OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES.
In the course of an hour’s time I was rejoined by Lolóma, who told me
that any thought of return to the town was out of the question, and
that, as search would certainly be made for us, we must gain the
protection of another tribe. There was a powerful chief on the coast,
she added, to whose family she was vasu, and whose protection she would
be sure of if she could once reach his dominions.
We set out in the moonlight, hand in hand, like another Adam and Eve,
leaving our garden of Eden behind us, and not feeling very confident in
regard to the adventures in store.
As we rambled on in the direction of the coast, Lolóma, whose natural
gaiety of heart had returned, prattled of many things, but was often
beguiled into silence by the splendour of the firmament. It is not
surprising when one calls to mind the wondrous beauty of the calm,
cloudless nights in Fiji, and the length of time the natives spend in
the open air after the sun has set, that they pay some attention to the
Heavenly bodies, and have names for them, and theories in regard to
them, though bearing no resemblance to those of Copernicus or Galileo.
I learned from Lolóma’s astronomical discourses that when two stars are
observed near the moon they are called “the moon’s wives;” the moon is
therefore a masculine noun, a point which the language does not settle.
What with us is superstitiously called the “man-in-the-moon” is by the
Fijian spoken of as “The man and his wife.” The man is plaiting cocoanut
fibre into sinnet, while the woman, mallet in hand, is beating out the
bark of which she is going to make native cloth. Emblematic this, of the
two great industries, for, food excepted, to the Fijian there is nothing
like cordage and cloth—the former is used in building houses, lashing
canoes, &c., and the latter, if not much used on the person, is valuable
property for exchange or barter.
When a star is seen preceding the moon, as is often the case, the Fiji
observer would be heard to say, “That star is the tug, towing the moon
through the skies.” This is not a borrowed figure either, for the Fijian
sailors on a large craft will often take small ones in tow.
The Southern Cross is called “Nga,” _i.e._, the “duck constellation.”
The Fiji imagination sees in this constellation a resemblance to a
flying duck. Popular belief says: the two “pointers” are two men; that
nearest the cross is a blind man, the other can see. They were both
after the duck to throw at it. The blind man threw first, and, as might
be expected, missed. Off goes the duck, giving the man who can see, no
chance. Our Fiji proverb-maker and moral philosopher has added this good
moral lesson to the fable, “Let him that can see throw first.” Sometimes
the “pointers” are referred to as viz., a slave and a chief. The slave
shoots first and misses, thereby greatly disappointing his chief.
Moral—“Never precede your superiors.” Mothers will sometimes try to
quiet their peevish little ones by pointing to the “Nga,” in the
Southern sky, and saying to “baby,” “Look up there at your duck.”
Orion and his belt are called Iri, _i.e._, the “Fan,” from their
resemblance to a Bau fan. This is said to be the fan of the great god
Dengeh. An accident happened to it once upon a time, when the god had
fallen asleep near the fire. The fan dropping out of his hand got burnt
on one side; hence the blank—the apparent absence of stars on one side.
Another tale is, that the fan is that of a local god at a place called
Nakasaleka, where, it is reported, mosquitoes never bite, for the simple
reason, there are none there to bite, and there are none there to bite
because the god with his big fan swept them all away.
One of the first stars, or, rather, the first star seen in the evening,
is called “Dingodingo,” _i.e._, “One who eats in another’s house,”
because he comes out to shine so close on the heels of day; in other
words he enters into Day’s house, when, in fact, he himself belongs to
Night. Another meaning of the same word is “the inspector.” This star,
therefore, is out having a look at things before his companions.
A superstition with regard to comets says: “Whichever way the flag
(_i.e._, the luminous tail) flies or streams, from that quarter we may
expect to hear the news of the death of a great chief.”
A fable of the sun’s setting says: “A big fish swallows him, but in a
little while will cast him up again in the East, _i.e._, he will rise in
the morning.” The usual way of saying the “sun has risen” is “the sun
has climbed.” The Fijian speaks of the sun as still climbing the sky,
till he reaches the meridian. After that the expression is, “he goes to
his drowning.”
An hour before daybreak, which is always the coldest part of the night
in Fiji, we took shelter in a thicket, and rested till the sun was well
up in the Heavens. We had scarcely any provisions with us, and there was
little occasion for that. A piece of sugar-cane, easily carried, and
renewable at many places, as we walked along, furnished a sweet and
nourishing juice which appeased at once both thirst and hunger.
The heavy dew of tropical countries lies long upon the ground, the
valleys are often filled with vapour until several hours after sunrise,
and the steamy billows are frequently seen ascending after the bright
glare of the sun has made itself felt severely in exposed places.
As we went on our course, the grass was spangled with mountain dew. The
carpets of bright green in the thick glassy glades of the forest
glistened. The bosky landscape was for a time half veiled in the thin
vapouries of the early morning. Soon the atmosphere became as lucid as
crystal, pure as an opal, and a sky of pale turquoise blue, free as yet
from the mid-day sheen, lent a softening splendour to the view.
Sometimes the eye took in at a glance, orange and lemon trees bending
under the weight of their golden spheres, the umbrageous bread fruit
with its scolloped and variegated leaves, the green tops of the palm,
the tapioca, guava, ginger, turmeric, arrowroot, and croton oil plants,
the luscious pine-apple, and banks covered with the wild chili,
brilliant with a rare combination of colours, and gay with the fresh
verdure of eternal spring. Little rivulets glided from the base of one
hill to the other, bubbling round grassy knolls, glancing from beneath
low tree-fringed rocks, and singing in soft tones of the cool green
woods through which they came. Huge cloud-capped hills rose to a height
of 2,000 feet on either hand like a vast natural amphitheatre, their
sides often perforated by peaceful valleys radiating down to the sea,
and the crannies and crags of their summits ringing with the sound of
the wind.
On the banks of the rivulets were groves of Tahitian chestnuts, with
their grooved trunks and knobby roots, affording a refreshing shade.
After the monotonous grass and isolated screw-pines of the open plain
the eye was often refreshed by the variegated leaves of the deciduous
tavola, which, preparatory to falling off, assumes a variety of tints,
in which brown, red, yellow, and scarlet are the most prominent. The
balsamic odours of fragrant shrubs accompanied us on our way, and our
road was tapestried with ferns and flowers, the graceful form of the
wild plantain giving dignity to the landscape. The forest silence was
broken only by the rustling of the leaves and the chattering of the
cicadæ, and we saw no living object save that indicated by the
occasional flash of a bright-winged parrakeet as it flew from tree to
tree, startled by our approach. Gaining an eminence, the sedgy hollows
below seemed covered with a veil of vapoury tissue.
Late in the afternoon we rested in a clump of sago palms on the verge of
a pretty waterfall descending like a rainbow flash in a wildly romantic
mountain gorge, above which towered a conical rock of great height. The
approach was through tangled masses of diverse greenery which almost
shut out the sunlight from this fairy dell. The water fell some 20ft. in
a triple cascade down into a transparent pool formed in a rocky bed, and
the three little jets there uniting made two more similar leaps to add
their small volume to a pebbly brook which flowed on to the coast. As we
sat in the shade of over-arching boughs, munching bananas and
sugar-cane, and listening to the music of the waterfall, we were
startled for a moment by a sudden splash, which resounded in the solemn
stillness of the place. It was only a large shaddock, grown too heavy
for its stem to bear, dropping into the stream.
Of all the flowers that gemmed the mead there were none more fair than
Lolóma. Her rounded limbs, unmarked by vein or muscle, the small hand,
and well-kept nails of her tapering fingers, bore testimony to the life
of ease she led. Her complexion, the tender peach colour which lingers
in the western sky for awhile after the disappearance of the great
luminary, was in itself a proof that she had been carefully guarded from
the sun. Her short but pliant neck, gently swelling shoulders, and
moderately slender waist, her well-shaped feet with slightly-spreading
toes, and her frank laughing eyes which knew no doubt, made her a fit
subject for an artist. How piquantly she poised as she lingered on some
grassy knoll, her small head resting on the neck buoyant as a flower on
its stem! Replace her chaplet of dewy blooms by a crescent diadem, her
simple liku by a light classical tunic, and there is the chaste huntress
of ancient fable, of a darker hue, lacking only the thinness of the
nose, the longer neck, the fuller eyes, and the compressed toes of the
Grecian ideal. Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, the unadorned charm
of her flowing figure was a lovelier vesture than that of the lilies of
the field. Full of passionate and impulsive affections, the soft smile
of the south now played on her sun-kissed face, partly disclosing twin
rows of fairy pearl.
We rioted in the mere physical enjoyment of life. We were happy with the
happiness of the child who neither questions the wisdom of the moment,
nor its hereafter. Her easy, unstudied abandonment, gave to Lolóma the
grace of a fawn. It was enough for me in those idle moments to watch the
shadows play on her soft wanton limbs, or to listen to her merry
rippling laugh, showing her teeth white as the core of the fresh bread
fruit, as she told some romantic or humourous story learnt in the
village.
Sometimes the forest seemed an enchanted garden, in which we were
en-canopied by a chaos of creepers which threw their garlands of gay
flowers over all, adorning the scene with the varying enchantments of
color. The primeval orchard was hung with luminous fruits like those
stolen from Aladdin’s garden, and a curious dreamy golden hue rested on
leaf and bough. From elevated spots we could see valley opening into
valley in oft repeated succession; and beyond, the ocean, studded with
islands, whose outlying reefs carded the waters into foam, while in the
sky was reflected the soft blue of the sea.
We went on through dell and dingle, where intercepting boughs made sunny
chequers on the green sward; on through mountain passes, where miniature
cascades shook their loosened silver in the sun; on through thickets of
flags and bamboos; and on through wide-reaching seas of verdure, till at
last we sighted, from easy walking distance, the heaving ocean, flecked
with constantly changing cloud-shadows, and glistening with the
reflected radiance of the westering sun.
Casting her eye along the coast-line, Lolóma declared that she saw the
chief town of the tribe to which she was vasu, though I could discern
nothing but tree-tops. The name of the town, she said, was Ramáka, which
means, “shining from a distance,” and its chief was the great
Waikatakata whom she had visited three years previously.
I remembered the name Waikatakata. It was Hot-Water, whose people wished
to make a hash of me, and from whom I had escaped in so marvellous a
way, leaving my two companions, as I believed, to a terrible death. I
knew, however, that on introducing myself as the husband of Lolóma, we
should both be received with the honours due to vasus, and that the past
would be entirely forgotten.
We made the shore line some two miles from the town. The sand was still
luminous with the ebbed tide, and strewn with shells in glittering
profusion. In one place these spoils of the ocean, were collected in a
huge bank. When stirred with a stick, the shells ran down in rainbow
streams. Lolóma gathered enough of vari-colored pieces for a new
necklace, and I secured a magnificent orange cowrie, as a present for
Waikatakata. As we threw ourselves down among the sea-born treasures of
scarlet and gold, and yellow and saffron, which made a gorgeous mosaic
pavement on the white sand, Lolóma’s shapely hands idly played with the
brilliant shells, and a shade of sadness stole over her at the thought
that we should soon be among strangers.
Towards evening we reached the outskirts of the town and intercepted a
young slave, who told us that two white men were living with the chief,
but he either could not or would not give us any particulars in regard
to them. Could it be that an English ship had called there since the
wreck of the Molly Asthore, and that I had missed the opportunity of
returning to civilisation? Even if it were so, I felt at the moment that
I hardly regretted it.
Our approach was duly heralded, and fitting preparations were made for
the reception of the vasus. Once more I stood in the square fronting the
chief’s house, where a year ago I had lain, bound hand and foot, and
expecting immediate death. I thought of my unhappy companions, cut off
in the prime of life, of the vile use to which their bodies had been
converted, and of the probability that their friends and relatives would
never learn their fate. At that moment what I took for two singularly
light colored natives, wearing the ordinary malo, and naked otherwise,
approached me.
“By all that’s wonderful,” said one of them.
“Jeerusalem! Tom Whimpy, is that you?” shrieked the other.
The recognition was mutual. To my infinite delight I saw before me in
perfect health, Jacob Turner and Silas Cobb, the master and mate of the
Molly Asthore, whom I had mourned as dead.
They had much to tell me of their adventures among the natives. I
gathered from them in subsequent conversations that the body of the man
who pursued me so closely after I had burst my fetters, and whom I had
killed, was found and buried by his friends, and that the general
opinion was that I had either died in the woods or been eaten by the kai
tholos, or mountaineers.
The return to life of Turner and Cobb was more wonderful than my escape.
It seemed that when they fell under the clubs, having good thick skulls,
they were only stunned. On regaining consciousness, the cannibal oven
was ready to receive them. They had been stripped, and were just about
to be thrust in, when the captain, recalling his previous slight
knowledge of the country, remembered the words of the prayer which is
said by the priest, before the final act of sacrifice. The man who has
used those words is sacred, and must not be eaten. He repeated the brief
formula, and taught it to the mate who said it after him. They
accordingly escaped death, and were adopted by the tribe, all of whom
had behaved well to them since. Hot-Water had from the first desired
that the white men should live, and the success of the _ruse_ adopted
gave him great pleasure.
As I entered the square with Lolóma and was formally presented to
Hot-Water, who said he was glad I had come to join his tribe, I was no
longer glared upon by a defiant crowd, but was waited upon by a cringing
and obsequious populace. We were received with the homage due to vasus.
Two Matas[14] were sent to us by the King, holding by either end a mat.
They crawled up to us, and having spread the mat, we sat upon it. An
official, whose rank was that of an ambassador, now shouted in a high
key, the proper greeting, “Sa tiko!” (They sit.) “Sa tiko! Sa tiko! Sa
tiko!” repeating the cry with increasing rapidity, and in descending
tones for about a dozen times. Having rested long enough to recover
breath, the man shouted again, “Sa tawa!” (Inhabited.) This was a
compliment implied in the graceful insinuation that the place was empty
before our arrival, but that it was now inhabited, the presence of such
august personages being in itself security against social retrogression.
“Sa tawa! Sa tawa!” was repeated many times quickly. Then half a dozen
Matas advanced slowly towards us in sitting posture. When within a few
feet of us, they bowed till their beards swept the ground. Rising, and
clasping their beards with their hands, they cried, “Sa uru!” (Furled
are your sails) “Sa uru! Woi! Woi!” Then they returned to the positions
they had formerly occupied near their master.
Footnote 14:
Ambassadors.
I made a short speech to the chief, the people clapped their hands
several times in the way peculiar to the Fijians, and the ceremony
ended. Henceforth, this formal homage having been done us, we were
honored guests, and at liberty to do almost as we chose. Such is the
power of the vasu lévu, or great privileged.