_SETTLEMENT ON ANIWA._
The _John Williams_ on the Reef.—A Native’s Soliloquy.—Nowar Pleading
for Tanna.—The White Shells of Nowar.—The Island of Aniwa.—First
Landing on Aniwa.—The Site of our New Home.—“Me no Steal!”—House
Building for God.—Native Expectations.—Tafigeitu or Sorcery.—The
Miracle of Speaking Wood.—Perils through Superstition.—The Mission
Premises.—A City of God.—Builders and their Wages.—Great Swimming
Feat.—Stronger than the “Gods” of Aniwa.
Everything being now arranged for in the Colonies, in connection with
the Mission and _Dayspring_, as far as could possibly be, we sailed
for the Islands on the 8th August, 1866. Besides my wife and child,
the following accompanied us to the field: Revs. Copeland, Cosh, and
McNair, along with their respective wives. On August 20th we reached
Aneityum; and, having landed some of our friends, we sailed Northwards,
as far as Efatè, to let the new Missionaries see all the Islands open
for occupation, and to bring all our Missionaries back to the annual
meeting, where the permanent settlements would be finally agreed upon.
On our return, we found that the beautiful new _John Williams_,
reaching Aneityum on 5th of September, had stuck fast on the coral
reef and swung there for three days. By the unceasing efforts of the
Natives, working in hundreds, she was saved, though badly damaged.
At a united meeting of all the Missionaries, representing the London
Missionary Society and our own, it was resolved that she must be taken
to Sydney for repairs. Twenty stout Aneityumese were placed on board
to keep her pumps going by day and night, and the _Dayspring_ was
sent to keep her company in case of any dire emergency. Missionaries
were waiting to be settled, and the season was stealing away. But the
cause of humanity and the claims of a sister Mission were paramount.
We remained at Aneityum for five weeks, and awaited the return of the
_Dayspring_.
At our annual Synod, after much prayerful deliberation and the careful
weighing of every vital circumstance, I was constrained by the united
voice of my brethren not to return to Tanna, but to settle on the
adjoining island of Aniwa (= A-neé-wa). It was even hoped that thereby
Tanna might eventually be the more surely reached and evangelized.
By the new Missionaries all the other old Stations were re-occupied
and some fresh Islands were entered upon in the name of Jesus. As we
moved about with our _Dayspring_, and planted the Missionaries here and
there, nothing could repress the wonder of Natives.
“How is this?” they cried; “we slew or drove them all away! We
plundered their houses and robbed them. Had we been so treated, nothing
would have made us return. But they come back with a beautiful new
ship, and with more and more Missionaries. And is it to trade and to
get money, like the other white men? No! no! But to tell us of their
Jehovah God and of His Son Jesus. If their God makes them do all that,
we may well worship Him too.”
In this way, island after island was opened up to receive the
Missionary, and their Chiefs bound themselves to protect and cherish
him, before they knew anything whatever of the Gospel, beyond what they
saw in the disposition and character of its Preachers or heard rumoured
regarding its fruits on other Islands. Even _Cannibals_ have sometimes
been found thus prepared to welcome the Missionary, and to make not
only his property but his life comparatively safe. The Isles “wait” for
Christ.
On our way to Aniwa, the _Dayspring_ had to call at Tanna. By stress of
weather we lay several days in Port Resolution. And there many memories
were again revived—wounds that after five-and-twenty years, when I now
write, still bleed afresh! Nowar, the old Chief, unstable but friendly,
was determined to keep us there by force or by fraud. The Captain told
him that the council of the Missionaries had forbidden him to land our
boxes at Tanna.
“Don’t land them,” said the wily Chief; “just throw them over; my men
and I will catch everything before it reaches the water, and carry them
all safely ashore!”
The Captain said he durst not. “Then,” persisted Nowar, “just point
them out to us; you will have no further trouble; we will manage
everything for Missi.”
They were in distress when he refused; and poor old Nowar tried another
tack. Suspecting that my dear wife was afraid of them, he got us on
shore to see his extensive plantations. Turning eagerly to her, he
said, leaving me to interpret,—
“Plenty of food! While I have a yam or a banana, you shall not want.”
She answered, “I fear not any lack of food.”
Pointing to his warriors, he cried, “We are many! We are strong! We can
always protect you.”
“I am not afraid,” she calmly replied.
He then led us to that fig-tree, in the branches of which I had sat
during a lonely and memorable night, when all hope had perished of any
earthly deliverance, and said to her with a manifest touch of genuine
emotion,—
“The God who protected Missi there will always protect you.”
She told him that she had no fear of that kind, but explained to him
that we must for the present go to Aniwa, but would return to Tanna, if
the Lord opened up our way. Nowar, Arkurat, and the rest, seemed to be
genuinely grieved, and it touched my soul to the quick.
A beautiful incident was the outcome, as we learned only in long after
years. There was at that time an Aniwan Chief on Tanna, visiting
friends. He was one of their great Sacred Men. He and his people had
been promised a passage home in the _Dayspring_, with their canoes in
tow. When old Nowar saw that he could not keep us with himself, he
went to this Aniwan Chief, and took the white shells, the insignia of
Chieftainship, from his own arm, and bound them on the Sacred Man,
saying,—
“By these you promise to protect my Missionary and his wife and child
on Aniwa. Let no evil befall them; or, by this pledge, I and my people
will revenge it.”
In a future crisis, this probably saved our lives, as shall be
afterwards related. After all, a bit of the Christ-Spirit had found its
way into that old Cannibal’s soul! And the same Christ-Spirit in me
yearned more strongly still, and made it a positive pain to pass on to
another Island, and leave him in that dim-groping twilight of the soul.
Aniwa became my Mission Home in November, 1866; and ever since, save
on my, alas! too frequent deputation pilgrimages among Churches in
Great Britain and in the Colonies, it has been the heart and centre of
my personal labours amongst the Heathen. 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 about nine miles by three and a half, 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.
The ledges of coral rock indicate that Aniwa has been heaved up from
its ocean bed, at three or four separate bursts of mighty volcanic
power. No stone or other rock anywhere appears, but only and always
the coral, in its beautiful and mysterious variety. The highest land
is less than three hundred feet above the level of the sea; and though
the soil is generally light, there are patches good and deep, mostly
towards the southern end of the island, and near the crater of an
extinct volcano, where excellent plantations are found, and which, if
carefully cultivated, might support ten times the present population.
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. The Natives suffer from a species
of Elephantiasis, in all probability produced by their bad drinking
waters, and from the hot and humid climate of their isle.
Aniwa has no harbour, 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 crack 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.”
I had had a glimpse of Aniwa before, in the _John Knox_, when Mr.
Johnston accompanied me; and again with my dear friend Gordon, who was
murdered on Erromanga; besides, I had seen Aniwans in their canoes at
Tanna in search of food. They had pleaded with us to remain amongst
them, arguing against there being two Missionaries on Tanna and none
on Aniwa. Their “orator,” a very subtle man, who spoke Tannese well,
informed us that the white Traders told them that if they killed or
drove away the Missionaries they would get plenty of ammunition and
tobacco. This was why our life had been so often attempted. Beyond this
all was strange. Everything had to be learned afresh on Aniwa, as on
Tanna.
[Illustration: “ALL THE NATIVES WITHIN REACH ASSEMBLED.”]
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 dishonourable 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. For
losses and annoyance, we had of course no redress. But we tried to
keep things well out of their way, knowing that the opportunity there,
as elsewhere, sometimes develops the thief. 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 rumour 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 for
our Aniwan house on the highest ground, and away from the malarial
swamps 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 levelling
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!”
While I was away building the house, Mrs. Paton had one dreadful
fright. She generally remained about half a mile off, in charge of
the Native hut in which our property had been stored, with one or two
of the friendly Natives around her, though as yet she could not speak
their language. One day she sat alone, the baby playing at her feet.
A rustling commenced amongst the boxes behind the curtain. She had
been there all the morning, and no one had entered. Horror-smitten,
her eyes were fastened towards the noise. Suddenly, the blanket-screen
was thrown aside, and a black face, with blood-red eyes and milk-white
teeth peered out, and cried in broken English,—
“Me no steal! Me no steal!”
Then, with a bound like that of a deer, the man sprang out and ran
for the village. My dear wife, fearing his sudden return, snatched up
her child and rushed to the place where I was working, never feeling
the ground beneath her till she sank down almost fainting at my feet.
Thanking God for her escape, we thought it wiser to remain where we
were and finish our task for the day. We learned that, since we did
not return, his wrath had cooled down and he had withdrawn. This man
was a sort of wild beast in his passionate moods. His body became
convulsed and his muscles twitched with rage. He had lately murdered a
neighbour, a man of his own tribe, in his frenzy. We believe that the
Lord baffled his rage on that memorable day, and said to his tumultuous
soul,—“Peace! be still.”
The site being now cleared, we questioned whether to build only a
temporary home, hoping to return to dear old Tanna as soon as possible,
or, though the labour would be vastly greater, a substantial house—for
the comfort of our successors, if not of ourselves. We decided that,
as this was work for God, we would make it the very best we could. We
planned two central rooms, sixteen feet by sixteen, with a five-feet
wide lobby between, so that other rooms could be added when required.
About a quarter of a mile from the sea, and thirty-five feet above its
level, I laid the foundations of the house. Coral blocks raised the
wall about three feet high all round. Air passages carried sweeping
currents underneath each room, and greatly lessened the risk of fever
and ague. A wide trench was dug all round, and filled up as a drain
with broken coral. At back and front, the verandah stretched five
feet wide; and pantry, bath-room and tool-house were partitioned off
under the verandah behind. The windows sent to me had hinges; I added
two feet to each, with wood from Mission boxes, and made them French
door-windows, opening from each room to the verandah. And so we had, by
God’s blessing, a healthy spot to live in, if not exactly a thing of
beauty!
The Mission House, as ultimately finished, had six rooms, three on
each side of the lobby, and measured ninety feet in length, surrounded
by a verandah, one hundred feet by five, which kept everything shaded
and cool. Underneath two rooms, a cellar was dug eight feet deep, and
shelved all round for a store. In more than one terrific hurricane that
cellar saved our lives,—all crushing into it when trees and houses were
being tossed like feathers on the wings of the wind. Altogether, the
house at Aniwa has proved one of the healthiest and most commodious of
any that have been planted by Christian hands on the New Hebrides. In
selecting site and in building “the good hand of our God was upon us
for good.”
I built also two Orphanages, almost as inevitably necessary as the
Missionary’s own house. They stood on a line with the front of my
own dwelling, one for girls, the other for boys, and we had them
constantly under our own eyes. The Orphans were practically boarded at
the Mission premises, and adopted by the Missionaries. Their clothing
was a heavy drain upon our resources; and every odd and curious article
that came in any of the boxes or parcels was utilized. We trained these
young people for Jesus. And at this day many of the best of our Native
Teachers, and most devoted Christian helpers, are amongst those who
would probably have perished but for these Orphanages.
A grievous accident deprived me of special help in house-building.
I cut my ankle badly with an adze, as I had done before on Tanna,
through a knot in the tree. Binding my handkerchief tightly round it,
I appealed to the Natives to carry me back to our hut. They stipulated
for payment. My vest pocket being filled with fish-hooks, a current
coin on all these Islands, I got a fellow to understand the bribe.
He carried me a little, got some hooks, and then called another, who
did the same, and then called a third, and so on, each man earning
his hooks, and passing on the burden and the pay to another, while I
suffered terribly and bled profusely. Being my own doctor, I dressed
the wound for weeks, kept it constantly in cold water bandages, and by
the kindness of the Lord it recovered, though it left me lame for many
a day.
But the greatest sorrow was this: the good and kind Aneityumese, who
had been hired to come and help me with all the unskilled parts of the
labour, could do nothing without me, and when the _Dayspring_ came
round at the appointed time I had to pay them in full and let them
return, deprived of their valuable aid. Even to keep them in food would
have exhausted our limited stores, and some months must elapse before
our next supplies could arrive from Sydney.
The Aniwans themselves could scarcely be induced to work at all, even
for payment. Their personal wants were few, and were supplied by their
own plantations. They replied to my appeals with all the unction of
philosophers, and told me,—
“The conduct of the men of Aniwa is to stand by, or sit and look on,
while their women do the work!”
On Aniwa we soon found ourselves face to face with blank Heathenism.
The natives at first expected that the Missionary’s _Biritania
tavai_ (= British Medicine) would cure at once all their complaints.
Disappointment led to resentment in their ignorant and childish
minds. They also expected to get for the asking, or for any trifle,
an endless supply of knives, calico, fish-hooks, blankets, etc. Every
refusal irritated them. Again, our Medicines relieved or cured them,
so they blamed us also for their diseases,—all their Sacred Men not
only curing but also _causing_ sickness. Further, they generally came
to us only after exhausting every resource of their own witchcraft and
superstition, and when it was probably too late. I had often to taste
the Medicine in their sight before the sufferers would touch it; and if
one dose did not cure them, it was almost impossible to get them to
persevere. But time taught them its value, and the yearly expenditure
for Medicine soon became a very heavy tax on our modest salary.
Still we set our bell a-ringing every day after dinner—intimating
our readiness to give advice or medicine to all who were sick. We
spoke to them, so soon as we had learned, a few words about Jesus.
The weak received a cup of tea and a piece of bread. The demand was
sometimes great, especially when epidemics befell them. But some rather
fled from us as the cause of their sickness, and sought refuge from
our presence in remotest corners, or rushed off at our approach and
concealed themselves in the bush. They were but children, and full of
superstition; and we had to win them by kindly patience, never losing
faith in them and hope for them, any more than the Lord did with us!
As on Tanna, all sicknesses and deaths were supposed to be caused by
sorcery, there called _Nahak_, on Aniwa called _Tafigeitu_. Some Sacred
Man burned the remains of food such as the skin of a banana, or a hair
from the head, or something that the person had even touched, and he
was the disease-maker. Hence they were kept in a state of constant
terror, and breathed the very atmosphere of revenge. When one became
sick, all the people of his village met day after day, and made long
speeches and tried to find out the enemy who was causing it. Having
fixed on some one, they first sent presents of mats, baskets, and food
to the supposed disease-makers; if the person recovered, they took
credit for it; if the person died, his friends sought revenge on the
supposed murderers. And such revenge took a wide sweep, satisfying
itself with the suspected enemy, or any of his family, or of his
village, or even of his tribe. Thus endless bloodshed and unceasing
intertribal wars kept the people from one end of the Island to the
other in one long-drawn broil and turmoil.
Learning the language on Aniwa was marked by similar incidents to those
of Tanna, related in Part First; though a few of them could understand
my Tannese, and that greatly helped me. One day a man, after carefully
examining some article, turned to his neighbour and said,—
“Taha tinei?”
I inferred that he was asking, “What is this?”
Pointing to another article, I repeated their words; they smiled at
each other, and gave me its name. On another occasion, a man said to
his companion, looking towards me,—
“Taha neigo?”
Concluding that he was asking my name, I pointed towards him, and
repeated the words, and they at once gave me their names. Readers
would be surprised to discover how much you can readily learn of any
language, with these two short questions constantly on your lips,
and with people ready at every turn to answer—“What’s this?” “What’s
your name?” Every word was at once written down, spelled phonetically
and arranged in alphabetic order, and a note appended as to the
circumstances in which it was used. By frequent comparison of these
notes, and by careful daily and even hourly imitation of all their
sounds, we were able in a measure to understand each other before we
had gone far in the house-building operations, during which some of
them were constantly beside me.
One incident of that time was very memorable, and God turned it to
good account for higher ends. I often tell it as “the miracle of the
speaking bit of wood;” and it has happened to other Missionaries
exactly as to myself. While working at the house, I required some nails
and tools. Lifting a piece of planed wood, I pencilled a few words on
it, and requested our old Chief to carry it to Mrs. Paton, and she
would send what I wanted. In blank wonder, he innocently stared at me,
and said,—
“But what do you want?”
I replied, “The wood will tell her.” He looked rather angry, thinking
that I befooled him, and retorted,—
“Who ever heard of wood speaking?”
By hard pleading I succeeded in persuading him to go. He was amazed
to see her looking at the wood and then fetching the needed articles.
He brought back the bit of wood, and eagerly made signs for an
explanation. Chiefly in broken Tannese I read to him the words, and
informed him that in the same way God spoke to us through His Book.
The will of God was written there, and by-and-bye, when he learned to
read, he would hear God _speaking_ to him from its page, as Mrs. Paton
heard me from the bit of wood.
A great desire was thus awakened in the poor man’s soul to see the
very Word of God printed in his own language. He helped me to learn
words and master ideas with growing enthusiasm. And when my work of
translating portions of Holy Scripture began, his delight was unbounded
and his help invaluable. The miracle of a speaking page was not less
wonderful than that of speaking wood!
One day, while building the house, an old Inland Chief and his three
sons came to see us. Everything was to them full of wonder. After
returning home one of the sons fell sick, and the father at once blamed
us and the Worship, declaring that if the lad died we all should be
murdered in revenge. By God’s blessing, and by our careful nursing
and suitable medicine, he recovered and was spared. The old Chief
superstitiously wheeled round almost to another extreme. He became not
only friendly, but devoted to us. He attended the Sabbath Services, and
listened to the Aneityumese Teachers, and to my first attempts, partly
in Tannese, translated by the orator Taia or the chief Namakei, and
explained in our hearing to the people in their mother tongue.
But, on the heels of this, another calamity overtook us. So soon as two
rooms of the Mission House were roofed in, I hired the stoutest of the
young men to carry our boxes thither. Two of them started off with a
heavy box suspended on a pole from shoulder to shoulder, their usual
custom. They were shortly after attacked with vomiting of blood; and
one of them actually died, an Erromangan. The father of the other swore
that, if his son did not get better, every soul at the Mission House
should be slain in revenge. But God mercifully restored him.
As the boat-landing was nearly three-quarters of a mile distant, and
such a calamity recurring would be not only sorrowful in itself but
perilous in the extreme for us all, I steeped my wits, and, with such
crude materials as were at hand, I manufactured not only a hand-barrow,
but a wheel-barrow, for the pressing emergencies of the time. In due
course, I procured a more orthodox hand-cart from the Colonies, and
coaxed and bribed the Natives to assist me in making a road for it.
Perhaps the ghost of _Macadam_ would shudder at the appearance of that
road, but it has proved immensely useful ever since.
Our Mission House was once and again threatened with fire, and we
ourselves with musket, before its completion. The threats to set fire
to our premises stirred up Namakei, however, to befriend us; and we
learned that he and his people had us under a guard by night and by
day. But a savage Erromangan lurked about for ten days, watching for
us with tomahawk and musket, and we knew that our peril was extreme.
Looking up to God for protection, I went on with my daily toils,
having a small American tomahawk beside me, and showing no fear. The
main thing was to take every precaution against surprise, for these
murderers are all cowards, and will attempt nothing when observed. I
sent for the old Chief, whose guest the Erromangan was, and warned him
that God would hold him guilty too if our blood was shed.
“Missi,” he warmly replied, “I knew not, I knew not! But by the first
favourable wind he shall go, and you will see him no more.”
He kept his word, and we were rescued from the enemy and the avenger.
The site was excellent and very suitable for our Mission Station. The
ground sloped away nearly all round us, and the pathway up to it was
adorned on each side with beautiful crotons and island plants, and
behind these a row of orange trees. A cocoa-nut grove skirted the shore
for nearly three miles, and shaded the principal public road. Near
our premises were many leafy chestnuts and wide-spreading bread-fruit
trees. When, in the course of years, everything had been completed
to our taste, we lived practically in the midst of a beautiful
Village,—the Church, the School, the Orphanage, the Smithy and Joiner’s
Shop, the Printing Office, the Banana and Yam House, the Cook House,
etc.; all very humble indeed, but all standing sturdily up there among
the orange trees, and preaching the Gospel of a higher civilization and
of a better life for Aniwa. The little road leading to each door was
laid with the white coral broken small. The fence around all shone
fresh and clean with new paint. Order and taste were seen to be laws in
the white man’s New Life; and several of the Natives began diligently
to follow our example.
Many and strange were the arts which I had to try to practise, such as
handling the adze, the mysteries of tenon and mortise, and other feats
of skill. If a Native wanted a fish-hook, or a piece of red calico
to bind his long whip-cord hair, he would carry me a block of coral
or fetch me a beam; but continuous daily toil seemed to him a mean
existence. The women were tempted, by calico and beads for pay, to
assist in preparing the sugar-cane leaf for thatch, gathering it in the
plantations, and tying it over reeds four or six feet long with strips
of bark or pandanus leaf, leaving a long fringe hanging over on one
side. How differently they acted when the Gospel began to touch their
hearts! They built their Church and their School then, by their own
free toil, rejoicing to labour without money or price; and they have
ever since kept them in good repair, for the service of the Lord, by
their voluntary offerings of wood and sugar-cane leaf and coral-lime.
The roof was firmly tied on and nailed; thereon were laid the reeds,
fringed with sugar-cane leaf, row after row tied firmly to the wood;
the ridge was bound down by cocoa-nut leaves, dexterously plaited from
side to side and skewered to the ridge pole with hard wooden pins;
and over all, a fresh storm-roof was laid on yearly for the hurricane
months, composed of folded cocoa-nut leaves, held down with planks
of wood, and bound to the frame-work below,—which, however, had to be
removed again in April to save the sugar-cane leaf from rotting beneath
it. There you were snugly covered in, and your thatching good to last
from eight years to ten; that is, provided you were not caught in the
sweep of the hurricane, before which trees went flying like straws,
huts disappeared like autumn leaves, and your Mission House, if left
standing at all, was probably swept bare alike of roof and thatch at a
single stroke! Well for you at such times if you have a good barometer
indicating the approach of the storm; and better still, a large cellar
like ours, four-and-twenty feet by sixteen, built round with solid
coral blocks,—where goods may be stored, and whereinto also all your
household may creep for safety, while the tornado tosses your dwelling
about, and sets huge trees dancing around you!
We had also to invent a lime kiln, and this proved one of the hardest
nuts of all that had to be cracked. The kind of coral required could be
obtained only at one spot, about three miles distant. Lying at anchor
in my boat, the Natives dived into the sea, broke off with hammer and
crowbar piece after piece, and brought it up to me, till I had my load.
We then carried it ashore, and spread it out in the sun to be blistered
there for two weeks or so. Having thus secured twenty or thirty boat
loads, and had it duly conveyed round to the Mission Station, a huge
pit was dug in the ground, dry wood piled in below, and green wood
above to a height of several feet, and on the top of all the coral
blocks were orderly laid. When this pile had burned for seven or ten
days, the coral had been reduced to excellent lime, and the plaster
work made therefrom shone like marble.
On one of these trips the Natives performed an extraordinary feat. The
boat with full load was struck heavily by a wave, and the reef drove a
hole in her side. Quick as thought the crew were all in the sea, and,
to my amazement, bearing up the boat with their shoulder and one hand,
while swimming and guiding us ashore with the other! There on the land
we were hauled up, and four weary days were spent fetching and carrying
from the Mission Station every plank, tool, and nail, necessary for her
repair. Every boat for these seas ought to be built of cedar wood and
copper-fastened, which is by far the most economical in the end. And
all houses should be built of wood which is as full as possible of gum
or resin, since the large white ants devour not only all other soft
woods, but even Colonial blue gum trees, the hard cocoa-nut, and window
sashes, chairs, and tables!
Glancing back on all these toils, I rejoice that such exhausting
demands are no longer made on our newly arrived Missionaries. Houses,
all ready for being set up, are now brought down from the Colonies.
Zinc roofs and other improvements have been introduced. The Synod
appoints a deputation to accompany the young Missionary, and plant the
house along with himself at the Station committed to his care. Precious
strength is thus saved for higher uses; and not only property but life
itself is oftentimes preserved.
I will close this chapter with an incident which, though it came to our
knowledge only years afterwards, closely bears upon our Settlement on
Aniwa. At first we had no idea why they so determinedly refused us one
site, and fixed us to another of their own choice. But after the old
Chief, Namakei, became a Christian, he one day addressed the Aniwan
people in our hearing to this effect:—
“When Missi came we saw his boxes. We knew he had blankets and calico,
axes and knives, fish-hooks and all such things. We said, ‘Don’t drive
him off, else we will lose all these things. We will let him land.
But we will force him to live on the Sacred Plot. Our gods will kill
him, and we will divide all that he has amongst the men of Aniwa.’ But
Missi built his house on our most sacred spot. He and his people lived
there, and the gods did not strike. He planted bananas there, and we
said, ‘Now when they eat of these they will all drop down dead, as our
fathers assured us, if any one ate fruit from that ground, except only
our Sacred Men themselves.’ These bananas ripened. They did eat them.
We kept watching for days and days, but no one died! Therefore what we
say, and what our fathers have said, is not true. Our gods cannot kill
them. Their Jehovah God is stronger than the gods of Aniwa.”
I enforced old Namakei’s appeal, telling them that, though they knew
it not, it was the living and true and only God who had sent them
every blessing which they possessed, and had at last sent us to teach
them how to serve and love and please Him. In wonder and silence they
listened, while I tried to explain to them that Jesus, the Son of this
God, had lived and died and gone to the Father to save them, and that
He was now willing to take them by the hand and lead them through this
life to glory and immortality together with Himself.
The old Chief led them in prayer—a strange, dark, groping prayer, with
streaks of Heathenism colouring every thought and sentence; but still
a heart-breaking prayer, as the cry of a soul once Cannibal, but now
being thrilled through and through with the first conscious pulsations
of the Christ-Spirit, throbbing into the words: “Father, Father; our
Father.”
When these poor creatures began to wear a bit of calico or a kilt, it
was an outward sign of a change, though yet far from civilization. And
when they began to look up and pray to One whom they called “Father,
our Father,” though they might be far, very far, from the type of
Christian that dubs itself “respectable,” my heart broke over them in
tears of joy; and nothing will ever persuade me that there was not a
Divine Heart in the heavens rejoicing too.