_The Last of the Island Kingdoms--Fashions in Nukualofa--The King
who was shy--His Majesty’s Love Story--Who got the Wedding-Cake?--The
Chancellor goes to Jail--Bungalow Housekeeping--The Wood of the
Sacred Bats--By the Tombs of the Tui-Tongas--A “Chief” Kava-party--The
Waits!--Mariner’s Cave--The Cave of the Swallows--To Samoa._
SOME weeks afterwards, after a round of three thousand miles, I found
myself in Tonga, better known as the Friendly Islands. The distance from
the Cook Group was only one thousand or less, as the crow flies, but
the steamers flew down to Auckland, and then back again, which naturally
added to the journey. Pacific travel is a series of compromises. The
British Resident of Niué, which is only three hundred miles from Tonga,
wanted to get to the latter place about that time, and when I met him
at Nukualofa, the Tongan capital, he had had to travel two thousand
four hundred miles to reach it! But no one is ever in a hurry, under the
shade of the cocoanut tree.
Who has heard of Tongatabu? who knows where the “Friendly Islands” are?
You will not find them very readily in the map, but they are to be
found nevertheless, about one thousand miles to the north-east of New
Zealand. And if you take the steamer that runs every month from Auckland
to Sydney, touching at the “Friendly” or Tongan Group, on the way, you
will find yourself, in four days, set down on the wharf of Nukualofa,
the capital of the island of Tongatabu, and the seat of the oddest, most
comic-opera-like monarchy that the world ever knew.
Thirty years ago--even twenty--the Great South Seas were scattered over
with independent island states, ruled by monarchs who displayed every
degree of civilisation, from the bloodthirsty monster, Thakomban of Fiji
and Jibberik, the half-crazy tyrant of Majuro, up to such Elizabeths of
the Pacific as Liluokalani of Hawaii, and Queen Pomaré of Tahiti. Now
there is but one island kingdom left; but one native sovereign, who
still sits on his throne unembarrassed by the presence of a British
Resident, who is ruler in all but name. Hawaii has fallen to America;
France has taken the Marquesas and Tahiti; England has annexed the Cook
Islands and dethroned the famous Queen Makea; Germany and America have
partitioned Samoa between them; the rich archipelago of Fiji has been
added to the British Colonies. This accounts for almost all of the
larger and richer island groups, distinguished by a certain amount
of original civilisation, and leaves only one unseized--Tonga, or the
Friendly Islands, over which England has maintained a protectorate since
1900.
The Tongan Archipelago was discovered by Captain Cook in 1777, and by
him named the “Friendly Islands,” on account of the apparently friendly
disposition of the natives. He sailed away from the group unaware that
beneath their seemingly genial reception, the Tongans had been maturing
a plot to murder him and seize his ship. Treachery, it is true, has
never been an essential part of the Tongan character; but they are,
and always have been, the most warlike of all Pacific races, and it
is probable that they thought the character of the deed excused by the
necessities of a military race who feared injury from a superior power.
After Cook’s visit the world heard very little of Tonga until 1816, when
Mariner’s “Tonga Islands,” the history of a young sailor’s captivity
among the natives of the group, fairly took the reading world by storm.
It is still a classic among works of travel and adventure. Since
the islands were converted to Christianity their history has been
uneventful. One king--George Tubou I.--reigned for seventy years, and
only died at last, aged ninety-seven, of a chill contracted from his
invariable custom of bathing in the sea at dawn! His great-grandson,
George Tubou II. succeeded, inheriting through his mother’s side, as the
Tongan succession follows the matriarchal plan. It is this king--aged
thirty-four, six feet four in height, and about twenty-seven stone
weight--who now sits upon the last throne of the Island Kings, and rules
over the only independent state left in the Pacific.
When Britain, assumed a Protectorate over Tonga in 1900, it was done
simply to prevent any other nation annexing the rich and fertile group,
with its splendid harbour of Vavau which lay so dangerously near Fiji.
The Germans, who had maintained a kind of half-and-half Protectorate for
some time, ceded their rights in exchange for those possessed by England
in Samoa, and Tonga then became safe from the incursions of any foreign
nation whose interests, trading and territorial, might be hostile to
those of Britain.
Perhaps as a consequence of all those negotiations, the Tongans have
a high opinion of their own importance. When the war between China and
Japan broke out, Tonga politely sent word to Great Britain that she
intended to remain neutral, and not take any part in the affair. Great
Britain’s reply, I regret to say, is not recorded.
The Tongans are a Christianised and partially civilised, if a coloured,
race, numbering about 20,000. They are of a warm brown in hue, with
dense black, wiry hair (usually dyed golden red with lime juice), tall,
well-made frames, and immense muscular development. As a nation, they
are handsome, with intelligent faces, and a dignity of pose and movement
that is sometimes unkindly called the “Tongan swagger.” In education,
many of them would compare favourably with the average white man, so far
as mere attainments go; although a course of instruction at the local
schools and colleges, amounting to very nearly the standard of an
English “matriculations,” does not prevent its recipient from believing
firmly in the holiness of the sacred Tongan bats, feeding himself with
his fingers, and walking about his native village naked as Adam, save
for a cotton kilt. There is not only a King in Tonga, but a real palace,
guards of honour, a Parliament, a Prime Minister, a Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and a large number of public officials. All these are
Tongan natives. The king’s guards are apt to make an especially vivid
impression upon the newcomer, as he walks up the wharf, and sees the
scarlet-coated sentry pacing up and down opposite the guard-room, with
his fellows, also smartly uniformed, lounging inside. If the stranger,
however, could have witnessed the scene on the wharf as soon as the
steamer was signalled---the sudden running up of a dozen or two of
guards who had been amusing themselves about the town in undress uniform
(navy-blue kilt, red sash, buff singlet), the scrambling and dressing
_coram publico_ on the grass, getting into trousers, boots, shirt,
tunic, forage cap, and the hurried scuffle to get ready in time, and
make a fine appearance to the steamer folk--he might think rather
less of Tonga’s military discipline. Beyond the wharf lies the town,
straggling over a good mile of space, and consisting of a few main
streets and one or two side alleys, bordered by pretty verandahed,
flowery houses. The pavement is the same throughout--green grass,
kept short by the constant passing of bare feet. There are a good many
trading stores, filled with wares suited to native tastes--gaudy prints,
strong perfumes, cutlery, crockery, Brummagem jewellery. The streets are
busy to-day--busy for Nukualofa, that is. Every now and then a native
passes, flying by on a galloping, barebacked horse, or striding along
the grass with the inimitable Tongan strut; for it is steamer day,
and the monthly Union steamer boat is the theatre, the newspaper, the
society entertainment; the luxury-provider of all the archipelago. On
the other twenty-nine or thirty days of the month, you may stand in the
middle of a main street for half an hour at a time, and not see a single
passer-by, but steamer day galvanises the whole island into life.
[Illustration: 0376]
The sand of the beach beside the wharf is as white as snow; it is
pulverised coral from the reef, nothing else. Great fluted clam-shells,
a foot long and more, lie about the strand, among the trailing
pink-flowered convolvulus vines that wreathe the shore of every South
Sea island. Unkempt pandanus trees, mounted on quaint high wooden
stilts, overhang the green water; among the taller and more graceful
cocoa-palms, Norfolk Island pines, odd, formal, and suggestive of
hairbrushes, stand among feathery ironwoods and spreading-avavas
about the palace of the king. Quite close to the wharf this latter is
placed--a handsome two-storeyed building, with wide verandahs and a
tower. Scarlet-coated sentries march up and down all day at its gates;
it is surrounded by a wall, and carefully guarded from intruders. George
Tubou II. is among the shyest of monarchs and hates nothing so much as
being stared at; so on steamer days there is little sign of life to be
seen about the palace.
I happened to arrive in Tonga at an interesting historical crisis, and
was promised an audience with the retiring monarch.
After a week or two, however, the promise was suddenly recalled, and the
visitor informed that the king declined to see her, then or at any other
time. A little investigation revealed the cause. The High Commissioner
of the Western Pacific had recently come over from Fiji; to remonstrate
with the Tongan monarchy concerning certain unconstitutional behaviour,
and a British man-of-war had accompanied him. I, being the only other
person on the island from “Home,” had naturally been seeing a good deal
of the formidable stranger. This was enough for the king. There was a
plot to deprive him of his throne, he was certain; and it was obvious
that I was in it, whatever I might choose to say to the contrary. There
was no knowing what crime I might not be capable of, once admitted to
the Royal Palace. George Tubou II. is six feet four, and twenty-seven
stone weight, but he is distinctly of a nervous temperament; and his
fears of Guy Fawkesism kept possession of his mind during the whole of
my stay; so that the carefully averted face of a fat, copper-coloured
sort of Joe Sedley, driving very fast in a buggy, was all I saw of
Tonga’s king.
There is no one, surely, in the world who quite comes up to George of
Tonga for a “guid conceit o’ himsel’.” When he wished to provide himself
with a queen, some six or seven years ago, he first applied to
the Emperor of Germany, to know if there was a German Princess of
marriageable age whom he could have! The Kaiser politely replied in the
negative. King George then sent proposals to a princess of Hawaii who
was as well educated as any white lady, and used to diplomatic society
in Washington. This also failing, he turned his attentions to his own
country; and then began the most extraordinary love-story ever told
under the Southern Cross--a story that could have happened nowhere on
the globe, except in the comic-opera country of Tonga.
There were two eligible princesses of the royal line of Tonga--Princess
Ofa and Princess Lavinia. The king appears to have proposed to them
both, and then found himself unable to decide between the two. They were
both of high rank, both good-looking after the portly Tongan fashion,
and both very willing to be queen, reign over the fine palace, order
lots of silk dresses from Auckland, wear the queen’s crown of Tonga
(supposed to be gold, but rather inclined to suspicious outbreaks of
verdigris), and see the natives get off their horses and kneel on the
ground, when the royal state carriage drove by.
But the king kept both princesses in the agonies of suspense ever
present, and hope constantly deferred for months--until the wedding-day
was fixed, the wedding-cake (ordered three years before from a New
Zealand confectioner, for the German Princess who was not to be had)
patched up and fresh coloured, the wedding-dress provided, at the
expense of the Government of Tonga (according to custom) and actually
made! Not till the very night before the wedding did his dilatory
Majesty at last declare his intentions, and fix upon the princess he
had last proposed to, whom nobody expected him to take--Lavinia. It is
a sober fact that the wedding invitation cards, sent out at the last
minute, were printed with a blank for the bride’s name, which was
added with a pen! Lavinia, overjoyed at her good luck, got into the
Governmentally provided wedding dress next day, and (as the fairy tales
say) “the wedding was celebrated with great pomp!” There is no sense of
humour in Tonga. If there had been, the king could hardly have selected
the means of consolation for Ofa’s disappointment that he actually did
choose, in sending her the bottom half of his wedding cake, as soon as
the ceremony was over. Princess Ofa was not proud; she had been beating
her head on the floor-mats all morning and pulling out handfuls of her
long black hair, but when the consolatory cake arrived, she accepted it
promptly and ate it.
There are generally illuminations on the night of a royal wedding. Tonga
was not behind-hand in this matter, but the illuminations were of rather
an unusual kind, being nothing less than numbers of burning native
houses, set on fire by the indignant friends of the jilted Princess Ofa.
The friends of the new queen retaliated in kind; and for nearly a week,
arson became the recognised sport of the island. This excess of party
feeling soon died down, however, and the newly married couple were left
to honeymoon in peace.
An infant princess was born in due time, and not very long after, Queen
Lavinia died. Here was Princess Ofa’s chance, if Fate had permitted;
but Ofa herself was dead, leaving no eligible princess to console the
widowed king.
For more than five years the monarch (who is still only thirty-four) has
lived alone, a mark for every husband-hunting princess in the Pacific. A
princess related to an ancient island monarchy, invited herself to stay
in the palace one recent Christmas. King George received her pleasantly,
entertained her for some weeks, and then sent her home with a big
packet of fine tobacco and a barrel of spirits, to console her for the
non-success of her visit--which may be accounted for by the fact that
she is rather older than the king himself, and by no means so lovely as
she was. A favoured candidate is a certain princess of the royal family
of Tahiti. She has been described to the king as handsome, and at least
sixteen stone weight, both of which claims are quite correct. King
George really wants a European princess, but as soon as he has been
convinced for the second time that this is impossible, it is hoped that
he will decide on the Tahitian princess, and elevate her to the Tongan
throne, since he admires fat women exceedingly.
One of the most remarkable things in this remarkable country is the
Parliament. It would take too long to record the history of this
assembly’s birth and development; but the chapter has been a notable one
in Tongan history. The Parliament usually consists of the King and Prime
Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Justice, and a
score or two of important chiefs, some of whom inherit by birth, while
others are returned by their native villages. At the time of my visit,
there were a couple of vacancies in this remarkable assembly, since the
High Commissioner of the Western Pacific (Governor of Fiji) had just
deported the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Fiji,
on account of certain proceedings which resulted in emptying Tonga’s
public treasury and leaving nothing to show for it.
Their absence did not greatly matter, however, as it is a rule of the
Tongan Constitution, that Parliament shall not meet oftener than once in
three years. An excellent and practical reason lies at the root of this
seemingly peculiar law. Tongatabu is a small island, only twenty miles
long; and when the Members of Parliament,--dressed in new cotton
kilts, with smart large floor-mats tied round their waists with sinnet
(cocoanut fibre plait), and violet, sea-green, or lemon silk shirts
on their brown backs--arrive from the outer villages and islands in
Nukualofa with all their relatives, for the beginning of the session,
something very like a famine sets in. The whole Parliament, also its
sisters, aunts, and grandpapas, has to be fed at public expense, while
it stays in the capital arranging the affairs of the nation; and as the
length of its sitting is always regulated by the amount of provisions
available, and never ends until the last yam, the last skinny chicken,
the last sack of pineapples, is eaten up, it is easy to understand why
the capital does not care to undergo such a strain any oftener than it
can help.
A new Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer were appointed
before long, and it was made a condition of the latter office, that the
Chancellor should understand a reasonable amount of arithmetic.
There was also a rigid rule made about the keeping of the key of the
Government safe in some suitable place. A good deal of trouble was
caused by the last Chancellor’s losing it, one day when he was out
fishing on the coral reef! There was a duplicate, but the Chancellor had
carefully locked it up in the safe, to make sure it should not be lost!
The poor old gentleman nearly get sunstroke hunting about the coral
reef for the key until he found it. If it had been carried, away by the
tides, the safe must have remained closed until an expert from Auckland
could be brought up to open it. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer did
not know how much he had in it, or how much he had spent in the last
quarter, it can readily be understood that the public accounts acquired
an entirely superfluous extra tangle or two during the absence of the
lost key.
Tonga enjoys one of the finest climates in the Pacific. The heat is
never excessive, and the air is generally bright and invigorating.
Fevers are unheard of, and the few white residents of the islands enjoy
splendid health. As for the Tongans themselves, they dispute with the
Fijians the palm of being physically the finest and strongest people
in the whole Pacific; and no one has ever thought of challenging their
claim to be the most intellectual of all the brown island races. Their
carriage is superb, though only its extreme _aplomb_ and ease save it
from degenerating into an actual swagger. Their dress displays the most
perfect taste in the South Seas. It consists, among the men, of a short
tunic (“vala”) of fine cashmere or silk, occasionally of cotton, on
working days--draped with all the grace of an antique statue, and worn
with a wide sash, and a thin, close-fitting singlet or shirt. The
Tongan woman generally wears a garment that is suggestive of the Greek
_chiton_--a loose sleeveless dress reaching to a point midway between
waist and knee. Underneath is seen a tunic similar to that of the men,
but a little longer. The colours chosen by both sexes are exquisite. No
artist could design more beautiful combinations than those I have often
seen flitting about the grassy streets of Nukualofa, Tonga’s capital. A
finely made giant strides by, in a navy-blue vala, cream-coloured silk
shirt, and vivid sea-green sash. Another wears a pale blue vala and
shirt, and a sash of royal blue. A third is in white and lemon colour
girdled with orange; another wears a white vala, a pale green shirt, and
a sash of violet silk. A tall, self-possessed young woman, her hair dyed
golden red with lime, and worn coiffed high above the forehead, with a
fall of natural curls down her back, has a scarlet and yellow vala under
her short brown silk gown, while her companion--smaller and merrier
faced, with the melting black eyes of “The Islands”--wears and looks
charming in, a pale-blue gown over a vala of daffodil yellow. These are
the fashions of Tonga; and they offer a feast for artistic souls and
pencils, that cannot be matched under the Southern Cross.
Tonga is very seldom visited by travellers, except for an hour or two
during the steamer’s stay in port, and it is hardly ever seen by British
tourists. I could not discover that any English lady had ever made a
stay there, except myself, and the wife of a local Church dignitary.
There are, of course, a few Colonial residents. But the English
traveller leaves Tonga out altogether, which is really a pity--for his
sake. As for the islands, they can do very well without tourists, and
would not be the better for them.
There was no hotel save a plain and simple public-house, at the time
of my stay, though I understand this defect has been remedied. I had
therefore to set up housekeeping on my own account. The tiny bungalow I
took for my stay of four weeks in the island, was a real South Sea home.
It stood almost on the white coral sand of the beach, and close to
the cool green waters of the lagoon; it was shaded by palms and
scarlet-blossomed “flamboyant” trees, and it was nearly all door and
window and verandah. Its carpets were plaited pandanus-leaf mats; the
ornaments in the sitting-room were foot-long fluted clam-shells off
the beach, filled with wild red and yellow hibiscus flowers, poignantly
perfumed frangipani stars, and the sweet pink blossoms of the South Sea
oleander. The back kitchen had generally a bunch of bananas hanging from
the roof, a pile of green cocoanuts for drinking, under the window, a
mound of yellow papaws, or tree-melons, in a corner, some custard-apples
and mangoes, and a big basket of pineapples, bought at the door for
fourteen a shilling, or picked by myself during a drive through the
bush.
There was not much else, besides bread and tea. I almost lived on
fruit, and could not help wondering what the inhabitants of temperate
latitudes, who fear ill consequences from a dozen plums or a double
handful of strawberries, would have thought of my uncounted mangoes,
and bananas, and five or six pineapples a day. Only children, at home
in England, really know how much fruit can safely be undertaken by the
human digestive organs. Wise children! and foolish elders, who have
forgotten so soon.
The transparent waters of the lagoon outside, lapping idly under the
leaves of overhanging palm and pandanus, were not so cool as they
looked, under the hot midday sun; and if one did not want a tepid
sea-bath, it was best to wait till night. Then, what a luxury it was,
after the heat of the day (for Tonga, though cool for the tropics, is
nevertheless tropical), to float about in the dim lagoon, under a glow
of stars that fit up the sky almost as brightly as an English moon, the
dark shining water bearing one to and fro with the swell from the reef,
the land growing farther and farther away, the palms on the thin pale
shoreline standing out small and black, like Indian ink sketches,
against the lurid purple of the midnight sky! Willingly indeed one would
have passed the whole night out there, swimming, and floating in a warm
dark sea of stars--stars above and stars below--if nature had not given
out after an hour or two, and demanded a return to the solid earth.
Sharks? Well, they had “hardly ever” been seen inside the reef.
Stingarees, with their immense ugly bodies buried in the sand at the
bottom, and their cruel barbed tails ready to strike? Yes, they had been
seen, but not often; and in tropic waters you learn to take the
chances like every one else, and enjoy yourself without thinking of the
“might-be’s.”
[Illustration: 0382]
It was the hot season, but not too hot for riding or driving, and I
spent many mornings exploring about the island. To the Wood of the
Bats, about eleven miles from Nukualofa, one drives in a springy little
colonial buggy, driving over mile after mile of rather uneven grass
road, along avenues of blossoming orange trees, through groves of
bananas and breadfruit and tall mango trees, past straggling native
villages with neat little fancy-work houses made of woven reeds and
thatch, until, in the distance, one begins to hear a loud screaming,
squeaking, and chattering noise. This is the Wood of the Bats that we
are coming to, and that is some of their usual conversation. Under
the trees--there are over twenty of them, avavas, like great cedars,
ironwoods, mangoes; all big forest trees, and all covered with bats as
thick as a currant bush with currants--the squeaking and squealing
grows almost deafening, Thousands of great flying-foxes, with dark furry
bodies as big as cats, big spreading wings (now folded tightly up) and
sharp, keen fox-like heads, hang upside down on every tree, waiting
for the night to come, and whiling away the time by quarrelling and
swearing. They are all bad, these bats; they axe ugly, dirty, vicious,
destructive and greedy--yet they are strictly tabooed by the natives,
and no one dares to kill a single one. It is believed that the
prosperity of Tonga is inextricably associated with the bats, and that,
if they ever deserted the wood, the country would fall. They are sacred,
and must not be touched.
Every evening, punctually at five o’clock, the bats take wing, and
rise from the trees like a screaming cloud of evil spirits. The sky is
blackened with their bodies as they go, and scattered all over with the
long streaming flights of separate bats that divide away from the main
body. They are off to feed--to feed all night upon the bananas and
pineapples and mangoes of the unhappy islanders, who lose thousands
of pounds’ worth of fruit and trade every year, but dare not revenge
themselves. Just at dawn, they will return, screaming and shoving rudely
as they settle down in the trees once more, squabbling for upper
berths, and trying to push into a nice comfortable place amidships of a
particular bough, by biting the occupant’s toes until he lets go. They
may have flown forty or fifty miles in the night, visited islands more
than twenty miles away, and devastated the plantations of Tonga from end
to end. They have worked hard for their suppers, and now they will doze
and squabble all day, once more, until evening.
A few miles from the Wood of Bats, in the midst of exquisite scenery,
stands a famous avava known as Captain Cook’s Tree. It was under this
tree that the great explorer called together all the natives, on his
discovery of the islands in 1777, and addressed them by means of an
interpreter. The account of this will be found in “Cook’s Voyages.” The
tree is still in splendid condition, in spite of its age, which must
amount to many hundred years. Pigs were brought to Tonga by Cook in this
same year, and a few of the original breed are still to be seen in the
island--tall, gaunt, hump-backed creatures with immense heads and long
noses, contrasting oddly with the smaller and fatter kinds introduced by
later voyagers.
The burial-place of the Tui Tongans made an object for another drive.
Before the introduction of Christianity, in early Victorian days, the
Tongans had two kings, an ordinary earthly king, who did all the hard
work of governing, and a heavenly king, the Tui Tonga, who was
supposed to be of divine descent, and was worshipped as a god. For many
centuries, the Tui Tongas were buried in great oblong raised enclosures,
three-terraced, and built of rough-hewn, closely fitted slabs from the
coral reef. Two of these great tombs still remain, hidden in tangled
thickets of low bush, and considerably worn by age. I had no means
of measurement, but judged the larger one to be about fifty yards by
thirty, the smaller somewhat less. The state of the coral slabs, and the
great trees that have grown up rooted among them, suggest that the tombs
are extremely old. Tradition among the natives takes them back beyond
the recollection of any of their ancestors; they cannot say when or why
they were built. The construction--a double terrace, each step about
five feet high--and the carefully arranged oblong shape, seem to point
to some special significance long since forgotten. There is also a
“trilithon” erection of three large blocks of stone, some miles away,
concerning which island traditions are silent. It could not have been
constructed by hand labour alone; some mechanical device must have been
employed to raise the centre stone to its present position. The ancient
Tongans, however, knew nothing of mechanics, and an interesting problem
is therefore set for antiquarians to solve. The height of the side
supports is about twenty feet, and the centre cross-piece, which rests
in a socket on each side, is a little less in length.
The beautiful and interesting sea-caves--some swarming with birds,
others celebrated for their lovely colouring and formation--which are
found in the windward side of the island, I was unable to see, owing to
the bad weather of the rainy season, during which my visit was made.
A “Chief” kava-party, however, got up for my benefit, consoled me for
the loss of the caves. Kava is the great national drink of Tonga, as of
many other South Sea islands. It is made from the hard woody root of
the Piper methysticum and is exhilarating and cooling, but not actually
intoxicating. In taste, it is extremely unpleasant till one gets used
to it, being peppery, soapy, and dish-watery as to flavour. I had
drunk kava before, however, and learned to recognise its pleasanter
properties; also, the old custom of chewing the kava-root, before
infusing it, which still obtains in some parts of Samoa, has been quite
given up in Tonga, and the pounding is done with stones.
The scene was weird and strange in the last degree. I was the only white
person present. We all squatted on the mats in the chief’s house, the
natives in their valas and loose short gowns, with white scented flowers
in their hair; I in a smart demi-toilette evening dress, because I was
the special guest, and the chief’s family would expect me to honour them
by “dressing the part.” The only light was a ship’s hurricane lantern,
placed on the floor, where it threw the most Rembrandtesque of shadows
upon the silent circle of brown, glittering-eyed faces, and upon the
rapt ecstatic countenances of the kava-makers, as they went through all
the details of what was evidently an ancient religious ceremony, very
savage, very native, and not at all “missionary,” despite the church
membership of all the performers. There were loud sonorous chants and
responses, elaborate gymnastics, with the great twist of hibiscus fibre
that was used to strain the kava after it was pounded, and water poured
on; something very like incantations, and finally, a wild religious
ecstasy on the part of the kava-maker, who worked himself almost into a
fit, and at last sank back utterly exhausted, with the bowl of prepared
kava before him. This bowl was a standing vessel as big as a round
sponge bath, carved, legs and all, from one block of a huge forest
tree-trunk, and exquisitely polished and enamelled, by many years of
kava-holding. Its value was beyond price.
The calling of names now began--first the chief’s, then mine, then the
other guests. There is great ceremony observed at kava-drinkings, and an
order of precedence as strict as that of a German Court. As my name was
called, I clapped my hands once, took the cocoanut bowl from the girl
who was serving it, and swallowed the contents at a draught. The next
name was then called, and the next drinker drank as I did. It is very
bad manners to act otherwise. The girl who served the kava walked round
our squatting circle in a doubled-up posture that must surely have made
her back ache; but custom forbade her to stand erect while serving.
After the long ceremony was ended, the dignified white-haired chief held
a conversation with me, by means of an interpreter; and told me that
there were four ways of kava-drinking, each with its appropriate
etiquette.
That which I had seen was the most important and elaborate of the four,
very seldom used, and only permitted to chiefs. We exchanged a good
many stately compliments through the interpreter, and I then took my
departure.
It is near the end of my visit, and in a few more days, the steamer
takes me on to Haapai and Vavau and beautiful, steamy-hot Samoa. But
this is Christmas morning, and one can think of nothing else.
Nothing? Well, those who know what it is to spend that day of days under
a burning tropic sky, with palms and poinsettia for Christmas garlandry,
instead of holly and mistletoe, know just what thoughts fly homewards
across twelve thousand miles of sea, and how far they are concerned with
the sunny, lonely Christmas of the present--how far with the dark and
stormy Christmases of the past, when snow and winter reigned outside,
but summer, more brilliant than all the splendours of southern world,
was within, and in the heart. But it is of the Tongan Christmas day that
I have to tell.
I was awakened very early by--the waits! Whatever one expects under the
Southern Cross, one certainly does not expect that, and yet there they
were, a score of boys and youths playing merry tunes under my window,
and pausing now and then to see if I was not awake to come out and give
them their Christmas “tip.”
[Illustration: 0388]
I dressed hastily, and came on to the verandah. The music of the band,
which had puzzled me a good deal, now turned out to be produced solely
by mouth-organs, blown by a number of youths dressed exactly alike in
black valas, white linen jackets, and white uniform caps. The soul of
the Tongan loves a uniform above everything, and all the bands in the
islands--of whom there are an astonishing number--wear specially made
costumes of a rather military type.
It was frightfully hot, for Christmas is midsummer here, and the day was
exceptionally warm in any case.
But the “waits,” standing out in the burning sun, did not seem to feel
the heat at all. They blew lustily away at their mouth-organs, playing
English dance music, Tongan songs, missionary hymns, in wonderful time
and harmony, and with the inimitable Tongan verve and swing, poor though
the instruments were. The performance was quite worth the gift they
expected, I listened as long as they cared to play. Then they collected
their dues, and went off to serenade a white trader, who, I strongly
suspected, had been celebrating Christmas Eve after a fashion that would
not tend to make him grateful for an early call.
For me, Christmas had begun on the previous evening when I went to the
midnight Mass at the church upon the shore, among the palms and
the feathery ironwood trees. In the crystal-clear moonlight, what a
brilliant scene it was! Even outside the church, the decorations could
be seen for miles, since they consisted of thousands and thousands of
half-cocoanut-shells, filled with cocoanut oil, and provided with a wick
of twisted fibre, which when lit, burnt with a clear ray like a star,
illuminating the walls of the churchyard, the outlines of the doors and
the ridges of the roof--even the winding walks about the building, too,
and the low-growing trees--with a perfect Milky Way of dancing light.
Within, all the colours of a coral reef (which includes every hue of
a rainbow, and many more) were in full blaze about the tremendous,
unbroken floor, where the natives stood or sat cross-legged, dressed in
all their gayest finery. There was a heavy scent of perfumed cocoanut
oil, orange-blossom, and frangipani flowers and a rich glow of lights;
and the waves of gorgeous melody that burst forth now and again with the
progress of the service were like the billows of Time breaking upon
the shores of Eternity. Of all the choral singing that I heard in the
Pacific, that of Tonga was incomparably the fullest, the most splendid,
and most majestic. The singers of Manahiki are sweeter and stranger,
those of the Cook Islands more varied and soft, but the Tongan music is,
for sheer magnificence and volume, unsurpassable.
The women, in their graceful tunics, with their elaborately dressed
hair, and their fine, dignified presence, were all unlike the soft,
sensuous, languorous syrens of Tahiti and Raratonga, They do not
encourage familiarity, even from white women, and their moral character
is much higher than that of their sisters in the far Eastern Pacific.
Women are treated with more respect in Tonga than in any part of the
Pacific. They have little to do in the way of household work, and
almost no field work. The men save them most of the hard labour, on the
undeniable ground that hard work makes a woman ugly, and they do not
care for ugly wives!
Nearly every one wore a mat tied round the waist, partly concealing the
gay dress--in spite of the extreme heat of the night. Some of the mats
were new and clean, but most were old, ragged, and dirty. This curious
custom is a relic of ancient heathen days in Tonga, when a handsome
dress of any kind, worn by a commoner, was apt to arouse the dangerous
envy of a chief, and in consequence, a native who was wearing his “best”
generally tied the dirtiest old mat that he could get over all, so that
he might not look too rich! The reason has long since vanished, but
the custom remains in a modified form. A mat, tied round the waist with
strong sinnet cord, is considered a correct finish to the gayest of
festival costume in Tonga of to-day, and, as far as I was able to
ascertain, its absence, on occasions of ceremony, is considered rather
vulgar.
The service was enlivened by the presence of a very large and extremely
loud brass band. Brass is a passion with the Tongan musician, and
he certainly makes the most of it. The effects produced are a little
monotonous to a European ear, but, none the less, impressive and fine.
After the midnight mass, I went home in the bright moonlight, the gentle
stir of the trade-wind, the soft rustle of the ironwood trees, falling
with a pleasantly soothing effect upon ears a little strained and tired
by the strenuous character of the Tongan music. Next morning came the
waits, and in the afternoon there were games and sports of a rather too
familiar Sunday-school pattern, at the various mission stations. I did
not trouble to attend any of them, as the Pacific native is certainly
least interesting when most intent on copying the ways and fashions of
the white man. The cricket matches which came off at various intervals
during the few weeks of my stay, were well worth seeing, however, for
the Tongan is a magnificent cricketer, and has often inflicted bitter
defeat on the best teams that visiting men-of-war could put in the field
against him.
The politically disturbed state of the island was interesting in one
way, but a serious disadvantage in another, since it prevented my
obtaining much information about many interesting native customs that
I should have been glad to investigate. I am afraid that I deserved the
worst that scientifically minded travellers could say of me, in Tonga,
for I merely spent the time enjoying myself after the pleasant island
fashion, and not in research or geographical note-taking, even so far as
was possible. Yet, after all, what are the islands, if not a Garden
of Indolence, a lotus-land, a place where one dreams, and wanders, and
listens to the murmuring reef-song, and sleeps under the shade of a
palm, and wakes but to dream again? Does one degenerate, in such a life?
Why, yes, of course--constantly, surely, and most delightfully.
“_Be good, and you will be happy, but you won’t have a good time_,” says
“Pudd’nhead Wilson,” one of the wisest of modern philosophers. In the
islands, one is not good, in the ordinary Dr. Wattian sense of the term,
and perhaps one is not happy--though if so, one never finds it out. But
the good time one does have, and it is very good indeed. And if you do
not believe me, dear sensible reader, never be tempted to go and try,
for it is very likely that the good time and your own goodness would
mutually cancel one another, and you would be unvirtuous and bored
all in one. The islands are not for all, and the gateway to the
“Tir-na’n-Oge” is now, as ever, hard to find.
The big Union steamer, with her ice, and her “cuisine” (cooking is never
cooking, on board a passenger vessel), and her dainty little blue and
white cabins, and her large cool saloon glittering with crystal and
gilding, came in in due time, and I went away with her to Samoa. The
three days’ run was broken by two calls in the Tongan group--one at
Haapai, and one at Vavau.
Of Haapai, a long, low, wooded island, with a few hundred native
inhabitants, and one or two whites, we saw nothing but the king’s
palace--a great, square, two-storeyed, verandahed building, which is
never lived in--and the Wesleyan chapel, which has some of the
finest sinnet work in the Pacific to show. This sinnet work is quite
distinctive of the islands, and is very beautiful and artistic. It
is not one of the “curios” known to the markets and collections of
civilisation, because it is always done _in situ_, and cannot be
removed. At first sight, it looks like remarkably, good chip carving,
done on the capitals of pillars, and about the centres of supports
and beams, in various shades of red, black, brown, and yellow. Looking
closer, one sees that it is much more remarkable than carving, being a
solid mass of interwoven sinnet plait, as fine as very thin twine, wound
and twisted into raised patterns by the clever fingers of the natives.
In the church at Haapai, the sinnet plaiting is very fine and elaborate,
and certainly well worth seeing. The captain of the steamer, who acted
as our guide, made sure we had all seen it, and then took us a wild,
hot, hurried walk across the island, to the coral beach at the other
side, and past the palace, and along an endless cocoanut avenue, which
was very pretty, but----
We wanted our afternoon tea, and we mutinied at that point, and insisted
on going back to the ship. This grieved our commander, who conceived
that his duties to the Company required he should ensure every passenger
saw everything that was to be seen on the whole voyage, and shirked
nothing--but we threatened to overpower and maroon him, if he did not
take us back, so he returned, lecturing learnedly about the cutting off
of the “Port-au-Prince,” in Haapai, by the natives, in seventeen hundred
and I-forget-when. We ought to have been listening--but we wanted our
tea, and we weren’t.
We reached Vavau just before dark, barely in time to admire the
wonderful windings and fiords, the long blue arms and bright green
islets, of this Helen among island harbours. Vavau is celebrated for its
beauty through all the South Sea world, and its loveliness has not been
one whit exaggerated.
In the early morning--at half-past five, to be precise--the energetic
captain routed all the passengers out of their bunks, and compelled
them, by sheer force of character, to follow him, groaning and puffing,
up a hill five hundred feet high, and exceedingly precipitous--a mere
crag, in fact--that overlooked the harbour. We did not want to go, but
none of us were sorry we had been compelled, when we did get to the top
and saw that matchless harbour lying extended at our feet, mile after
mile of land-locked fiord and palmy headland and exquisite green island,
all set in a stainless mirror of flaming blue, and jewelled, where the
shallows lightened to the shore, with flashes of marvellous colour shot
up from the coral reef lying underneath. Rose and amethyst and violet,
and malachite green and tawny yellow--they were all there, painting
the splendid sweep of the harbour waters with hues that no mortal brush
could reproduce, or pen describe. We stayed there long, and even the
thought of breakfast, generally a moving call, did not hurry us away.
In the afternoon, the captain had business to attend to, so he turned
out one of the officers to act as guide, and sent us all off to see
the Cave of the Swallows, and Mariner’s Cave, on the other side of the
harbour.
If the Cave of the Swallows were situated on any European coast, it
would be as tourist-ridden a spot as the Blue Grotto of Capri, or
any other of the thousand famous caves through which holiday-making
travellers are dragged each summer season--and would consequently be
despoiled of half its loveliness. But it is very far away, in the South
Sea Islands, and though a passenger steamer does visit Vavau once a
month there are usually no tourists--only a missionary and a trader or
two. So the lovely place lies undisturbed almost all the time, and you
shall not find, when you row across the harbour to see it, that you
have to wait your turn in a crowd of other boats, full of romping and
larking trippers, with the guide of every party keeping a sharp look-out
to see that no one takes longer than he ought going over the “sight”--so
long as his charges remain outside.
Instead of this, we glide silently under a noble archway some fifty feet
high, and enter a great, still, ocean sanctuary, that looks as if no
wandering oar had ever profaned its peace, since first the white man
came to these far-off isles. Outside, the water is Prussian blue in
colour, and over a thousand feet deep, but within the arch of the cave
the bottom shoots up till it is within a hundred feet of the glass-clear
surface on which we float, hanging above the silver-coloured coral reefs
of the deep sea-bed, like birds hanging in air. The roof and walls of
the cave are brilliant verdigris green, the water-floor, that curves so.
closely in and out of the numerous arches and recesses, where mysterious
shadows creep, is sapphire shot with fire. At one side of the cave there
is a dark winding corridor leading to depths unknown. We glide down
this a little way, and there before us opens out--surely, a temple and
a shrine! The water-floor spreads and broadens here into the carpet of
a high, still, secret inner cave, in the centre of which springs up a
splintered pedestal--shattered, one fancies, by the blow that broke the
image that must surely once have stood in this strange sea-shrine. From
an unseen rift in the roof, far above, a white ray of sun strikes down
into the cave, and falls like a blast from an offended heaven upon the
broken pedestal.
There is a geological explanation, no doubt, but we shall not look for
it, for this is a wonder that would have delighted Victor Hugo himself,
who drew the scenery of the “Toilers of the Sea.” And Victor Hugo’s pen
would be needed by any one who would adequately describe the spot.
There is a rock in the outer cave, that sounds like a church bell when
struck with an oar, and this delights the boatmen greatly, though they
have heard it every time the steamer came up to Vavau. It is, indeed, a
solemn and beautiful sound, and well suited to the place.
Going back to the ship, we are shown the spot where the famous Mariner’s
Cave opens out, under water. There is nothing whatever to be seen, since
the entrance is six feet under water at low tide. The story was first
told to the world in Mariner’s “Tonga,” published 1802, and was utilised
by Byron in his poem of “The Island.” A young chief, it was said, was
chasing a turtle one day, and saw the creature dive. He followed it, and
was surprised to find that, on rising after his dive, he had reached an
under-water cave of considerable size, to which there was no outlet save
the one by which he had come in. Giving up the turtle, he dived again,
returned to the surface, and did not trouble himself about the cave
until, some months later, it occurred to him as an excellent place for
an elopement--the parents of the girl he loved having refused to
give her to him. So it came about that the young chief’s sweetheart
disappeared, and no one knew what had become of her until one day a
boating party, to their intense amazement, saw what appeared to be the
ghost of the girl rising from the heart of the waves. The apparition
stared round, saw the intruders, and immediately disappeared. She was
seen no more, but the story caused so much talk, that in the end the
true secret came out, and it was discovered that the chief had hidden
his lady-love in the cave, diving down with food to her day by day,
and even bringing torches, safely wrapped in leaves. The stem parents,
touched by so much devotion, relented, and the chief triumphantly
brought home his bride at last in full day.
Mariner, who was interested in the ancient tale, succeeded in reaching
the cave himself, and found it as represented. He surmised that there
was an air supply, passing through invisible cracks in the rock above,
for the air seemed to keep fresh. There was something like a rough couch
of stone at one end, where the imprisoned girl had made her bed. No
light whatever penetrated the cavern.
Since Mariner’s time, very few Europeans have succeeded in entering the
cave, which is extremely difficult to get into, owing to the length of
the passage under water, and the currents of the tides. About thirty
years ago, Captain Luce, of H.M.S. _Esk_, succeeded in entering the
cave, but rose too soon on going out, and lacerated his back so badly
against the coral spears under water, that he died in a few days. Since
then, I heard that one white man had gone safely in and returned, but no
one seemed to know who, or when. None of our party, at all events, felt
tempted to make the trial.
The steamer was ready to start when we got back, so we hurried on board,
and started away for Samoa. There was much more to see in Vavau, but
the only way of seeing it was to stop over for a month and remain in the
village. For this no one had time. I was giving a month to each group
of islands, which is little enough in the Pacific--but I knew very well
that, unless I had had a vessel of my own, or a year or two extra to
spend, it was impossible to see all that could be seen.
Tofoa, for instance, one of the Tongan Group, which is an active
volcano, and, naturally, not inhabited--what could be more interesting
than a call there? But uninhabited volcanoes do not furnish cargo for
steamship companies, so all we could see was a smear of smoke in the
far distance, as we steamed on our way to Apia, the capital of the
“Navigators” Group, better known, since the days of Stevenson, as Samoa.