CHAPTER XIX.

GRIM-VISAGED WAR.

At length the day of conflict arrived. The enemy had been seen clustering on the heights, two miles distant from Ramáka, the bolebole or public review of the soldiers had been held, and Hot-Water’s forces marched forth, led by their chief, redolent of oil, turmeric, and sandalwood preparations, and his great head of hair glistening like dew in the sunlight The priest bore before the host a sacred stone, which was said to have fallen from the sky, and was venerated and feared as a representative of the God of War. Hot-Water delivered a spirit-stirring harangue to his troops, in which he bid them roll on like the multitudinous sea, break on the enemy with the roar and irresistible force of ocean waves, and drive them to their fastnesses like the receding tide.

The head-dresses were of a most elaborate and grotesque kind. The Fijians exhaust their ingenuity in arranging striking coiffures. Sometimes the hair was black, sometimes white with lime obtained from the coral, or powdered ashes of the bread-fruit leaf, and sometimes marked with different shades of red. Many had their hair frizzed out with a comb till it resembled a wig 8 or 9 inches thick, being of an equal height at the top, back, and sides. I noticed one man with whitened hair from which black tufts arose in regular order. Another appeared to be enveloped in a thick hood. A third presented a wall-like front a few inches back from his forehead, the carving appearing to have been done on a solid substance. A fourth wore his hair in corded tassels behind; the hirsute ornamentation of a fifth took the form of tiers arranged with geometrical accuracy, while a sixth presented alternate cones and flat spaces. In short, the variety of styles was infinite, and these dandies were as vain of the figure they cut as any ball-room _belle_. There were faces painted in stripes, circles, and spots; faces like clowns, and faces with only a brilliantly red nose glaring from a wide surface of jet black. To produce these effects the seeds of the vermilion tree, charcoal, fungus, and coral lime are used. When the lime has been washed off, the hair is left a set tawny colour.

Big-Wind must have had under his command altogether 2,000 men, but they were not so well skilled in war as the redoubtable foes they had to meet. Hot-Water’s army did not number more than 1,500 effectives, but they had a tower of strength in their three white men, Turner, Cobb, and myself, each armed with a brown bess and 12 rounds of ammunition.

As we advanced up hill I thought of the following words which the warriors chanted the previous evening as a stimulus to the brave, and in ridicule of renegades:

Where is he our fearless hero, He who led us forth so bravely? Fall’n in battle, fall’n in charging, Fall’n and dragged away to vict’ry. Vict’ry found in burning oven! Where is he, the coward turncoat? He who ran at sight of foeman! Ran ere ever glanced an arrow! Ran with glee to tell his clansmen How he bravely brought the message, Bravely turned his back on fighting!

The first engagement took place on the wooded slope of a hill. Big-Wind’s picked men descended boldly from the crest to the attack. None of the combatants carried either shield or target. With their athletic figures and polished weapons glinting in the sun, they made an imposing and formidable appearance. Clubs were always directed against heads, and spears against the body. The conch-shell sounded the onset, and soon the wood rang with the clash of these lustily wielded weapons. Spears armed with the thorns of the sting-ray, were burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and sharp-edged clubs, sometimes thrown, and sometimes used like a battle-axe, were occasionally buried fast in the skulls at which they were aimed. I more than once distinguished the exquisitely symmetrical form of Big-Wind, his turban of white masi floating in the wind as he laid about him in the eddy and whirl of the fight, the markings on his painted skin shining like diamonds embossed upon a black velvet ground. I also saw Bent-Axe leading another wing of the attacking party in all the splendour of savage raiment, and with the habitual look of dissolute audacity on his ill-favoured visage.

The battle raged fiercely and without advantage to either side. A shout of exultation from the Tivóli people told us that they had been the first to secure a body, which was immediately tied with sinnet and carried off on a pole rove through the corpse. The obtaining of the first offering for the temple, was considered a good omen for Big-Wind. Believing that the tide of fortune was turning against him, Hot-Water called upon the white men to bring their foreign weapons into play.

The rattle of musketry was heard in the hills of Viti Lévu for the first time. The people saw the flash, heard the report, and soon learned that a terrible messenger of death was among them. Recognising me, they shouted that the Child of the Hurricane was a god after all, and that it was useless to attempt to prevail against the enemy for whom he fought.

Bent-Axe, the King’s Lieutenant, was furious when he found his soldiers deserting him. He reminded them that he was born in the daytime, and was therefore a great warrior; and, moreover, that he was invulnerable, not only against white men, but against gods, being the possessor of god-armour.

It will be as well to explain here that one of the most wonderful elfin tribes of Cannibal-land is a marine tribe, remarkable for two things—its population, which defies arithmetic, and the depth of mystery, which, as the Fijian imagines, inwraps it. Its people are a sort of demigods, known in many places as “Children of Water,” or “Water Babies.” Some of the poets and legend-mongers speak of them as the “People of the Plain,” and “God-soldiers,” _i.e._, soldiers, who, on great occasions, are specially favoured by the gods, and in their turn are able to help landsmen in their battles with their own species. They are believed to be more nearly related to gods than men; and the former, in consequence of that nearer relationship, have made them war-proof—living fortifications in fact—against which no weapon whatever can prevail. From this belief arose numbers of professional men who gave it forth to the world that they likewise were favoured with this close connexion with the gods, and had thereby gained possession of the grand secret by which any hero going out to meet his foe, might be so clothed with “god-armour,” as to cause arrows to glance aside, clubs to fall harmlessly, and spears to lose their piercing power.

Turner and Cobb blazed away, and the enemy rapidly melted in presence of the sulphurous charm. Bent-Axe, however, advanced, club in hand, to the spot where I stood, perfectly drunk with passion; his heavy brow was corrugated with anger; his large nostrils were distended, and fairly smoking; his eyeballs blazed red like a lighted coal when blown upon; and his foam-covered mouth wore a murderous and contemptuous grin.

I raised my musket, and called on him to surrender.

“When the shell of the giant-oyster shall have perished by reason of years, still will my hatred of you be hot,” roared the savage.

“The white man,” said I “is merciful. He knows his power, but does not wish to exercise it.”

“You are like the kaka,”[17] tauntingly responded Bent-Axe, “you only speak to shout your own name.”

Footnote 17:

The onomatopoetic name for parrot in Fiji.

He swung his massive club aloft to fell me, and I discharged my weapon at his breast. When the smoke cleared away, the savage was gone, but his club lay at my feet, and it was stained with blood.

Big-Wind withdrew his forces behind a rampart of brushwood six feet thick, and his men, with renewed courage, waving long streamers from the battlements, shouted defiance to the foe. Under the direction of Hot-Water, a huge fascine of boughs and dried leaves tied together with sinnet, was constructed. His soldiers rolled it before them in the complete security of its shelter. When it reached the rampart, a light was applied. The fascine burst into flames, and in a few minutes the brushwood fence had disappeared with it. A volley from the white men’s muskets completed the discomfiture of the enemy.

The fortune of war was all with us. Hot-Water’s troops followed up their advantage, and a fearful scene of carnage ensued. The women of Ramáka came out to meet the victorious soldiers on their return, laden with hopelessly wounded prisoners and dead bodies. Nameless indignities were put upon the slain, and songs were chanted which will not bear translating.

In the impromptu triumphal chants, allusion was made to the men who had most distinguished themselves in the contest. I heard frequent reference to myself as the slayer of the redoubtable Bent-Axe, and also to the might of the white man’s matchless arms.