LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris ISAAC FOOT W1UD LIFE Z3\C SOUTHERN By the Same Author. Pacific Tales. Frontispiece Portrait. Cloth, 6s. The Ebbing of the Tide: South Sea Stories. Cloth, 6s. By Reef and Palm. Cloth, 2s. ; paper, is. 6d. His Native Wife. Photogravure Frontis- piece by LESLIE BROOKE. Cloth, 2s. ; paper, is. 6d. By Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery. A First Fleet Family. Cloth, 6s. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. Wild Life in Southern Seas BY Louis BECKE LONDON T. FISHED 1897 [All rights reserved."] CONTENTS PAGE ORCA GLADIATOR .... I GREEN DOTS OF THE EMPIRE : THE ELLICE GROUP . . . . 14 THE TIA KAU . . . . .29 THE AREOIS . . . . 4 1 AUSTRALIA'S HERITAGE ; THE NEW HEBRIDES GROUP . . . . -59 JACK IN THE ATOLLS . . .68 THE CUTTING OFF OF THE " BOYD " . 79 MY NATIVE SERVANTS . . .88 GENTE HERMOSA : THE ISLAND OF "BEAU- TIFUL PEOPLE " . . . lOf DEEP-SEA FISHING IN POLYNESIA . .112 vii viii Contents. PAGE BIRGUS THE ROBBER : THE PALM CRAB OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS . . Il8 ON AN AUSTRAL BEACH . . 138 A NOBLE SEA GAME .... 147 THE GIGANTIC ALBICORE OF POLYNESIA THE TAKUO . . . . -158 OLD SAMOAN DAYS . . . IJ2 THE KING'S ARTILLERYMEN . . .212 "LEVIATHAN" .... 222 AN ISLAND KING .... 248 A SPURIOUS UTOPIA . . . . 257 LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN POLYNESIA . . 266 NIUE : THE " SAVAGE ISLAND " OF CAPTAIN COOK ..... 279 THE OLD AND THE NEW STYLE OF SOUTH SEA TRADER ... . . 302 RAPA t THE FORGOTTEN . . . 320 HINO, THE APOSTATE : A TALE OF THE MID- PACIFIC . . . . . 331 IN THE MORNING .... 362 Orca Gladiator. WE a little girl of six, and myself were seated upon a high, flat-topped, grassy headland of a lonely part of the northern coast of New South Wales, five miles from the old penal settlement of Port Macquarie. Three hundred feet below, the long Pacific rollers, unruffled by the faintest breath of air, swept in endless but surfless succession around a chain of black, isolated, and kelp-covered rocks that stood out from the shore at a distance of a cable-length or so. The tide was low, and some of the rocks raised their jagged, sun-dried summits perhaps six feet above the surface ; others scarce a foot, so that each gentle swell as it came wavering shoreward poured over their faces in a creamy lather of foam ; others again were fathoms below, and their thick garments of kelp and weed swayed to and fro unceasingly to the sweep of the ocean roll above 2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. them. And in and about the rocks, and hover- ing over the white gleam of sandy bottom that, like a great table of ivory, lay between them and the cliff-bound shore, swam droves of bright, pink-coloured schnapper, and great, lazily moving blue-fish. Half a mile away a swarm of white gulls floated motionless upon the blue expanse ; upon the time-worn fore- shore boulders beneath us stood lines and groups of black divers, with wings outspread in solemn silence, gazing seaward. We had climbed the headland to look for whales ; for it was the month of October, when the great schools of humpbacks and finbacks were travelling southward to colder seas from their breeding grounds among the Bampton Shoals, nine hundred miles away, north-east. For three weeks they had been passing south, sometimes far out from the land, sometimes within a mile of the shore hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of rich blubber, with never a whaleship nor whaleboat's crew within two thousand miles ; for the brave old days of Australian whaling enterprise died full thirty years ago. At last, a mile or so away, a jet of smoky Orca Gladiator. 3 spray, and then another and another ! Five humpbacks two cows, two calves, and a bull only a small "pod" that is, a school. Nearer and nearer they came, their huge, black humps gleaming brightly in the dazzling sun- light as they rose to spout. A hundred yards in front, the old bull rolls lazily along, " sound- ing " but rarely, for the sea is full of squid, and he and his convoy, with drooping lower jaws, suck in the lovely morsels in countless swarms. Six weeks before, as they had rolled and spouted northwards to the great lagoons of the Bampton and Bellona Reefs, they had passed within, perhaps, a hundred yards of the head- land upon which we sat. Perhaps, too, a fierce " north-easter " blew, and the chain of rocks that was now so gently laved by the murmuring waves was smothered in the wild turmoil of a roaring surf, and the great bull, although his huge, corrugated belly itched sorely from the thick growth of inch-long barnacles that had so tormented him of late, spouted regretfully and headed seaward again even he could not scratch his giant frame in such a surf as that. But to-day it was different ; and now he could 4 Wild Life in Southern Seas. enjoy that long-delayed pleasure of dragging his great body over the rough surfaces of the submerged rocks, and tearing those dreadfully irritating barnacles off his twenty-five feet of grey-white ridgy stomach. For, suddenly, he raised his vast head, and then " sounded," straight on end, and the child by my side gave a gasp of wondering terror as she saw his mighty tail rise a good ten feet in air and then slowly vanish beneath the sea. On went the cows and calves, apparently taking no heed of father's sudden dive shore- ward. He would soon be back, they knew, as soon as the poor fellow had rid himself of those tormenting barnacles ; and so with diminished speed they kept in southwards towards Camden Haven. But just as the great bull came burst- ing through the blue depths into the greeny hue of six fathoms of water, we saw between him and the " pod " two small jets, like spurts of steam, shoot up from the water between him and his convoy ; and in another second the cows and calves had sounded in deadliest terror, and were rushing seaward, two thousand feet below. For they knew that out there in the depths lay their only hope of safety from their Orca Gladiator. 5 dreaded and invincible enemies, the " killers " and "threshers" of the South Pacific the murderous, savage cetacean pirates that lie in wait for the returning " pods " as they travel southwards to the colder seas of Tasmania. As the great humpback reached the chain of rocks, and had begun to scratch, his foes had advanced silently but swiftly towards him. Before them swam their equally fierce and dreaded ally, Alopias F'ulpes, the " thresher," or fox-shark. But, before I tell of that noble fight of giants, which for nearly two hours we gazed at on that October morning from the lonely headland, let me say something about Alopias Vutyes and his fellow pirate, Orca Gladiator, the ''killer." First of all, then, as to the " thresher." He is a shark, pure and simple, and takes his name from his enormous, scythe-like, bony tail, which forms two-thirds of his length. His mouth is but small, and whales have little to fear from that, but dread the terrible knife-like sweep and downward slash of his tail ; for each stroke cuts through the tough skin and sinks deep into the blubber. Such is the " thresher," and in every 6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. drove of "killers" there is always one thresher, sometimes two. The " killer " is actually a whale, for he is warm-blooded and rises to the surface to spout, which he does in a manner that has often led to his being mistaken for a humpback, or finback whale. He is distinguishable only from the grampus by his mouth, which has teeth and terrible teeth in both jaws : the grampus has teeth in his lower jaw only. When he (the grampus) is a baby he has teeth in both jaws, but those of the upper jaw are shed and fall out when he is about half grown. The killer has teeth in both jaws, as many a poor humpback and finback has found out to his cost, for the fierce creature does justice to his name Orca Gladiator. The killers have a business, and they never neglect it. It is the business of whale catching and killing. They are the bull-dog pirates of the deep sea, and on the coast of Australia their headquarters are at Twofold Bay. Sometimes, but not often, they have been known to attack the monarch of the ocean, the sperm whale. But they generally leave him alone. He is too big, too powerful, and his great eight-inch teeth Orca Gladiator. J and fierce spirit render him a dangerous customer to tackle. But with the right whale, the humpback, and the seventy-foot flying finback, the killers can work their cruel will. And now to the fight we saw. For about ten minutes or so the great hump- back dragged his monstrous fifty feet of flesh and blubber across the tops of the submerged rocks, raising sometimes his vast head and some- times his mighty flukes out of the water, as with all the weight of his giant body he rubbed, and scraped, and scratched his itching belly against the surface of the rocks. Suddenly, a long, slender, greyish object swept like lightning upon him, and the thresher buried his teeth in the loose skin of his " small " that is, about fifteen or sixteen feet from his tail. And at the same moment, with savage puffs of spray shooting high from their blow-holes, the two killers darted at his head and seized him by the jaws. In ten seconds there was nought to be seen but a maddened whirl and seeth of foam, as the unfortunate victim sought to escape seaward. Well did he know that in such shallow water there was but five or six 8 Wild Life in Southern Seas. fathoms he could not sound far below into ocean's depths, and, carrying his foes with him, compel them to rise for air. Fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes exhausts the air supply of a killer ; a whale can remain below the surface for sixty. But he made a bold attempt. Raising his enormous head high in air, and giving it a mighty shake, he freed himself from one of the killers, whose body, twenty feet in length, he hurled from him as if it were a minnow ; but the other, with his cruel teeth buried bull-dog fashion in his thick lips, hung on with savage tenacity. And down upon his " small " the thresher, with his teeth gripping the loose, tough, and wrinkled skin, upreared his lengthy form, and brought his awful scythe- like tail down upon the victim's back, with a smack that could be heard half a mile away. It cut, and then, as the whale rolled in his agony from the blow, a broad, white streak of blubber oozed through the severed skin. Before he could gather his strength for that seaward rush, which meant life, the thrown-off killer was back, and had seized him again by his starboard lip. Too late ! he could not sound and could not flee, and the poor, worried animal seemed Orca Gladiator. 9 to know it, for suddenly he lay quiet, while the bulldogs shook him and the thresher dealt him steady but fearful blows upon his broad expanse of shining back. " Oh, the poor whale ! " said my little com- panion, as she shudderingly clutched my arm. " Look at that ! " The killer fastened to the left jaw of the helpless, floating monster, raising his square white and black head about a foot or two out of the water, gave it that quick jerk one sees a fox-terrier give to a rat, and brought away in his jaws a piece of lip about a yard long a thick strip of bloody white and red. And, as a terrier throws a rat backward and upward, so did the killer throw away the gory mass ; it fell with a heavy splash upon the water some fathoms away. Then with a mighty leap the wretched whale sprang clear out of the water, standing for a moment or two straight up and down, and as he swung his body round in falling, we saw the blood pouring from his jaws in a stream. He fell upon his back with a terrific splash of foam, and for a few seconds was out of sight ; again he raised his head the killers were both fastened to his lips again, io Wila Life in Southern Seas. tearing off the blubbery flesh in monstrous strips. Once, as he wallowed in his agony, he opened his vasty jaw, and ere he could close his mouth one of his foes thrust in his bull-dog head and sought to tear away a piece of his great tongue. And then came such a crashing and splashing and bewildering leaping of foam, and his tail upreared itself and swept round and round in all directions, and then struck the water a blow that sounded like a thunderclap. " Look," said the child again, " there are more of those cruel killers coming ; see, there they are, just below us ! Oh ! how I hate them ! " Fifty feet away from the persecuted hump- back, and sailing round and round in the green water beyond the rocks, were five sharks. They had smelt the blood of the battle, and were waiting till they could join in, and, while the killers forced their heads into the humpback's mouth and tore out his toothsome tongue, feed upon the quivering mass of blubber and rend him in pieces from his head down to his " small." The unfortunate animal was now becoming Orca Gladiator. 1 1 rapidly exhausted, and although he still struck the water resounding blows with his tail, he was convulsed with pain and terror, and swam slowly round and round in a circle, spouting feebly, and rolling from side to side in a vain effort to shake off the killers, and find his way to the open sea. Then, as if wearied with their attempts to get at his tongue, the two destroyers suddenly let go their hold and swam away some twenty yards or so ; and the thresher, too, although he still lay alongside, ceased his fearful blows and let his long, narrow, and tapering body lie motionless upon the water, and the five grey sharks drew nearer and nearer. But the killers had not left him, for after spouting once or twice, they slewed round and came at the prey with a savage rush, and, leaping bodily out of the water, flung them- selves upon his back time and time again with the most cruel and extraordinary pertinacity. And so, at last, there he Jay, his monstrous head and thirty feet of his back raised high out of the water, and the white seethe of foam in which his colossal frame writhed and shuddered in deadly torment was tinged deeply with a bloodied red. Better far would 12 Wild Life in Southern Seas. have been for him the swift, death-dealing stroke of the whaler's lance, or the dreadful " squish " of the bursting bomb as it entered his vitals, and put an end to him at once, than endure such tortures as now were his. But, presently, gathering his strength for one final effort, one last spout slowly curled out, he lowered his head, raised his tail, and dashed headlong seaward. And like demons from the pit the two killers followed him down. They knew that for a mile out the water was too shallow for him to get away from them. Behind, the five sharks swept in swift pursuit ; ahead of all Alopias Vutyes cleft the water with sharp vicious " tweeps " of his long tail. Five, perhaps six, minutes passed, and then, with a roaring burst of foam, and spouting quickly, he raised his immense form half out of the water and, supporting himself upon his tail, spun round and round. Twice his cave- like mouth opened and shut, and as he beat the sea into froth and spume around, a strange, awe-inspiring sound accompanied his last spout ; for the sharks were at him below, tearing and riving out mouthfuls of blubber, and the killers Orca Gladiator. 1 3 had dragged out his tongue. One last shudder- ing gasp, and the now unconscious creature sank backward, and describing a circle in his final " flurry," rolled over, " fin up," and gave up his greasy ghost. Green Dots of the Empire : The R I lice Group. DOTS only. And if the ship that carries you is running past them in the night, with the steady force of the south-east trades filling her canvas, you would never know that land lay within a few miles, save for the flashing of lights along the low sandy beaches or, may- hap, the dulled roar of the beating surf thrashing the reef on the windward side of the island. This, of course, implies that when ships pass in the night they do so on the lee-side. It is not a safe thing for even a daring trading schooner to have a long, long stretch of low-lying reef- encircled islets for a lee ; for sometimes Matagi toe lau (as the brown-skinned people call the trade wind) is apt, a few hours before dawn, to lull itself to slumber for a space, till the sun, bursting from the ocean, wakes it to life again. Green Dots of the Empire. 1 5 And should the schooner have drifted down upon the land with the stealthy westerly current there is no such thing as trusting even to good ground tackle on the weather side of an Ellice Group atoll. Did the ocean slumber too, and the black ledges of the windward reef were laved but by the gentlest movement of the water, there would be no anchorage, unless the ship were loaded with a cable long enough ; and ere the sun has dried the dews of the night on the coconuts the merry trade wind pipes up again, the smooth surface of the ocean swells and undulates, the rollers sweep in from the eastward and charge wildly against the black wall of coral rock, smothering it in a maddened tumble of froth and foam, the while the smoky sea-spume is carried on high to fall in drenching showers upon the first line of coco-palms and puka scrub growing down close to the iron- bound shore. And of the eight islands of the Ellice Group all are alike in this respect a wild tumultuous surf for ever beats upon the weather shore even under the influence of the ordinary trade wind ; and, on the lee, there lies a sea as placid and motionless as a mountain lake. 1 6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Four years ago the Gilbert and Kingsmill Groups (known collectively as the Line Islands) and the Ellice Group were annexed by Great Britain ; and although people in Australia hear and read a good deal about the Gilberts and Kingsmills by reason of their being the location of the newly-appointed British Resident and Deputy-Commissioner for the Western Pacific, seldom is anything heard about or told of the almost equally important Ellice Group. The reason for this is not far to seek. The Line Islanders fierce, turbulent, and war-loving people, island hating island with the same savage animosity that characterised the High- land clans of the thirteenth century are a difficult race to govern, and although the London Missionary Society has done much good, the Resident has his work cut out to prevent the people of his sixteen islands shooting and cutting each other's throats as they did in the good old days. For when Captain Davis, of Her Majesty's ship Royalist, hoisted the English flag, he sternly intimated that there was to be no more fighting, and later on the High Commissioner, Sir John Thurston, in the Rapid, made them disarm ; Green Dots of the TLmpire. 17 but scarce had the smoke from the steamer's funnel vanished from the horizon than the old leaven worked, and rifles, carefully hidden away from the naval men, were brought forth from their concealment and put to use. And so every few months or so the Australian news- papers notify that " there has been fresh trouble in the Gilbert Group." However, all this will be a thing of the past in another year or two, although it is safe to predict that it will be Jong ere the Gilbert Islander man or woman gives up the manufacture and use of sharks' teeth swords and daggers. And as these weapons are not necessarily fatal, and are time- honoured arguments for settling public and family differences, perhaps it will be as well for the High Commissioner to let them possess the means of letting out in a moderate degree some of their quick, hot blood. But the people of the Ellice Group show the other side of the picture, and their calm, placid existence, undisturbed except by a family quarrel, explains why saving the visit of a surveying ship no men-of-war steam up to the anchor- ages outside the reefs, or into the lagoons, and hold courts of inquiry into native outbreaks or 3 1 8 Wild Life in Southern Seas. private shootings. The Ellice Islanders never fight, for they have a horror of bloodshed, and except for a few fowling-pieces used for shooting pigeons, there are no firearms in the group save those in the possession of the white traders. Six hundred miles from Samoa, sailing north- westerly, the first of the group, Sophia Island, is sighted. It is the south-easterly outlier of the Ellices, and is the only one of sufficient height to be seen from the vessel's deck at a distance of twenty miles. Until a few years ago it was un- inhabited, although the people of the next island, Nukulaelae, say that " in the old, old time many people lived there." It is about three and a half miles in circumference, has but few coconuts growing upon it, and would have remained untenanted in its loneliness to this day but for the discovery of a fairly valuable deposit of guano. Then it was taken possession of by an enterprising American store-keeper in Samoa named Moors, who landed native labourers and worked, and is still working, the deposit. The old native name of this spot is Ulakita a name, by the way, that is almost unknown even to the Green Dots of the Empire. 19 local traders in the Ellice Group, and the present generation of natives. Eighty or ninety miles away is Nukulaelae, a cluster of thirteen low-lying islets, forming a perfect atoll, and enclosing with a passageless and continuous reef a lagoon five miles in length by three in width. This narrow belt of land in no case is any one of the islets over a mile in width is densely covered with coconuts, and, seen from the ship, presents an enchanting ap- pearance of the brightest green, accentuated on the westerly or lee shore by beaches of the most dazzling white. Thirty years ago Nukulaelae had a population of four hundred natives. Then one day, in 1866, there came along two strange vessels, a barque and a brig, and hove-to close to the reef, and in a few hours nearly two hundred of the unfortunate, unsuspecting, and amiable natives were seized and taken on board by the Peruvian cut-throats and kidnappers that had swept down upon them, and, with other companions in misery, torn from their island homes, taken away to slavery in the guano pits of the Chincha Islands, on the coast of South America. Of the Nukulaelae people none but two ever returned they all perished miserably 20 Wild Life in Southern Seas. under their cruel taskmasters on the gloomy Chinchas. In 1873 it was the writer's lot to meet, in the Caroline Islands, with one of the two survivors of this dreadful outrage. By some means he had escaped in an English guano ship to Liverpool, and then, after years of wandering in American whalers among the islands of the Pacific, he settled down among the natives of Las Matelotas, in the Carolines, thousands of miles away from his birthplace ; and although sorely tempted to accept the offer made to him by our captain of a passage to Nukulaelae, the Matelotas people refused to let him go, as he had married a girl of the island and had a family. (Apropos of these Peruvian slavers, it may be mentioned that a few months after their visit to Nukulaelae, joined by another barque, they made a similar descent upon the people of Rapa-nui the mysterious Easter Island and secured three hundred and ten victims.) At present the population of Nuku- laelae is about one hundred and fifty, all of whom are Christians. Like all the other islands of this group, the population is showing a slow but certain increase. Within a few hours' sail lies Funafuti, an Green Dots of the Empire. 2 1 extensive chain of some thirty-four or thirty- five islands similar in appearance to the islets of Nukulaelae, but enclosing a noble lagoon, en- trance to which is given by good passages both on the south-west and north-west sides. The Russian navigator Kotzebue sailed his frigate through Funafuti Lagoon from one end to the other with a strong breeze blowing, and found, what trading vessels to-day know well, that un- less a vessel is making something like eight knots it is almost impossible to stem the fierce current that sweeps through the passages at half-tide. But once well within the lagoon, and away from the trend of the passage current, there is room for half a dozen or more battleships in which to manoeuvre. About six miles from the south- west entrance the ship may drop anchor off the main island of the chain; and here the native settlement is situated. Fifty years ago nearly every island in the lagoon supported a popula- tion ; to-day there are but four or five hundred natives all told, all of whom live on the island from which the whole group takes its general name, Funafuti. The natives are a hospitable, good-tempered, and intelligent lot, and express themselves as 22 Wild Life in Southern Seas. being delighted to be included as British subjects. And there can be but little doubt that in a few years, once assured of the good intentions of the English authorities to them, they will agree to lease out to traders and copra- buyers the long stretch of dense but narrow sea- girt coconut forests that form the southern boundary of the lagoon. At present, and, in- deed, for the past forty years, some millions of coconut palms are there allowed to fruiten and literally cover the ground with coconuts from year to year without the natives gathering more than will provide them with their few wants in the way of clothing, tobacco, etc., which they purchase from the one or two resident traders. Time after time have the people been approached by white agents of trading firms notably in years past by Godeffroy's of Hamburg on the subject of leasing one particularly noble island, named Funafala, for the purpose of making the coconuts into copra. Liberal terms and for a South Sea trading firm to offer liberal terms to natives shows the value of the concessions sought were offered, but the Funafutans would have none of the white men on Funafala. A solitary trader or so they would tolerate in the Green Dots of the Empire. 23 only village, but no body of strange, dissolute foreigners would they have to live among them, accompanied by wild people from the Gilbert Islands, who fought with sharks'-teeth swords among themselves, and got madly drunk on toddy every few days. And so the trading firms retired discomfited, and the coconuts rotted away quietly in millions, and the rotting thereof troubled the careless owners not a whit. Time was when there were three thousand people to eat them, and, save for a cask of coconut oil sold now and then to some whaleship, white men visited them but at long intervals. But things are different now, and even these tiny spots that dot the broad bosom of the blue Pacific are sought out to appease the earth- hunger of the men of the civilised world. Yet not, be it said, altogether for their coconuts' money value, but because of the new Pacific cable that is soon to be ; for among these equatorial isles it is to be laid, thousands of fathoms deep, and no Power but England must possess a foot of soil in the mid-Pacific that would serve an enemy as a lair whence to issue and seize upon any of the islands that break the cable's length 24 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Take Funafuti and its people as a fair type of the other islands of the group, save Nui of which more anon. Sixty or seventy years ago, so the American whaleship captains of those days said, there were three thousand people in the thirty and odd islets. Then, for the next thirty years, unknown and terrible diseases, introduced by the white men, ravaged not Funafuti alone, but the whole group, and where there were once thousands, only hun- dreds could be counted ; and until about 1860 it looked as if the total extinction of the whole race was but a matter of another decade. But, fortunately, such was not the case. In 1870 the writer counted 160 people; in 1882 they had increased to nearly 200 ; and now, through better means of intercourse with the people of the other islands of the group, which has brought about a consequent and rapid inter- marriage, the people of Funafuti number over 500, and show a gradual but steady increase. Oaitupu (literally " the fountain of water ") is, although nearly the smallest, the most thickly populated of all the Ellices. It has no lagoon accessible from the sea, and even landing is not always easy. Here, although the soil is better Green Dots of the Empire. 2$ than that of the other islands, and the natives have taro, bananas, and pumpkins to vary the monotonous diet of coconut and fish obtaining elsewhere in the Ellices, they are very subject to that species of eczema known as tinea desqua- mans (locally it is called "lafa"). While not incapacitating them from labour, or affecting their stamina or physique, it gives the subject a most unpleasant and disgusting appearance. It is, however, often curable by a residence in a colder climate, such as New Zealand. Nui, the island alluded to as possessing distinct and peculiar racial characteristics from the others, has a population of about six hundred. Unlike their neighbours, both to the north and south, whose language, customs, and traditions have a purely Samoan basis, the people of Nui are plainly the descendants of some wandering or drifted voyagers from the Gilbert Group, the inhabitants of which they resemble in language, customs, appearance, and demeanour. From what particular island the original people of Nui came is a mystery. There are no really reliable traditions of the present race that can throw any light on the matter. So far as they know they were always " Tafitos " namely, 2 6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. people from the Gilberts ; but how they came to be on Nui they cannot tell. To show the sharp line of racial distinction between the natives of Nui and those of the surrounding islands, it may be mentioned that the transla- tions of the Old and New Testaments, published by the Boston Board of Missions for the use of the people of the Gilbert Islands, are used by the natives of Nui, while in every other island of the Ellice Group the Samoan version is alone understood and read. And although they can communicate with the inhabitants of the rest of the group in a peculiar, bastard patois, and of late years have inter- married with them, they always will be Gilbert Islanders, and preserve their vernacular and other racial characteristics. Nanomaga, the Hudson Island of Commodore Wilkes, is the smallest of the group. It is barely a mile and a half long, and not one in width, yet supports a population of six hundred people. The writer, who in 1870 spent a year on the island, can bear testimony to the kindly nature and honesty of its people. During all the time he lived there as agent for Messrs. Tom De Wolf and Co., of Liverpool, he never Green Dots of the Empire. 27 had as much as a scrap of tobacco stolen from him, although his trade goods were piled up indiscriminately on the floor of his house, which had neither doors, locks, nor a bolt of any kind. In this, however, the Nanomagans are peculiar the other islanders are not so particular. The last of the group is Nanomea, a fine island, or rather two islands connected by a reef dry at very low tides. The people of Nanomea have long been known in the Pacific for their great size and muscular development. Indeed, the Rev. J. S. Whitmee, of the L.M.S., considers them a race of giants, and believes " that nine out of ten would measure six feet or more high, and their breadth is proportionate to their height." This, however, since their adoption of clothing is not so noticeable. How- ever, they certainly are a fine race, and almost free from tinea desquamans. There were, last year, 830 people on the two islands, Nanomea and Lakena. The group suffers but seldom from droughts or hurricanes, although the terrible drought experienced in the near-to Gilbert Group in 1892 also affected the Ellices, and during 28 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 1893-4 Nanomea and Nanomaga presented a parched-up appearance. A heavy blow in 1890 also did terrible havoc among the coconuts, which thus had not the strength to bear up against the drought. The whole group of the nine islands or sub- groups lies between lat. 5.35 deg. and 11.20 deg. S., and between 171 and 176 deg. W. longitude. The Tia Kau. F^OUR miles north-west from Nanomaga, a tiny isle of the lately annexed Ellice Group in the South Pacific, lies a great " patch " of submerged coral, called Tia Kau the best fishing ground in all the wide South Sea, except, perhaps, the atolls of Arrecifos and Christmas Island, in the North Pacific. Thirty years ago, when the smoke and glare from many a whaler's try-pots lit up the darkness of the ocean night from the Kermadecs to the far Pelews, the Tia Kau was known to many a sailor and wandering trader. But now, since the whaling industry died, and the trading vessels are few and far between, the place is scarcely even known by name. A hot, steamy mist lies low upon the glassy surface of the sleeping sea encompassing Nano- 30 Wild Life in Southern Seas. maga, and the lazily swelling rollers as they rise to the lip of the reef have scarce strength enough to wash over its flat, weedy ledges into the lagoon beyond. For since early morn the wind had died away ; and the brown- skinned people of the little reef-girt island, when they rose from their slumbers and looked out upon the dew-soaked trees, and heard the moan of the distant breakers away on Tia Kau, said to one another that the day would be calm and hot till the sun was high and the wind came. And, as your true South Sea Islander dreads the blistering rays of the torrid sun as much as he does the stinging cold, each man lay down again upon his mat and smoked his pipe or cigarette, and waited for the wind to come. Along the silent and deserted beach long lines of coco-palms, which slope seaward to the trades, hang their drooping, languid plumes high above the shallow margin of the lagoon, which swishes and laps in gentle wavelets along the yellow sand. A shoal of pale grey mullet swim close inshore, for out beyond in the deepening green flit the quick shadows of the ever-preying frigate birds that watch the waters from above. 'Tis roasting hot indeed. As the mist begins The Tia Kau. 31 to lift, the steely ocean gleam pains the eye like a vast sheet of molten lead, and the white stretch of sand above high-water mark in front of the native village seems to throb and quiver and waver to and fro ; the mat coverings of the long row of slender canoes further down crackle and warp and swell upward. Presently the one white trader on the little island comes to the doorway of his house and looks out. Not a living thing to be seen, except, far out beyond the reef, where the huge bodies of two blackfish lie motionless upon the water, sunning themselves ; and just above his head, and sitting on its perch, a tame frigate- bird, whose fierce eye looks upward and out- ward at the blazing sun. " What a terror of a day ! " mutters the trader to himself, as he drinks his morning coffee, and then lazily sinks into a cane lounge on his verandah. He, too, will go to sleep until the breeze springs up, or some inconsiderate customer comes to buy tobacco, or tell him the local gossip. In and about the village which is a little further back from the trader's house the silence of the morning heat reigns supreme. 32 Wild Life in Southern Seas. The early meal of fish and taro has been eaten, and every one is lying down, for the smooth white pebbles of sea-worn coral that cover the ground around the high-roofed houses of pan- danus thatch are hot even to the native foot, though here and there may be a cool strip of darkened shade from the overhanging branch of palm or breadfruit tree. Look through the open doorway of a house. There they lie, the brown-skinned lazy people, upon the cool matted floor, each one with a wooden aluga, or bamboo pillow, under his or her head, with their long black tresses of hair lying loosely uncoiled about the shoulders. Only three people are in this house, a big reddish-brown skinned man, a middle-aged woman, and a young girl. The man's and woman's heads are on the one pillow ; between them lies the mutual pipe smoked out in connubial amity ; the girl lies over in the corner beside a heap of young drinking coconuts and a basket of taro and fish, her slender figure clothed in nought but a thick girdle of fine pandanus leaf. She, too, has been smoking, for in her little hand is the half of a cigarette. A wandering pig, attracted by the smell of The Tia Kau. 33 food, trots slowly to the door, and stands eyeing the basket. His sleepy grunt betrays him, and awakens the girl, who flings her bamboo pillow at his head with a muttered curse ; and, crawling over to where her sleeping parents lie, she pillows her head upon her mother's naked thigh, and falls asleep again. Another hour passes, and then a faint breath moves and sways and rustles the drooping palms around the village, and the girl awakes. Had she been dreaming, or did she hear a far- away curious sound a mingling of sharp, whistling notes and hoarse, deep gutturals, such as one may hear when a flock of terns and boobies are darting down upon their prey ? Tossing back her black mane of hair, she bends her head seaward and listens intently, and then, rising, goes to the open door, and looks out upon the shimmering blue. The white man, too, has heard, and she sees him running to the village. The dulled, sleepy look in her big eyes vanishes, and darting over to her slumbering father, she slaps his brawny arm. " Ala ! Ala ! awake, my father. There be a flock of gog o crying loudly, and the white man is running hither." 4 34 Wild Life in Southern Seas. The big man springs to his feet, followed by his wife, and in a moment the whole village is awake, and the men run beachward to their canoes ; for the flock of gogo means that a shoal of bonito, perhaps twenty thousand or more, are passing the island on their way to Tia Kau. Before the men, laden with their fishing tackle, have reached the canoes, the village children are there, throwing off the coverings of mats in readiness for launching, and then, with a merry clamour of voices, the slender craft are lifted up and carried down to the water's edge. The white man, too, goes with them in one Muliao's canoe, and the women laugh and wish him luck as they see him strip to the waist like one of their own people, and show a skin almost as brown. Over the reef they go, thirty or more canoes, paddling to the west. There, a mile beyond, is a vast flock of gogo a small, sooty tern the density of whose swaying cloud is mingled with the snowy white of gulls. How they flutter, and turn, and dive, and soar aloft to dive again, feasting upon the shining baby kanae, or mullet, that seek to escape from the ravenous The Tta Kau. 35 jaws of the bonito, whose way across the sea is marked by a wide streak of bubbling, hissing foam ! Meanwhile, as the canoes fly in pursuit, one man in each busies himself by hurriedly pre- paring his fellows' tackle, which is both for rod and deep-sea fishing. Lying side by side upon the ama^ or outrigger grating, are four rods. And such rods ! twelve to fourteen feet in one piece, eight inches in circumference at the base, and tapering to an inch at the point. But big and clumsy as they look, they are light, tough, and springy. The line is of two-stranded fau (hibiscus bark), and is not quite as long as the rod itself; the shank of the hook is of pearl- shell, gleaming and iridescent as polished opal, and the upward curving piece that forms the barbless point is cunningly lashed to the heel of the shank with fine banana fibre. In length these hooks range from one to three inches, and at the lashing of the point and shank are two tiny scarlet feathers of the parrokeet. Lying beside the rods are the thick, neatly curled lines for deep-sea work. But just now these are not wanted. And as the canoes draw near the whirling, 36 Wild Life in Southern Seas. shrilly-crying birds, the water becomes a wild, seething swirl of froth and foam, for the bonito are travelling swiftly onward, snapping and leaping at the persecuted kanae, and their tens of thousands of bodies of shining blue and silver sparkle brightly in the sun. And then with a wild shout of glee the leading canoes shoot into the fray, quickly followed by the others. " Tu ! Tu ! " (" Stand up, stand ! ") cry the paddlers amidships, and in an instant the men seated for'ard and aft drop their paddles, seize their rods, and each man bracing his right leg against the rounded thwart on which he has been sitting, swings his bright, baitless hook into the whirl below. Almost ere it touches the water a fish leaps to it, the tough rod of pua quivers and trembles, the fisher grunts, and then with a strong, swift, and steady sweep of his naked arms, and a triumphant cry of " Matt I " (" Struck '') the first atu, ten pounds of sheeny blue and polished silver, is swung clear of the water and dropped into the canoe, where he kicks and struggles among the paddlers' feet. In another minute every other canoe is hard at work, and the loud shouts and cries of the excited natives add to the din of The Tia Kau. 37 the wheeling birds and the splashing of the water and the furious kicking and thumping against the frail, resonant sides of the canoes, as fish after fish is swept upward and outward, and dropped struggling into the bottom, among its bleeding and quivering fellows. Around the largest canoe, from which six natives fish, is the wildest boil and bubble of all, for the cunning crew have hung from a bended stick over the side a bright piece of mother-of-pearl, and at this the hungry fish leap fiercely. How they swarm and " ring " round the canoe like a mob of frightened cattle upon some wide Australian plain, who smell their deadly enemy a wild black ! Not that the bonito are frightened ; they are simply mad for the shining hooks, which look so like young and tender half-grown flying-fish. But still on and on the main body go, and the canoes go with them, steadily on to the Tia Kau, although now each man has taken perhaps twenty or thirty fish from eight to ten pounds in weight ; and the paddlers' arms are growing weary. Already the white man is tired, and is sitting down, smoking his pipe, and watching the moving cloud of birds above. And yet his 38 Wild Life in Southern Seas. comrades swing their rods, and add fish after fish to the quivering heap below. Time enough for them to smoke, they think, when the fish are gone and then, suddenly, with an almost noiseless " flur-r-r ! " they are gone, and the white man laughs ; he knows that there will be no more atu to-day. For there, swimming swiftly to and fro upon the now quiet surface are half a dozen pala, the dreaded foe of the bonito for all time. The canoes come to a dead stop ; the shoal of atu have dived perhaps a hundred fathoms deep, and will be seen no more for many an hour. And so the natives sit down and smoke their pipes, and hurl reproaches and curses at the pala for spoiling sport. " Why grumble, Muliao ? " asks the white man of his friend. " See, already the canoes are weighted down with fish. But yet let us catch one of these devils before we return to the shore." " Meitake ! Aye, that shall we, though who careth to eat of pala when bonito is to his hand ? But yet to punish these greedy devils for coming here " and Muliao takes from the outrigger a coil of stout three-stranded line, The Tia Kau. 39 which he makes into a running bowline and hangs over the side of the canoe from the end of his rod, while another man picks up a small bonito, passes a line through its gills, and then throws it far out upon the water only to draw it in again as fast as he can pull, first passing it quickly through the bowline on Muliao's rod. But already a pala y a long, slender, scaleless fish, six times as big as the biggest salmon ever caught, and with teeth like a rip-saw, has heard the splash, and is speeding after the decoy. Deftly the dead fish is drawn through the trap, followed by the eager jaws and round head and shoulders of its pursuer. Then, whish ! the bowline jerks, slips over his smooth, rounded body, and tightens in a fatal grip upon the broad, bony tail. And then there is a mighty struggling, and splashing, and leaping, and the canoe shoots hither and thither as the crew haul on the line ; for a full-grown pala is as strong as a porpoise. At last, however, he is dragged alongside, and then Muliao, grasping a heavy turtle-spear in his right hand, rises to his feet and watches. And then, with arm of strength and eye of hawk, the spear is sped, and crashes through the -palds bony head. 4-O Wild Life in Southern Seas. " Aue ! " and Muliao leans pantingly back in the stern. " Pull him in, my friends, and then let us to the shore. To-morrow, if the day be fair, shall we fish together on Tia Kau, and with God's blessing and the help of the white man's tobacco catch many fish." The Areois. A FEW years ago, during the stay of one of Her Majesty's ships at Huahine in the Society Islands, there came on board, to pay his respects to the commander, an old white trader. He was accompanied by an ancient native, who, he said, was his wife's grandfather. The old islander, although nearly bent double with age, was very lively in his conversation, and spoke English with ease and correctness. Captain M , after discussing the state of the island with the trader, inquired of him where the old native had learned to speak such excellent English. " I suppose," he added, " he was one of the earliest converts to Christianity ? " The trader laughed. " No, indeed, sir. There's not much of the missionary about Matapuupuu. He did gammon to be converted once, but he soon went back to his old gods 41 42 Wild Life in Southern Seas. again. Why, sir, that old fellow was chief priest here once, and the first man of the Areoi society and he's the only one left now." Captain M had heard of that mysterious body whose power in the early days of missionary effort was so great and so far-reaching in its terrifying and degrading influences as to at one time bring the spread of Christianity to a standstill. He therefore looked at the native before him with unusual interest ; and, as if aware of what was passing in the officer's mind, the object of his scrutiny raised his head and laughed. " Yes, sir, I am the last man of the Areoi on Huahine. There are one or two more of us on Taiarapu, in Tahiti." " Why have you not become a Christian in your old age, then, now that there are no more Areois left ? What good can it do you to remain a heathen ? " Old Matapuupuu shrugged his wrinkled shoulders " What is the good of Christianity to me now ? I am too old to get anything by being a Christian. It is better for me to be an Areoi. I am very old and poor, although I made a lot of money when I was sailing in the whaleships. But, although I am so poor, I get The Areois. 43 plenty to eat, for the people here are afraid of me. If I became a Christian they would give me nothing to eat, for my power over them would be gone." " But I should be ashamed to have it known that you belonged to such a wicked Jot of scoundrels, old man," said Captain M with assumed severity ; " everything that was done by the Areois was bad. Had not their power been broken by the missionaries there would have been no more people left in these islands in another twenty years after they had settled here." " Bah," answered the old ex-priest, derisively, " that is only missionary talk. There have been Areoi since first men were born. And, see, the people liked us ; for we gave them songs, and music, and dancing. It is true that we made the women who bore us children kill them ; but that was wisely done ; for these islands are but little places, and but for us there would have come a time when the people would have eaten each other for hunger. It is better that useless children should die than grown people should starve." Half an hour later the trader and the old ex- 44 Wild Life in Southern Seas. priest Areoi bade the captain goodbye, and the officer, as he watched them going over the side, turned to the ship's doctor and said with a laugh, " What an unmitigated old heathen." " But there's a good deal of sound logic in his contentions," replied the doctor, seriously. The history of the Areois of Polynesia and the Uritois of the Micronesian Islands is an interesting subject, and Mr. Ellis in his " Researches " has given us a full account of the former ; while Padre Canova, a Jesuit missionary who was killed in the Caroline Islands before the time of Cook, has left on record an account of the dreaded and mysterious Uritois society of that archipelago. The Areois are now extinct, but the Uritois, whose practices are very similar to those of the Polynesian fraternity are still in existence, though not possessed of anything like the power they wielded in former days. " The Areois of Polynesia," says Mr. Ellis, " were a fraternity of strolling players, and privileged liberties, who spent their days in travelling from island to island, and from one district to another, exhibiting their pantomimes, The Areois. 45 and spreading a moral contagion throughout society." (Each band or section of the society was called a " mareva," corresponding with the Samoan " malaga " a party of travellers ; and, indeed, in Australian parlance they might have been designated as larrikin " pushes.") " Before the company set out great preparation was necessary. Numbers of pigs were killed and presented to the god Oro ; large quantities of plantains and bananas, with other fruits, were also offered upon his altars. Several weeks were necessary to complete the preliminary cere- monies. The concluding parts of these consisted in erecting, on board their canoes, two temporary maraes^ or temples, for the worship of Orotetefa and his brother, the tutelary deities of the society. This was merely a symbol of the presence of the gods ; and consisted principally in a stone for each, from Oro's marae^ and a few red feathers for each, from the inside of his sacred image. Into these symbols the gods were supposed to enter when the priest pronounced a short ' uba,' or prayer, immediately before the sailing of the fleet. The numbers connected with this fraternity, and the magnitude of some of their expeditions will 46 Wild Life in Southern Seas. appear from the fact of Cook's witnessing on one occasion, in Huahine, the departure of seventy canoes filled with Areois. On landing at the place of destination they proceeded to the residence of the king or chief, and presented their ' marotai,' or present : a similar offering was also sent to the temple and to the gods, as an acknowledgment for the preservation they had experienced at sea. If they remained in the neighbourhood preparations were made for their dances and other performances. " On public occasions, their appearance was, in some respects, such as it is not proper to describe. Their bodies were painted with charcoal, and their faces, especially, stained with the * mati,' or scarlet dye. Sometimes they wore a girdle of the yellow //' leaves, which, in appearance, resembled the feather girdles of the Peruvians or other South American tribes. At other times they wore a vest of ripe yellow plantain leaves, and ornamented their heads with wreaths of the bright yellow and scarlet leaves of the ' hutu,' or ' Barringtonia ' ; but, in general, their appearance was far more repulsive than when they wore these partial coverings." The Areois. 47 " Upaupa " was the name of many of their exhibitions. In performing these, they some- times sat in a circle on the ground, and recited, in concert, a legend or song in honour of the gods, or some distinguished Areoi. The leader of the party stood in the centre, and introduced the recitation with a sort of prologue, when, with a number of fantastic movements and atti- tudes, those that sat around began their song in a slow and measured tone and voice, which in- creased as they proceeded, till it became vociferous and unintelligibly rapid. It was also accompanied by movements of the arms and hands, in exact keeping with the tones of the voice, until they were wrought to the highest pitch of excitement. This they continued until, becoming breathless and exhausted, they were obliged to suspend the performance. Their public entertainments frequently con- sisted in delivering speeches, accompanied by every variety of gesture and action ; and their representations, on these occasions, assumed something of the histrionic character. The priests and others were fearlessly ridiculed in these performances, in which allusion was ludicrously made to public events. In the 48 Wild Life in Southern Seas. " tapiti," or " Oroa," they sometimes engaged in wrestling, but never in boxing ; that would have been considered too degrading for them. Dancing, however, appeared to have been their favourite and most frequent performance. In this they were always led by the manager or chief. Their bodies, blackened with charcoal and stained with " mati," rendered the exhibi- tion of their persons on these occasions most disgusting. They often maintained their dance through the greater part of the night, accom- panied by their voices, and the music of the flute and drum. These amusements frequently continued for a number of days and nights successively at the same place. The " upaupa " was then terminated, and they journeyed on to the next district or principal chieftain's abode, where the same train of dances, wrestling, and pantomimic exhibitions was repeated. Several other gods were supposed to preside over the " upaupa " as well as the two brothers who were the guardian deities of the Areois. The gods of these diversions, according to the ideas of the people, were monsters in vice, and, of course, patronised every evil practice perpe- trated during such seasons of public festivity. The Areois. 49 Substantial, spacious, and sometimes highly ornamental houses were erected in several dis- tricts throughout the islands, principally for their accommodation and the exhibition of the Areoi performances. Sometimes they performed in their canoes as they approached the shore ; especially if they had the king of the island or any principal chief on board their fleet. When one of these companies thus advanced towards the land, with their streamers floating in the wind, their drums and pipes sounding, and the Areois, attended by their chief, who acted as their prompter, appeared on a stage erected for the purpose, with their wild dis- tortions of persons, antic gestures, painted bodies, and vociferated songs, mingling with the sound of the drum and the flute, the dashing of the sea, and the rolling and breaking of the surf on the adjacent reef, the whole must have presented a ludicrous but yet imposing spectacle, accompanied with a con- fusion of sight and sound, of which it is not easy to form an adequate idea. "The above were the principal occupations of the Areois ; and in the constant repetition of these often obscene exhibitions they passed their 5 50 Wild Life in Southern Seas. lives, strolling from the habitation of one chief to that of another, or sailing among the different islands of the group. The farmers, i.e., those who owned plantations, did not, in general, much respect them " (but they feared them), " but the chiefs, and those addicted to pleasure, held them in high estimation, furnishing them with liberal entertainments, and sparing no property to gratify them. This often proved the cause of most unjust and cruel oppression to the poor cultivators. When a party of Areois appeared in a district, in order to pro- vide daily sumptuous entertainment for them, the local chief would send his servants to the best plantations in the neighbourhood, and these grounds, without any ceremony, they plundered of whatever was fit for use. Such lawless acts of robbery were repeated every day, so long as the Areois continued in the district ; and when they departed the gardens exhibited a scene of desolation and ruin that, but for the influence of the chiefs, would have brought fearful vengeance upon those who had occa- sioned it. A number of distinct classes prevailed among the Areois, each of which was distinguished by The Areois. 5 1 the kind or situation of the tatooing on their bodies. The first or highest class was called "Avae parai," painted leg; the leg being com- pletely blackened from the foot to the knee. The second class was called " Otiore," both arms being marked from the fingers to the shoulders. The third class was " Harotea," both sides of the body, from the armpits downwards, being tattooed. The fourth class, called " Hua," had only two or three small figures, impressed with the same material, on each shoulder. The fifth class, called " Atoro," had one small stripe tattooed on the left side. Every individual in the sixth class, called " Ohemara," had a small circle marked round each ankle. The seventh class, or " Poo," which included all who were in the noviciate, was usually denominated the " Poo faarearea," or pleasure-making class, and by them the most laborious part of the pantomimes, dances, etc., was performed ; the principal or higher order of Areois, though plastered over with charcoal, were generally careful not to exhaust themselves by physical effort for the amusement of others. Like the society of the Uritoi (the Uritoy of the Jesuit Canova), the Areoi classes were 52 Wild Life in Southern Seas. attended by a troop of what may be termed camp-followers, who, as Ellis observes, " at- tached themselves to the dissipated and wander- ing fraternity, prepared their food and their dresses, and attended them on their journeys for the purpose of witnessing their dances and sharing in their banquets. These people were called Fanaunau (i.e., propagators), because they did not destroy their offspring, which was in- dispensable with the regular members of the whole seven classes." Curiously enough, while steeped in every imaginable wickedness, there was with the Areoi a rigid code of morality among themselves. " Each Areoi, although addicted to every kind of licentiousness, brought with him his wife, who was also a member of the society. And so jealous were they in this respect, that improper conduct towards the wife of one of their own number was some- times punished with death." At Tahaa, in the Society Islands, a young girl, wife of one of the class called " Harotea," who had miscon- ducted herself with a lad at Fare, in Huahine, was taken before the assembled band of Areois, and deliberately slain by the leader, who was her uncle. Her husband, who begged for her The Areois. 53 life, met the same fate, as an unworthy member of the society. " Singular as it may appear, the Areoi institution was held in the greatest repute by the chiefs and higher classes ; and, monsters of iniquity as they were, the grand- masters, or members of the first order (the ' Avae parai ') were regarded as a sort of super- natural beings, and treated with a corresponding degree of veneration by many of the vulgar and ignorant. The fraternity was not confined to any particular rank or grade in society, but was composed of individuals from every class of people. But although thus accessible to all, the admission was attended with a variety of ceremonies ; a protracted noviciate followed ; and it was only by progressive advancement that any were admitted to the superior dis- tinctions. " It was imagined that those " to continue Ellis " who became Areois were generally prompted or inspired (by their tutelar gods) to adopt this course of life. When, therefore, any individual wished to be admitted to the ranks of the Areois, he repaired to some public exhibition in a state of apparent neneva or derangement. Round his or her waist was a 54 Wild Life in Southern Seas. girdle of yellow plantains or // leaves ; his face was stained with mati, or scarlet dye ; his brow decorated with a shade of curiously painted yellow coconut leaves ; his hair perfumed with powerfully scented coconut oil, and ornamented with a profusion of fragrant flowers. Thus arrayed, disfigured and yet adorned, he rushed through the crowd assembled round the house in which the actors or dancers were performing, and, leaping into the circle, joined with seeming frantic wildness in the dance or pantomime. He continued thus in the midst of the per- formers until the exhibition closed. This was considered an indication of his desire to join their company ; and, if approved, he was ap- pointed to wait, as a servant, on the principal Areois. After a considerable trial of his natural disposition, docility, and devotedness in this occupation, if he persevered in his determina- tion to join himself with them, he was inaugurated with all the attendant rites and observances. " This ceremony took place at some taupiti, or other great meeting of the body, when the principal Areoi brought forth the candidate arrayed in the ahu haio, a curiously-stained The Areois. 55 sort of native cloth, the badge of their order, and presented him to the members, who were convened in full assembly. The Areois, as such, had distinct names, and, at his intro- duction, the candidate received from the chief of the body the name by which in future he would be known among them. He was now directed in the first instance to murder his children a deed of horrid barbarity which he was in general only too ready to perpetrate. He was then instructed to bend his left arm, and strike his right hand upon the bend of the left elbow, which at the same time he struck against his side, whilst he repeated the song, or invocation, for the occasion. He was then commanded to seize the waist-cloth worn by the chief woman present, and by this act he completed his initiation, and became a member of the seventh, or lowest class. " There can be no doubt that the desire of females to become members of this strange association was caused by the many privileges it afforded them. The principal of these was that, by becoming an Areoi, a woman was enabled to eat the same food as the men ; for the restrictions of the tabu upon women in this 56 Wild Life in Southern Seas. respect were very severe. Females, even of the highest rank, were prohibited, on pain of death, from eating the flesh of animals offered to the gods, which was always reserved for the men ; but once admitted to the ranks of the Areois, they were regarded as the equals of men in every respect, and partook of the same food." And so these people travelled about from village to village, and from island to island, and sang and danced, and acted for days together ; but though these "were the general amusements of the Areois, they were not the only purposes for which they assembled." They included "All monstrous, all prodigious things." The Jesuit Canova, in the account he gives of the Uritois of the Caroline Islands, says : " It is absolutely impossible for the average human mind to conceive the frightful cruelty, the hideous debauchery, and unparalleled licen- tiousness to which these people surrender themselves when practising their soul-terrifying rites." Yet their power and influence were extra- The Areois. 57 ordinary. In their journeyings to and fro among the islands they would sometimes locate themselves among a community who were totally unacquainted with them save by hearsay, and who regarded their advent with feelings of terror ; yet, before long, numbers of these same people would desire to, and did enter their ranks. " In their pastimes, in their accompanying crimes, and the often-repeated practices of the most unrelenting, murderous cruelty, these wandering Areois passed their lives, esteemed by the people as a superior order of beings, closely allied to the gods, and deriving from them direct sanction, even for their heartless murders. Free from labour or care, they roved from island to island, supported by the priests and the chiefs ; and often feasted on plunder from the gardens of the industrious husbandman, while his own family was not in- frequently deprived thereby for a time of the means of existence. Such was their life of luxurious and licentious indolence and crime. And such was the character of their delusive system of superstition that for them too was reserved the Elysium which their fabulous mythology taught them to believe was provided 58 Wild Life in Southern Seas. in a future state of existence for those so pre- eminently favoured by the gods." That such a deadly and satanic delusion should be implanted and fostered in the minds of a naturally amiable, hospitable, and intelligent race can only be accounted for by the belief of the sacred source from which it sprang, i.e., the mandate of Oro ; and its destruction by the advances of civilisation had a profound effect on the minds of those who had witnessed the terrible deeds perpetrated when the Society Islands lay under the terror of the Areois. Australia s Heritage ; The New Hebrides Group. EVERY now and again the Australian colonies are disturbed by a rumour that the present Anglo-French convention for the " control " (whatever that may mean) of the New Hebrides is about to terminate, and that one of the best and most fertile of the island groups in the South Pacific will be annexed by France, which is hot to possess them. Perhaps the inception of this rumour may be due but to the nearing prospect of Australian Federation, which would necessarily revive in the public mind the fact that a few years ago two French men-of-war landed some hundreds of soldiers, virtually took possession of the whole group, and were only withdrawn on the united protest of the Australian colonies to the Imperial Government. From that time began the present 59 60 Wild Life in Southern Seas. dual control i.e., the patrolling of the group by ships of war of both nations and a very unsatisfactory arrangement it has proved. Five years ago, the late Governor of Fiji, in his capacity of High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, when questioned as to the claims of the British settlers in the New Hebrides, and to the possibility of the group being annexed by either Power, said, " I cannot tell how the matter will be settled. Both France and England want the New Hebrides ; each nation is determined that the other shall not get it. In the meantime things must, of course, go on as they are doing." And things have been going on very unsatisfactorily, in the opinion of the men who have made the group what it is the English settlers, traders, planters, and merchants. It is not my purpose, however, to enter into the rival claims of the English and French residents, but to give a brief description of the islands themselves. Yet one thing may be said, and that is this : The group was opened up and surveyed by British ships ; British and Austra- lian money has done a great civilising work there ; the men who first discovered them to commerce were Englishmen ; the natives are Australia's Heritage. 61 ardently desirous that England should annex their islands ; and their occupation by France for the extension of her malign convict system will constitute a menace to the Australian colonies, leaving alone the danger to them which the possession of such a magnificent base as these islands would give to a Power who may some day be at war with England. But now as to the group itself. Next to the Fijis and the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides are the finest cluster of islands in the South Pacific ; and were British settlers in the group freed from their present harassing disabilities in the way of employing native labour to work their plantations it would leave Fiji far behind in the development of its abounding resources. It possesses magnificent harbours, forests of timber awaiting the axeman and saw-miller, land suitable for coffee and cotton, and other tropical products, a climate that is no hotter than that of Ceylon or Samoa, and a native population which, within two years after the declaration of British sovereignty, would, owing to the influence of the English missionaries in the group, be as amenable to the precepts of civilisation as the too-highly 6 2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Christianised people of Tonga and Fiji, where to-day a man's life and property are as safe as if he lived under the shadow of Westminster. The largest island of the group is Santo the Espiritu Santo of Quiros, who in a memoir to his Royal master, Philip III., spoke of it as " a very great island : a country of the richest fertility and beauty. It is to my mind one of the finest in the world, and capable under colonisation of becoming one of the richest places in the Southern Hemisphere." Its length exceeds eighty miles with an. average of thirty- two in width, and within the great sweep of the mighty barrier reef that encloses it are some scores of clusters of low-lying islands of purely coral formation, densely covered by groves of coco-palms, and inhabited by a numerous population of strong athletic savages of Melanesian blood, whose earliest recollections of white men date from the old colonial days, when the group was visited by sandal-wooding ships from Sydney and vessels engaged in the colonial whale fishery. The present race that people the mainland are, no doubt, new comers within the past three hundred years, for on several parts of the islands there are traces of Australia s Heritage. 63 occupation by an earlier race : detached pillars composed of large stones, long stretches of broken walls indicating walled towns, and fragments of rough masonry cemented with a chunam of coral lime and river sand. Much of Santo is covered by noble forests of timber, and the littoral is of remarkable fertility. The inhabitants, though nearly all thorough savages, have a better reputation than most of the people inhabiting the larger islands of the group, and the record of white men who have lost their lives in the group is low on Santo. An island with an evil reputation in the past is Tanna, for the inhabitants are savage and treacherous, and though there are English traders living among them in security, the Tanna people have perpetrated some fearful massacres upon vessels engaged in trading and recruiting native labour. The whole island is a magnificent panorama of tropical island beauty, thirty-five miles long by eleven in width. Towards the southern end the land trends away in a gradual slope from lofty mountains, densely wooded and enveloped in mist and clouds. The low- lying coast lands are of surpassing fertility, and millions of coco-palms encompass the shores, 64 Wild Life in Southern Seas. while about the thickly populated villages are carefully tended plantations of sugar-cane, bananas, pineapples, yams, taro, and other tropical vegetables and fruit. An old New Hebrides trader captain estimates the population of Tanna at 8,000, and believes it could sup- port 30,000. Mallicolo a favourite recruiting ground for the Fijian and Queensland vessels employed in the labour trade is about fifty-five miles in length, with an average width of twenty miles, and is covered with magnificent forests from its littoral to the very summit of the range that traverses the island. That the timber of Malli- colo is valuable for ship-building purposes Australian trading captains well know, but until the group is annexed by either France or England there is but little prospect of its forests being exploited in a systematic manner. The island is intersected by some splendid streams of water ; and although malarial fever is prevalent at certain seasons of the year, the climate on the whole may be considered healthy. It is a favourite rendezvous for both the English and French war-vessels engaged in patrolling the group, and is also frequently visited by trading Australia s Heritage. 65 vessels from Sydney and those in the service of the French New Hebrides Company an asso- ciation that while possessing a considerable amount of purchased land in the various islands is merely kept going by a subsidy from the French Government. Aneityum is a high and mountainous island with but a narrow belt of low-lying land running round its coast, but it possesses some splendid forests. A saw mill, owned by an Australian firm, has been established here and some excellent timber has been produced for local purposes house-building, ship-building, etc. This island is but twelve miles in length and about six in width. The natives are all (alleged) Christians and number about 2,200. They were the first to come under missionary influence, and are a peaceable, law-abiding race. They are, of course, of Papuan blood, and of a very dark colour, with woolly or frizzy hair like that of most Fijians. No harbours for large vessels are available, but the steamers of the Australasian New Hebrides Company and small sailing craft find anchorage under the north-west end of the island during the strong south-east trade winds. 6 66 Wild Life in Southern Seas. The seismic forces of nature are much in evidence in the New Hebrides group. On Tanna there is a volcano on the south-east end of the island that is frequently in a state of commotion. Viewed from seaward on a dark night it presents a weird and awe-inspiring spectacle. Rumblings, groanings, and dull roaring sounds emanate from its interior, and the noise of its restless convulsions can be heard at Aneityum, nearly fifty miles distant. The volcano itself presents an impressive sight even in daylight, rising as it does to a thousand feet, the grim reddish-brown of its perfect cone affording in its barren sides a startling contrast to the amazing wealth of verdure that, despite its fierce eruptions, prevails everywhere around it. The mighty forces that lie in its heart are seldom quiet ; and at short intervals a straight column of smoke, dark, heavy, and pall-like, shoots upward, till, as it ascends, a canopy is formed. This, in the course of half an hour or so, expands and unfolds itself till it resembles a gigantic aerial mushroom. Then it gradually disperses ; hollow groanings and deep rumblings follow, and then, as the black sulphurous smoke changes to a pale blue, there again comes a Australia's Heritage. 67 sudden convulsion, and a fresh pillar of inky smoke shoots high in the air. Erromanga will always be associated with the name of John Williams, the pioneer missionary to the South Seas, who was there murdered with his colleague, Mr. Harris, in 1839. In later years four other missionaries yielded up their lives to the savage inhabitants, the last being Mr. Gordon, who was killed there in 1872. At the present time the Erromangans are, with the exception of the people of the little island of Tongoa, the most thoroughly Christianised inhabitants of the group. At Vate, the entrepot of the whole group, is established the principal trading centre of the New Hebrides, and here live the greater portion of the English and French settlers established in the group. Vate is thirty-five miles long by eight broad, of moderate eleva- tion, has some noble harbours, a fertile soil, splendid banana plantations, and, in a small way, is the Ceylon of the South Seas. Jack in the Atolls. HISTORY does repeat itself. The story of the Cornish clergyman who in the middle of his discourse jumped down from his pulpit, and, imploring his hearers to " start fair," raced them to the scene of a promising wreck, has its Polynesian counterpart clergy- man, church, and all. Some little difference there is, however, with regard to other acces- sories of the South Sea story ; as the coloured minister, instead of the regulation surplice and black trousers, wore a white shirt only, and trousers were a missing quantity. He was, as I have said, a native clergyman, and lived and laboured " laboured " is merely euphe- mistic, as any one knows who has knowledge of native teachers on one of the atolls in the Caroline Islands. Service had commenced, and Miti Paulo lonatani (Anglice the Reverend 68 "jack in the Atolls. 69 Paul Jonathan) had just given out the first hymn, when there was a sudden commotion among his squatting congregation. A native, his bronzed skin streaming with perspiration and his frame panting with excitement, had put his head and shoulders through one of the low, wide windows of the sacred edifice (from the outside, of course), and the Reverend Paul, in severe but dignified tones, called him an unmannerly pig, and then asked him what he wanted. " The sharks are coming in, your reverence / " In an instant the deep religious calm of the congregation was broken up, and half a minute later the church was cleared in a mad rush to get to the beach, launch the canoes, and go a-fishing for sharks, the minister following as hard as he could run, divesting himself of his garment of office by the way. Like his Cornish prototype, he meant to have a share of the plunder. (I wonder whether the Cornish story originated from the Polynesian story, or vice versa. Both are true.) But shark-catching means money down there in the Carolines and the equatorial atolls of the North and South Pacific ; and sometimes vast 70 Wild Life in Southern Seas. numbers of sharks, swimming together in " schools," like sardines, enter the lagoons at certain seasons of the year and cause no end of excitement among the brown-skinned people ; just as much, in fact, as that which occurs when a "school" of bottle-nosed whales is driven ashore by the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands. Every now and then one may see noted in Australian papers the arrival of an island trading vessel bringing, among other cargo, so many tons of shark-fins ; and the uninitiated naturally wonder for what on earth shark-fins are brought to the marts of civilisation. That is easily answered they are regarded as a great delicacy by John Chinaman. (By the way, it seems an oversight that no one in England thought of presenting Li Hung Chang, when he visited England a year ago, with a string of shark-fins in return for his inexhaustible presents to the British aristocracy of packets of tea ; a dozen or so especially if not quite dried would have moved him greatly.) For the last fifty years shark-catching has been followed on a large or small sca-le by the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, from Tonga in the south to the beauteous Pelews Jack in the Atolls. 71 in the far north-west. Until of late years only the fins and tails were cut off, dried on strings, and sold by the natives to either resident traders or wandering trading vessels. By these latter they are taken to Sydney, and there sold to Chinese merchants, who in their turn ship them home to China. But nowadays not only are the fins and tails dried by the natives in increasing quantities, but the whole skin is stripped off, pegged out like a bullock's hide, and sold to the white men. But the skins do not go to China. They are sold to German trading vessels, and no one even to this day knoweth for what purpose they are used ; some new process of tanning the intractable cuticle of Jack Shark has been dis- covered in Germany, it is said. No one knows more than this ; probably the only man who does know is that modern Lokman the Wise, the Emperor William : may he tell us dull Eng- lish people all about it some day when he, in his Improvement-of-the-Universe Scheme, writes us something on the subject of cross-breeding in sharks, whereby a toothless and amiable variety may replace the present breed, which have no manners to speak of and are always hungry. J2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. But I want to say something of how and where sharks are caught and of those who catch them. In the high, fertile islands of the North and South Pacific, such as Samoa, the Hervey Group, and the Society Islands there is but little of this dangerous fishing done. Nature there is too bounteous to the brown-skinned people. Born to a fruitful soil, with abundance of both vegetable and animal food, the natives have no need to exploit the ocean day and night in order to live, as do the wild, sun- baked denizens of the low-lying Equatorial atolls of the Gilbert and Marshall groups and the countless coral islets of the Western Carolines, where the people know naught of the joys of the mealy yam or taro, and the toothsome baked bread-fruit and sucking-pig are not. For there is nothing to eat on such islands as those but coconuts and fish, varied occasionally by puraka a huge, coarse vege- table as thick as an elephant's leg, with a touch of elephantiasis thrown in. But there are plenty of sharks. They swarm. Go out in a canoe at night-time, anywhere in one of the lagoons, light a torch of au lama (dried coconut leaves), and look. Jack in the Atolls. 73 Perhaps you may only see one or two at first, swimming to and fro at a few fathoms' depth ; in ten minutes you may see fifty ! and they are all hungry. A bad short time would a man have did he fall overboard at night. In daylight the natives know no fear of Jack, but they do not like getting capsized in the darkness ; and the darker the night the more danger. And even when he is young, and not a fathom long from his nose to his tail, Jack can snap off the arm of a full-grown man as easily as a man can swallow an oyster. So, there being plenty of sharks, the Ellice, Gilbert, or Marshall islander is resigned to the poverty of his island soil, catches his shark, and is thankful. For he sells Jack's fins and tail to the trader for tobacco, calico, guns, ammunition, and gin when gin can be bought ; and his wife, when she meets her brown-skinned lord and master on the beach as he returns from fishing, looks anxiously into the blood- stained canoe to see how many kapakau (fins) he has taken. Two or three dozen or so, when dried, may mean that lovely hat trimmed with violent green ribbon on a bilious red and yellow ground that the trader showed her one 74 Wild Life In Southern Seas. day. Then she picks up the " take," puts it into a basket, and an hour later Jack's motive power is suspended on a cinnet line between two coconut trees, drying for market. All the people of the Gilbert Islands are ex- pert shark fishermen ; but the men of Paanopa (Ocean Island) claim to be, and are, facile princeps in the forcible art of clubbing a shark before he knows what is the matter with him, and what the horrid thing is that has got into his mouth. First of all, though, something about Ocean Island itself. It is but a tiny spot, rising abruptly from the sea, about 300 feet in height, situated fifty miles south of the Equator, and in 168 deg. 25 min. east longi- tude, and inhabited by a fierce, turbulent race of dark-skinned Malayo - Polynesians, allied in want of manners and fulness of beastly customs to their Gilbert Island neighbours, three hundred miles to the windward. Half a cable's length from the land itself, and not twenty yards from the flat shelving coral reef that juts abruptly out from the narrow strip of beach, the water is of great depth fifty, in some places ninety, fathoms deep. Jack m the Atolls. 75 At the first break of dawn the men, naked save for a girdle of grass around their loins, sally out from their grey-roofed houses of thatch, and launch their canoes for the day's work. Wonderful canoes these are, too mere shells composed of small strips of wood sewn together with coconut cinnet. In no one of them will you see a plank more than two feet in length and six inches in width ; many are constructed of such small pieces of wood so deftly fitted and sewn together that one wonders how the builders ever had the patience to com- plete the craft. But wood is scarce on Ocean Island ; and whenever as sometimes happens a canoe is smashed by the struggles of a more than usually powerful shark, the tiny timbers are carefully picked up by other canoes and restored to the owners, who fit them together by degrees until a new hull is pieced together. Perhaps twenty or more canoes go out toge- ther. No need to go far. Just outside the ledge of the reef is enough, for there Jack is waiting, accompanied by all-sized relatives, male and female. Lying upon the little grating of crossed sticks that reaches from the outrigger to j6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. the gunwale is the tackle. Rude it is, but effec- tual a huge wooden hook, cunningly trained when it was a young tree-root into growing into the proper shape, and about forty fathoms of strong coconut-fibre rope as thick as whale- line and as strong. Taking a flying fish, or a piece of the flesh of a shark caught the previous day, a native ties the bait around the curve of the great hook. Then he lowers the line, which sinks quickly enough, for the wooden hook is as heavy as it is big. Presently the line tautens Jack is there. The steersman strikes his paddle into the water to bring the canoe's head round, the man holding the line gives it a sudden jerk that makes the outrigger rise a foot out of the water and nearly upsets the little craft, and a third native handles a short iron-wood club ex- pectantly. Perhaps, if Jack is a big fellow, he will obstinately refuse to turn, and make a strenuous effort to get away deep down into the blue gloom, a hundred fathoms below. Sometimes he does ; apparently nothing short of a steam- winch at the other end of the line would then stop him ; and so rathom by fathom the line descends, and the steersman and " clubber " look anxiously at the few fathoms Jack in the Atolls. 77 left coiled up on the outrigger platform. Generally, however, Jack is turned from his direct downward course by a sudden jerk. Then all hands " tail on " to the line to get him to the surface before he gets his head free again for an attempt at another dive. Meanwhile, every other canoe has got fast to a shark, and now there arises wild clamour and much bad language as the lines get foul, and canoes bang and thump against each other. Perhaps four or five will be in a lump, toge- ther with one or two sharks lashing the water into foam in the centre and turning over and over with lightning-like rapidity in the hope of parting the line or smashing the outrigger. This latter is not a nice thing to happen, and so the clubmen anxiously watch for a chance to deal each struggling brute a blow on the head. Often this is not easily effected, and often too it is not needed, for the shark may let his tail come within the reach of the steersman's arm, and a slashing blow from a heavy-backed, keen knife takes all the fight out of Jack at one end, at any rate ; if it is only a young fish, however, the tail is grasped by a native and cut off before Jack knows that he has lost it. 78 Wild Life in Southern Seas. By and by those natives who are fast to a big fellow call out to their comrades that their shark is too heavy and strong to bring along- side and kill, and ask for an implement known to whalers as a " drogue " a square piece of wood with a hole through the centre which, attached to the end of a line, gives such resisting power that the shark or whale dragging it behind him is soon exhausted. So the " drogue " is passed along from another canoe, and being made fast to the end of a small but strong line, the canoe is carefully hauled up as near as possible to savage, struggling Jack. At the loose end of the line is a noose, and watching a favourable moment as Jack lifts his tail out of the water, the steersman slips it over, and away goes line and " drogue " the man who is holding on to the main line casting it all overboard so as to give the shark plenty of room to exhaust himself. In ten minutes more he is resigned to his fate, gives in, is clubbed in peace and towed ashore that is, if his ocean prowling friends and relatives do not assimilate him unto themselves before his carcase is dragged up on to the reef, and skinned by the savage-eyed Ocean Island women. The Cutting off of the " Boydr IN the Sydney Gazette of August, 1809, there appears a notice of the arrival of the ship Boyd with a cargo of convicts for New South Wales. She had sailed from the Thames on March 10, 1809, and arrived in Sydney Cove on August 1 4th following. After refitting she left in November on her return voyage to England, but proceeded via New Zealand, having been chartered by Mr. S. Lord, of Sydney, to touch at the port of Whangaroa and load a cargo of kauri spars for the naval authorities at the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Lord also put on board a large quantity of New South Wales mahogany, sealskins, oil, and coal for the same market, in all amounting to the value of ^15,000. There was among the other passengers " an East Indian captain named 80 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Burnsides, who having by industry accumulated a fortune of ^30,000, was on his return to end his days among his friends on the banks of the Liffey." For those days the Boydwzs a large ship, well found and well armed, was owned by Mr. George Brown, a London merchant, and was under the command of Mr. John Thompson. In addition to her crew, she carried a large number of pas- sengers, bound to the Cape of Good Hope, and also some convict labourers, who were to be employed in cutting and loading the spars. Her European complement consisted of some seventy persons, and some five or six Maoris, and these latter, it was commonly asserted, and is believed to the present day, were the instigators of the crime, although that designation of the massacre is still resented by the Maoris of the present day, who insist that the slaughter of the Boyd people was but a natural and just retribution for the cruel flogging of a chief named Tara by the Europeans. The first particulars of the event reached Sydney through Mr. Alexander Berry, super- cargo of the ship City of Edinburgh, but his testimony, coming entirely from native sources, The Cutting of of the " Boyd." 81 was incorrect and imperfect in many details. His narrative appeared in the Sydney Gazette some time in 1810, and also in the Edinburgh Miscellany. Abridged it is as follows : These are to certify that during our stay in this harbour (Bay of Islands) we had frequent reports of a ship being taken by the natives in the neighbouring harbour of Whangaroa, and that the ship's crew were killed and eaten. . . . Mr. Berry, in order to ascertain the truth of this report, accompanied by Mr. Russel and Metangatanga, a Maori chief, set out for Whangaroa in three armed boats on Sunday, December 31, 1809, and upon their arrival they found the miserable remains of the ship Boyd, Cap- tain John Thompson, which the Maoris, after stripping of everything of value, had burnt to the water's edge. They were able to rescue a boy, a woman, and two chil- dren, the only survivors of this shocking event, which, according to the most satisfactory information, was perpe- trated entirely under the direction of that rascal Te Pahi (a Maori chief who had been made much of by the then Governor of New South Wales). This unfortunate vessel, intending to load with spars, was taken three days after her arrival. On the day of her arrival she was boarded by a great number of Mowrees (sic), who expressed their eagerness to assist Captain Thompson and his crew in cutting the spars. Later on in the day Te Pahi arrived from Te Puna, and came on board. He stayed only a few minutes, but in that time took a keen survey of the ship, and noted the loose discipline maintained on board. He then quietly des- 7 82 Wild Life In Southern Seas. cended into his canoe, but remained alongside the vessel and gave some quiet instructions to the great number of natives who surrounded the vessel on all sides. One by one these canoes drew up alongside, and their crews, under the pretext of trading, gradually managed to get on board, and sit down upon the deck. After breakfast Captain Thompson ordered two boats to get ready, and left the ship under the guidance of a native to look for spars. Presently Te Pahi, with the utmost calmness, ascended to the deck and surveyed the scene. Satisfied that the proper moment had arrived for his bloody purpose, he gave the signal. In an instant the apparently peaceful natives, who had been sitting quietly upon the decks, rushed upon the unarmed crew, who were dispersed about the ship at their various employments. The greater part were massacred in a moment, and were no sooner knocked down by blows from meres (clubs) than they were cut up while still alive. Five or six of the crew escaped into the rigging. Te Pahi now having possession of the Boyd, hailed these with a speaking trumpet, and ordered them to unbend the sails and cut away the rigging and they should not be hurt. They complied with his commands, and then came down. He then took them ashore, and afterwards killed them, The master, who had gone ashore unarmed, was easily despatched. The names of the survivors are : Mrs. Nanny Morley and child, Betsy Broughton, and Thomas Davis (boy). The natives of the spar district of this harbour (Kororareka, Bay of Islands), have behaved well, even beyond expecta- tion, and seem much concerned on account of the un- fortunate event ; and dreading the displeasure of King The Cutting off of the " BoyJ" 8 3 George, have requested certificates or their good conduct in order to exempt them from his vengeance. But let no man after this trust a New Zealander. SIMEON PATESON, Master. ALEX BERRY, Supercargo. JAMES RUSSELL, Mate. Ship City of Edinburgh, Bay of Islands, January 6, 1810. Not long after this Captain Chase, of the Governor Eligh^ was able to obtain further particulars from a native of Tahiti, who was one of the Eoyd's crew, and had probably been spared on account of his colour. According to this man's account, which appears to be authentic, the captain was accompanied by the chief mate, and three, not two, boats were manned to get the spars on board. Among those who were with the landing party were the six Maori seamen from the Boyd. These were the men whom it is alleged that Captain Thomp- son ill-treated. (Nothing definite to this effect seems to have been proved.) The boats were conducted to a river, on entering which they were out of sight of the ship ; and after pro- ceeding some distance up, Captain Thompson was invited to land and mark the trees he wanted. The boats landed accordingly, the 84 Wild Life in Southern Seas. tide being then beginning to ebb, and the crews followed to assist in the work. The guides led the party through various paths that were least likely to answer the desired end, thus delaying the premeditated attack until the boats should be left high and dry, and the unfortunate crews unable to escape. This part of their horrible plan accomplished, the natives became very insolent and rude, ironically pointing at decayed fragments of trees and inquiring of Captain Thompson whether such would suit his purpose or not. And then the Maori seamen of the Boyd threw off the mask, and in opprobrious terms upbraided him with their maltreatment on board, informing him. at the same time that he should have no spars there but what he could cut and carry away himself. Captain Thompson, apparently caring nothing for the disappoint- ment, turned carelessly away with his people towards the boats, and at this moment they were savagely assaulted with clubs and axes, which the assailants had until then concealed under their dresses, and, although the boats' crews had several muskets, yet so impetuous was the attack that every man was slaughtered before one could be used. The Cutting off of the " BoyJ" 85 This dreadful deed accomplished, the bodies of Captain Thompson and his unfortunate men were cut up, cooked, and devoured by the murderers, who, clothing themselves with their victims' apparel, launched the boats and pro- ceeded towards the ship, which they determined to attack. It being very dark before they reached her, and no suspicion being entertained of what had happened, the second officer hailed the boats, and was answered by the villains who had occasioned the disaster, that the captain having chosen to remain with his men on shore that night for the purpose of viewing the country, had ordered them to take on board such spars as had already been procured. Satisfied with this, the second mate ordered the boats to come alongside, and stood in the gangway as the first of the natives ascended the ship's side. In an instant his brains were dashed out with a mere, or jade club, and then all the seamen of the watch on deck were in like manner surprised and murdered. Some of the assassins then went down to the cabin door, and asked the passengers and others to go on deck and look at the boat load of spars. An un- fortunate female passenger was the first to open 86 Wild Life in Southern Seas. her door and come out, and the moment she ascended the companion she was cut down. The noise occasioned by her fall alarmed the people that were in bed, who, running on deck in disorder, were all killed as they went up the companion, except four or five who ran up the rigging and remained there till daylight. The next morning Te Pahi appeared along- side in a canoe, and was much offended at what had happened, but was not permitted to inter- fere or remain near the ship. The unfortunate men in the rigging called to him and implored his protection, of which he assured them if they could make their way to his canoe. This they at last succeeded in doing, and, although threatened by the other Maoris, the old man landed the white men on the nearest point. But the moment they reached the shore they were surrounded, and Te Pahi was forcibly held while the murder of the unhappy fugitives was perpetrated. Te Pahi, however, who was a chief of great renown, was afterwards permitted by the people of Whangaroa to take three boatloads of any property he chose out of the ship, firearms and gunpowder excepted, and the bulk they divided The Cutting off of the " Boyd" 87 among themselves. The salt provisions, flour, and spirits they threw overboard, considering them useless. The muskets they prized very much, and one of the savages, in his eagerness to try one, stove in the head of a barrel of gun- powder, and filling the pan of the piece snapped it directly over the cask ! In an instant the powder exploded, and killed five native women and nine men, and set the ship on fire. Her cables were then cut, and she was allowed to drift ashore. Of the rescued survivors of this dreadful massacre, Mrs. Morley died ten months later at Valparaiso ; her child, when grown to woman- hood, kept a school in Sydney. Miss Broughton became Mrs. Charles Throsby, of Sydney ; and Davis, the boy, was drowned at Shoalhaven in the colony of New South Wales, in May, 1822. And to-day, when the tide is low, the brown- skinned descendants of the Maoris who cut off" the ill-fated Boyd will show you her weed- covered timbers protruding from the mud silent witnesses of one of the many tragedies of the Southern Seas. My Native Servants. I HAD just said good-bye to the captain of the trading vessel that had landed me on Niue (Savage Island), and was watching her getting under way, when I saw that a deputation of the leading villagers was awaiting me at the top of the rugged path that led to my dwelling. Seeing among them several of the people who had been assisting the ship's crew to carry my goods up to the house, I concluded they were waiting to tell me the usual native story of having individually and collectively strained their backs by lifting cases of tinned beef, and demand another dollar each. I was mistaken. Soseni, the spokesman, stepped out and said that he and the deputa- tion, representing as they did the public voice of Avatele village, respectfully desired to warn 88 My Native Servants. 89 me against engaging any strangers from Alofi as domestics. They did not want to damage any one's reputation, but the Alofi folk were a bad lot. Certainly there were some who were honest people who originally belonged to Avatele, and I said I would not decide just then. I should wait till I had settled down a bit. At present, however, I added, old Lupo's son, Moemoe, would cook for me. The deputation seemed annoyed, and Soseni said they were sorry for me. Lupo was a very good man, and although a Samoan, was an esteemed fellow-townsman and a deacon as well ; also he had married a Niue woman, which was in his favour. But his sons were two notoriously improper young men (applause) ; their mother, while of spotless morals, was a confirmed cadger and a public wrangler and shrew. As for the daughters well, I could look at their record any time in the fakafi ill's (judge's) charge-book. I thanked the deputation for their goodwill, and said that while I would not decide hastily in reference to other servants, I quite intended keeping Moemoe as my cook. I had, I said, 90 Wild Life in Southern Seas. known old Lupo for many years, and long ago promised him that if ever I came to Savage Island I would take some of his family into my service. " Thank you very much," said the polite Soseni, speaking in English, and then he and his friends bade me good-day, and somewhat hurriedly left me. (I learnt half an hour after- wards that they at once called an emergency meeting of the town council, and passed a law that no member of Lupo's family but Moemoe was to take service with the new white man under any excuse ; also that if any of Moemoe's relatives were seen hanging about the premises on the look-out for a job the general public were at liberty to stone them.) Just as I reached the gate leading to the house I heard angry voices from the back ; then followed the sound of blows, accompanied by much bad language, and presently three men and four women rushed down the path, pursued by a hundred or so of people of both sexes, who assailed the fugitives with showers of stones. Old Lupo came out to meet me. "What is all this row, Lupo?" Lupo smiled pleasantly and said it was nothing My Native Servants. 91 " only some man and womans, sir, from Alofi. They wanted to come inside and talk to you about getting some servants from their town. And this made the Avatele people cross ; yes, sir, very cross. So they threw some stone at them." (I must mention that Lupo always spoke English to white men, and to address him in the native tongue was a sore affront.) " Oh, I see. Well, I'm very hungry ; is my supper ready ? And, I say, Lupo, don't let any more people in to-day to talk about servants." " All right, sir," he replied somewhat uneasily. I heaved a contented sigh as I mounted the verandah steps, for the day had been one of toil, and I was eager to rest a little before supper. My little daughter was already asleep in a fellow trader's house near by, worn out with the excitement of her novel surroundings. I stepped into the big sitting-room of my new abode, and there, sitting on the floor in solemn silence with their backs to the wall, were about fifty women. They all smiled pleasantly at me as I entered, and then all began to talk at once : each one wanted to be nurse to the tama-fafine- loatsi (little girl). " Here, I say, Lupo, clear all these women 92 Wild Life in Southern Seas. out of this. What do they want swarming into the place like this ? Tell them that I won't talk about servants till to-morrow morning. And, besides that, I want to eat my supper, and I can't eat it with fifty women staring at me in a circle." Old Lupo stroked his bald brown head and coughed apologetically. " If you please, sir, these Niue womans all very much want to know who you going to get for nurse-woman for your little girl." On my refusing, with some warmth, to dis- cuss the matter with them at that moment, and requesting them to clear out, they unanimously stated that I was the worst and most ill- mannered white man they had ever seen ; furthermore, that if I engaged a single servant, male or female, from any other village than Avatele, the blood of that person would be on my head. However, they would, they said, come again in the morning with some friends and talk the matter over with me. A few weeks later, my trading colleague, who lived ten miles away on the other side of the island, came along to see how I was getting on. He had heard that there was some ill-feeling My Native Servants. 93 among the various villages about my servants, and thought he might advise me, as I was a stranger to Niue people. I fell upon his neck and wept down his back, and told him that my servants had got possession of me ; I seemed to have engaged the whole village. That confounded young ruffian Moemoe was the worst. He was a tall, well-built youth of nineteen, with a pale olive complexion and big, dreamy eyes that looked soulfully out from the black glossy curls which fell about his forehead. He turned up on the first day dressed in a white duck suit and canvas shoes, and with scarlet hibiscus flowers stuck through his curls, one over each ear. He seemed a clean, intelli- gent lad, but a bit languid, and said he would be content with five dols. per month ; also that he could make bread. I at once took him over to the detached kitchen, unlocked the door, showed him that all the necessary utensils used by my predecessor were there and in good order, and told him to come to me for kitchen stores. He said, " All right," sat down on a stool and, asking me for my tobacco pouch, began to fill his pipe. Thinking that he 94 Wild Life in Southern Seas. probably wanted to meditate a while on the responsibilities of his position, I withdrew. Hakala, the senior nurse, had been strongly recommended to me by Captain Packenham as a most excellent and deserving woman ; and, more than that, as the widow of a white man who had been hanged in Queensland. She was a pleasant-looking, smiling-eyed woman of about forty, with her long hair dressed a la Suisse ; and although she could not speak a word of English, I felt sure my little girl would like her. Besides that she was a widow, and who can resist the claims of the widow upon our pity ? I could not. And presently my daughter ran out to her and put out her arms to be lifted up. The woman's eyes sparkled and danced with pleasure, her brown cheeks dimpled, and a soft, cooing, mother-like laugh gently shook her ample bosom, and then sub- sided into an endearing, whispering /#, tuk, tuk just the sweet, crooing sound a mother hen makes as her chicks cuddle up beneath her loving wing. And because of this, and of her widowhood, I gave Hakala the billet of boss nurse. (She entered on her duties at once, and when night came she lay down upon her couch My Native Servants. 95 of mats j ust under my youngster's bed. About midnight I looked in and saw that two native children lay one on each side of her. I awakened her, and asked her what she meant, bringing native children in the bedroom. " They are mine," she said with a smile. " Why," I said, angrily, " Captain Packenham said you had no children." " Only native children, sir. I be married again now. My husband comes here to-morrow to live with me. He is a good man and says he will help Moemoe to make bread for you.") The next morning I engaged all the servants I wanted, but had a lot of opposition from the town councillors because I selected a washer- woman from Alofi, a rough carpenter from another coast village called Fatiau, and a second nurse, or rather nursemaid, from a bush town called Hakupu. She was quite a young thing, and promised faithfully never to let the little white girl out of her sight for a moment during her walks. Her name was E'eu. But, so as not to cause too much ill-feeling and jealousy among the Avatele people by the inclusion of too many strangers, the whole of the labourers, male and female, that it was necessary for me to g6 Wild Life in Southern Seas. employ about the station were residents of the village. This seemed to satisfy the authorities and all promised well. At noon I went out to the cookhouse to see how my chef was getting on. He had taken off his coat and shirt, but was still sitting down, playing an accordion to an audience of a dozen young women, all more or less in a state of deshabille even for Nine women. They fled wildly the moment I appeared. " Moemoe, who are those girls ? Why did you let them come in here ? " Oh, they were cousins of his, he said, and had come to see him make bread. And he wanted to begin work at once. And would I mind if some of the girls helped him in the kitchen ? Minea was good at cleaning knives, Toria wanted to mend a hole in the floor mat, Kahe said she would like to help him peel the yams and taro, and Talamaheke the girl with the wreath of orange blossoms wanted to wash up the plates ; the others were willing to make themselves generally useful. Here he was interrupted by a face, apparently his double, appearing at the kitchen window, and the angry exclamation of " Liar ! " My Native Servants. 97 "Do not heed him" said my chef, com- posedly ; " that my brother, and he very jealous of me. He thinks he can make bread." I warned the intruding brother off the premises, and was just halfway across the grassy sward that separated the kitchen from the dwelling-house, when I heard loud feminine yells, and cries for me to come quickly. Rush- ing into the big sitting-room a pretty scene was revealed. Hakala, the head nurse, valiantly assisted by the pretty E'eu, was engaged in deadly combat with two other women who were apparently endeavouring to tear her hair out by the roots. My infant daughter was standing on the table, her shrieks of terror only seeming to nerve the combatants to greater efforts to destroy one another. Seizing a canoe paddle from a fat, burly native who stood at the door applauding the struggle, I belaboured the bare legs of the intruders with such effect that both women dropped upon the matted floor and contented themselves with hurling opprobrious epithets at Hakala, and promising to come again later on. In a few moments the house was filled with natives, and an animated dis- cussion took place as to who were the 8 98 Wild Life in Southern Seas. aggressors. Then Soseni came to my assist- ance, and, by banging right and left, he with a heavy stick and I with my paddle, we managed to clear the room. Then we learned that the fight arose in a very simple manner. Hakala had been giving her charge something to eat, when she was perceived by the two women from outside the station fence, who told her she was not fit to take charge of a pig, let alone a child and that a white child. This she very properly resented. During the day several minor fights arose out of trifling matters. The native teacher, accompanied by his daughter, a huge mass of adipose tissue, named Pepe (The Butterfly), solicited an interview with me. The reverend gentleman said he did not want to harrow my feelings, but well, he would let his daughter speak. And she spoke. She said that I ought to know that the girl E'eu, who had part charge of my " beautiful, sweet little bird," was a sinner of the worst description. Did I know that she (E'eu) had been turned out of Sunday School for dancing heathen dances with some other girls one moonlight night ? I said that did not matter to me. She said that My Native Servants. 99 it would not be good for my child to be taught such things. She herself was a proper girl, and hated wicked and immodest people, like this E'eu. At this my native carpenter, who was working near by, mending a window, laughed derisively, and Pepe's papa asked him what he meant. He replied by making the assertion that Pepe was the giddiest girl in Niue. " How dare you say that, you pig ! " demanded the minister ; and then, turning to me, " This man is a very evil-hearted person. He it was who stole the handkerchief of Commodore Goodenough ten years ago." And then the graceful E'eu appeared at the doorway, carrying my infant. In an instant she placed the child in the carpenter's arms, and then flew at the monstrous Pepe like a tiger-cat. We the teacher and myself managed to separate them after they had bitten each other savagely. Later on in the afternoon the washerwoman from Alofi came to me to have her head dressed with sticking-plaster : an Avatele woman had struck her on the temple with a stone. After this matters settled down a bit. Two weeks later, E'eu, big-eyed, red-lipped, loo Wild Life in Southern Seas. and lithe-limbed, asked me if she could take my little girl for a walk to a village called Tamakautoga. " There be people of mine own blood there, master. And they hunger to see this little child of thine. And I shall be careful that she eateth none of those things of which thou hast warned me pork, or cold taro, or baked fae (octopus), or guavas, or raw fish." I saw her lead my little one away under the long, palm-shaded path that led to Tamakautoga, and, having nothing to do in particular, went to the house of a trader near by for a smoke and a chat. From his verandah we commanded a view of the line of reef that stood out like a shelf from the precipitous shore of the island. The tide was half-ebbed, but the rolling ocean billows dashed unceasingly against the steep face of the reef and sent great seething sheets of roaring foam sweeping shoreward over the surface of the coral table. Yet all along the edge of the reef were numbers of women fishing with rods. Sometimes, when a roller too big to withstand rose and curled its greeny crest fiercely before them, the women would run landward a hundred feet or so, and let it sweep by them waist high. Then they would hurry back to My Native Servants. 101 the face of the reef and drop their lines into the sea again. At one place, where the curve of the reef broke the first force of the rushing seas, were gathered some dozen or so of young girls, all standing up to their waists in the troubled surf, catching a species of small rock cod that came in with the rising tide, and dropping them into the baskets carried on their naked backs. Every now and then, however, a wavering, leaping wall of backwash from the shore would make them spring for safety upon the round, isolated knobs of coral that here and there studded the ledge on which they stood. For any one of them to lose her footing meant being carried out by the backwash over the edge of the reef, and, if not drowned, being severely lacerated by the jagged coral. My friend and I sat looking at them for some time, when pre- sently he said : " Look at that girl right on the very edge the one with the big bundle on her back. She'll get knocked over by the next sea to a dead certainty. By Jove, it's a child she's carrying. Man, it's your youngster ! " In another moment we tore down the rocky path, and plunging into the water, ran along IO2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. the reef, falling into holes every now and then, and clambering out again, half-drowned. The group of girls saw us coming, and gave the wicked E'eu a warning cry. She turned, and at once made off for the shore, making a detour to avoid the vengeance she knew was coming. She gained the beach first, barefooted as she was, and, dropping her rod, sprang up the path like a goat. My child, I saw, was strapped tightly upon her carrier's back by two cross-belts of green/ ? come. It is impossible to describe the sneering, bitter emphasis the old woman gave to her last half- a-dozen words, imitating, as she did to perfec- tion, the voice of the then British Consul. That gentleman is long since dead ; and whilst his 180 Wild Life in Southern Seas. genial social qualities will long be remembered by those who knew him, his foolish official acts made him many enemies, and caused intense bitterness of feeling among the natives. The grey-haired dame smoked on in silence, and then a tall, lithe-limbed girl rose from beside the old woman, and came over to me, and, taking the inevitable cigarette from her lips, offered it to me. " She is my son's wife," explains the old woman, as the pretty creature seats herself again ; and then this soft-eyed, sweet-voiced girl says, with an innocent, childish laugh : " Tah ! I love to hear the pa fana (firing of guns). My husband took two heads at Mulinu'u once. Fighting will come by and by, my mother, and your son shall bring you ' red bread-fruit ' to look at again." For the edification of my readers I may explain that the term " red bread-fruit" was then the Samoan slang for decapitated heads. This amiable young lady evidently had a full share of the Samoan women's spirit that causes them to very often leave the care of their children and houses to the very oldest of their sex, and follow the fortunes of their husbands or lovers to the camp. Old Samoan Days. 1 8 I Another hour passed, and then there came a rush of excited children along the narrow, shady path that led into the village from the northward. " Gafalua "is coming," they cried pantingly, " and with him there are two officers from the ship a little, dark-faced man with a black moustache, and a big, fat man." I ran out to meet them, and in a few minutes was shaking hands both with Dr. T from the warship, and my native friend, the chief. The doctor, who was in uniform, was bound for Apia, in company with Lieutenant D , to make inquiries concerning the outbreak of sick- ness there, the commander of the corvette not liking to take the ship to Apia until he had satisfied himself that there was no risk in so doing. The doctor agreed to meet me in Apia on the following day, and, if possible, join Gafalua and myself in a mountain excursion to the other side of the island, where we were to remain for a couple of days at the village of Safata. Early next morning, accompanied by Gafalua, his son and "daughter, and four or five young men and women carrying cooked food for the 1 82 Wild Life in Southern Seas. journey to Safata, I set out for Apia a three hours' walk. Inquiring for the doctor at the American Consulate, I found a note for me saying that he and Lieutenant D - had re- turned to the ship to report that Apia was too unhealthy just then for her to make a stay at ; also that he would apply for a few days' leave, and expected to return in the evening. Leaving Gafalua and his followers at the native village of Matautu, I returned to my own ship, and gathered together a few extra traps for the journey. As I was pulled ashore the boat had to pass under the stern of a large Sydney trading brig, whose captain hailed me, and asked me to come aboard. With him were his wife and daughter, who were making a visit to Samoa after an absence of some years, and, curiously enough, that very morning they had been dis- cussing means of going to Safata to spend a few days there with the resident missionary, who was an old friend. To sail round in a cutter would mean at least a two days' voyage and a vast amount of discomfort. "Why not come with us?" I suggested. " We can leave this evening, sleep at Magiagi " (a village a few miles from Apia), " start early Old Samoan Days. 183 in the morning, and be at Safata in the after- noon." In five minutes everything was arranged ; the two ladies were to meet the rest of the party at the Vaisigago ferry, and I hurried ashore, delighted at my luck in securing such charming companions. Both Mrs. Hollister and her daughter spoke Samoan, and were great favourites with the natives of the Apia district. Early in the afternoon the doctor returned happy with four days' leave and we were at once joined by Gafalua and his people. At the ferry we found the two white ladies awaiting us, with another addition to our party the half-caste wife of an American store- keeper. Then we started. Our way lay along the principal roadway or street of Apia, as far as the white- walled native church, and then made a detour to the left, inland. The town of Apia, or properly speak- ing, the towns of Apia and Matafele combined, are laid out in a very irregular manner ; and the main street follows the curves of the beach. The sun was somewhat fierce, and we hailed with delight the cool, shaded road which Jay before us after we turned off" from the town. 184 Wild Life in Southern Seas. It had been raining a few days previously, and the middle of the road was somewhat muddy, but the side-paths were fairly dry for the ladies, who declined the offer of our natives to be carried till we reached the first resting- place. The soil here was a rich, red loam ; and from the beach for nearly two miles inland the road lay through banana and taro plantations, with here and there small villages inhabited by the adherents of Malietoa. Every now and then natives would pass us generally women with loads of taro, yams, or fruit ; and it was pleasant to note the courteous manner in which they left the dry side-walk and stood in the boggy centre of the road while we passed. By nearly every one we were greeted with a smile and offer of fruit for the ladies, or a coconut to drink. About two hours after crossing the Vaisigago and proceeding in a south-easterly direction, we heard the sound of a cataract, and presently we again got a sight of the river through the trees. We turned off at this spot to look at the favourite bathing place of the white residents, a deep pool of some fifty yards in length, surrounded by a thick, tropical Old Samoan Days. 185 vegetation. The Vaisigago here was a noisy, brawling little stream, and at the head of the pool was a gorge, between the black, gloomy sides of which the bright, clear water came rushing down with many a swirl and hiss, and forming in a deep, rocky depression a miniature lake. Our carriers laid down their burdens, and waited whilst we sat on the edge of the pool, to enjoy for a few minutes, the pretty sight. The water was full of fish resembling English trout ; and there were also two or three kinds of a small size, and precisely similar to those found in the rivers 'of Northern Australia. One of the natives went down into the creek, where the water was shallow, and groping with his hands under the boulders, caught two or three large shrimps : great fat, brown fellows, that jumped about in a most active manner when laid on the rocks beside us, making a peculiar snapping noise with their huge nippers. Taking one up, the native bit its head off, and then breaking the body into three or four pieces, desired Miss Hollister to throw them into the water. The instant the dismembered fragments touched the surface there was a rush of fish, and the glassy surface of the pool for in the centre 1 86 Wild Life in Southern Seas. there was no apparent current was swirled and splashed and eddied about. The doctor was so excited at such promising indications of sport that he announced his intention of returning to Apia, and borrowing a rod and tackle ; but we promised him that on our return we should pay another visit to the pool, and make a day of it. This spot is locally known as " Hamilton's Pool," being named after the then port pilot, Captain Edward Hamilton. Many years ago, when H.M.S. Pearl was in Samoa, that ill-fated and gallant sailor, Commodore Goodenough, who was fated to die by the poisoned arrows of the savages of the Santa Cruz Group, delighted to make his way here and drink in the romantic beauty of the scene. But we could not linger. We had still some miles to travel ere we reached the bush village where we were to rest for the night. Shoulder- ing their burdens, our carriers move briskly along, and presently we notice that we have almost reached the border of the narrow belt of littoral that lies at the back of Apia ; for the road now presents a gradual but very decided ascent. Every now and then we hear the deep booming note of the wild pigeons, and slip cart- Old Samoa?! Days. 187 ridges into our guns in readiness for a chance shot, as even at this short distance from the town the great, blue-plumaged birds are to be met with. The road has become narrower, and in the place of the tall, slender coco-palms, growing so thickly in the flat country, we see all round us the great masoi and tamanu trees, towering up high above all their fellows of the wood. We meet very few natives now, and pass no more plantations. Every now and then the fuia, the Polynesian blackbird, utters his shrill, sharp note, and flitting in front of us perches on an overhanging branch, leaning his head on one side in a pert, impudent manner, and saucily staring with his beady black eye at the intruders. Bird life is plentiful here. Flocks of gay, bright little paroquets dart in quick flashes of colour among the undergrowth of the forest ; while overhead there fills the air the soft cooing of thousands of ring-doves. Well have the Samoans named the ring-dove manu-tagi the bird that " cries " for there is to their imaginative natures an undercurrent of sadness in the gentle cooing notes that fill the silent mountain forest with their plaintive melody, and which is rendered the more 1 88 Wild Life in Southern Seas, marked by the shrill scream of the paroquets, and the proud, haughty " boom ! " of the red- crested pigeon. Now we near the village and the deep quiet of the forest is broken by sounds like chopping and tapping on wood. It is the native women, beating out with heavy wooden mallets the bark of the paper mulberry to make tappa, the native cloth. Our natives quicken their steps and break into song ; the sounds from the village cease, and then we hear plainly enough the soft voices of the women borne through the forest in an answering chorus of welcome. Ten minutes more, the ladies stepping out bravely in our midst, and we round the bend of the track, and there before us is a pretty little Arcadian- Polynesian village of some ten or a dozen thatch-covered houses. In the centre stands the largest edifice, a great mushroom-roofed house, open at the sides, and the floor covered with rough but clean mats made from the coconut leaf. Seated in the house are some five or six women, engaged in making tappa ; but they hastily Jay their implements aside, and one, quite an ancient lady, bids us come in ; and, as is ever the case in Samoa with European Old Samoan Days. 189 or American travellers, welcomes us. We all file in, and in default of chairs or stools sit with our backs against the supporting posts of the house, whilst the women reach down from cross-beams overhead huge bundles of soft white mats with gaily-ornamented edges, and spread them in the centre of the house. So far, the old woman alone has spoken, it being considered the height of bad breeding by Samoans for any one to speak to or question strangers in public, until the chief or chieftainess in autho- rity has done so. The mats being spread out, and having taken our seats cross-legged thereon, Samoan style, the old dame, in a slow, set speech, gave us her name, and said that her grandson, the chief of the village, with all his fighting men, were away at a Fono or native political meeting, and would not return till night, winding up her remarks by regretting that we had sent no notice of our coming, so that food and houses might be made ready for us ; but that if our " young men " would assist she would have a pig killed and get food ready instantly. No sooner said than done ! Up jumps Talamai, one of our carriers, and disappears at 190 Wild Life in Southern Seas. the rear of the houses ; and then arises a horrible squealing, and much laughter from the women and girls, as a small black porker is dragged before the dame to inspect. She gives a nod. Thump ! a blow from a heavy club terminates the animal's woes, and the carcase is dragged off by our carriers and the women, many more of whom are now present, having come in from the plantations with vegetables and fruit. Then how the native girls cluster round our two fair fellow-travellers, and press fruit and young coconuts upon them ; already they have made a couch of layers of tappa, with a soft roll of finely-worked mats for a pillow, and the two white ladies recline thereon and look happy, and talk away in Samoan to the girls. So we smoke and chat till a wild-eyed urchin calls out to the women, and announces that the meal is ready to be taken from the oven of leaves and stones. Away run our hostesses, and in five minutes return with roasted pork, fish, taro and baked plantains, which are laid out on platters made of interwoven coconut leaves. In the centre is placed a great pile of green coco- nuts. The two ladies are served with food on their couch ; but the doctor and myself seat Old Samoan Days. 191 ourselves cross-legged on the ground and eat in thorough native fashion. Our entertainers sit each one behind a guest, and with a fue (or fly- flap) brush away the flies. Never a word is spoken by any of them except in a whisper ; the young unmarried girls devote themselves to Mrs. and Miss Hollister, and leave us to be waited upon by the older women. This is in- tended as a special mark of respect to us ; for to receive attention and consideration from elderly people in Samoa is looked upon as a graceful compliment. Our meal finished, we fill and light our pipes, and " lay around loose," as the doctor calls it, to watch the first shadows of sunset close round the little village. Darkness comes on very quickly in these latitudes ; and soon from every house the evening fires send fitful flashes of light through their interwoven sides. The wild-eyed, Italian-looking boy takes a tappa mallet and strikes a long wooden cylinder standing out in the gravelled village square. It is the signal for evening prayer ; and then, ere the rolling echoes of this primitive substitute for a church bell have ceased to reverberate adown the gloom-enshrouded forest, the women and 192 Wild Life in Southern Seas. children gather in the house, and decorously seat themselves round the sides. One of our carriers is the young Amazonian who made the pleasant remark anent the " red bread-fruit " at Gafalua's village. She looks at her Pese Viiga (hymn-book), and says " Pese lua sefulu " hymn 20 and then her clear bird-like notes lead the singing. "Well, they certainly can sing," says the doctor, as the melodious voices of the women blend with the deeper tones of our stalwart car- riers in a translation of " The Living Fountain." The singing ceases, and then one of the carriers, a big, burly, black-bearded fellow, bends his head and utters a short prayer. The demeanour of these simple natives was a revelation to the doctor ; and at the conclusion of the short service he asked them to show him some of their books. They brought him great, heavily-bound translations of the Old and New Testament, hymn-books, and others of a devotional cha- racter ; published in London by the British and Foreign Bible Society ; and, indeed, the doctor admitted that the knowledge displayed by some of the women made him " feel rather down in Scripture history." Old Samoan Days. 193 Presently from out the darkness of the forest depths sounds the murmuring of voices. It is the men of the village returning from the Fono. Nearer and nearer they come, and now the women make the fires blaze up brightly by throwing on them the shells of coconuts. Here are the men twenty of them and a brave sight they make, as with a steady tramp, they march two deep over the gravelly square, the firelight playing fitfully on their oil-glisten- ing, copper-coloured bodies, and shouldered rifles. Every man is in full fighting fig bodies oiled, hair tied up over the crown of the head with a narrow band of Turkey red cloth, and round their waists broad leather belts with cart- ridge pouches. Some carry those Jong, ugly, but business-like looking implements, the Nifa- oti, or death knife, used expressly for decapita- tion. A few have heavy revolvers of a superior pattern, and tied round the brawny arms and legs of all are ornaments of white shells or green and scarlet leaves intermingled. The chief calls halt, and then in a semi-military fashion dismisses them, and each seeks his house, their women-kind following. Stooping his tall frame, the chief enters the 194 Wild Life in Southern Seas. big house, and in a quiet, dignified manner shakes hands with his visitors, and acknowledges former acquaintance with me by holding my hand and patting gently on the back of it a custom that is followed in some parts of Poly- nesia, denoting pleasure at meeting a friend. He does not shake hands with Mrs. Hoi lister and her daughter, but, like a well-bred Samoan, sits himself cross-legged in front of them a few paces distant, and, lowering his eyes, gives the proper Samoan greeting to women of position, Uae afio mai, tamaitai, which rendered in Eng- lish is, " Your highnesses have come." His mother brings him food, and then we sit round and smoke in silence whilst the doctor fumbles about our traps and produces a couple of bottles and glasses, and uncorking one asks the chief to " take a taste." His grandmother frowns dis- approval as he pours out a " nip " that would please a second mate, and then, the big man, looking at us with a smile, says, 'To fa^ tamaitai ma alii (good-night, ladies and gentlemen), rolls himself in his white tappa covering, and placing his head on a curiously-shaped bamboo pillow, is soon asleep. Simultaneously we follow suit. The ladies, in accordance with a Samoan custom, Old Samoan Days. 195 retire to sleep in a separate house inhabited by the Ana luma, or unmarried women, who escort them thither by the light of a torch. II. We were awakened at sunrise by the villagers, and whilst the three ladies were making their toilettes, the doctor and I, accompanied by Gafalua and the chief of the village, went to bathe in the mountain stream near by. This was a feeder of the Vaisigago, and, like that stream, its waters were of a surpassing clear- ness, and full of small fish and prawns. Re- turning to the village we found our breakfast awaiting us, and everything in readiness for a start. Half an hour later we set out, escorted for the first six or eight miles by the young women and children of the village, who insisted upon relieving our carriers of their burdens. About noon we reached the summit of the mountain range which traverses Upolu from east to west, and here we rested awhile before beginning the descent to the southern shore, and to say farewell to our companions from Magiagi, many of whom wished to accompany us to Safata ; but on account of there being ill-blood 196 Wild Life in Southern Seas. between the two places they dared not. Only a few months before, so they told us, a war party of Safatans had made an attack on their village, but had been beaten off ; some heads were taken on both sides, and the Safatans had retreated, vowing vengeance. After lunch, which we ate under a huge banyan tree, we began our march again, and in a few minutes emerged from the gloom of the mountain forest out upon the verge of a plateau overlooking the coast for a dozen miles east and west. But much as we desired to stay awhile and feast ourselves upon the gorgeous panorama of tropical beauty that Jay beneath us, we could not, for there were dark clouds sweeping up from the north, and a deluge of rain might fall upon us at any moment. So off we started down the steep and slippery path, catching hold of vines, hanging creepers, and branches of trees, to save ourselves from getting to the base of the mountain too quickly. Gafalua had sent Vaitupu and her brother on to announce the approach of a malaga (a party of visitors), and soon after we reached the level ground, and just as the first drops of rain began to fall, we heard the sounds of a native drum beating the people Old Samoan Days. 197 were being summoned together to make prepa- rations. Soon we gained the outskirts of Safata, and from every house we received invitations to enter and rest till the rain ceased, but we pressed on, and a quarter of an hour later entered the village itself, where we were warmly welcomed by the chief of the place. The three ladies found the missionary and his wife awaiting them, and promising to call upon them at the mission-house on the following day, the doctor and I bade them goodbye, and took up our quarters with Gafalua and his two children in a house specially set apart for us. A bowl of kava was being prepared, and this we drank with our entertainers, and then prepared to make ourselves comfortable for the night. As the mosquitoes were bad, our host had rigged up a screen of fine muslin for each of the white men, a large one for Gafalua and his children, and many smaller ones for the rest of our company. During the night the rain fell in torrents, but O D ' we heeded it not, for we were tired out with our twenty miles' walk, and the natives per- ceiving our fatigue left us to ourselves at an early hour, after arranging a shooting and fishing excursion on the following morning. 198 Wild Life in Southern Seas. A lovely sunrise greeted us when we awoke, and after eating a hurried breakfast of roast fowl and taro, we started, accompanied by Gafalua, his two children, and one or two Safata natives. We were to fish along the edges of the reef at a spot where it formed a miniature lagoon, and where, we were assured by Vaitupu, who knew the place well, we should have plenty of sport. The sweet-scented masoi and cedar trees that fringed the forest, extending from the foot of the mountain to the beach, gave shelter from the rays of the sun to hundreds of the great blue-plumaged, scarlet-crested pigeons, and our progress was somewhat retarded in picking up the prizes that fell to the doctor's breech-loader. Within an hour or so of leaving the village we had secured enough to satisfy us all, and the boy fairly staggered under a load of fat, juicy birds. On reaching the beach we found a small native house, built under a giant bread-fruit tree, and untenanted. Into this we bundled our belong- ings, and set about rigging up our fishing- tackle. The doctor, taking his cue from me, elected to fish with a hand line, looking aghast at the gigantic proportions of the rod offered Old Samoa n Days. 199 to him by Gafalua, who, in his turn, gazed with astonishment at the doctor as he noticed him tying a large steel " Kirby " to the end of his line. " No good," says Gafalua, " fish Samoa no like black hook ; Samoa fish-hook very good," and displaying to the doctor a large mother-of-pearl fish hook, a marvel of ingenuity and strength. However, the doctor thought his way best, and so off we go. My young friends had not forgotten to bring me a pair of native sandals, woven from the tough fibre of the coconut, and once much used in Samoa; so, discarding my boots, I tied on the sandals in the orthodox manner, eliciting from the natives the laudatory exclamation, Si tagata Samoa, lava " Like a son of the soil." Then, all being in readiness, we start for the reef. The deep, calm waters of the pool are protected on three sides by the coral reef; on the seaward side there is a narrow passage, just wide enough for a small craft to sail through, and through this the spent billows of the Pacific roll lazily and sink to rest in the quiet depths of the lagoon waters. We make our way over 2OO Wild Life in Southern Seas. the dry coral (for it is low tide), and take up our positions where we can drop our lines directly beneath us into the water. The doctor stands on a little knoll of coral nearest the beach. Gafalua, his son and daughter and myself go further out towards the outer reef, and we are just about to drop our lines when a cry of alarm from the doctor is followed by a shriek of laughter from the girl, as a huge, yellow eel, with red eyes and snaky head, raises its sinuous body from out its coral niche beneath the surgeon's feet, and shows its glistening, needle-like fangs. The doctor seizes a piece of coral and strikes it a stunning blow on the head, and his attendant native gives the hideous sea-serpent the coup de grace by snicking off its head with his long knife. Tough customers, these eels ; minus his head he still wriggles and twists his greasy, orange-yellow body about, as if losing his head were a matter of no particular moment. The doctor baits his hook with a small bit of fish and throws out his line. Gafalua, poising himself on a little coral knoll, lowers his rod and trails the shining pearl-shell hook, innocent of bait, backwards and forwards through the water, and then Vaitupu calls out Old Samoan Days. 201 triumphantly, " Aue ! my father is first," and sure enough the stout pole in the chiefs hand is bending and straining under the weight of a heavy fish. What a splashing and froth he makes as he comes to the surface, and then with a dexterous swing Gafalua lands a magnificent blue and yellow groper weight about 10 Ibs. Beside us now stands Vaitupu, gaff in hand, her dark eyes dancing with excitement, for the doctor has wagered me a dollar he lands a fish before I do. " Here, here, O, my dear friend," cries Vaitupu, " drop your line here ; down there in that deep blue valley between the rocks are the great big gatala (rock cod). Oh, such fish, as big as a shark." Baiting with a small, wonderfully coloured fish, I drop my line into the " blue valley," while the girl and I watch the bait sinking slowly, slowly down, till it is almost lost to sight. A dark, misty shape rises up from the depths below, and Vaitupu clutches my arm. " Aue .' it is a gatala ; strike, strike, my friend." No need for that, Vaitupu ; a sharp tug at 2O2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. the line nearly capsizes me, and gatala makes a bolt. My tackle is, as the doctor says, thick enough to throw a buffalo, so no fear on that score ; and now, with a soft chuckle of delight, the girl lends her aid, and we pull up hand over hand. " Aue ! " says the little maid ; " surely it is the king of all gatala, it is so heavy." Whiz ! and away he goes again, nearly taking the line away from us ; gently now, he's turned again, and we haul up quickly. Ah ! there he is in sight now ; a great mottled-scaled fish with gleams of gold along his broad, noble back. " Good boy," calls out the doctor, "stick to him," and the two natives give a loud Aue ! of satis- faction as the fish comes to the surface, struggling and splashing like a young alligator. Bravely done, Vaitupu ! She stoops over the coral ledge, thrusts her right hand under his great gaping gills, and planting herself in a sitting posture, hangs on right bravely, although the great strength of the fish nearly drags her over the reef. Leaping from knoll to knoll over the distance that separates us, Gafalua comes to our aid, and then reaching down his great brawny, brown hand, he too seizes gatala under the gills, Old Samoan Days, 203 lifts him clear, and tosses him, lashing and struggling savagely, on the reef, lo triumphe ; or rather Aue ! We have conquered ; and the blushing, panting Vaitupu smiles appreciation to the doctor's encomiums of her pluck. "Hurrah!" exclaims the medico, as he grasps the slippery prize with both hands by the tail, and attempts to lift it up. " What a pity we can't take him back to Apia with us, and see him served up on the corvette's table. I guess he weighs forty pounds, too, or more." We take up our positions again, and now both Gafalua and the other natives land fish fast enough ; mostly a species of trumpeter about 4-lb. or 61b. weight. The doctor gazes sadly at his line, not a sign of a bite yet, and turns for solace to his cigar case, when he starts up and gives an excited jerk at his line. " Hurrah ! got one this time," he calls out, and some ten fathoms away, near the surface of the water, we see the silvery sheen of a long slender fish like an attenuated salmon. An eccentric fellow this, for instead of allowing himself to be pulled in like any well-regulated member of his tribe, he executes some astonish- ing gymnastic feats, jumping clear out of the 204 Wild Life in Southern Seas. water and coming down again with a sounding thwack, then darting with lightning speed to port and then to starboard ; and, as he realises it is not a joke, making a wild dive deep down into the coral caverns of the lagoon. But the doctor keeps a steady pull, and with a cry of triumph he lands his fish at last upon the rocks. " Aue ! " shouts the lively Vaitupu. " Oh, Mi si Fo Mai (medicine man) ; oh, clever American, you, too, are a lucky man thus to catch such a fish with a steel hook." And now the calm waters of the pool begin to swell, and gently lap the sides of the coral rocks ; it is the tide turning, and the place seems alive with fish of all sorts of colours and shapes. Quickly as we drop our lines, there is a tug and a splash, and every one of our party is too actively employed on his own account to heed the prowess of his companions. Half an hour or more and we retire from the field of our exploits to the little house on the beach, and, whilst resting on the mats, have the pleasurable satisfaction of seeing the boy laboriously dragging our captures over the coral reef and depositing them on the beach. Old Samoan Days. 205 Grateful enough it is to rest after our labours and eat the cold pigeon and taro and bread- fruit, which the nimble fingers of Vaitupu spreads out on extemporised platters of coconut leaves. She is now at home with the doctor, and laughs gaily as she sees him endeavouring to open a young coconut. Her tiputa is thrown aside over one shoulder, revealing all the budding beauty of coming womanhood, and round her head she has already entwined a wreath of scarlet hibiscus flowers, gathered from a bush that flaunts its wealth of flowers and foliage near by. " Father," she says with a laugh to the giant Samoan, " let us wait here till it is cool, and this clever gentleman from the American fighting ship will tell us tala about many things ; of the great guns that load in the ' belly ' ; of the iron devil-fish (torpedoes) that swim under the sea, and go under the bottoms of ships and bite them, and then blow them up, so that all the men are drowned ; and ask him if he has ever killed any people ; and if he has a wife in America, and is she young and pretty ; and could the American fighting ship sink the big German man-of-war that was at Apia last year, 206 Wild Life in Southern Seas. whose captain had red whiskers and a pot belly?" And there we lay and smoked and talked, and gazed sleepily out upon the sparkling sea with the long line of foaming, reef-bound surf far below us, till the first air of the' land breeze crept down to us from the mountains. Then, shouldering our burdens, we returned to the village to watch an evening dance, and then sleep peacefully till the morn. The morning for our return to Apia broke brightly, with the booming of the feeding pigeons, and the shrill cries of the gaily-hued paroquets, as they flitted from bough to bough in the bread-fruit grove surrounding the town. The doctor had been up and away as the first streak of sunrise pierced through the lattice- worked sides of the house, to walk to the mission house and bid farewell to the ladies, who had sent us word that they had decided to stay at Safata for a week. As Gafalua and myself were having our breakfast, we saw him striding down the leafy path in company with the missionary, who had returned with him to say goodbye. We made quite a strong party Old Samoan Days. 207 going back, as, although we left the ladies behind at the mission, we found awaiting us some twenty natives of both sexes, who begged to be allowed to join our party, as they had business in Apia. The more the merrier, we say ; and as we have already said farewell to the old chief and the principal people of the town, we now rub noses with the chief ladies thereof, and depart amidst a chorus of good wishes. But I must not forget. It was Gafalua's intention to leave Vaitupu with some of her Safata relatives for a few weeks, and with tears of vexation dimming her eyes she had said farewell to us at the village. The girl had quite won our hearts by her amiable and pleasing manners, and so the doctor and I, joining forces, begged her father to let the " little maid " cross the island again, and see the fighting ship with its guns that " loaded from behind." "Only let me go with you," she pleaded, " and I shall be as silent as the dead. When we get to Apia, is not my cousin, Manumea, there ? And I can stay there with her while you, my father, go to the olo (forts) of the Tua 208 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Masaga. But I, oh, most of all, I want to see the big man-of-war." The burly chief looked at his daughter, and then at myself and the doctor, and turning to the girl, patted her hand affectionately. "Thou shall come, little one," he said at last, with a smile. We followed the same road that had brought us to Safata, and as we struck deeper into the leaf-covered arcades of the forest, we lost the low murmuring of the breakers as they dashed upon the outer barrier reef, and heard the sudden calls of the pigeons resounding and echoing all around us. The morning dew was still heavy upon the trees, and as the birds flew away from or alighted upon them, a shower of pearly drops fell to the ground ; then ever and anon we heard the shrill, cackling note of the wild cock, as with outspread wings and scurrying feet he fled before us to his hiding-place in some vine-clad covert. Two miles more, and we had crossed the narrow belt of littoral, and were ascending the mountain path, and now the vegetation grew denser at every step ; for the sides of the mountain were clothed with a verdant jungle through which Ola Samoan Days. 209 the rays even of the mid-day sun could scarcely penetrate. The path was, however, well worn, although in some places very slippery and precipitous. We envied the ease with which our native friends made the ascent, whilst we, with our boots clogged with the tough, adhesive red clay, every now and then slipped and fell. An hour before noon we had reached the summit of the range, and with a sigh of relief assented to Gafalua's suggestion to rest for an hour or so. And so we leant our weary backs against the buttressed trunk of a great white- barked tree, and enjoyed to our full the beautiful scene below. The trade wind was very fresh, and had tipped with " white horses " the blue bosom of the Pacific ; but away to the southward, where the outer reef reared its solid barrier against the ocean roll, there showed within its long sweeping curve the green, placid waters of shallow depth that glinted and sparkled in the tropic sun, and about the distant rush and roar of the breakers as they fell upon the reef ascended a misty haze that hovered and wavered perpetually above the swirling sheets of foam sweeping across the coral rock. Sometimes, 2io Wild Life in Southern Seas. when the waving branches above our heads ceased their soughing for a moment or two, we heard from seaward a faint murmuring sound that we knew was the voice of the ocean borne to us on the breeze. Far down below us we saw through an opening in the forest the thatched houses of the village, and our thoughts went back to the kindly, honest-hearted people who dwelt there. To the northward of us was hilly, undulating country, and from the sides of the lesser hills we saw clouds of smoke ascend- ing, showing that the men of the bush villages were at work clearing their yam plantations. It was a scene like to many such that may be viewed almost anywhere in the high moun- tainous isles of the Pacific, but to us at that moment it seemed the very perfection of tropic loveliness. We reached Apia as darkness fell ; and then, bidding goodbye to the doctor and Gafalua and the little maid, I hurried aboard our schooner, and found that she was only awaiting my return to sail at daylight. And as the red sun shot up from the sea, the sharp bows of our little vessel cleft the Old Samoan Days. 2 1 1 swelling blue as she stood away northward and westward toward the distant Carolines, and long before noon Upolu was but a misty outline astern. The King's Artillerymen. r I "HE story of the cutting-off of the jL London privateer Tort-au-Prince by the natives of Lifuka in the Friendly Islands, in 1805, is pretty well known to students of the earlier history of New South Wales, for a full report of the massacre figures among the official records of the settlement. The Port-au-Prince, it may be mentioned, had in the earlier part of her voyage along the coast of South America captured a number of Spanish prizes, two of which had been despatched with prize crews to Port Jackson, where they arrived safely, and were duly sold a few months after the former messmates of those that brought them there had been savagely slaughtered in the Friendlies. The events of the P or t-au-P rinds remarkable voyage were subsequently made known by the The Kings Artillerymen. 213 publication in London, in 1810, of Mr. William Mariner's " Tonga Islands." This Mariner was a youthful friend of Captain Duck, the master of the privateer, and seems to have been spared by the natives on account of the friendly feeling entertained for him by the leading chief Finau and a lesser chief named Vaka-ta-bula. Some others of the crew who happened to be on shore at the time of the massacre of the rest of the Port-au-Prince's company were also spared, and these men, together with young Mariner, were afterwards employed by Finau in aiding him to conquer the people of Tongatabu, the main island of the Friendly Group ; and it is from Mr. Mariner's graphic narrative of his five years' sojourn in the islands that the following particulars are taken. A few weeks after the destruction of the greater number of the unfortunate crew of the privateer, Finau intimated to the survivors his intention of conquering Tongatabu, with whose people he was at variance, and that, as the carronades of the privateer, with plenty of ammunition, had been saved, he wished the English sailors to take charge of the guns, and serve them in the reduction of the principal 214 Wild Life in Southern Seas. fortress at Nukualofa, the capital of Tongatabu. With that object in view, Finau, accompanied by the pick of his warriors and Mariner and fifteen other Englishmen, sailed from Lifuka, in the Haapai Group, in a number of large war canoes. The site of that fortress is still visible, and a brief description of what it was like in 1 806 will be of interest. " It occupied about five acres of ground, and its northern wall was situated about fifty or sixty fathoms from the sea beach. The walls were strongly built of upright posts, with a wickerwork of reeds between, supported from the inside by timbers from six to nine inches in diameter, situated a foot and a half distant from each other ; to these the reed work was firmly lashed by tough cinnet, made from the husk of the coconut. The fencing was nine feet in height, but each post rose a foot or so higher. There were four large entrances, as well as several smaller ones, secured on the inside by horizontal sliding beams of the tough wood of the coconut tree. Over each door, as well as at other places, were erected platforms even with the top of the The Kings Artillerymen. 21$ fencing, supported chiefly on the inside, but projecting forward to the extent of two or three feet. These platforms were about nine feet square, and situated fifteen yards distant from each other ; they were used for the garrison to stand on, to shoot arrows, or throw down large stones, and, more particularly, to prevent a storming party from setting fire to the walls of the fortress. In front and on each side these platforms were themselves defended by a reed work six feet high, with an opening in front and others on either hand for the greater convenience of throwing spears, stones, etc. The lower fencing had also openings for a similar purpose. On the outside was a ditch nearly twelve feet deep, and as much broad ; this, at a little distance, was encompassed by another fencing similar to the first, with plat- forms, etc., on the outside of which there was a second ditch. The earth dug out of these ditches formed a bank on each side, serving to deepen them. In conclusion, the shape of the whole fortress was round, and both inner and outer fencings were profusely ornamented with white pule shells." 216 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Immediately upon the arrival of Finau with his fleet in Nukualofa Harbour the expedition disembarked. Eight of the fifteen Englishmen, with young Mariner, were armed with muskets taken from the captured privateer, and these at once opened a fire of musketry upon the enemy, who had sallied out of the fortress to oppose the landing. So effectively were the eight muskets handled that Finau soon succeeded in landing his troops. The first volley killed three and wounded several of the enemy, and a second threw them into such dismay that in five minutes only forty of the bravest remained to contest the landing, the rest retreating into the fortress. In the meantime the seven other Englishmen had dismounted the Port-au-Prince 's carronades from their carriages on the canoes and slung them to stout poles, and, conveyed by a number of natives, the guns were carried across the shallow water on the reef to the shore. The rest of Finau's troops being then disembarked (4,000 in all says Mariner), the Englishmen again mounted the carronades, and a regular fire was begun at short range upon the fortress. " Seated in an English chair taken from the The Kings Artillerymen. 217 cabin of the Port-au-Prince^ Finau took his station upon a portion of the reef not covered by the water, and watched the cannonade with intense interest. Much as he desired to lead his men to the assault, his chiefs would not allow him to expose his person by going any nearer. The fire of the carronades was kept up for an hour ; in the meantime, as it did not appear to do all the mischief to the exterior of the fortress (owing to the yielding nature of the materials) that the King expected, he sent for Mr. Mariner, and expressed his disappointment. The young sailor said that no doubt there was mischief enough done on the inside of the fort, wherever there were resisting bodies, such as canoes, the posts and beams of houses, etc., and that it was already very evident that the besieged Nukualofa people had no reason to think lightly of the effect of the artillery, seeing that they had already greatly slackened their exertions, not half the number of arrows being now discharged from the fort ; and, in his opinion, there were many slain lying within its walls. " Finau was not satisfied, however, with his white artillerymen, but resolved to make an 2i 8 Wila Life in Southern Seas. assault, and set fire to the place, for which purpose a number of torches, made from the split spathes of the coconut palm, were pre- pared and lighted. An attack was then made upon the first line of fencing and entrenchments, which were, however, so weakly defended that they were soon captured, and one of the door- posts having been shot away, an easy entrance was obtained to the inner fencing. This, in many places, was not defended, and towards these spots the storming party rushed with lighted torches, whilst the enemy were kept engaged elsewhere. The conflagration spread rapidly on every side ; and as the besieged endeavoured to make their escape, their brains were knocked out by a second column of Finau's troops, stationed at the back of the fortress for that purpose. During all this time the English- men kept up a regular fire with unshotted guns, merely to intimidate the enemy. At last a general assault was made, and the conquerors, club in hand, entered the place from several quarters, and slew without mercy all they met men, women, and children. The scene was truly horrible. The war-whoop shouted by the combatants, the heartrending screams of the The King's Artillerymen. 219 women and children, the groans of the wounded, the number of the dead, and the fierceness of the conflagration formed a picture almost too distracting and awful for the mind steadily to contemplate. Some, with a kind of sullen and stupid resignation, offered no resistance, but waited for the hand of fate to despatch them, no matter in what mode ; others, that were already lying on the ground wounded, were struck with spears and beaten about with clubs by boys who followed the expedition to be trained to the horrors of war, and who delighted in the opportunity of gratifying their ferocious and cruel disposition. Every house within the great fortress that was not on fire was plundered of its contents, and thus, in a few hours, the fort of Nukualofa, which had obstinately and bravely resisted every attack for eleven years or more, was completely destroyed. " As soon as Finau came within the fort, and saw several large canoes which had been carried there by the garrison, shattered to pieces by the round shot, and discovered a number of legs and arms lying around, and three hundred and fifty bodies stretched upon the ground, he expressed his wonder and astonishment at the 22O Wild Life in Southern Seas. dreadful effect of the guns. Addressing his men, he thanked them for their bravery, and Mr. Mariner and his companions in particular for the great assistance rendered by them. " Some few of the enemy, who had escaped the general slaughter, were taken prisoners. They gave a curious description of the effect of the guns. They declared that when a cannon ball entered a house it did not proceed straight forward, but went all round the place, as if seeking for men to kill ; it then passed out of the house and entered another, still in search of food for its vengeance, and so on to a third, etc. Sometimes one would strike the great corner post of a house and bring it all down together. The garrison chiefs, seeing all this dreadful mischief going forward, rendered still more tremendous by their own imaginations, sat in consultation upon one of the large canoes just mentioned, and came to a determination to rush out upon the white men and take possession of the guns. This was scarcely resolved upon when a shot struck the canoe on which they were seated and shattered it in pieces. This so damped their courage that they ran for security to one of the inner houses of the garrison, only The Kings Artillerymen. 221 to see their men deserting them on all sides, and fleeing in terror from the dreadful round shot." One incident in connection with this affair is also related by Mr. Mariner, who says that one of Finau's Fijian bodyguard, who had no doubt been present at the cutting-off of the Port-au- Prince, had taken from on board an earthenware fish-strainer, " such as is laid in the bottom of dishes when fish is brought to table. With this implement he had made himself a sort of breast- plate, and donned it at the assault upon the fort ; but unluckily it happened that an arrow pierced him directly through the hole which is commonly in the middle of such strainers." The wound laid him up eight months, and he never after- wards (in Mr. Mariner's time) was able to hold himself perfectly erect. The last time that the fortress of Nukualofa came into prominence again in connection with white men was when Captain Crocker, of H. M.S. Favourite, was killed near there in 1842, when leading his men to succour the youthful King George, whose kingdom was in a state of rebellion. The result was most disastrous, for not only was he repulsed, but the rebels captured two guns as well. " Leviathan" WHALING in the Southern Ocean and among the placid waters of the Pacific Isles may now be counted among the lost arts ; and yet well within the memory of many living men it flourished and was the main attraction that brought many a ship to the Southern Seas. And the brave and skilful whalemen of those days reaped such golden harvests from their dangerous toil, that those people who know not of these things would scarce credit the true stories that are told of fortunes made by whalers in the glorious days of the "thirties," "forties," and " fifties." Yet, nowadays, whales are nearly if not quite as plentiful as they were then ; but where are the whalers ? And where is the once flourishing industry, and why is it now non-existent save Leviathan. 223 for two or three poorly equipped and manned whaleships from Tasmania, and the shore whaling parties of Norfolk Island ? A glance at such records as exist of whaling in the early days makes still more remarkable its decadence at this end of the century. Even as far back as Dampier (1699) whales were known to be plentiful in the two Pacifies. " The sea is plentifully stocked with the largest whales that I ever saw," wrote the scholarly buccaneer. But this knowledge was not turned to account until 1791 ; and this is how it came about. An enterprising London shipowner, named Enderby, fitted out the Amelia , and sent her round Cape Horn to endeavour to discover the sperm whaling grounds. She left England in September, 1788, and returned in March, 1790, with 139 tuns of sperm oil on board. The news spread, and a year later half a dozen American whalers were cruising along the coasts of Chili and Peru, and there was a great increase in the quantity of oil imported into Great Britain. Captain Phillip, who commanded the ships of the "First Fleet," sent to Australia in 1788, had also reported having seen a " vast number 224 Wild Life in Southern Seas. of very large whales " on the passage out, and in July, 1790, while writing home on the vast potentialities for wealth that existed for those who would enter upon the business of whaling, mentioned that only a few days previously " a large spermacetty whale " had made its appear- ance in Sydney Harbour, capsized a boat and drowned a midshipman and two marines. In the month of October, 1791, a convict transport named the Britannia, and owned by Mr. Enderby, arrived in Sydney Cove with her cargo of misery. She formed one of the "Third Fleet," and was commanded by a Mr. Thomas Melville. In the " Historical Records of New South Wales" there is a despatch from Governor Phillip which embodies a letter from Mr. Melville to his enterprising owners, the Messrs. Enderby, from which we learn that the Bri- tannia, after doubling the south-west cape of Van Dieman's Land, " saw a huge sperm whale off Maria Island," but saw no more till within fifteen leagues of Port Jackson, when there came great numbers about the ship. " We sailed through different shoals of them from twelve o'clock in the day until after sunset. They were all round the horizon as far as we Leviathan. 225 could see from the masthead. ... I saw a very great prospect of establishing a fishery upon this coast." That was over a hundred and six years ago, and at the present time, during certain months of the year when the whales are travelling northward to the Hampton Shoals and the islands of the East Indian Archipelago, the same sight may be seen from any headland on the Australian mainland ; for to-day the whales are as plentiful and as fearless of human foes as they were then. But, alas ! the ships and the men are gone. Melville, the master of the Britannia, was, however, a shrewd fellow, and as soon as he had got clear of his cargo of 150 convicts, he went to Governor Phillip and asked him to expedite his ship's departure so that he might cruise for whales even with the poor equipment he could secure in Sydney. He and his officers had tried to keep both their discovery and in- tentions in regard thereto a secret, but several of his ship's company were not so reticent, and when the Britannia's bluff old bows splashed into the sweeping billows of the Pacific four other ships followed almost in her wake. These were the Matilda, William and Ann, Salamander, 16 226 Wild Life in Southern Seas. and the Policy, belonging to Hurry Brothers, of London. Reporting varying degrees of success, the vessels (except the Mary Ann} returned to Port Jackson in November and December. From that time the gallant Phillip, in his despatches of 1791 and 1792, makes frequent mention of the experiment, which he justly considered was not a fair trial of the Australian seas, although one reason he gave for want of success was not correct. He com- plained that " the ships had not stayed out long enough." The real reasons, however, were that while spermaceti and " right " whales were plentiful enough, the whalers had not yet learned their business, neither were they ac- quainted with the creatures' migratory habits in the Southern Seas, nor could they distinguish between the profitable spermaceti, " right," and "humpback" whale, and the dangerous and un- assailable fin-back. The Britannia, for instance, ten days after her departure had seen, according to her master, 15,000 whales, the greater number of them off Port Jackson. Now quite two-thirds of this enormous number were the swift and dangerous fin-back, a creature that, while producing a certain amount of oil and Leviathan. 227 a small quantity of whalebone, is never attacked by boats, for it will tow a boat for thirty miles before it can be killed. While the shipmasters were agreed as to the vast number of whales, they considered that the bad weather and strong currents were obstacles too great to be over- come. However, they made other attempts along the Australian coast and then returned to England. These same vessels, with many others, now became regular traders to New South Wales, bringing out convicts under charge of a military guard, and returning to England sometimes via China, would make a cruise to the " Fishery " before leaving the coast. Strange indeed were the adventures that befell the crews of some of these ships as they sailed northward through the islet-studded waters of the north-west Pacific, and no history of the sea would ever be complete that failed to tell these old and now almost forgotten tales of the mutinies, attacks by pirates, cuttings off by South Sea Islanders, and wrecks and disas- ters that are interwoven with the story of the British merchant marine in the Pacific from 1788 to 1850. Some of these wandering ships, unsuccessful in whaling, turned to sealing on 228 Wild Life in Southern Se-as. the coast of New Zealand. In the latter years of the last century, however, the whalemen of the time were gaining experience and a better knowledge of the habits, feeding-grounds and breeding resorts of both the right and sperm whale, as well as of the great " schools " of humpbacks and the less valuable flying fin- backs, which made their appearance with such undeviating regularity on the Australian coast at certain seasons of the year ; and slowly but surely the business of whaling was becoming as firmly established in the new colonies as it was on the North American seaboard. Turnbull, who made a voyage to New South Wales in 1798, and a voyage round the world in 1800- 1804, speaks of the growth of the industry between the dates of his visits to New South Wales. There were, he says, but four whalers on the coast of New Holland in 1798, but at the time of his second voyage there were four- teen, whose cargoes, on the average, " are not less than from 150 to 160 tuns of oil, the value of which at the present current price amounts to between ,180,000 and j 190,000 annually. Very early the Americans began to go south, Leviathan. 229 and in the old Sydney shipping records of the first years of this century there are many such entries as these : Arrived Favourite, March 10, 1806, from Boston, America; having re- freshed, she sailed for the fishery. Comanche, from Juan Fernandez, with 300 barrels ; called to refresh, etc. etc. The Sydney Gazette came into existence in March, 1803, an ^ ^ was tnen an d f r several years the only newspaper in this part of the world. From its columns we learn that on February 1 4th " arrived the Greenwich whaler, Mr. Alexander Law, master, with 1,700 barrels of spermaceti 011, procured mostly off" the north-east coast of New Zealand. The whalers she left cruising off that coast, and which may be expected here to refit about the beginning of June, are the Venus, Albion, and Alexander" The Venus duly arrived with 1,400 barrels of oil, and reported how her master had nearly lost his life when acting as harpooner, by the coil of the line getting entangled in his leg and dragging him overboard, but one of the boat's crew cut the line just in time to save his captain. From this date on- ward for a long time almost the only news 230 Wild Life in Southern Seas. of importance in the convict colony is whaling news, and that concerning the ships arriving regularly from England bringing convicts or stores. These latter in most cases proceed to the whaling grounds. The ships as they come in bring little scraps of news of the momentous events happening in Europe at those times, and the entries in the Gazette show us that the whaling-men of those days had another element of excitement and adventure in the lives they led than that of encountering the whale. For instance, in April, 1804, arrived the barque Scorpion, Captain Dagg. She " sailed from England with a Letter of Marque the 24th of last June ; she has mounted fourteen carriage guns, now in her hold, and carries thirty-two men." Most of the whalers at this time came out armed with Letters of Marque, and more than one vessel belonging to the Dutch settlements was made prize to English whalers. There was the case of the Policy, which ship, in 1 804, was attacked by a Batavian vessel, called the Swift. Captain Foster, of the Policy, turned the tables on the Dutchman, fought him for some hours, took him prisoner, and brought Leviathan. 2 3 I the Swift, which had once been a crack French privateer, his prize to Sydney. The story of the fight has been told in the old Sydney records, and it is not the only one of the kind which took place in these seas. Can it be that such episodes still linger in the traditions of the descendants of the Dutch settlers, and that the rankling of old wounds prompted the remark- able treatment of one Captain Carpenter, in the Costa Rica Packet the one ewe whaling barque of Sydney four or five years ago ? The whalers of those times had much to do with the discovery and exploration of the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, and deserters and men marooned from the whaleships began to settle on the islands of the Pacific long before the missionaries were ever heard of. Van Dieman's Land, or Tasmania, as it is now called, was already beginning to assume an importance in connection with the fishery. A Gazette of December, 1806, reports that Captain Rhodes of the Alexander whaler had arrived from the Derwent and Adventure Bay. He had about 100 tuns of oil, and a number of black swans from the River Huon. Rhodes told the interviewer of the day that he was of 232 Wild Life in Southern Seas. opinion that from the middle of May to the beginning of January the fishery in about the river Denvent would be very productive, a single vessel might procure 300 tuns ; after that season the weaning of the calves takes place, and the fish go north. In a valuable work, " The Early History of New Zealand," published by Brett, of Auck- land, New Zealand, the author of that portion of it from earliest times to 1 840, Mr. R. A. A. Sherrin, gives some interesting particulars of the development of the whale fisheries. From this book we learn that, in 1808, whaling on the New Zealand coast was in a flourishing state, and that the Grand Sachem (Whipping, master) was about the first of a large fleet of American whalers which now began to frequent these waters. In the following year the Speke, Captain Hington, arrived in Sydney Cove with 150 tuns of black, and 20 tuns of sperm oil, this being the first recorded instance of the capture of the black whale. The whaling grounds in the South Pacific are chiefly known as the " On Shore Ground," taking in the whole extent of ocean along the coast of Chili and Peru from Juan Fernandez Leviathan. 233 to the Gallapagos Islands ; the " Off Shore Ground " the space between lat. 5 deg. S., and long. 90 deg. and 120 deg. W. ; and the " Middle Ground " that between Australia and New Zealand, and there are other grounds the east and west coasts of New Zealand, and across the South Pacific between 21 and 27 deg. of S. lat. The right whale fisheries are in the higher latitudes in both hemispheres, which are the feeding grounds, but as the winter approaches, the cows resort to the bays to bring forth their young, where they remain until the spring months, when they again meet the bulls. Polack, writing of sperm whales, says, " These fish are gregarious, and migratory in their movements, seldom frequenting the same latitude in an ensuing season, and whalemen who have pro- cured a cargo in one season, have often been minus of oil by adhering to the same place in the following year. No experienced South Seaman will calculate for a certainty where he will fill his ship. Those that have acted accord- ing to predetermination have returned to the port they sailed from with scarce sufficient to pay expenses." In the " twenties " whaling had considerably 234 Wild Life in Southern Seas. increased on the New Zealand coast, and in March, 1821, thirteen whalers had on board between them 6,960 barrels of oil. The increase of whaling soon led to complications with the Maoris, and quarrels ending in massacres begin to figure in the records. There is a tradition among the Maoris that the first Maori war arose owing to a dispute between two tribes, over some whales which were cast ashore on the coast. In July, 1827, the Australian Whale Fishery Company was floated, and a year or two later, shore whaling began in Cook's Strait, and was soon followed in many of the bays on the New Zealand coast ; while on the New South Wales coast, at Twofold Bay, a whaling station was a few years later established, and some little shore whaling is still carried on there to this day. Benjamin Boyd, a Scotchman of good family, came out to Sydney in 1 840 to take charge of some banking business, and in addition to many other speculations he went in largely for whaling, making Twofold Bay the rendezvous for his whaleships, and establishing a settlement known as Boyd Town. He was the first, or among the first, to employ South Sea Islanders, although, Leviathan. 235 of course, before this time whalers had often a Kanaka or two among their crew. Boyd had come out from England in a yacht called the Wanderer, and in this vessel, owing to financial disputes, he left the colony for California. On his way he touched at one of the Solomon Group, and it is supposed was murdered, as reliable information has never been obtained as to his fate. In March, 1830, there were a dozen vessels in the Bay of Islands, with 14,500 barrels of oil on board, which, reckoning eight barrels to the tun, gives a total of over 1,800 tuns, which was at that time valued from 60 to 70 a tun, the total value being then estimated at from 111,000 to 130,000; and at the same time a Sydney newspaper says : " Three years ago New South Wales had but three vessels engaged in the sperm whale fishery, altogether about 450 tons, and the New Zealand trade was unknown. She has now 4,000 tons of shipping engaged in the sperm whale trade alone and more than 9,000 tons of shipping have been entered out- wards from this port for New Zealand, and only since January ist last to July 3ist." Early in 1831 the Elizabeth came into Sydney 236 Wild Life in Southern Seas. Harbour with 361 tuns of sperm oil, the produce of an eighteen months' cruise, which was worth 22,000, the most valuable cargo of oil that had up to that time been brought into the port. A return of the exports from New South Wales for the years 1830 to 1840 inclusive, gives an idea of what a trade this was. In the return the exports are classified as sperm whale and black whale oil, whalebone, and seal- skins ; without inflicting these figures on the reader it may be said that in 1830 the value of these exports was about 60,000, and each year the amount steadily increased, until in 1840 it reached 224,144. Bay whaling in New Zealand had also in- creased to a considerable extent, the Maoris taking an active part with the Europeans in its development ; but in New South Wales, with the exception of the settlement in Boyd Town, in later years the industry never established itself. Hobart Town has always been a regular port for whalers ; and the industry survived longer there than at any place in the Southern Seas, although bay whaling had died out there by 1847. Norfolk Island was a regular calling place for the ships, and Lord Howe Island, Leviathan. 237 with its population of sixty adults to-day, was originally settled by seamen from whale- ships, many of whom are still living one, an American married to a Gilbert Island woman, has been upon the island for fifty years. At Norfolk Island boat whaling is now carried on by the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty, most of whom, it will be remem- bered, emigrated there from Pitcairn. So much for the beginning and heyday of whaling in the Southern Ocean ; the decline of the industry, and the causes of this, and the possibility of its revival, are worth discussing, but would perhaps be dull reading except to those of commercial mind. But the history of both the American and English whaling fleets are full of romance and daring adventure. Many and many a ship that sailed from the old New England ports and from Tasmania and New Zealand met with terrible experiences. Sometimes, as was the case of the Globe of Nantucket, they were cut off by the savage natives of the South Sea Islands, who, under the leadership of ruffianly beachcombers or escaped convicts, murdered every soul on board. Others there were who were actually 238 Wild Life in Southern Seas. attacked by infuriated whales themselves and sent to the bottom like the Essex of London. [Only a few years ago the writer saw in Sydney Harbour the barquentine Handa Isle, which on the passage from New Zealand had been so attacked. She was a fine vessel of three hundred tons, and was sailing over a smooth sea with a light breeze when two large sperm whales were sighted. They were both travelling fast, and suddenly altering their course, made direct for the ship. Then one sounded, but the other continued his furious way and deliberately charged the barquentine. He struck her with terrific force just abaft the mainmast and below the water line. For- tunately the barquentine was laden with a cargo of timber, otherwise she would have foundered instantly. The blow was fatal to the cetacean, for in a few minutes the water around the ship was seen to be crimsoned with blood, and presently the mighty creature rose to the surface again, beat the ensanguined water feebly with his monstrous tail and then slowly sank.] Some of these onslaughts upon ships were doubtless involuntary ; as where a whale, attracted by the sight of a ship, had Leviathan. 239 proceeded to examine her, misjudged his dis- tance, and came into collision with disastrous effect to both. But there are many instances where the whale has deliberately charged a ship, either out of pure "devilment," or when maddened with the agony of the wound inflicted by a harpoon. Many years ago, a small school or " pod " of sperm whales was sighted off Strong's Island, in the Caroline Archipelago, by the ship St. George of New Bedford, and the Hawaiian brig Kamehameha IP '. Both ships lowered their boats at once, and in a very short time Captain Wicks, of the Hawaiian brig, got fast to a large bull who was cruising by himself about half a mile away from the rest of the " pod." As is not uncommon among sperm and hump- backed whales, the rest of the school, almost the instant their companion was struck, showed their consciousness of what had occurred, and at once crowded closely together in the greatest alarm, lying motionless on the surface of the water as if listening, and sweeping their huge flukes slowly to and fro as a cat sweeps its tail when watching an expected spring from one of its own kind. So terrified were they with the 240 Wild Life in Southern Seas. knowledge that some unknown and invisible danger beset them, that they permitted the loose boats five in number to pull right on top of them. Four of the boats at once got fast without difficulty, leaving three or four of the whales still huddled together in the greatest fear and agitation. Just as the fifth boat got within striking distance of the largest of the remaining fish, he suddenly sounded, and was immediately followed by the others. Some minutes passed before Martin, the officer of the fifth boat, could tell which way they had gone, when the St. George signalled, " Gone to windward ! " and presently Martin saw them running side by side with the whale which had been struck by Captain Wicks. Martin at once started off to intercept them, and when within a few hundred yards he saw that the stricken whale was surrounded by four others, who stuck so closely beside him that Captain Wicks could not get up alongside his prize to give him the first deadly lance thrust without great danger. At last, however, this was attempted, but the whale was not badly hurt, and the four other fish at once sounded as they smelt the creature's blood. But, sud- Leviathan. 241 denly, to Martin's horror, the huge head of an enormous bull shot up from the ocean, directly beneath the captain's boat, the mighty jaws opened and closed and crushed her like an eggshell ! Fortunately Wicks and crew sprang overboard the moment they caught sight of the creature's fearful head, and none were killed, although two were seriously injured. Martin at once picked them up. Meanwhile the cause of the disaster darted away after his three com- panions and the wounded fish which was lying on the surface spouting blood (much to Martin's satisfaction, for he feared that the infuriated creature would destroy his boat as well as that of Captain Wicks). The condition of the wounded men justified Martin in making back to the ship, and he at once gave orders to that effect, seeing that another boat from the brig was hastening to kill the wounded whale. Hastily putting Captain Wicks and his men on board his ship, Martin again started out to meet the four loose whales which were now coming swiftly down towards the ships. The big bull which had destroyed Wick's boat was leading, the others following him closely. Sud- denly, however, he caught sight of Martin's 242 Wild Life in Southern Seas. boat, swerved from his course and let his com- panions go on without him. Then he lay upon the water motionless as if awaiting the boat to attack and disdaining to escape. But just as the boat was within striking distance and Martin had called to the har- pooner, " Stand up ! " the whale sounded, only to reappear in a few minutes within twenty feet of the boat, rushing at it with open jaws and evidently bent upon destroying it and its occupants. So sudden was the onslaught that Martin only saved himself and his crew from destruction by slewing the boat's head round as the monster's jaws snapped together ; but as leviathan swept by he gave the boat an " under clip " with his flukes and tossed her high up in the air, to fall back on the water a hopelessly stove-in and shattered wreck. And then to the terror of the crew as they clung to the broken timbers, the whale returned, and the men had to separate and swim away, and watched him seize the boat in his jaws and literally bite it to pieces, tossing the fragments away from him far and wide. Then after a minute's pause, he turned over and began swimming on his back, opening and shutting his jaws and trying to discover his Leviathan. 243 foes. For five minutes or so he swam thus in widening circles, and then as if satisfied he could not find those he sought, he turned over on his belly again and made off. Almost immediately after Martin and his men were rescued by another boat. But the whale had not finished his work of destruction, and as if goaded to fury by the loss of his companions and the escape of his human foes, he suddenly appeared twenty minutes later close to the Hawaiian brig. He was holding his head high up out of the water and swimming at a furious speed straight toward the ship. The wind had almost died away, and the brig had scarcely more than steerage way on her, but the cooper, who was in charge, put the helm hard down, and the whale struck her a slanting blow, just for'ard of the forechains. Every one on board was thrown down by the force of the concussion, and the ship began to make water fast. Scarcely had the crew manned the pumps when a cry was raised, "He's coming back ! " Looking over the side, he was seen fifty feet below the surface, and swimming round and round the ship with incredible speed, and 244 Wild Life in Southern Seas. evidently not injured by his impact. In a few moments he rose to the surface about a cable length away, and then, for the second time, came at the ship, swimming well up out of the water, and apparently meaning to strike her fairly amidships on the port side. This time, however, he failed, for the third mate's boat, which had had to cut adrift from a whale to which it had fastened, was between him and the ship, and the officer in charge, as the whale swept by, fired a bomb into him, which killed him almost at once. Only for this he would certainly have crashed into the brig and sunk her. Another well-known instance was that of the ship Essex, Captain George Pollard, which was cruising in the South Seas in May, 1820, and which is related as follows : " The boats had been lowered in pursuit of a large school of sperm whales, and the ship was attending them to windward. The captain and second mate had both got fast to whales in the midst of the school, and the first mate had returned on board to equip a spare boat in lieu of his own, which had been stove in and rendered unserviceable. While the crew were thus occupied, the look- Leviathan. 245 out at the masthead reported that a large whale was coming rapidly down upon the ship, and the mate hastened his task in the hope that he might be in time to attack it. " The whale, which was a bull of enormous size, and probably the guardian of the school, in the meantime approached the ship so closely that, although the helm was put up to avoid the contact, he struck her a severe blow, which broke off a portion of her keel. The enraged animal was then observed to retire to some dis- tance, and again rush upon the ship with extreme velocity. His enormous head struck the starboard bow, beating in a corresponding portion of her planks, and the people on board had barely time to take to their boat before the ship filled and fell over on her side. She did not sink, however, for some hours, and the crew in the boats continued near the wreck until they had obtained a small supply of pro- visions, when they shaped a course for land ; but here, it is to be regretted, they made a fatal error. At the time of the accident they were cruising on the equator, in the longitude of about 1 1 8 west, with the Marquesas and Society Islands on their lee, and might have 246 Wild Life In Southern Seas. sailed in their boats to either of these groups in a comparatively short time. Under an erro- neous impression, however, that all those lands were inhabited by an inhospitable race of people, they preferred pulling to windward for the coast of Peru, and in the attempt were exposed to and suffered dreadful privations. Those few who survived their complicated disasters first made the land at Elizabeth or Henderson's Island, a small, uninhabited spot in the South Pacific, and which, until then, had never been visited by Europeans. After a short stay here part of the survivors again put to sea in search of inhabited land, and ultimately reached the coast of South America ; and an English whaler at Valparaiso was sent to rescue those left on the island, but found but two alive." Unless the writer is mistaken the Handa Isle was not the first vessel bound from New Zealand to Sydney that was struck by a whale ; for about twenty-eight years ago a small barque named the King Oscar met with an exactly similar experience, and could not be kept afloat. Then, in the year 1835, " tne sn ^P Pusie Hall encoun- tered a fighting whale, which, after injuring and Leviathan. 247 driving off four boats, pursued them to the ship, and withstood for some time the lances hurled at it by the crew from the bows of the vessel before it could be induced to retire." An Island King. TILL within eight years ago the comman- ders of the various ships of war on the Australian station used to be familiar with the name of an island king who, in his small way, gave them considerable trouble. He was, per- haps, the most famed of all the chiefs of that vast area of scattered islands and islets in the North and South Pacific vaguely described as the " South Sea Islands," and, indeed, his courage in war, cunning in diplomacy, and general all round " cuteness," were only equalled by the famous old Samoan fighting chief, Mataafa, and the late Maafu, the once dreaded Tongan rival of King Cacobau of Fiji. The name of this personage was Tern Benoke, but he was generally known as Apinoka ; and his dominions were the great chain of coral islands which enclose the noble 248 An Island King. 249 lagoon of Apamama, the largest but one of the recently annexed Gilbert Islands. The popula- tion of these islands, comprising the atoll of Apamama, is now something over a thousand, and they do not show any signs of diminution probably owing to their disinclination to accept the introduction of European civilisation and a sudden change of habits and mode of life generally. For nearly fifteen years Apinoka ruled his people with a rod of iron. All the revenue derived by his subjects from the sale of their produce, such as copra and other island commo- dities, was paid into the Royal treasury, and from there it found its way into the pockets of trading captains, who sold the aspiring King modern breech-loading rifles of the latest pattern. As time went on he began to harry the people of the neighbouring islands of the Gilberts, and soon threatened to be the one dominant ruler of the whole group. And then the missionaries native teachers working under the supervision of the Boston Board of Missions began to get alarmed. For missionaries in general Apinoka ever expressed the most withering contempt, and word went out that 250 Wila Life in Southern Seas. any of his people who accepted Christianity would have his life cut short. And, as Apinoka was ever a man of his word, the people of Apamama obeyed. A hundred yards from the white beach that faced the inner and eastward side of the lagoon he built his state house, a cool, airy building of semi-European design and construction, and here he sat day after day, surrounded by his Danites grim, black-haired, and truculent dictating his commands to his American secre- tary and another white, his interpreter and chief cook, Johnny Rosier. All round the spacious front room were boxes and cases of all sorts and descriptions of island trade and merchandise- tins of biscuits, kegs of beef, cases of gin, sar- dines, salmon, and piles of old-fashioned muskets and modern rifles. But although he kept a white secretary and interpreter, the King did not like white men. He had once bought a schooner, and although he engaged a white captain and mate, and paid them liberally, he treated them otherwise with scarcely disguised contempt. They were neces- sary to him that was all ; and at any moment his dark, heavy face might put on a dangerous An Island King. 251 look towards these venturesome whites. Then it was time to clear ; to leave the island abso- lutely, for he would tolerate no white man living on shore except those actually in his service and in his favour. Back from the house were the copra sheds and other buildings used for storing the King's produce ; and all day long his slaves toiled about him, cutting up the coconuts and drying them on mats in the fierce, hot sun. Patiently and in silence they worked, for they knew that those small, keen eyes, under that heavy, sullen brow, might fall upon them if they rested or talked. And then might the King give a sign, and one of the guards would come with a weighty stick, and the sound of savage blows upon naked backs be heard. Out upon the broad, shady verandah sat the Royal harem women captured mostly from Apian and Tarawa and Maiana. Before them was spread a profusion of food native and European and as they ate and talked in low whispers each one sought to rival the others in her caressing attentions to a strong, handsome boy of ten years of age who ate among them. 252 Wild Life in Southern Seas. For this was the King's adopted son, and the apple of his eye. Children of his own he had none, and this child of his brother's was the one object of affection in his savage mind. Presently the boy a spoiled and petted tyrant (he is now King) strikes one of the women a rude blow on the cheek, and desires her to haste and bring his bath towel he would bathe in one of the King's fresh water fish ponds. One by one the women of the harem rise to their feet, and with bent shoulders and downcast eyes pass the huge figure of their dreaded owner. For the boy must not be let to go alone for his bath. Perchance an old coconut might drop from a tree and fall near him if he wandered alone, and that would mean a sudden and bloody death for them. So one by one they file away through the groves of palm trees, the boy, pipe in mouth and towel on arm, leading the van. No one speaks to them as they pass through the village, and only the women may gaze at them ; the men, especially if they be young and stalwart, turn away their faces in silence till they pass. For perhaps a sly glance might pass, or an idle word be spoken, and then some day an evil An Island King. 253 tongue might whisper that Teran, the King's toddy-cutter, had said to a comrade that Nebong, the tenth wife of the King, was good to look upon. Then would men come to Teran's house in the night, and call to him to rise and come with them, and then as he walked with them along the darkened path a knife would gleam, or a shot ring out, and Teran be heard of no more. Neither would his name again be spoken, unless in a whisper, among those of his own kith and kin. So in this way went on the days on surf-girt Apamama, and Apinoka the King grew fat and waxed strong, and the terror of his name, and cold, merciless nature reached from Arorai in the south, to Butaritari in the north. But, by-and-by, there came about a rumour that all this steady buying of rifles and revolvers, and ammunition, meant ill for the people of the islands to the south, and many of the white traders, who hated the grim old despot, joined hands with their hereditary foes, the native teachers, and made common cause together for his downfall, which soon came about, for one day a British gunboat steamed into the lagoon. 254 Wild Life in Southern Seas. A message was sent to the King to come aboard, and with it a threat to make no delay, else matters would go ill with him. So in his white helmet-hat and black suit the King came off, rowed to the gunboat in his own whale- boat. With a glum, stolid look upon his face, and savage rage in his heart, he was helped up over the ship's side, and escorted to the cabin, and in five minutes more he knew his power of conquest over other islands was gone for ever. But before a word was spoken on either side, the King walked over to the chair that was at the head of the table, and, with a snort of mingled bodily relief and defiance to the naval officer, managed to squeeze his huge body into a sitting posture. " Get up out of that chair, you confounded savage," said the captain, sharply. " What do you mean by sitting down there ? Squat on your hams, like the thundering savage you are," and he pointed to the cabin floor. " You have no missionary or trading captain to deal with now." Slowly he rose, fixing his eyes in won- dering rage upon the unmoved face of the An Island King. 255 officer. Then he squatted cross-legged on the floor. " Every gun, every pistol, and every cart- ridge on the island must be brought on board this ship," were the startling words he next heard. No use was it to try to coax or wheedle this captain or tell him lies ; and then, while the King remained on board in sullen silence, men were sent to collect the arms. From that day forth the mana of Apinoka weakened, and then, although the bulk of his people stood loyally by him in his days of trouble and paid their tribute as of yore, there were many who gave voice openly to their hatred, and to their joy at his downfall. A year or so passed, and the King, sitting in his grand house, and looking across the waters towards the islands of Kuria and Aranuka, whose people his forefathers had slain in bloody massacre, grew daily more sullen and savage as he thought of his vanished glories, swept from him by the hated white man. A small lump that had formed on one of his huge legs began to pain and irritate him, and so the native doctors were called, and he commanded them to cut it open. He 256 Wild Life in Southern Seas. was no common man, to be dosed with medicines like a sick woman. " Cut," he said. They cut, and in twenty-four hours Apinoka was at his last gasp. Calling his head men and his harem around him, he commended his boy nephew to their care. " Let him be king in my place," he said, and then, not deigning to say farewell to his numerous wives, who wept around him, he took a draw at his pipe, and went to join the other monarchs in the spirit world. A Spurious Utopia. TWO years or so ago, with a wail of sorrow and indignation from its people, Norfolk Island came to the end of its existence as the Utopia of the balmy Southern Ocean, and, sentimentally speaking, was wiped off the map. For henceforth its future will be the care of the practical-minded Government of New South Wales 'and instead of the delighted visitor to this dreamful isle being welcomed on the shiny strand by youths and maidens garlanded with flowers and chanting a melody of welcome, as is generally supposed to be the island custom, he will be met by hotel-runners and other prosaic evidences of a practical civilisation. But the Norfolk Islanders bitterly resented the change forced upon them. For forty or more years they had been patted on the back 1 8 ^ 258 Wila Life in Southern Seas. by the world in general and romancists in particular as " an English-speaking and deeply religious community, brave, fair to look on, generous, and virtuous." Also they were said to be endued with a large selection of minor qualities, to enumerate which would take up a goodly-sized catalogue. Books innumerable have been written by enthusiastic globe-trotters (mostly ladies) on the beautiful Arcadian exist- ence that has ever been the lot of the islanders since the British Government took compassion on the cramped condition of the rapidly multi- plying descendants of the famous Bounty mu- tineers on lovely little Pitcairn Island and removed two hundred of them from there to Norfolk Island in 1856. Long before that time, however, the Pitcairn Islanders were held up and very deservedly so to public admira- tion as an ideal community, and their future career in their new and beautiful home was watched and read about with the deepest interest. In a very short time, however, primarily inspired by their intense affection for Pitcairn, some of the emigrants became dissatisfied and rebelled against the conditions of life in the new and more spacious paradise ; and no less than sixty A Spurious Utopia. 259 of them determined to return to their beloved isle, that " lonely mid-Pacific rock, hung with an arras of green creeping plants, passion flowers, and trumpet vines ; and breasting back the foaming surf of a mighty ocean." But the paternal British Government did not take kindly to the idea, and instead of sixty only seventeen people were allowed to return to Pitcairn. These were families of the Youngs, descendants of Edward Young, the comrade of the ill-fated Fletcher Christian. The seceders consisted of two men, their wives, ten girls, and three boys ; and to this day they and their descendants, augmented by an occasional dissatisfied McCoy, or Adams, or Quintal from Norfolk Island, dwell in peace and comfort on their old island home three thousand miles away from the rest of the Bounty stock. Sometimes a wandering trading vessel brings news of them, but, even in Australia, Pitcairn is all but forgotten, Not so, however, with the Norfolk Island people who, by the way, are all Youngs and McCoys, and Quintals and Adamses, and Nobbses and Buffets (the first four being family names of their Bounty progenitors). They always were 260 Wild Life in Southern Seas. .and are now, very much in evidence. Scarcely a year has gone by since 1856 but some traveller has written of their open-hearted generosity, their simple piety, and their daring courage as whalers. Their life was depicted as ideal, their loyalty to the Queen as some r thing touching, and they almost said cross words to one another when contending for the privilege of entertaining a visitor. The use of liquor was unknown, and its name abhorred ; a wicked word, even when some stalwart whaleman darted his iron at a whale and made a shocking bad miss, was unheard of, and there was no record of even the words " cat " or " nasty thing " being applied to each other by the dark-eyed island beauties, even under the strongest provocation. It was a home of unearthly bliss and strict rectitude of conduct. Time went on and the population steadily increased to its present numbers about 600. The Melanesian Mission established a training school for its young native ministers, and the fame of the people was noised abroad, and their happy lot was the theme of many a pen and the inspiration of many an author. Then came A Spurious Utopia. 261 whispers of discontent. Strangers, called " in- terlopers," had settled on the island, and were not satisfied with the patriarchal and family system of government. They wrote letters to the outside world and talked. And they also openly asserted that the morals of the Bounty descendants were not as good as they were sup- posed to be. Then came dissensions among the community generally, and fierce quarrels among the Bounty families as to certain rights and privileges ; and out of all this came certain statements which gave a shock to the ordinary common Christian of the outside world. No one believed any evil, however, of the Norfolk Islanders for a long time ; but at last rumour became so strong, and the unchristian " inter- lopers " made such distinct charges against them, that the Government of New South Wales in- timated to the people that an investigation into the administration and condition of the island was desirable. The Norfolk Islanders rose up as one man and protested in a loud voice against such an indignity. For forty years they had basked in a world-wide reputation for un- blemished goodness, and why should they be " investigated " ? And least of all would they 262 Wild Life in Southern Seas. submit to be investigated by the Government of New South Wales. They, as a community, were Great Britain's one ewe-lamb of a spotless life in the South Seas, and no one but the Queen herself had the right of having them " investi- gated." New South Wales, they admitted, had some sort of nominal authority over them ; but they were not going to tolerate anything like an official investigation by a colonial government. The Government of New South Wales, how- ever, was obdurate, and two years ago, despite the angry protestations of the majority of the islanders, a Commission was sent down from Sydney empowered to make a searching inquiry into the administration of the island laws, and to ascertain whether or not it would be ad- visable to administer Norfolk Island according to the Jaws of New South Wales. For a fortnight the Commission held nearly daily sittings, and examined a great number of witnesses, and then at the conclusion of its labours the President, Mr. Oliver, called a public meeting of the male inhabitants, and addressed them very eloquently. He pointed put to them that they had no power to disregard A Spurious Utopia^ 263 the laws made for them by the former Governors of New South Wales and substitute laws of their own, and that their continual maladminis- tration even of their own so-called laws had at last brought trouble upon them. He did not want, he said, to say hard things ; " but," he continued, " you have been sadly misrepresented by people who have visited you for a short time due no doubt to your hospitality to them." And then he told them something more unpleasant still. "... The rottenness of their condition was very evident . . . the island is in a most deplorable condition . . . crime is rampant and unchecked . . . the morals of the younger people are as low as they can possibly be." The island, he pointed out, was supposed by the world generally to be a home of smiling plenty, and that the moral and social condition of its people had no parallel, whereas the very reverse was the case. Their lazy habits had been a curse to the island, and the condition of the land, as compared with what it was when the place was turned over to them in 1856, was deplorable indeed ; it was simply becoming the home of the poison bush and the wild tobacco plant. They imagined 264 Wila Life in Southern Seas. and had imagined for forty years that their proper policy was to exclude strangers, as they had done at Pitcairn Island. But that was a mistake. They were not capable of taking care of themselves, " and for their own welfare it was eminently desirable that colonists should be admitted to the island." And then the Presi- dent of the Commission pointed out the bene- ficial results that had attended the establishment of the Melanesian Training Mission on the island, and concluded his address by a kindly appeal to their common sense to remember that the glaring maladministration of justice and the utter disregard by the island authorities of instructions sent to them by the Governor of New South Wales had alone brought about the interference of the Colonial authorities. At the conclusion of the President's address, which was received in sullen and astonished silence, the medical officer of the island, a man universally respected, proposed " That it be represented to the Governor of New South Wales that it is not desirable for Norfolk Island to be annexed to New South Wales." To this the Commissioner made a brief but emphatic answer. He declined to allow such a resolu- A Spurious Utopia. 265 tion in the face of the results of the Commis- sion's investigations being put. And those who know the kind-hearted, hos- pitable people, and the splendid agricultural capabilities of their island for earning its place as one of the gems of the Pacific, will be sincerely glad of such a radical change. Its resources will be developed and its social condi- tions vastly improved under the new regime, which by simply pulling away the veil of senti- ment that has so long enwrapped the Norfolk Islanders in a spurious reputation of possessing all the virtues, will transform its inhabitants from being useless into good citizens of the Empire. Love and Marriage in Polynesia. r I "HE rapid advance of civilisation and the J_ spread of Christianity for the last fifty years among the Malayo-Polynesian races of the South Pacific have had, naturally enough, much to do with either the partial abandonment or the total extinction of many of their customs. In some cases this, and the substitution of European for native habits, is to be regretted, such as, for instance, the quick and incon- siderate adoption of European clothing by a people whose daily habits of life and constitu- tion rendered them peculiarly unfitted for such a sudden and violent change. Between 1823 and 1830, when the natives of Rarotonga and other islands of the Cook Group, following their 266 Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 267 chiefs' example, abandoned their heathen practices for Christianity, the most terrible mortality re- sulted from the ill-advised action of the mis- sionaries inducing their converts to clothe themselves en masse as a practical proof of their spiritual change, and an outward and visible sign of grace. Precisely the same result has attended the introduction of Christianity in the Marshall and Caroline Groups by the American missionaries. Nowadays, however, in this respect a more liberal conception of the laws of nature and health is possessed by missionaries in general all over the world than was the case in the earlier years of the present century. Then and were it not for the pathetic side of the question, one might be inclined to laugh at such inconceivable folly and ignorance being displayed by educated men it was thought essential for a convert, who, perhaps, had for fifty years worn nothing more than a waist-girdle of pandanus leaf or of thin calico, to be garmented in a suit of heavy black cloth or woollen material, and adopt as well the habits and manners of civilised life. That many thousands of people died from pulmonary complaints engendered by this sudden change, the natives themselves assert ; 268 Wild Life in Southern Seas. and, indeed, only a few years ago the people of one of the North- Western Pacific Islands almost entirely succumbed to pulmonary disease caused by their wearing heavy clothing during the rainy season. Previously, when they wore nothing more than a simple waist cloth or girdle of grass, such diseases were absolutely unknown, but their desire to resemble white men as much as possible, and the earnest supplications of the resident Hawaiian teacher who implored them to dress as he did, in cloth, proved fatal to these simple-minded people. Among other customs that have undergone a rapid change, or have been altogether discon- tinued, is that of marriage according to the old rites and ceremonies, with its many interesting and often pleasing details. In all those islands except Samoa, perhaps that have been the scene of missionary labours, the ceremony of marriage is now performed by either a white missionary or native teacher, and is a very prosaic affair, divested as it is of all the old attendant feastings and merrymakings. But among the Micronesian race inhabiting many of the scattered islands of the Western Caroline Group, the old native customs have as yet scarcelv Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 269 undergone any great change, and the ceremonies attending the marriage of any chief of note are as prolonged and imposing as are the dances and other festivities, which last for some weeks. Ellis, who made a careful study of the manners and customs of the Malayo-Polynesians inhabit- ing the Society, Austral, and Hawaiian Islands, gives some very interesting particulars of the marriage customs during the early days of missionary enterprise in the South Seas. At the present day these are unknown, and, indeed, the younger generation of natives are almost as ignorant of the customs and practices of their forefathers as a Yorkshire labourer is of those of the people of Tierra del Fuego. In Samoa, although the commoner people are married in the European fashion in a church, the higher chiefs still cling with pardonable tenacity to many of the old practices observed in former times ; and, indeed, so strong a hold has the observance of such ceremonies upon the Samoan mind, that while the poorer classes are content to be married according to the rites of the Christian religion, they eagerly enter into all the preparations for the celebration of a chief's marriage with the ancient rites, which generally 270 Wild Life in Southern Seas. precede the subsequent ceremony performed by a white missionary or native teacher. In Tahiti, the celebration of marriage, says Ellis, took place at an early age, " with females at twelve or thirteen, and with males at two or three years older (and, indeed, this is still the practice). Betrothment was the frequent method (as it is in Fiji at the present time) by which marriage contracts were made among the chiefs or higher ranks in society. The parties them- selves were not often sufficiently advanced in years to form any judgment of their own, yet, on arriving at maturity, they rarely objected to the engagements their friends had made." Sometimes, however, previous attachments had been formed, which resulted in the same tragedies that occur from the same cause in civilised life. I remember hearing of one such instance which oc- curred at Niue, the " Savage Island " of Captain Cook, only a few years ago. A young native girl had become much attached to a man who, with a number of other islanders, had gone away under a two years' engagement to work the guano deposits on Rowland Island, in the Equatorial Pacific. When they returned she learned that her lover was dead, and from that day her once Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 271 gay and merry demeanour left her. She fell into a deep melancholy, and confided to two of her girl friends that her parents, now that her lover was dead, insisted upon her marrying another suitor, whom she regarded with indifference, if not dislike. One of her confidants, a girl of about eighteen, had been for many years afflicted with a painful disease in the bones of her left foot, and suggested to her friend that they should both end their sorrows by suicide. The third girl, who was the youngest of all, ear- nestly sought to dissuade them from such a deed, but, finding her pleadings were unavailing, said she would not remain alive to lament their loss. They seemed to have made their preparations for death with the utmost calmness and fortitude, and, dressing themselves in their best, they leaped over the cliffs, and ended their lives together. 1 In Tahiti and the other Society Islands the period of courtship, in Ellis's time, " was seldom protracted among any class of the people ; yet all the incident and romantic adventure that 1 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. This incident is related in detail in "Pacific Tales," under the title of "For We were Friends Always," by the same author. 2J2 Wild Life in Southern Seas. was to be expected in a community in which a high degree of sentimentality prevailed, occa- sionally came to pass, and the unsuccessful suitor was sometimes even led to the commission of suicide, under the influence of revenge and despair. Unaccustomed to disguise either their motives or their wishes, they generally spoke and acted with- out hesitation ; hence, whatever barriers might oppose the union of the parties, whether it was the reluctance of either of the individuals them- selves, or of their respective families, the means used for their removal were adopted with much less ceremony than is usually observed in civilised society." As an instance of this, he relates the following authentic story : A young chief of Murea (or Eimeo), an island a few miles from Tahiti, became attached to the niece of one of the principal raatiris, or landowners, on the island of Huahine. He was one of the body-guard of Taaroarii, the king's son, and although only twenty years of age, was already distinguished for his courage in warfare and his gigantic stature and perfect proportions, while his pleasing countenance and manners and engaging disposition generally, rendered him a favourite with both whites and natives. The Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 273 girl's family admitted his visits and favoured his designs, but the object of his choice declined every proposal he made. No means to gain her consent were left untried, but all proved unavailing. He discontinued his ordinary avocations, left the establishment of the young prince who had selected him for his friend more than his servant, and repaired to the habitation of the girl he was so anxious to obtain. Here he appeared subject to the deepest melancholy, and, leaving the other members of the family to follow their regular pursuits, from morning to night, day after day, he attended his mistress, performing humiliating offices with apparent satisfaction, and constantly following in her train whenever she appeared abroad. His friends interested themselves in his behalf, and the disappointment of which he was subject became for a time the topic of general conversation in the settlement among natives and whites alike. At length the young lady was induced to accept his offer. They were publicly married, and there being nothing of the New Woman about this Polynesian beauty, lived very happily together. Their married life, however, was but of short duration, for 19 274 Wild Life in Southern Seas. his wife, for whom he appeared to cherish the most ardent affection, died a few months afterwards. Later on an instance of another kind oc- curred. A party of five or six persons arrived in a canoe from Tahiti on a visit to some friends in Huahine, one of the Leeward Islands. Their original destination was Bora- bora, but they remained several weeks at Hua- hine, the guests of a chieftainess named Terai- mano. During their stay, a young woman of great beauty, " one of the belles of the island, and who belonged to the household of their hostess, became exceedingly fond of the society of one of the young men, and it was soon inti- mated to him by some of her girl friends that she wished to become his companion for life. The intimation, however, was disregarded by the young man, who expressed his intention of prosecuting his voyage like the lover who kisses and rides away. The girl made no secret of her distress, and her beauty of face and figure suffered such a remarkable change in so short a time that her friends became deeply concerned ; but she yet showed her preference for the object of her affection by scarcely Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 275 leaving his side. But finding that the young fellow, who was barely past eighteen years of age, was unmoved by her attentions, she not only became exceedingly unhappy, but declared that if she continued to receive the same in- difference and neglect, she would either strangle or drown herself. Like the Niuean girl before- mentioned, she had friends who sought to dis- suade her from her purpose ; but as she declared her determination was unaltered, they used their endeavours with the stranger, who afterwards returned the attentions he had received, and the couple were married at Huahine. His com- panions pursued their voyage, and afterwards returned to Tahiti, while the newly-married couple continued to reside with the chieftainess Teraimano. Their happiness, hov/ever, was of short duration ; not that death dissolved their union, but that attachment which had been so ardent in the bosom of the young woman before marriage was superseded by a dislike equally as powerful, and she subsequently treated her youthful husband with insult and contempt, and finally left him." In 1882, when I resided on Maduro, one of the Marshall Islands, a young man, Jelik, a 276 Wild Life in Southern Seas. brother of the chief of the district, conceived an ardent affection for a young woman who was employed as a servant by a German trader named WolfF. She was of foreign blood, being a native of Arrecifos, or Providence Island (North- West Pacific), from whence she had been brought by the trader during her childhood. Possessed of ample means, the young man sought to show his affection in the most ex- travagant manner by making the girl presents of all sorts of articles, both European and native. Among his gifts to her was a hand- worked sewing machine just then coming into use among the natives of the Marshall Group and a keg of salt meat. Both of these were bought from a white trader at a high price about five times their English value and were subsequently bought back by him (the trader) from the girl for a few dollars. Her object in selling them was, she said, to make her lover a present. The money she at once expended in the purchase of tobacco and a small clasp-knife ; and her lover, instead of being, as would be imagined, angry at her conduct, expressed the greatest delight at receiving such a proof of her regard. A few months later it was my happy privilege Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 277 to be present at the marriage and assist Jelik in receiving two or three other white men who were invited to be present. At the conclusion of the marriage ceremony which was per- formed according to ancient custom, for the missionaries had not then succeeded in making any converts on Maduro the bridegroom announced his intention of putting away his two other wives, whom he had hitherto treated with respect and affection. This, however, the young lady from Providence Island strenuously besought him not to do ; and although barely sixteen years of age, she made an eloquent appeal to her husband before the assembled guests, and declared that she would at once return to the protection of her former master's wife rather than consent to such an injustice. Her extreme youth, she said, would not allow her to supersede in such a sudden and cruel manner two women who had never done her an injury ; she would rather dwell in accord with them under their joint husband's roof and be taught by them in her wifely duties than subject them to an outrage and do violence to her own feelings. Her earnest appeal to her husband softened him, and he consented to retain his two 278 Wild Life in Southern Seas. former wives, explaining to his newly-wedded one and the white traders, that while he had no cause of complaint against the original sharers of his married ilife, they v/ere women of no rank or position, and would not themselves feel aggrieved had he persisted in his intention. His conduct was in no degree singular in this respect, [and the three wives got on very happily together afterwards. Like the people of the South Pacific Islands, however, the woman to whom a Micronesian chief or person of distinc- tion is first united in marriage is generally con- sidered as the head of the establishment, and although he may subsequently marry one or two more wives of higher rank than the first, she would hold a superior position to the new- comers. Niue : the " Savage Island" of Captain Cook. THREE hundred miles eastward from the Friendly Islands, and rising abruptly from the blue waters of the Pacific, is the lonely and verdure-clad Niue, the "Savage Island" of Captain Cook, and the abode of one of the most interesting and conservative peoples in Polynesia. If you make the island anywhere on its northerly or easterly coast, you will not like its appearance. Before you lies what seems to be a rounded mass of floating green, the base hidden from view by a misty haze that may be either fog or smoke. But as the ship gets well into the land, and point after point opens out, you see that the cloudy mist is neither 279 280 Wild Life in Southern Seas. smoke nor fog, but the spray of the wild surf beating unceasingly against the long, mono- tonous line of grim and savage-looking cliffs that rear their dreaded fronts from Makefu to Fatiau. All day long, be the sea as smooth as glass oceanwards, or be the trade wind gone to sleep, the narrow ledge of black and jagged coral reef that here and there juts out at the foot of the forbidding wall of grey is smothered in the boil and tumble of the restless breakers ; and where there is no shelving reef to first arrest and break their fury, the huge sweeping seas race madly inward, and with the roar of heavy artillery fling themselves in quick and endless succession against the face of the perpendicular cliffs, to pour back in sweeping clouds of snowy foam. Sometimes, if the south-east trade is blowing lustily, the roar and crash of the surf seems to shake and vibrate the coral wall to its foundations, and the thick and matted scrub that lines the summits of the cliffs to their very verge is drenched and flattened by the sheeted spray, and the swaying fronds of the coconut-palms growing further back from the shore are wetted and soaked by the lighter spume. Niue. 281 There is no barrier reef to Savage Island, and consequently no harbours. Anchorages there are one at Avatele and one at AlofL, the two largest towns but even these are only available during good weather, and when the trades are steady. Many a good ship has met her fate on the cruel shore of Niue, and among them was the second John Williams t missionary ship of the London Missionary Society ; she was wrecked there in 1867. And long, long before the first wandering white man ever landed on the island, unknown ships had run ashore there, and never a soul was left to tell the tale ; for in those days even had the sea spared the Jives of the castaways, the spears and clubs of the ferocious natives would have made quick work of them. And even nowa- days, when every native on the island is a decided Christian, and goes to church twice a day on week-days and four times on the Sabbath, they candidly admit that they do not like white people, and only tolerate their presence for benefits derivable from intercourse with them. Though the island is but forty miles in circumference, there are over five thousand 282 WUd Life in Southern Seas. natives living in the eleven villages that are situated at pretty wide intervals on Niue, and although, since the introduction and adoption of European clothing, pulmonary and other dreaded diseases have become prevalent, the population shows no signs of decreasing ; in fact, it has shown a slight increase since 1872. Before describing the people, however, it should be mentioned that Niue is one of the few of those peculiarly-formed islands known as " upheaved coral," and although the interior is either a series of impenetrable guava scrub interspersed with belts of heavy timber, coconut groves, and masses of jagged coral rock covered with a matted growth of vine and creeper, the decomposed coral soil is of wonderful fertility, and, given one condition an industrious people this solitary and little-known island would be one of the richest in all the South Pacific. Five years ago I first saw Niue and afterwards spent six months there. A very stormy passage from Tonga had thoroughly sickened me of the hideously dirty and uncomfortable trading steamer in which the voyage was made, and it was delightful to hear the rattle of the cables through the hawse-pipe that told us we had Niue. 283 reached our destination the village of Avatele, which was to be my home. We were anchored so close to the shore that I could hear from my cabin the shouts and cries of the natives as they gathered together on the rocks awaiting the boats to land, and I hurried to dress myself and my little daughter so as to get ashore in the first boat. The scene from the deck of the ship was a pretty one. Between rocky headlands there Jay a tiny little beach the only one on Niue from which a rough path led to the village, an irregular cluster of brown thatched houses standing among lofty coconut-palms ; and further back on a level greensward, white buildings of coral lime contrasted prettily with the wealth of the dark green foliage of orange and breadfruit trees that grew around them. Beyond, nothing was to be seen but an endless array of the greyish-red trunks of the graceful coco-palms that encompassed the village on all sides but the sea front. By the time we had taken our seats in the boat, the whole of the village had gathered together on the rocks men, women, and children. I had only just time to notice that 284 Wild Life in Southern Seas. all the women were dressed in long gowns of the brightest colours red, green, blue, scarlet, and indeed of every other hue imaginable ; and that their long, coarse black hair hung loosely down upon their backs like horses' tails, when the boat touched the landing place, and the noise, which had been bad enough before, now became simply indescribable ; and then, before I could recover my dazed senses, we were fairly rushed by hundreds of women and girls, who fought and struggled with each other for the privilege of shaking hands with the " new " papalagi (white man) and his child, who had come to live among them. Up the rocky path we were borne towards the house of one of the resident white traders, whose guests we were to be till my own house was put in readiness. Presently we reached his gate, and here there was a mad rush to get inside. My little daughter, who was close behind me, carried by a pleasant-faced woman named Hakala, began to get terrified at the deafening noise and excitement. A short, muscular-looking young native with a light- brown skin and dandified black moustache, pushed through the women, knocked them Nine. 285 aside with scant ceremony, and made room for me to get inside the fence and on to the verandah of the house. Then a pretty, pale- faced, little white lady the trader's wife came out and welcomed me warmly to Niue. Outside the fence the swarm of gaily-clad women and children shrieked and yelled at " Nikolasi Tane " and " Nikolasi Fafine " (literally " Nicholas and his wife "), not to take the new white man and his child inside just yet ; they wanted to kifia (look at) them a little longer. And then they tried to force their way in, despite the angry verbal remonstrances of " Nikolasi Fafine," and the good-natured but hearty punches and kicks administered them by Soseni, the native teacher's muscular son. At last our hostess carried us off in triumph to her comfortable sitting-room (her husband was busy landing some trade goods) where I met the rest of her family, the younger members of which, although in manners and appearance exactly like other English chil- dren, only spoke and were spoken to in the native language. This, my hostess explained to me, was an inevitable consequence of long residence in the islands, and although the 286 Wild Life in Southern Seas. children were actually educated in English, it was impossible to get them to talk in anything but Niuean even to their parents and then, naturally enough, the parents themselves answered them in the same tongue. In a few weeks or so I was fairly settled down to the routine of life in Savage Island, and began to take an interest in the people. Candidly, they are not nice people not by any means. In appearance the Niueans are a strongly-built, muscular race, darker in colour than the Samoans, and without many of the good qualities that distinguish the latter race. In Samoa you cannot walk about anywhere in the villages without the natives calling out and asking you to come inside out of the heat of the sun (Sau i fale ma le la /) and drink a coco- nut. In Niue you may ride or walk all round the island on a blisteringly hot day and meet, perhaps, fifty natives of either sex carrying bundles of drinking coconuts, but they will walk stolidly past, unless you happen to have some tobacco to give them. Then you will get a drink and, if the piece of tobacco you tender is not big enough, the man or woman you give it to will not hesitate to teH you that Nine. 287 you are lamakai shockingly mean. In Samoa, at night time, fires are lit and mirth and merriment prevail, and the sound of singing and dancing may be heard in every village after evening service. In Niue there is none of this ; there is no dancing that is strictly forbidden, save a decorous, semi-religious performance that takes place when a new church is opened, or on the occasion of some religious function ; and as for singing, nothing but hymns are tolerated, hymns shouted at the very greatest tension of naturally harsh and guttural voices in a tongue that is a curious combination of Maori and Hawaiian. As soon as darkness falls upon the islands the natives retire to their dwellings. No one, unless it is some enterpris- ing fowl or pig stealer, or a stealthy lover hurrying to his trysting-place, will brave the darkness. Now and then you may hear the crunching of the broken coral pebbles in the roadway, and the tread of footsteps of the ho leo, or policemen on their beat to arrest any one who is abroad without good reason. At daylight the people are up and about. Those who own plantations of yams, taro, 288 Wild Life in Southern Seas. sugarcane, or bananas, set out to work before the heat of the sun gets too great. But they must be back in time for morning service. Others and these are in a majority will loll outside the trader's store door waiting for him to open, and here they will lie and loaf about half the day, buying nothing themselves, but watching the people from other villages bring in their baskets of copra, sea-island cotton, fungus, bundles of arrowroot, vegetables, fruit, and other native produce to sell to the white man. One monotonous day succeeds another, only to be broken by the cry of " Sail, Ho ! " Then the village wakes up, and for the next two or three days the wildest activity prevails. After the ship has gone the white traders and their wives visit each other in succession, and hear or tell the latest news from Sydney or Auck- land, for month after month has passed and no ship has come. Perhaps there is a fono (the tapu of other islands) on the coconut trees, and no copra can be made for six months ; and the cotton is not yet ripe for picking. Then the trader knows what ennui means. He has read all the books on the station, and life becomes a weariness. There are no white, sandy beaches on Nine. 289 Niue, laved by placid lagoons, where one can walk for miles, as in other islands ; no pigeons to shoot in the dense, scrubby interior, and only one thing that can be done, and that is saddle his horse and ride round the island. For there are horses on Niue, and fairly good ones too, although they are terribly tender- footed, owing to the rough nature of the country. There is but one road on the island, which, starting at Avatele, winds its sinuous and erratic course among the groves of coco- nuts that fringe the rocky coast right round the island. I shall always remember my first ride there. The station horse was an old New Zealand hurdle racer, which had been taken over by an Island trading firm for a bad debt owing them by some unfortunate. He was sent to Niue, and because of his alleged habit of bolting had acquired an evil reputation, and I was earnestly cautioned not to ride him. He could never be trusted, I was told, and many terrible calamities would happen if I tried it. I would be killed before I had gone a mile. I was not. He walked quietly out of the station gate, and undisturbed by the cries of the natives, 20 290 Wild Life in Southern Seas. the yelping of the teacher's dogs, and the grunting and squealing of the scores of pigs that lay basking in the sunshine of the narrow road, he trotted along over the crunching pebbles till the " street " of Avatele was left behind. Then, once his tender feet felt the soft red soil beyond, he cantered gaily along till the first obstruction was reached, a high fence of coconut logs, erected across the road to prevent the village pigs wandering into the bush. The sound of the horse's feet brought a rush of people to the narrow gate. They fought and swore violently at each other as to who should open the gate for the white man. How good of them. Alas ! no. They charge for politeness in Niue. A stick of vile, strong- smelling tobacco is the fee for opening any gate. If you have not got it with you, you will have to give them a written I O U for it. Most likely the bearer of the order will give it to a friend who has a bruised finger or a cut foot, who will swear you out that he was the man who opened the gate, and that in so doing a log fell on his hand, or the horse trod on his foot and cut it, and demand another stick of tobacco for compensation. Nine. 29! A mile or so from Avatele the road turns off at the village of Tamakautoga, and ascends the plateau, and here for a mile or two is a lovely bit of verdant tropical beauty an avenue of shady palms, interspersed with orange and lime trees. Then comes a flat, sandy plain covered with patches of guava scrub and native planta- tions of sugarcane. Sometimes, where the road passes through a guava thicket, the ripe guavas fall about the horse as he pushes the branches aside with a toss of his head. Six miles from Avatele and you catch a glimpse of blue sea now and then through the dense foliage, and come to the edge of the plateau before the road descends to Alofi ; and then two hundred feet below you can see the open coast and the steep coral cliffs again, and hear the roar and thunder of the ever-beating surf. No one wants to go further than Alofi the first day, for at Alofi is the home of a man who, with his amiable and hospitable wife, has, during his five-and-twenty long years of unceasing toil on Savage Island, endeared himself not only to every trader on the island but to every wandering white man, be he captain or fo'c'sle hand, who has ever stood under his roof-tree. 292 Wild Life in Southern Seas. And there is one thing to be said of the Niue native ; and that is, that, with all his faults, he would give his life for the white missionary who is not only his teacher and adviser in things spiritual, but his doctor, his protector, and his friend. " White men lead such a lazy existence in South Seas, do they not ? " is a question often asked, and usually answered in the affirmative. But there are exceptions to every rule, and the white trader, and his white or native wife on Savage Island, do not lead the dreamy, careless, and lazily happy sort of life which Herman Melville has written in those charming books "Typee" and " Omoo." Not that he is kept continuously busy all the year round, for it sometimes happens that the native rulers place 'A.fono upon the coconut trees, and during the period that the fono (the tapu of other islands) is in force, which may be from one to six months, the business of copra-making ceases, and although there is much other island produce to be bought, such as arrowroot, fungus, and cotton, these form but a comparatively minor adjunct to the mainstay of the island trade, Nine. 293 which is copra. At the time of my arrival there were five traders on the island, who, while absolutely yearning for each other's society during the slack season, were mortal enemies, from a business point of view, during the copra season. Business competition was very keen, and the natives took advantage of it to the fullest extent by demanding such a high price for their copra and cotton that the white men had to combine and agree as to a maximum price. After a hard battle with the natives, the latter yielded and peace was restored. At our village, Avatele, there were two traders. There were also two at Alofi, and one (the doyen of the vocation on Niue) at a distant village called Mutulau. As there are eight o o other towns, besides those mentioned, which have no resident traders, the people of these eight places have to carry their produce in some cases nine or ten miles. Thus, to Avatele would be brought copra, arrowroot, fungus, and cotton from the large towns of Hakupu and Liku, distant six and eleven miles, as well as from the nearer small towns of Fatiau and Tamakautoga, while Alofi and Mutulau were the markets for Uhomotu, Tamalagau, Tamaha- 294 Wild Life in Southern Seas. tokula, and Makefu. Sometimes parties of two hundred or three hundred natives would arrive at Avatele from, say, Hakupu, each man and woman carrying two baskets of copra slung on a pole and weighing, say, 80 Ib. or 100 Ib. They would generally start on their journey long before daylight and reach Avatele before the sun's rays grew too powerful. Likely enough, they would find that another large party of people had come in from Tamakautoga on a similar mission, and had taken possession of all the available ground surrounding the traders' stores. Now, the rankest jealousy between the various towns obtains on Niue, and, consequently, in a few minutes, wrangling and fighting would begin, the women taking an active part in the proceedings. For half an hour or so the noise would be deafening ; then the bell for morning service rang and quiet reigned till its close. By this time the white men had finished break- fast and were ready to open their stores and commence the day's trading. And a day's trading on Savage Island during the copra season is enough to try the temper of a saint. Let me try and describe it. Nine. 295 The two rival trading stations at. Avatele almost adjoin each other. Each trader has his own particular adherents, and long before he is ready to throw open his store these have brought their baskets of copra and dumped them down against his door. Natur- ally enough the Avatele natives try to be first in the field, and block the people from outside villages from getting too near the door for the first rush. Perhaps the trader has just opened a case of something lovely in the way of prints a green and yellow check upon a brilliant scarlet ground and the Avatele women are determined that none of that print shall go to hated Hakupu. Each man is accompanied by his wife, and each wife is accompanied by as many of her female relatives as she can muster ; also her children. If she has no children there are always plenty of volunteers, and every one men, women, and children mean to handle that piece of print, and prevent any outsider buying it. By-and-by the whole of the vacant ground, stretching from the traders' stores away up to the white-walled native church, is covered with hundreds upon hundreds of excited people, every one of whom has from two to a dozen 296 Wild Life in Southern Seas. baskets of copra to sell, and is possessed of a set resolve to get it weighed and sold before any one else. As the sun gets higher, the impatience of the waiting, wrangling crowd increases. And still more people come in by various paths leading from the interior of the island. All these, too, have heavy loads of the rank, oily-smelling copra, packed in large baskets made of plaited coconut leaves. Generally the load is slung to a pole, the ends of which rest upon the naked shoulders of the bearer. As they stagger down the rocky path that leads from Fatiau and Hakupu, they are greeted either with cries of welcome or jeers from those who have arrived before them. With a cry of relief their burden is dropped, and then from the baskets and the bearers' backs and shoulders arises a black swarm of flies. Flies are one of the two curses of Niue. The other is the curse of grass seed. The latter only troubles the white people's garmented legs ; the former make no distinc- tion between white man or native. Leaving the darkened and fly-protecting shade of your house and going out into the dazzling sunshine you be- come black with flies in five minutes. They crawl Nine. 297 into your ears and settle in your eyes. Brush them off and kill them, and for every hundred you slay a thousand cheerfully buzz into their place. You meet a native. He looks like a perambulating figure composed of flies. As he passes he gives himself a vigorous brush with a branch he carries. You do " the same. Two black clouds arise and assimilate and then, divide forces. If the native is a bigger man than you, he gets most. At last the trader has finished his breakfast and makes for the door of his fale koloa (store), and a roar of approval comes from the natives, and then ensues a wild stampede. First of all, though, he looks out through a peep-hole and calls outfui tau /ago (" Brush off your flies "). The women set to work and strike out vigorously right and left. The men will most likely call out to the trader to come and brush them away himself (I think I have mentioned before that your Savage Islander is not a Chesterfield). The door opened, the trader steps into the breach. A huge platform scale is wheeled out in front of the counter, beside which he takes his stand, note-book in hand. If he is a single 298 Wild Life in Southern Seas. man he will weigh, say, some 10,000 Ib. or 20,000 Ib. of copra, and then leave off weighing and go behind his counter and pay for it before weighing any more. If he is married, his wife pays for each lot as it is weighed. Before he proceeds to weigh the first lot, however, he may call out " Do any of you people here think I want to cheat with ih'isfua (scale) ? " Immediately some one will answer, " Yes." " Mitaki (good). Then let some of you come up and try the scale." He does not get angry not unless he is new to the cheerful candour of the Niue people. A basket of copra is brought up and placed on the scale. The trader weighs it, and appar- ently takes no notice of some half a dozen natives who stand by with pencils and note-books. They are missionary pupils i.e., sucking ecclesiastics. He knows just as well as they do that that basket of copra has been weighed half a dozen times by as many native teachers, and its weight carefully noted. Every teacher has a steelyard, and every bag of cotton, or fungus, or basket of copra, that goes out of any village is weighed on that steel- yard before it is sold to a white man. Born cheats themselves, they trust no one. Nine. 299 Silence for a few seconds, and then the trader calls out, " Siau ma tolu pouna (103 lb.)." A sigh of relief comes from the natives, and the six young ecclesiastical gentlemen with pencils murmur, " E tonu " (correct). " Three pounds off for the basket," says the trader, as he hands the seller an I.O.U. for the amount due to him. A howl of rage, and then a chorus of such expressions as " Robber, tagata kolea (bad man), pikopiko (liar). 'Tis a shame to say it weighs 3 lb. It weighs but i lb." "All right," says the trader placidly, "capsize it, and let us weigh the basket." The basket is a thick, heavy one of green coconut leaves, made purposely heavy, and weighs just 6 lb. "Here, give me back that bit of paper, and the trader scratches out the figures 100 and writes 97 instead. Probably the seller will swear, if not at the trader, at himself. Then he gives place to some one else. At the end of three or four hours the white man calls out that he is tired and hungry, wants to eat something, and his dinner awaits him. If the natives are in a good temper, they grumble good-naturedly, and tell him not to bother about his dinner, they will send some 300 Wild Life in Southern Seas. one to eat it for him. If they are cross, they will tell him that gluttony is the curse of all white men, and suggest that if he cannot find time to attend to his business he had better give up trading altogether. So the day goes on, till darkness brings an end to the noise and work, and the wearied white man, with hands and face smothered in greasy copra dust, goes back to his dwelling- room for a prefunctory wash and to eat a hurried meal. He has given out, say, five hundred I.O.U.'s, ranging in value from 5