery.”
The first Sunday after that a few of them came to church. The next week
many more came, and from that time the Sunday Service became part of
their drill. So eager were they to look well when they came to it, that
they began to plant their lands that they might sell the fruit they
grew, and buy clothes.
[Illustration: Coral for the new staircase]
By-and-by the little church in Rarotonga needed a new platform and
a new staircase. Then a great joy came to Tamate. He saw his young
bushmen, whom he had first seen round their midnight fires, wild and
fierce and useless, away out on the reefs cutting coral for the new
staircase. They had learned to love the church and its services, and
some of them became soldiers in the army of Jesus Christ.
When the church was ready to be opened again, there was great eagerness
and stir. The natives had given nearly all that was needed. But there
was still £25 worth of wood unpaid for.
Tamate was sure that the gifts that would be brought on the opening day
would be worth much more than £25, but when he said so to a group of
men, the doorkeeper said to him:
“How are you going to get in?”
“Why, by the door, of course.”
“No, you will not. I have the keys, and I will not open the door until
everything is paid. Of course you may try the windows.”
Tamate was very glad that his doorkeeper cared so much about this debt.
Though he had not meant to be so strict, he yielded to his friend.
But although the doorkeeper would let no one enter a church that was
not paid for, he did not mean to keep any one out of church for a
single day.
Soon a great noise was heard in the village. Boom went the drums. Boom!
boom! High above their booming the voices of the villagers rose. Every
one was called together to give what they could spare for the church.
Very soon all was paid, and many gifts were left over.
All the time that Tamate was in Rarotonga he was longing to be at more
dangerous work amongst those who lived to fight and kill each other,
and who had no one to teach them.
His thoughts were so much with these wild tribes that he made others
think of them too. Many of his students had caught his spirit, and
longed, as he did, to go to the island of New Guinea, where very wild
men lived and fought. Some of the teachers he had trained went before
him. They knew it was dangerous, but they went with joy, because they
too had learned how great and glad a thing it is to live for others.
At last Mr. Chalmers was allowed to leave Rarotonga and to go to New
Guinea.
New Guinea is an island three times as large as Great Britain. It is
very rich in fruits, in ebony wood, and in other things that traders
like to find. It lies near to Australia. But the savages who lived in
it were so fierce, and its rocky coast was so wild, that no one had
tried to trade in the south-eastern end of it. Those who knew anything
about it thought that to go there meant to die.
Four years before Tamate went to New Guinea, some of his teachers had
landed at one of its villages, which was called Port Moresby. Here they
found Mr. Lawes and his wife, who some months earlier had made their
home there. They were the first white people who had lived amongst the
natives of that wild coast. They found many tribes of natives, and
each tribe was at war with the tribes around it. If two chiefs had a
quarrel with each other, they brought their tribes to fight it out.
Then the two tribes went on paying each other back in turn, till all
their villages were burned and very many of their warriors were killed.
Every one was either killing, or being killed, or afraid of being
killed.
The men of New Guinea were large and strong, and they liked to look
handsome. They thought it very handsome to have their hair standing far
out on the tops of their heads and all round, with beautiful bright
feathers stuck into it. They liked, too, to wear sticks like tusks
through their noses, and rings through their ears, and necklaces of
bones.
They daubed themselves all over with bright, sticky paint. But what
they thought most handsome of all was to have a great many tattoo
marks. When a man had killed another he was allowed to have his skin
pricked with coloured dye. Afterwards the dye would never come out, no
matter how hard the skin was scrubbed.
No one was allowed to have these coloured marks until he had killed a
man. That was why the wild men of New Guinea were so proud of tattoo
marks. Each mark proved that the man who bore it had been strong and
clever.
It did not always prove that he had been brave, because sometimes the
spear that had killed had been thrown from behind the foe.
[Illustration: Map--New Guinea and the Coral Sea]