My England—Its Chief Stronghold—The Island Race—Barbaric Customs—Their
Code of Morals—A Tribalistic Clash—An English Spring
THIS chapter is written for the benefit of those natives who may come
across my book in the South Sea Islands and elsewhere. Of course I know
England well, because I am an Englishman. I escaped from my birthplace
at an early age, shipped before the mast of a sailing ship and roamed
the world. England is always the dear old Homeland to me, and so it
might interest my readers if I include reminiscences of my own country
in this book.
My England is an island surrounded by open sea and Channel. The climate
is variable; Atlantic winds blow over it and copious rains drench the
population at frequent intervals. The “survival of the fittest” theory
is finely illustrated by the athletic appearance of the native stock;
the climate kills all weaklings at birth.
London is the chief stronghold; battalions of pale-faced native warriors
tramp the tracks that divide the mighty forests of gloomy walls. They
are a brave tribe, and ever on the warpath as they glide along, passing
under historic arches and over the bridges that rib their old river,
which is called the Thames. At night, when the stars are out and the
moon is high in the sky, you can stand on those bridges and see the
monuments that have been erected to commemorate old tribal heroes. The
spires of the vast city for miles and miles point to the heavens, under
the pale, glittering stars, like outstretched fingers on the vast hands
of Pride.
The island race is a happy one, and hope springs eternal in the native
breast. If no sun shines this summer, still they hope on till the next
summer.
The common papalangi or serf class are warrior-like and cheerful folk,
and not unlike the South Sea Island races in their habits. On tribal
holidays they go off to various resorts, drink toddy and do war dances;
many appear next morning before the high chiefs, who hear with solemn
countenance of their misdeeds as they lean on the official war-club and
fine them five dollars.
The aristocrats are similar to Fijian and Solomon Islanders of royal
blood, for they are cannibalistic; they do not eat human flesh, but they
live on the blue blood that runs in their veins and on the vigour of the
flesh of the common natives. Their ancestry is similar to that of the
South Sea Islanders—through some mighty deed, that when tested by the
code of morals appears dubious, their line is famous for ever. They have
a _Peerage_ and _Who’s Who_, which are genealogical and tell of the
first high chief in the family, what he did and what they do now. Their
chief aim is to forget all else and produce sons, so as to keep the
tribal name going. The camp fires have disappeared and the tribal den is
now a mighty residence made of stone; on the walls hang ancestral
weapons. These grandees sit beneath them, eat and drink well and no
longer dye their bodies with woad.
They have a dreadful inquisition called _respectability_; once in its
clutches the common natives lose their intellectual equilibrium, become
hollow-throated and cough with a windy soullessness.
Old tribal customs are fast disappearing, and the high chiefs losing
their power and influence over the natives, who are becoming well
educated and will soon own the country. Human nature will still be the
same, so there will be sixty or seventy million kings, as many kings as
the population amounts to, and only God knows what will happen then.
The native women are white and have beautiful blue eyes, like the blue
of your skies. They wear ridis that reach to their ankles. Their morals
are excellent, but, like their sisters in the far South Seas, some of
them still retain the old instincts and fall before the temptation of
the white man, and the fallen maid takes all the blame.
If one stops a chief or his wife on the forest track and says, “Aloha!
Mitai Chipi,” and grasps their hand in true friendship, one is liable to
be taken before the high chief and fined five hundred dollars.
The forest idols are gone, but the natives still kneel in amphitheatres,
before stone images, where they hold festivals, and their old high
priest accepts confessional bribes and then forgives them their
sins—which are many.
The old-time convivial spirit has passed away; you cannot jump in the
island lagoons unless fully dressed. Many of the old barbaric customs
are still in vogue, but are practised in secret. They have wild
festivals, still play tom-toms, big drums and reeds, and whirl round and
round in the old tribalistic Siva dance, clinging to each other’s bodies
and gazing lasciviously into each other’s blue eyes. Their
_fantoes_,[17] instead of being carried on their mothers’ backs in the
old primitive basket, are wheeled along in vehicles to an advanced age;
and dominate the native villages and the lives of the chiefs. There is
no camping out now; free dens have disappeared. For camping in the
forest as of old, one is liable to get fastened up between stone walls
for six months. One cannot pick coco-nuts, yams and bread-fruit if one
is hungry.
Footnote 17:
Children.
There is an organization for starving natives, presided over by high
chiefs with cheerless, glassy eyes. The elder natives have to apologise
for being old when they go there; but most of them when they are hungry
run for their lives, and starve to death sooner than approach the
organization’s cave kindness. The poor-class natives drink a mysterious
concoction made from a herb called the hop, and the high chiefs drink
stuff called kava, or whisky. When those high chiefs are sober, they
become solemn; and hold councils for putting down the drinking of
hop-toddy. All the native girls aspire to marry chiefs. The code of
morals is so peculiar that thousands of them die childless and mateless.
They are withal a brave, warrior-like race; and at present are engaged
in one of their old tribalistic clashes with another tribe, of a group
that lies not far from their own isle; a bloodthirsty race that are at
heart still cannibalistic. The king of this other tribe is somewhat like
old Thakambau, the late Fijian Emperor of the Cannibal Isles; he
pretends to have embraced Christianity, but his real god is the high
chief Krupp. I feel sorry for him, for the islanders are sure to get
hold of him and he will wish he had embraced their creed. Several other
warrior tribes are crashing away with the island natives; they charge
well and sing fine old war-songs. It is much safer at present to live in
the Solomon Isles.
The island country is very beautiful. In the springtime the landscapes
and valleys are dotted with yellow things called primroses; other wild
flowers grow on the hedgerow banks. Little birds sing in old trees to
the sunsets; the grass grows, and grows high ere they cut it down. The
woods smell of peat; the native homesteads in the villages burn wood,
and you can smell its delightful odour along the lanes as you tramp by.
It is a beautiful country; but violin-playing, music and poetry are not
appreciated by the natives as they are appreciated in the South Seas.
But still I love the memory of the hedgerows, wild flowers and far-off
hills, and the remains of the old forests wherein long ago their
ancestors camped; by old hills where the young lambs bleat in the
springtime and wild birds sing in leafy woods and hollows. I hope in the
end I shall be buried somewhere near where the wind and the wild
blackbird sing; and not very far from the shores of the sea, where their
ships go down Channel with sailors outbound for distant lands.
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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
End of Project Gutenberg's A Vagabond's Odyssey, by Arnold Safroni-Middleton