FORWARD
This is not a missionary chronicle, but simply a brief record of some
of the doings of Jean and Kenneth Blair. It is impossible, therefore,
to enter into anything like a detailed account of their work among
their chosen people, interesting as that would be. Only the more
salient points can be touched upon, such as stood out from the level of
hard, plodding, often dry and dreary work, as God's mountain
masterpieces stand out in our travel-memories, and remain with us when
the long level plains are forgotten. And just as the mountain's
grandeur is the record of Nature's strife and endurance, so these
salient points in a man's life as a rule mark battle-grounds and
commemorate strife--and sometimes victory.
Kenneth Blair always found a vast and quite unique enjoyment in the
first beginnings of things. I myself have heard him express a
whimsically-veiled, but none the less profound, regret that it had not
been possible for him to be present at the very first beginning of all,
when "in the dim grey dawn of things, earth drew from out the void and
rounded to its shape."
It was very characteristic of the man, and explains to some extent the
whole-hearted delight he found in his work in the Dark Islands.
Here, if not a new-created world, was one sunk in nether gloom, to
which no glimmer of the light had yet penetrated. As regards things
spiritual, it was virgin soil--worse, it was a veritable swamp of
heathenism, a quagmire overlaid with the strangling growths and
festering remains of ages of superstition, cruelty, and thick darkness.
And this in one of the fairest spots on earth.
You anti-missioners, who sit at home and mumble platitudes on the
needless waste of life and time and money, spent in the effort to lift
these outer fringes of the night, how very little you know!
They are quite happy as they are, those outer ones, you say. Life
comes--and goes--easily with them. They have all they want. Why
disturb them? Why introduce upsetting notions? Why open their minds
to wants only to fill them at so heavy a cost?
The answer is so simple. Would you see any child of yours condemned,
for no fault of its own, to sit in outer darkness, if at any cost to
yourself you could open the door to the light and warmth you yourself
enjoy? Would you refrain from opening the door to a neighbour's child,
to a stranger's child, to any child whatsoever, if your hand was on the
handle?
These others are children also. In spite of their blue skies and
crystal seas and waving palms, they are buried in a darkness like unto
death. It is for us who rejoice in the light to help them towards it.
Our own great inheritance carries with it an inevitable and inalienable
obligation. Shirk it we may and do, cancel it we cannot.
It was the recognition of this paramount duty, in perhaps somewhat
abnormal measure, that made Kenneth Blair what he was. He brought to
the work the white fire of a mighty enthusiasm which nothing could
damp, and which did one good to look upon. The spur of what he deemed
a former lapse urged him at times, perhaps, to extremes in the matter
of personal risk; but if any man ever carried the courage of his
convictions to their fullest limit, without a thought for himself, that
did Kenneth Blair. With it all a simplicity of manner which was never
at fault, because it assumed nothing; a natural gaiety and
high-heartedness which carried him bravely through many a difficult
place, and drew even the brown men to him; and a width of view, with a
long forward reach, which might have made a statesman of him, had he
not chosen this higher path.
To see him at football on the beach with a shrieking crowd of brown
boys, himself as much a boy as the nakedest of the lot, was one thing.
And to see him pondering, or hear him unfolding to the others, his
plans for the Dark Islands, was quite another.
He had seen the strange, and in some cases awful, developments of
civilisation in some of the other islands. He had pondered them for
years, and had studied cause and effect from germ to ultimate issue.
They were as warning lights to him. The wonderful chance which placed
in his hands the financial lever had awakened mighty hopes in him. In
his mind's eye he saw the Dark Islands enlightened, self-governing,
self-possessing, self-supporting--a prospect worth any man's life's
work.
Of the preliminary clearing work, then, we will say little. It was dry
and dull and dreary enough at times to provoke Aunt Jannet Harvey to
active remonstrance at the apparent inactivity of the propaganda. But
the quiet work, confined as it was almost entirely to the presentation
of better ways of life by force of example, and the very occasional
dropping here and there of a seed of precept, began to show some small
signs of fruit at last.
Within a very short time Nai's advanced notions in the matter of dress
had caught on, and instead of the precarious ridi fringe, towels, or,
in default of them, a strip of striped calico, had become the
fashionable female attire. Within six months the brown men were going
about fully clothed--in a loin cloth.
"It's better than nothing," said Aunt Jannet. "It keeps them from
looking absolutely indecent anyway, and as for the children it doesn't
matter," for the children all flatly refused any attempt to clothe
them. Time after time she had made furtive experiments on them, but
they all proved abortive. They took her gifts of cloth and so on
willingly, but turned them to unexpected and unintended uses.
Within six months the children were coming to school--some of them, and
irregularly--and were actually, in some cases, beginning to have vague
ideas as to why they came. It was not much, but it was in the right
direction.
Within six months the white men had learned enough of the language to
be able, with their additional slight knowledge of Samoan, to
understand and make themselves understood--to some extent. And the
brown men, in exchange, had acquired a number of English words and had
added considerably to their repertoire of hymns--the tunes they picked
up marvellously, and the words they chattered like parrots.
They had also learned to handle white men's tools with facility, and
they still stole them when opportunity offered, though not quite so
freely as at first. They had also seen marvellous things come up out
of the earth from the white men's plantings, and had learned to what
uses they could be put. They had seen wonders of the white men's
ingenuity, chief among which was the diversion of a rapid little
stream, which from time immemorial had flowed to the sea on the other
side of the ridge. By a very simple damming operation, to which the
cracks and cavities of the ridge readily lent themselves, the torrent
now came down the nearer side, and by means of a water-wheel, of John
MacNeil's construction operated a circular saw and various other
labour-saving appliances, and then flowed in a sparkling stream through
the middle of the mission settlement. The water-wheel and the circular
saw were endless enjoyments to the brown men, women, and children, and
they would sit watching them by the hour when they could have been more
profitably employed about their other affairs.
Matters politic had also advanced somewhat. In place of three parties
in the close neighbourhood of the station, there were now only two.
Ra'a was still at large in the hills, but the leaderless faction had
gradually disintegrated, some few joining him, but the larger portion
returning by degrees to their allegiance to Ha'o, drawn thereto by the
manifest advantages of the white men's friendliness.
And Ha'o himself had behaved well. Constant intercourse, even through
the misty medium of scarce understood tongues, with men like Blair and
Stuart and Evans, could not but have its effect on any man, and on this
clear-headed, sharp-witted savage the effects had been very marked.
He was naturally intelligent, and, according to his lights, of a most
gentlemanly disposition. His understanding developed still more
through his observation of the white men and their ways. He recognised
their superiority in most things and, as headman of his tribe, was
emulous of their accomplishment. He lapsed at lengthening intervals
into his natural savageries, but, beyond this, never swerved by a
hair's breadth from his loyalty to the men who had restored him to his
home.
Nai was rejoicing mightily in the possession of a sleek, plump,
black-eyed baby, the first son born to Ha'o. His other wives had given
him daughters, but since his return to the island, and their tardy
return to him, he had declined to have anything to do with any of them
beyond seeing that they were fed. Nai's community in his dangers and
sufferings had concentrated all his savage affections upon her, and now
she had justified him by giving him a son.
Blair reposed great faith in these three, and counted on them as
corner-stones in the mighty future.
The valley of the gods had proved a famous breeding-place. Goats and
pigs and ducks abounded there. The brown men had been introduced to
roast pig and goat flesh, and found it equal almost to man flesh. But
nothing would induce them to go there for it.
So, with mighty labours, for the animals were become perfectly wild in
their freedom, a number of them were given the run of the island, and
the novel excitements of the chase bade fair to afford the brown men
full vent for the energies that had hitherto run in the direction of
battle and murder and sudden death. Certainly the newcomers played
havoc for a time with the taro fields and plantain and banana groves.
But this also made for good, since it involved fencing operations on an
extensive scale, and steady work tended to keep the devil of idle hands
at bay.
"The curse of savagery is the lack of employment," was one of Blair's
maxims. "They get to fighting simply from having nothing else to do.
Get them to work, and it is a mighty step upwards."
So, but for Ra'a, the recalcitrant, the reunion of the tribe on this
side of the island would have been complete. And this was so essential
to Blair's far-reaching plans for its safety and redemption that he
spared no pains to bring it about.
At risk which could not be estimated, he went up alone into the hills
more than once to endeavour to reconcile the insubordinates to the
facts of the case. He guaranteed them life, liberty, and equal
advantages with the rest if they would return to their allegiance.
Failing that, he offered them safe conduct to one of the smaller,
thinly-populated islands, with supplies of tools, seeds, and animals,
and the assistance of one of his colleagues in turning these to account.
But Ra'a would have none of it, and his dominant will so far was strong
enough to keep his turbulent crew from breaking away towards the
fleshpots. The loosing of the pigs and goats had provided them also
with food and sport, and, since collisions between the various hunting
parties were not infrequent, life was eminently tolerable, though it
lived on the point of death.
On these embassies Blair had emphatically declined to take Jean with
him, on account of the indefiniteness of the journeying. Ra'a was
constantly shifting camp, and each time he had to be sought afresh,
with the imminent chance of the seeker meeting death in the quest.
Jean dreaded these lonely journeys terribly, but she acquiesced
sensibly, and each time bade him farewell in the full knowledge that it
might be for the last time.
[Illustration: It might be for the last time.]
She was, indeed, becoming reconciled to partings as incidental to the
missionary life. The _Torch_ was constantly coming and going among the
islands now, and sometimes the ladies were allowed to go and sometimes
not. Relations with the outlying tribes were progressing
satisfactorily. In most cases, after two or three calls with no
exhibition of cloven hoofs or ulterior designs on the part of their
visitors, the natives welcomed them in the most friendly fashion. In
some cases they still held back, and regarded them with suspicion and
distrust, but on the whole the tendency was towards confidence and
friendship.