THE KING AND HIS MINISTERS
Punctually at ten next morning we made our official landing, taking
with us Her Majesty's presents to the King of Tonga--her portrait and a
sword of honour inscribed with his name. The kodak representations of
our procession were not flattering, but the large crowd of Tongans in
the public square was too much preoccupied to perceive the humour in
the show. For after passing the guard of honour on the wharf, we had
to skirt the flagstaff, and we were told afterwards that, according
to Mr. Baker, we should halt there and run up the Jack in place of
the Geneva cross that fluttered aloft. But we passed the fatal spot,
to the evident relief of the natives sitting on the grass and the
disappointment of the Europeans who had their kodaks ready levelled.
The entire Tongan army was drawn up in the palace compound as a guard
of honour, and its band played our national anthem very creditably as
we approached. While the rank and file numbered about thirty, as in
my time, I noticed that the roll of officers had increased until they
formed a third line nearly as close as that of the men: their uniforms
were so spotless and correct that some of my companions mistook them
for Europeans. We were ushered into the throne-room, where two rows
of chairs were drawn up facing one another, each with a becrowned
armchair in the centre. On these, after the first greetings, we took
our seats. I knew the room well, and it called up many memories, for
here old King George had often received me informally, and all the
state functions and receptions of foreign officials, which the old king
disliked so heartily and underwent so cheerfully, had taken place. At
an earlier date, when Mr. Baker had sought protection in the palace
with his family, it had been Mrs. Baker's parlour, and from that
epoch dated the fairy lights, wax flowers, and other incongruities.
The faces of the king's suite were all familiar, for they had been
my own colleagues when I was a Tongan like themselves. There was
Fatafehi in his sober suit of black; Kubu, now swelled to the dignity
of a sovereign's father-in-law, in a French-looking uniform with a
cocked hat; Sateki, greyer and more care-lined than of old, and the
two uniformed aides-de-camp, both famous cricketers in my day, but now
inclining to obesity. Towering above all was the king, something over
six feet in height and so broad in proportion that he cannot weigh much
less than twenty stone. His tight uniform tunic, which enhanced his
bulk, was covered with orders, which on closer examination proved to be
the various classes of some Tongan decoration instituted by himself,
designed by a jeweller in Sydney, and not yet bestowed upon lesser men.
He has a broad, intelligent, good-humoured face, with black, languid
eyes, and a strong family likeness to his kinsman, poor Tukuaho. His
manners are scarcely less genial and engaging, though he has not much
taste for the society of Europeans, who cannot help feeling in his
company _qu'il ne montre jamais le fond du sac_. Of his intelligence
it is enough to say that, though he has never been abroad save for a
few weeks spent in Auckland, he speaks English fairly well and reads
the English newspapers; that he conducts his own correspondence with a
typewriter, and can write Pitman's system of shorthand with facility.
Though there are said to be flaws in his nature which prevent him
from becoming a strong or popular ruler, he is by no means wanting in
character. He has never been tempted by strong liquors, like so many
of the Polynesian chiefs; his private life is regular; he has always
known how to hold himself aloof from the lower sort of European; and I
do not doubt that the insincerity of which he is so generally accused
is really due to the desire of pleasing and the dislike of refusing a
request. His health is not all that could be desired. Remembering the
early death of all his family, until he alone was left to succeed his
great-grandfather, we could not regard his stoutness, which had been
characteristic of all of them, as a healthy sign, especially when we
heard that he only took exercise in the palace compound at the direct
order of his doctor. His mother and his uncles had all died of fatty
degeneration of the heart when under forty, and none were so stout as
he at twenty-seven.
A foreign language is apt to rust on the tongue after disuse for
ten years, and my speech, presenting my credentials and the Queen's
presents, ran less trippingly than I could have wished. But words came
back to me as I talked, and, having plenty of time before me, I left
politics alone. Then came the usual presentation of the naval officers,
and a promise that the king would visit H.M.S. _Porpoise_ on the morrow.
[Illustration: GEORGE TUBOU II., KING OF TONGA
To face page 170
]
Next morning we sent on shore for the royal standard of Tonga to hoist
at the masthead when the king came on board. His Majesty came off in
his barge, manned by a crew clad in black jumpers and _valas_ fastened
at the waist with a red sash, his band playing the Tongan national
anthem as he left the wharf. Mounting the gangway alone, he seemed a
little bewildered at finding a guard of honour drawn up to receive him,
and not a little heated by the weight of his uniform and the orders
that plastered it. His suite, consisting of Kubu, Fatafehi, and his
aides-de-camp, quite filled the captain's cabin, and being the only
medium of communication between hosts and guests, I found the burden of
conversation rather difficult, for good manners in Tonga require that
on formal occasions chiefs should confine themselves to monosyllables,
and have their talking done for them. Once on deck, however, the ball
rolled of itself, for the captain had rigged a mine, which the king
fired with a button, sending a volcano of water into the air and
slaying innumerable fish. The men then went through gun drill with the
six-inch guns, which, it was explained, would carry with precision
to the farthest limits of the island, and ended up with the imaginary
ramming of an enemy. As the king left the side the three-pounders
roared out a salute of twenty-one guns, perhaps the part of the
entertainment which the king enjoyed best, for, whatever our mission
might portend, it had so far left him the outward symbol of royalty.
That afternoon the draft treaty was sent to him, and then the tussle
began. Besides the acknowledgment of a Protectorate, which would
prevent the country falling into other hands, two definite concessions
had to be made. In the port of Neiafu, in Vavau, Tonga possesses
the best harbour in the Pacific--a land-locked basin with an easily
defended entrance three or four miles long. In 1876, as the price
of her treaty with Germany, Tonga had ceded a coaling-station in
this harbour, and the Germans had dumped some twenty tons of coal
upon their concession as a proof of occupation, and had thereafter
forgotten all about it. Though we had succeeded to their treaty rights,
it was necessary, not only to obtain the consent of the Tongans
to the transfer, but to acquire the site for a fort to defend the
coaling-station--a matter which had been neglected by the Germans.
The second matter was more important. Tonga had made three treaties,
ceding her jurisdiction over the subjects of the Powers concerned
to their respective consuls, but, inasmuch as England only had a
consular court in the group, it followed that Germans and Americans
who committed a crime could not be punished for it, while the subjects
of other Powers, in theory amenable to the native courts, in practice
were free to break the law with impunity. The Samoa Convention gave the
jurisdiction over Germans to us, but the experience of Zanzibar has
taught us that a Protectorate without jurisdiction over all foreigners
is a very unsatisfactory arrangement. The only person who could legally
confer the jurisdiction over foreigners upon our courts was the King
of Tonga, who nominally possessed it, and this he had to be asked to
do. If he had been anxious to part with his responsibilities there
would have been little difficulty, but Tongans share with schoolboys
a light-hearted contempt for the dangers of responsibility, and are,
besides, rather proud of their law courts. We soon found that it was to
be a long and tortuous business, calling for all the patience that we
had at command.
It was common gossip that the most influential chiefs and a large
number of the people were secretly in favour of a Protectorate, but
that the real obstacle was the king. Not long before my visit he had
received a letter from the deposed queen of Hawaii, greeting him as
the last independent sovereign of the Polynesian race, and condoling
with him upon the threatened loss of his independence. Fully alive to
the advantages it would give him in securing him from the constant
demands for compensation pressed upon him by foreigners, he feared that
if he voluntarily ceded a Protectorate his opponents would accuse him
of having sold his country; and he thought, no doubt, that it was the
first step towards depriving him of the outward pomp of royalty which
was so dear to him. One cannot but understand his attitude, though it
was inconsistent with the welfare of his country.
At my first private interview with the king as in duty bound I asked
to be presented to the queen and the new-born princess. The queen was
still confined to her room. His Majesty led me upstairs. The whole of
the wall space on the staircase is filled by a colossal equestrian
portrait of the first Kaiser, very ill-painted, and so large that
the frame must either have been carried in piecemeal or the palace
built round it. It belonged to the period when the Germans acquired
their coaling-station and Mr. Baker was decorated with the Red Eagle
of Prussia. There are four large rooms on the upper floor, three of
them furnished in European style, and the fourth used as a lumber-room
for the toys and litter which Polynesian chiefs buy so readily and
tire of so quickly. We found Her Majesty in the best bedroom, which
is furnished with a four-post bed and Brussels carpet. Everything was
immaculately clean, and there was nothing to show that the room did
not belong to an European lady. The queen wore a pink silk wrapper,
and was sitting in a low chair with her brown baby on her knee. Her
illness, which at one time had caused great anxiety, accounted for
her pallor and her delicate appearance. Though she is not handsome,
her slenderness and her delicacy of feature give her a certain air of
distinction, and, like all Tongan women of good family, she has pretty
manners. Having made my christening present and kissed the baby, I took
my leave. During the queen's illness Dr. Maclennan had a busy time,
for, though the king has an implicit belief in European treatment,
the old ladies about the court insist upon administering nostrums of
their own on the principle of "more medicine, quicker cure." It is only
by simulated outbursts of indignation that Dr. Maclennan can get his
orders obeyed.
In surgery alone do the Tongans frankly admit their helplessness.
An old shed in our host's compound had been hastily converted into
an operating-room, in order that the presence of a naval surgeon
to assist in operations might be turned to account. For several
days in succession the two doctors were operating on bad cases of
elephantiasis, the relations of the patients camping outside to act as
hospital nurses. Even under these unfavourable conditions the patients
all made rapid recovery, but there was one painful case in which the
patient deliberately preferred death. A young man, while pig-shooting
in the bush, had put a charge of shot into his own leg, shattering the
ankle. There was nothing for him but amputation, but when his relations
heard that he must lose his foot, they refused to allow the operation.
They would try herbs, they said, and for a day or two they brought
reports that he was better. Gangrene at last set in, and while there
was yet time I went to reason with the lad's mother. Secretly, I fear,
the reflection that if he lived the lad would be a helpless cripple on
their hands had some weight with them. At last they were brought so far
as to put him on a litter to carry him to the operating-room, but their
hearts failed them in the end and he never came. The lad himself seemed
to prefer death, so great is the Polynesian's horror of mutilation.
It is not always for human beings that Dr. Maclennan is asked to
prescribe. Having been much troubled by his neighbours' pigs, he gave
public warning of his intention of shooting intruders at sight. The
very next night he executed his threat by moonlight, and heard the
trespasser make off with an agonised squeal. Next morning he received
an urgent summons from the inspector of police, a particular friend
of his, to see his favourite pig which had been taken violently ill.
One glance was enough to show him what ailed it, and he said, "The
pig is very ill; it cannot live many hours, but if you kill and eat
it at once, the meat will be perfectly wholesome." The owner took
his advice, but unhappily, in carving the meat, he came across a
bullet. It cost the doctor more than the value of the pig to patch
the friendship up. By dint of a happy mingling of kindliness and mock
ferocity he contrives to get his orders obeyed, and the people have an
extraordinary respect and affection for him.
I had more than one interview with the chief justice--not the somnolent
old gentleman of ten years ago, but William Maealiuaki, who was then
but an over-intelligent Radical member of Parliament. Persecution (he
was an exile for conscience' sake in Mr. Baker's time), prosperity,
or promotion had not been good for him; he had parted with even that
little meed of modesty which adorns even the loftiest eminence. He took
his duties very seriously, however, and whenever he came to see me it
was to resolve some legal doubt that had arisen in the course of his
duties on the bench. "You see," he said one day, "I have to be more
careful now that there are _loya_ listening to my judgments."
"Lawyers?" I inquired in surprise.
"Yes," he said, with pride; "and that is your work."
It was, I confess with shame, only too true. In Mr. Baker's days no
one knew the law--not even the magistrates--and, as judgments went by
favour, a suitor lost nothing by pleading his own case. But the code
which I had drafted for them changed all that. It was furnished with an
index, and a copy could be bought for less than a dollar. As soon as it
transpired that there was nothing in it to preclude one Tongan from
pleading for another, every native who could talk better than he could
work took to loafing about the police courts, offering himself as a
mouthpiece to the litigants. His fees were tentative at first--"give me
what you like if I get you off," and so on--but now he likes to be paid in
advance, though you can brief him with a sucking-pig and keep him
going with an armful of yams as a "refresher." The _loya_ who enjoyed the
largest practice were those who had the code at their finger-ends, and
had acquired a high reputation for obscuring the issue and confusing the
common sense of the court.
[Illustration: A TONGAN GIRL
To face page 178
]
The chief justice also gave me a summary of the birth and death returns
for the nine years ending December, 1899. I do not regard them with
any confidence, partly because I know the haphazard way in which the
registers are kept, and partly because, assuming the total population
of the kingdom to be not less than 19,000,[10] the death-rate is
represented as low as eleven per thousand and the birth-rate as high as
twenty-six per thousand, which is very unlikely, seeing that families
of more than three living children are rare. Nevertheless, the Tongans
are all agreed that, in spite of a devastating epidemic of measles
in 1893, there has been an increase of population of over 200 in the
nine years; the returns say 203. I think myself that the population is
stationary, or slightly decreasing, but that there has been no very
marked decline, as in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Fiji since the beginning
of the nineteenth century. The people, moreover, are so fearful of
foreign epidemics and so sensitive about quarantine that there is not
much likelihood of a sudden decline for many years to come.
It was very pleasant to renew acquaintance with the European colony
at the Consulate. Many of them are prosperous merchants, and their
appearance of rude health justified the saying that the climate of
Tonga is the healthiest in the Pacific. The little gathering did not
pass off without incident. While I was talking to two new arrivals an
elderly and rather feeble little gentleman in black entered the room,
and my two visitors hastily seized their hats and took their leave
before I had had time to exchange a word with them. The features of
my new visitor seemed familiar, but the suspicion that crossed my
mind while he was talking affably of the weather and the earthquake
and other general topics died away, as I noticed how decrepit and
broken he seemed. Suddenly through the open window I saw a party of
new arrivals stop short, hesitate for a moment, and then turn tail,
and knowing that there was but one man in all Tonga who could produce
this effect, I recognised my visitor. It was Mr. Shirley Waldemar Baker
himself. He was greatly changed from the masterful and prosperous
minister of King George, whose name had been a byword throughout the
Pacific and Australasia. His gains were all gone; years of hard living
had played havoc with his health and prematurely aged him; he seemed
to have lost even the self-confidence behind which he had concealed
his lack of education. And yet even in this broken state he was able
to make himself feared. Why he came and what he wanted I do not know;
his motive can scarcely have been friendly after the criticism of
his proceedings that I had been obliged to publish ten years before.
Probably he wished to prove to the adherents of his new Church that he
was on terms with the authorities.
[10] The Mission returns put the total population at 19,968: Tongatabu,
8,454; Haapai, 5,087; Vavau, 4,589; Niuatobutabu, 710; Niuafoou, 1,128.
The males exceed the females by 454, or 2.2 per cent., and the adults
outnumber the children.