OUR NEW HOME ON ANIWA.
ANIWA became my Mission Home in November, 1866; and for the next fifteen
years it was the heart and center of my personal labors in the Heathen
World. Since 1881, alas! my too frequent deputation pilgrimages among
Churches in Great Britain and in the Colonies have rendered my visits to
Aniwa but few and far between. God never guided me back to Tanna; but
others, my dear friends, have seen His Kingdom planted and beginning to
grow amongst that slowly relenting race. Aniwa was to be the land
wherein my past years of toil and patience and faith were to see their
fruits ripening at length. I claimed Aniwa for Jesus, and by the grace
of God Aniwa now worships at the Saviour's feet.
The Island of Aniwa is one of the smaller isles of the New Hebrides. It
measures scarcely seven miles by two, and is everywhere girt round with
a belt of coral reef. The sea breaks thereon heavily, with thundering
roar, and the white surf rolls in furious and far. But there are days of
calm, when all the sea is glass, and the spray on the reef is only a
fringe of silver.
Aniwa, having no hills to attract and condense the clouds, suffers badly
for lack of genial rains; and the heavy rains of hurricane and tempest
seem to disappear as if by magic through the light soil and porous rock.
The moist atmosphere and the heavy dews, however keep the Island covered
with green, while large and fruitful trees draw wondrous nourishment
from their rocky beds.
Aniwa has no harbor, or safe anchorage of any kind for ships; though, in
certain winds, they have been seen at anchor on the outer edge of the
reef, always a perilous haven! There is one rock in the coral belt,
through which a boat can safely run to shore; but the little wharf,
built there of the largest coral blocks that could be rolled together,
has been once and again swept clean off by the hurricane, leaving "not a
wrack behind."
When we landed, the Natives received us kindly. They and the Aneityumese
Teachers led us to a temporary home, prepared for our abode. It was a
large Native Hut. Walls and roof consisted of sugar-cane leaf and reeds,
intertwisted on a strong wooden frame. It had neither doors nor windows,
but open spaces instead of these. The earthen floor alone looked
beautiful, covered thick with white coral broken small. It had only one
apartment; and that, meantime, had to serve also for Church and School
and Public Hall. We screened off a little portion, and behind that
screen planted our bed, and stored our valuables. All the natives within
reach assembled to watch us taking our food! A box at first served for a
chair, the lid of another box was our table, our cooking was all done in
the open air under a large tree, and we got along with amazing comfort.
But the house was under the shelter of a coral rock, and we saw at a
glance that at certain seasons it would prove a very hotbed of fever and
ague. We were, however, only too thankful to enter it, till a better
could be built, and on a breezier site.
The Aniwans were not so violently dishonorable as the Tannese. But they
had the knack of asking in a rather menacing manner whatever they
coveted; and the tomahawk was sometimes swung to enforce an appeal. We
strove to get along quietly and kindly, in the hope that when we knew
their language, and could teach them the principles of Jesus, they would
be saved, and life and property would be secure. But the rumor of the
_Curaçoa's_ visit and her punishment of murder and robbery did more, by
God's blessing, to protect us during those Heathen days than all other
influences combined. The savage cannibal was heard to whisper to his
bloodthirsty mates, "not to murder or to steal, for the Man-of-war that
punished Tanna would blow up their little island!"
Sorrowful experience on Tanna had taught us to seek the site of our
Aniwan house on the highest ground, and away from the malarial
influences near the shore. There was one charming mound, covered with
trees, whose roots ran down into the crevices of coral, and from which
Tanna and Erromanga are clearly seen. But there the Natives for some
superstitious reason forbade us to build, and we were constrained to
take another rising ground somewhat nearer the shore. In the end, this
turned out to be the very best site on the island for us, central and
suitable every way. But we afterwards learned that perhaps superstition
also led them to sell us this site, in the malicious hope that it would
prove our ruin. The mounds on the top, which had to be cleared away,
contained the bones and refuse of their Cannibal feasts for ages. None
but their Sacred Men durst touch them; and the Natives watched us hewing
and digging, certain that their gods would strike us dead! That failing,
their thoughts may probably have been turned to reflect that after all
the Jehovah God was stronger than they.
In leveling the site, and gently sloping the sides of the ground for
good drainage purposes, I had gathered together two large baskets of
human bones. I said to a Chief in Tannese, "How do these bones come to
be here?"
And he replied, with a shrug worthy of a cynical Frenchman, "Ah, we are
not Tanna-men! We don't eat the bones!"