CHAPTER XVI.

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.