A PLANTER’S HOUSE—ANGORA GOATS—A LOVELY SHORE—SERICULTURE—THE
MOSQUITO PLAGUE.
NANANU, A SMALL ISLE OFF VITI LEVU, _Sept. 30, 1876_.
DEAR NELL,—At last I have reached the Robinson Crusoe home, about which
we used to conjure up such visions of romance, whenever a letter from
the far-away Fiji Isles reached the old vicarage in Northumberland. I
came here last Tuesday with Baron von Hügel. Captain Knollys lent us his
beautiful boat and a crew of native police: we had the great luck of a
fair wind, and made the run in eight hours—which is exceptionally good
time. You who have never been much in the way of travelling in small
ships and boats can scarcely realise how tantalising are the constant
delays to which we are liable from wind and weather.
You would think that a home within eight hours’ run of the capital
cannot be very isolated. Yet such are the difficulties of getting about
and of leaving home, that since the day—now ten years ago—when Mr Leefe
brought his bride here—a bright pretty girl of eighteen, with a tiny
baby daughter—her sole expeditions have been one three months’ trip to
Australia, when she was very ill, and one visit of six weeks to Levuka to
stay with a friend, whose two children died while she was there,—so that
was not a cheerful visit. And though a boat occasionally touches here, no
ladies have ever done so except once, when Mrs Havelock called for three
hours; and once also, some years ago, when a brother-planter fled here
with his wife and family for refuge from the cannibals, and then the two
families had to stow themselves as best they could in the one house of
two rooms.
Happily, there is now an extra house, or rather quite a group of
half-a-dozen small semi-Fijian houses, which severally act as
feeding-room, sitting-room, sleeping-rooms, kitchen, store-room, and
silk-worm house. These are all clustered beneath the cool shadow of a
couple of old trees, one of which spreads its great boughs towards the
kitchen, and acts as larder,—for from these branches hang such pieces
of kid or goat’s flesh as may be in stock. Here are the rough-and-ready
essentials of an open-air carpenter’s shop; and beneath a central tree
a small matted enclosure acts as the family bath-room, to which the
labour-boys bring buckets of fresh water to fill a great wooden tub. But
infinitely more pleasant is the delicious sea-bathing, in which we can
here indulge most freely, without any dread of sharks. Imagine the charm
of walking straight out of your bedroom on to the purest white sand, and
plunging just as deep as you please in the very clearest water, warm
enough to make it delightful to lie and bask there at early morning and
at sunset! Sometimes two brown maidens come to disport themselves with us
in the water, and they and Ethel swim and dive like fishes—swimming long
distances under the water, and coming up, when least expected, to seize
me, in hopes of startling me with an impression of sharks.
Ethel, the tiny baby of ten years ago, is now a picturesque tall girl
of eleven, a winsome wide-awake child, and a real little lady, but a
thorough bushwoman, versed in all arts of foraging and bush-cooking, and
her mother’s helper in many a care.
My arrival here was a funny example of how we do things in Fiji. My
visit has been under discussion for a whole year; and once, owing to
miscarriage of letters, Mr Leefe even came to Levuka to fetch me when
I had gone up the Rewa! This time I had written about a week before
starting, to announce my coming. That letter has only just arrived a week
after me. So of course I was not expected; and further, both Mrs Leefe
and Ethel were suffering from severe cold and headache. However, I was
most cordially welcomed, and shown the various objects of interest, but
saw no symptom of any special quarters being awarded to me. At bed-time I
was hospitably invited to share a bed with my hostess and her daughter—Mr
L. and the Baron occupying a tiny house outside. I preferred a shake-down
in the drawing-room, and at early dawn awoke in time to accompany Mrs
Leefe and Ethel to milk the goats—which on paper sounds very pretty, and
which in fine weather is really so. But when you come to the reality of
having to start at 5 A.M. every morning of your life—fine weather or
foul, in sickness or in health—and walk a mile and a half up and down
very steep slippery hill-paths, which in wet weather are mere slides of
red mud,—and, when the milking is done, return by the same path, making
a walk of three miles before the day’s work has actually begun, you can
imagine that this pretty pastoral scene becomes a tolerably fatiguing
item in daily life.
Of course to me there was the great charm of novelty—an early morning in
lovely sunlight, blue sea and cocoa-palms on every side, and the very
picturesque flock of goats. One of Mr Leefe’s most anxious experiments
has been the introduction of Angora goats,—lovely white creatures, with
long silky fleece. At great expense he procured two pair, and having
killed off all the wild he-goats on the island, these beautiful strangers
were established as monarchs of the isle. So the flock is now exceedingly
pretty. There are 230 mothers, of all varieties of colour, and each
has either one or two pure white kids, all, without exception, taking
after their father. Alas! many of them are already orphans, one of these
splendid fellows having met with a most untimely end. Its long fleece got
entangled in a thorny lemon-bush, which held it prisoner, and it was not
found till it was dead. The second narrowly escaped the same fate. It got
astray, and was caught in a thicket by its horns, and was not discovered
till the following day. It was, however, reported missing at night, and
all hands turned out to seek for the lost father of the flock. Torches
were lighted, and the search continued for some hours; at last it was
given up as being vain, and all returned to sleep, when suddenly an alarm
of fire was given, and the whole hill was seen to be in a blaze: a torch,
carelessly dropped in the dry grass, had started a fire which spread
rapidly, destroying a multitude of promising young palm-trees recently
planted. Such are the risks of plantation life.
The fine silky hair is not the sole advantage of introducing the Angora
goat. Its flesh is said to be more tender than mutton, with a slight
flavour of venison; and, moreover, such a flock will thrive where sheep
could not find a living.[42]
It was nearly eight o’clock before we got back from the milking, and from
feeding the poultry and the pigs, and you may believe we did enjoy our
good hot tea. But Mrs Leefe was so ill that she had to go to bed again.
Generally she is very strong, and thinks nothing of walking ten or twelve
miles.
I thought it was now time to establish my regular sleeping-quarters. My
host most generously offered to give up his own little grass hut for me;
but on looking round, I discovered a tiny lumber-room partitioned off the
dining-room, which is a house apart, and so close to the sea that I could
almost step from the window into the water. I petitioned for the use
of this small room, and with much help from Ethel and an acute Solomon
Island girl, I cleared out many sacks of cuttle-fish bones, maize, and
“produce” of all sorts, swept it out, laid down mats, fixed up a tiny
bedstead, drove in nails on which to hang up clothes, and hung one of
my waterproof sheets as a door, and so made quite a cosy wee den, in
which I am now comfortably established. A “bedstead” would be quite an
unnecessary adjunct in a Fijian house, with its flooring of soft grass
and many mats; but here we have a wooden floor which would be too hard
for comfort: besides, where maize has been stored, rats are wont to
congregate. My little room has only one drawback, namely, that just at
the window there remains one immovable trace of its former use—that is,
the corn grinder, in which the men’s daily rations are ground, with such
intolerable noise as invariably to drive me up the hill to escape from
it. What must it be for the wretched native who has to do it, all the
time receiving general abuse for the hideous row which he cannot avoid
making!
I think the plantation hands here are exclusively foreign labour, all the
Fijians having been turned off when Mr Leefe purchased the whole island.
He also has property on the mainland of Viti Levu, where his nephew Harry
lives as superintendent, and keeps a store for the supply of cloth,
lamps, sardines, tools, and other necessaries of life—a great convenience
in this remote place. Most of his customers are natives.
On our way here from Ovalau, we sailed close along the north-east coast
of Viti Levu, which is most picturesque,—a fine rugged land, with narrow
valleys hemmed in by great cliffs, and running down to the shore, where
little villages nestle beneath great trees, from which hang the fishers’
nets. I thought several points exceedingly beautiful, and hope to retrace
the ground more leisurely and secure some good sketches. As we came
nearer here, the scene became bleaker and less attractive. Still the
general effect of the coast, as seen from this house, is like some of the
better parts of Ross-shire; and the narrow strait which separates this
isle from the mainland, is like a fine Highland loch.
Nananu itself is rather a low flat island, in shape something like a
star-fish, whence you perceive that you cannot walk far in any direction
without looking down on the sea—the bluest sea, with lines and patches of
vividly emerald green, marking where the coral-reef rises almost to the
surface. All the centre of the star-fish is a great grassy hill, but each
of its many arms is edged with a belt of magnificent old trees, which
overshadow the whitest of coral-sand, and in some places quite overhang
the water. You are tempted to bathe at every turn. One bay in particular
is quite lovely. I have never seen another quite so fascinating in any
country. It is an immense horse-shoe of the purest white sand, where for
a mile and a half you can walk along the water’s edge, shaded by noble
old _mdelo_, _mbaka_, _tavola_, and _eevie_ trees, making a belt of dense
cool verdure.
In every available corner of the land Mr Leefe is planting thousands of
young cocoa-nut trees, which are expected to yield a good return some
six years hence, provided no hurricane sweeps the isles. Many planters
are now trusting chiefly to their nuts since cotton has so utterly
failed. It is sad in so many places to see great tracts of forsaken
cotton-fields,[43] with their pods of white soft fluff, which it no
longer pays to collect.
The cotton-bush bears a lovely pale-yellow flower with a deep
claret-coloured centre, precisely similar to that of the _vau_, the
common hybiscus, which forms the scrub of the isles, and yields the fibre
so largely used by the natives. Curiously enough, an almost identical
blossom is borne by a troublesome but beautiful weed which grows
profusely in the deserted cotton-fields. A peculiar kind of brilliant
beetle swarms in the cotton.
The neglected fields are sadly suggestive of the fortunes of their
owners. For the invariable history of almost every planter is a tale of
trouble and loss,—of large sums of money sunk, and now yielding no return
whatever. The varieties in the story are generally whether the crops have
been destroyed by hurricanes, or the house and all that it contained was
burnt to the ground,—often both in succession.[44]
I constantly hear lamentable stories of the hardships which some of these
gentlemen are, even now, enduring. I hear of some, personally known to
my hosts, who for months together have tasted nothing but sweet-potatoes
and yams, with water for their only drink: occasionally they struggle to
rear a few fowls, not for home use, but to be exchanged for the luxuries
of tea and sugar—and even these fowls generally come to grief. Of course
goats can only be kept by the privileged few who possess a whole island.
On the mainland they would make havoc in the gardens of the natives,
and however carefully tended, would give rise to many difficulties. Even
a cow is not kept without much trouble on the score of trespass, and
involves a lad to look after her; and I am told that there are families
now living on Taviuni too poor to pay even one labour-boy to help on the
plantation; indeed I heard of one case in which the father was too weak
to work, and all the family were living on wild roots, dug up by the
children!
My host, being a man of unbounded energy, blessed with a wife of the like
temperament, has managed, by a hard struggle, to keep his head above
water, and now ranks as an exceptionally well-to-do planter. Having his
own “home farm,” he is able occasionally to kill some sort of animal,
and its flesh, fresh or salt, generally furnishes the table with meat;
but if press of work prevents his having time to slay and prepare any
beast, a large _papaw_ tart, with a dish of yams and a pot of tea,
suffices for palates not vitiated by over-much luxury. At present there
is a sense of abundance in the house, for Mr Leefe has himself killed,
skinned, and cut up a goat, the various portions of which now adorn the
beautiful old tree larder; moreover, a small vessel has called here and
left a barrel of flour, of which Mrs Leefe herself has made excellent
scones. We are indebted to her skill for almost all our meals, her only
assistant in the kitchen being a good-natured laughing boy from the
Tokalau Isles, whose talents are as yet undeveloped. He manages to do the
coarser laundry-work, with the help of a very wide-awake girl from the
Solomon Isles (who, by the way, talks the prettiest English). But here,
also, anything needing care or refinement falls to the mistress, who
also has to attend to the family wardrobe; and hardest of all, to both
mother and daughter, she has sole charge of Ethel’s lessons, especially
that most grievous task, her music lesson. For she has managed to retain
one pleasant reminder of the old life in a most musical home, in her
treasured piano, the solace of many an evening when the toil of day is
over. I will not say that it is strictly in tune. No piano can be kept in
order in this land of mildew and damp.
So Ethel is well on in music, but infinitely prefers out-of-doors
occupations, and the companionship of all the living creatures, each of
whom is a personal acquaintance—the poultry, the goats, the very pigs,
whose name is legion. They live in a large pen by themselves near the
sea, but are allowed to roam at large through the bush. At a given hour
their supply of cocoa-nuts is carried to their pen, and a wooden _lali_
(drum) is struck to summon them, when they assemble with a rush. They
are hideously tame, and come running up to meet any members of the family
who may pass in that direction, and gambol cheerfully round them.
But one of the principal daily cares is that of attending to a great army
of silk-worms, which have to be fed six times a-day: that means going
out six times to gather fresh mulberry-leaves, each of which must be
carefully dried. Then the trays have to be cleaned, the eggs examined,
the newly-hatched worms carefully separated and placed on leaves to begin
their new life. The cocoons have to be attended to, and guarded from the
attacks of insects; in short, rearing silk-worms on this scale is a task
requiring as much care and patience as any human nursery. This industry
is an altogether new experiment in Fiji, where it might no doubt succeed,
but for what will, I fear, prove an insuperable obstacle—namely, the
price of labour here, as compared with that in the silk-growing districts
of China. Here the whole work is at present done by Mrs Leefe and Ethel,
as none of their people are sufficiently trustworthy to be trained as
assistants. So you see the life of a planter’s wife leaves small time for
idle day-dreams or novel-reading! It needs a brave heart, and abundant
courage and perseverance, to say nothing of physical strength, to fulfil
such daily tasks.
To me, who have only to enjoy myself, there is an unspeakable charm
in the easy-going open-air life here; and the air is wonderfully keen
and bracing as compared with the climate of Levuka. We have had the
thermometer at 74°, and have felt almost too cold. So all day long I
wander about the isle, passing from one white sand bay to another, and
keeping in the shelter of those great overhanging trees, whose dark
foliage forms so perfect a screen from the ever-shining sun. The raised
centre of the isle is, as I have told you, generally grassy; and here
I sit morning and evening, overlooking the sea in every direction,
and watching for the rare appearing of a sail. The only shade there,
however, is that of the screw-pine, which grows abundantly, and makes
an odd sketchable bit of foreground, with its long prickly leaves set
screw-wise, and its roots like a cluster of white pillars, making the
tree look as if it were walking on stilts. It bears a large scarlet
or orange fruit, something like a pine-apple in appearance, but with
so little on its woody sections to tempt the palate, that none save
goat-herds, on whom the long day hangs heavy, care to gnaw them. True
pine-apples have been planted in abundance, as also orange, lemon, and
bread-fruit trees; so have the delicious native _keveeka_, which bears a
fruit resembling a large transparent pink pear and answers the purpose
of a cooling drink. Moreover, as I told you, Mr Leefe is planting
thousands of young palms in every available crevice, on Sir Walter
Scott’s principle of “Aye be stickin’ in a tree; it will be growing while
ye are sleeping.” Close round the house there is a small kitchen-garden
in which grow tiny tomatoes and the tree-pea—a shrub which bears pods
very like those of our common green pea.
Whenever Ethel can be spared from her home-duties she comes with me on my
exploring expeditions, and sometimes carries a kettle, a small bottle of
milk, and a little packet of tea and sugar; then, while I am sketching,
she lights a fire and ministers to my comfort. The only drawback to the
delightful shady nooks, which we prefer, is the multitude of mosquitoes
which infest them. I am sure they scent out a fresh prey in me. Never
shall I forget my first day here, when I settled down to make a careful
study of a magnificent old banyan (identical, I think, with the _Ficus
religiosa_ of India). The mosquitoes assembled in myriads. Vainly did
Ethel and a wild-looking brown goat-herd sit, one on each side of me,
holding branches, with which to beat them off; and vainly did I slay six
or eight at a time, so often as I could pause to slap one hand on the
other. Thicker and thicker they swarmed (for there was not a breath of
air stirring in the thicket where we sat); so at last we had to give it
up and fly to cool our fevered hands and faces in the sea; then we lay
under the orange-trees in the old garden, and ate ripe golden fruit to
our hearts’ content. Next time I go to sketch in any such sheltered spot,
I shall hang up my mosquito-net to a tree, so as to lessen this maddening
distraction—though, of course, it will be rather dazzling to draw looking
through a fine white net.
How funny some of our incidents of common life would seem to you! Last
night I was awakened by the grunting of pigs all round my window, and
guessed that they had broken through their fence and got into the garden.
So I jumped up and gave them chase wildly, and succeeded in driving them
all out.
Mr Leefe owns a second small island, separated from this by a narrow
channel; there he keeps another flock of goats, and yesterday went over
to count them. He took us with him, much to Ethel’s delight, as the
Fijian shepherd has a pretty baby, which is her namesake and great pet.
We saw a curious natural rock-bridge on the coast, concerning which,
tradition says, a shark jumped through a cave and left this rock standing.
Baron von Hügel returned from the mainland this morning just as we came
back from the goat-milking. He has collected some new curiosities, and
gave me a funny old cannibal fork. He returns to Nasova to-day, and takes
this letter to the mail. He is full of the loveliness of various places
he has seen, and says I must manage to go and do some sketching. But how?
That is the difficulty. Mrs Leefe, who has never yet seen anything, even
within a few miles of this place, says she would delight in going if only
it could be managed, but she does not see how she can be spared from her
many home-cares; and it is equally difficult for either Mr Leefe or Harry
to get away. And you know I never dream of going anywhere alone; besides,
Mr Leefe has sold his good boat, and now has only a very small one. So
really I do not see how it can be managed, though it is most tantalising.
However, something may develop.