The tree at Mandoliaua in which Lieut. Bower, E.X., took rofugc. 
 
 Pa°:e i6i. 
 
TEN YEARS "■ 
 
 IN MELANESIA 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. ALFRED PENNY, M.A., 
 
 Late of the Melanesian Mission. 
 
 Illustrated with Chart and Six Engravings from Sketches by 
 the AUTHOR and H. J. RHODES. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., 
 
 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. 
 
n\ 
 
 ?^ 
 
 QjA 
 
 |5UmWv 
 
TO 
 
 JOHN RICHARDSON SELWYN, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF MELANESIA, 
 
 I DEDICATE THIS STORY, 
 OF TEN years' WORK IN HIS DIOCESE. 
 
 Forsan ct hcBc oVnn meminissc jnvabit.^ 
 
 — iENEiD i. 203. 
 
 4962 18 
 
PREFACE 
 
 XN writing the chapter on Melanesia I have 
 
 -^ been assisted by the courtesy of the Society 
 
 for the Propagation of the Gospel, who placed at 
 
 my disposal a statement drawn up by the Rev. 
 
 R. H. Codrington, D.D., giving an account of 
 
 the purpose and first working of the Melanesian 
 
 Mission; it appears in the Society's Report for 
 
 the year 1886. 
 
 In describing scenes and events that have 
 
 taken place in that part of Melanesia which 
 
 has been under my care, I have given undue 
 
 prominence to my own work beyond that of the 
 
 other members of the Mission staff. This I 
 
 regret, but I could not avoid the necessity, as I 
 
 desired to limit my statements, with a few 
 
 exceptions, to facts which have come under 
 
 my own observation. 
 
 A. P. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAV. 
 
 I. MELANESIA . 
 
 11. NORFOLK ISLAND . 
 
 III. — FIRST IMPRESSIONS 
 IV. — HEATHEN SUPERSTITIONS 
 V. — NATIVE CUSTOMS . . . 
 
 VI. — ISLAND PHENOMENA 
 VII. — ISLAND TRADERS . 
 VIII. — MEN-OF-WAR IN THE ISLANDS 
 
 IX. RISE OF CHRISTIANITY AND FALL OF 
 
 THE TINDALOS 
 X. — GROWTH OF THE CHURCH 
 
 rA(iK 
 I 
 
 12 
 
 28 
 
 53 
 
 74 
 
 102 
 
 123 
 
 150 
 
 174 
 209 
 
TEN YEARS IN MELANESIA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MELANESIA. 
 
 Definition of the Field of Work — Efforts to Evangelize by 
 Bishop of New Zealand — Bishop Patteson Consecrated 
 Bishop of Melanesia — Mission Station at Kohimarama — 
 Move to Norfolk Island — Bishop Patteson's Influence, 
 and Death. 
 
 THE islands of the South Pacific to which 
 the name of Melanesia has been given, 
 include the groups of the Solomons, Santa Cruz, 
 New Hebrides, and New Caledonia ; while the 
 general title of Polynesia has been applied to 
 the ocean district which begins east and north- 
 east from the Fiji Islands. 
 
 The two races, the Polynesian and the Melane- 
 sian, differ considerably in intelligence, colour, and 
 
 B 
 
*4 ••'•'■ TciiYear^ in Melanesia. 
 
 probably origin; though here and there, in the 
 evidences of a mixed race, and blended types, 
 there are signs of Polynesian immigration among 
 the people of Melanesia. 
 
 The languages of this people, though they are 
 reducible to principles which suggest a common 
 root, and may therefore be more properly called 
 dialects, present such marked differences in even 
 the most commonly used words, also in sound and 
 pronunciation, that the speech of the natives of 
 one island is often wholly unintelligible to those 
 of another from which they are separated by only 
 a few miles of sea. 
 
 The first steps in the work of the Melanesian 
 Mission were taken in the year 1848, when 
 the Bishop of New Zealand, Bishop Selwyn, 
 was enabled to make a voyage of inspec- 
 tion in H.M.S. Dido. At that time there was 
 nowhere throughout the whole of Melanesia a 
 resident European teacher; but the Bishop saw 
 enough to convince him that the work might be 
 begun. The natives, however, had not even then 
 been left uninfluenced by European and Christian 
 
Melanesia. 
 
 intercourse. On the one hand there were traders 
 in the New Hebrides, and whahng ships cruised 
 among the more northern islands ; while on the 
 other hand the Roman Catholic missionaries wers 
 boldly advancing in considerable numbers, and 
 the converts of the London Mission from Samoa 
 and Rarotonga, placed on some of the Loyalty 
 and New Hebrides, had by their simplicity and 
 devotion made considerable impression. It was 
 about this time that Monsignor Epalle was killed 
 in the Solomon Islands, and the unhealthiness of 
 the climate was so destructive to the natives of 
 the Eastern Islands, that before the year 1853 
 more than fifty of those teachers were known to 
 have died in Melanesia. 
 
 It was, then, towards the whole of Melanesia 
 that the first working of the Mission from New 
 Zealand was directed. When Bishop Selwyn was 
 sent out he was told by Archbishop Howley that 
 *' his Mission acquired an importance exceeding 
 all calculation, when his See was regarded as 
 the central point of a system extending its 
 influence in all directions, as a fountain diffusing 
 
Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 the streams of salvation over the islands and 
 coasts of the Pacific." When after seven years 
 he was able to turn his attention to that depart- 
 ment of the work committed to him, he found 
 the whole field open, and unoccupied by any 
 Europeans, though to some extent prepared by 
 the labours of the native Christians from the 
 distant Eastern Islands, who, little visited or 
 supported by those who sent them, were willing 
 to share the fruit of their labours with one who 
 came from a district and speaking Maori, a 
 language they could understand. There was no 
 intrusion into other men's or other societies' 
 labours ; nor has the Melanesian Mission held a 
 place where other European missions have come in. 
 In the history of the Mission we see the field of its 
 work curtailed by successive entrances of other 
 bodies of Christian missionaries — the Southern 
 New Hebrides occupied by the Presbyterians, 
 the Loyalty Islands by the Independents and 
 Roman Catholics ; until the Melanesian Mission 
 came to work on the Islands north of the i8th 
 parallel of latitude, beyond which line it may be 
 
Melanesia, 
 
 said that no permanent residence of Europeans is 
 possible. 
 
 The hnes laid down by the Bishop of New 
 Zealand for the working of the Melanesian 
 Mission were guided by two considerations : 
 first, the impossibility of placing Eirropean 
 Clergy on these islands, on account of the 
 number that would be required for their 
 Christianization, and because of their unhealthi- 
 ness to a white man as a permanent place 
 of residence ; and secondly, his conviction that 
 a native ministry was indispensable for the 
 establishment of the church, in order that the 
 people might be taught, not only in their own 
 language, but by the example of Christian 
 lives among their brethren. 
 
 It was in accordance with this plan of work 
 that, in the year 1849, the Bishop of New 
 Zealand made his first voyage into Melanesia in 
 quest of scholars. In his little vessel, the Undine, 
 in company with H.M.S. Havannah, he sailed to 
 the Southern Islands, and among them, owing 
 much to the preparation made by the Eastern 
 
Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 Native pioneers, he was able to find five scholars, 
 with whom he returned to New Zealand. I 
 shall not forget the story which Mrs. Selwyn told 
 me at Lichfield before I joined the Melanesian 
 Mission : how she had been a long time with- 
 out news of the Bishop while he was away on 
 this island voyage, when one night, without 
 warning — for the schooner had come into the 
 harbour and dropped anchor in the dark — her 
 husband returned. Before she saw him she 
 heard his voice, and with it the unknown tongues 
 of the Melanesian boys, chattering in the excite- 
 ment of their first landing. 
 
 The Bishop visited England in 1855, and 
 returned in the following year, accompanied by 
 the Rev. John Coleridge Patteson, fellow of 
 Merton College, and followed by the new mission 
 schooner, the Southern Cross, which the liberality 
 of friends at home had provided. In this new 
 vessel a most complete survey of the islands 
 was made in 1857, when landings were effected 
 on sixty islands, and thirty-three scholars brought 
 back to New Zealand. 
 
Melanesia. 
 
 This time was a remarkable one in the history 
 of the Melanesian Mission. The French then 
 claimed the large island of New Caledonia, as 
 appendages of which they afterwards took 
 possession of the Loyalty group, and the Isle 
 of Pines ; and the Southern New Hebrides were 
 occupied by the Presbyterian Missionaries from 
 Nova Scotia. 
 
 At the same time there was a great advance 
 in the Banks Islands, which lie to the north 
 and in sight of the New Hebrides; and the 
 discovery of a safe harbour, in which the 
 Southern Cross could lie at anchor, made the 
 establishment of a central school for this 
 district possible on the Island of Mota ; while 
 in the Solomon Islands the experience of 
 the year's island voyage gave assurance of 
 a greater willingness among the people to 
 allow their boys and young men to go with the 
 Bishop as scholars. 
 
 As the old field with all its promise was left, 
 a new field of abundant promise was displayed, 
 and the Melanesian Mission entered upon its 
 
8 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 proper work; a work not diminished because a 
 region of T^Ielanesia was resigned into other 
 hands, but directed according to the nature of 
 the case towards its proper and permanent ob- 
 ject, those Islands of Melanesia which are too 
 unhealthy for the permanent residence of 
 European or any foreign teachers. 
 
 The establishment of the Mission now seemed 
 complete. A Melanesian College had been 
 built in New Zealand, at Kohimarama, near 
 Auckland, by the liberality of Miss Charlotte 
 Yonge; its system had been tested, its promise 
 was developed, its own band of teachers was 
 formed, and there was one engaged in it fitted, 
 by the testimony of all who knew him, to be 
 the head of the work. John Coleridge Patteson 
 was consecrated a Missionary Bishop on S. 
 Matthias' Day, 1861, and took from thenceforth 
 the direction of the ]\Ielanesian Mission, 
 surrendered to his care by the first founder 
 and director of it, and his instructor in the 
 work. Bishop Selwyn of New Zealand. Six years 
 passed away, which, though not unmarked by 
 
Melanesia, 
 
 stirring events, but it is not my object to dwell 
 longer upon this period of the history of the 
 Mission than is necessary to sketch the out- 
 lines of its early stages. Careful and regular 
 teaching, the steady discipline of school and 
 domestic work, had borne most visible fruit in 
 the scholars from the Banks Islands; while 
 among the natives themselves, their barbarous 
 habits were at least modified and subdued, and 
 the people throughout influenced in favour of 
 the Gospel by the example and direct teaching 
 of their countrymen. 
 
 But the difficulties of working from New 
 Zealand as head-quarters became each year more 
 evident. Twelve hundred miles of sea between 
 Kohimarama and the nearest island to be visited, 
 made the yearly voyages long and expensive. 
 The climate also of New Zealand was shown to 
 be too severe for the tropical islanders : a move 
 was therefore indispensable. The Government of 
 Queensland offered a site for a Melanesian School 
 in Curtis Island on the coast. The situation 
 was very convenient, but upon examination it 
 
10 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 was found in some important respects unsuited 
 for the work. 
 
 About this time, however, Sir John Young, 
 Governor of New South Wales, with the consent 
 of the community, offered a settlement in 
 Norfolk Island. This offer was accepted. A 
 thousand acres of land were purchased by Bishop 
 Patteson, and the purchase money invested for 
 the benefit of the Norfolkers. Whatever was 
 moveable at Kohimarama was taken to pieces 
 and shipped on board the Southern Cross, and with 
 a pioneer party, under the Rev. John Palmer, 
 was transported to Norfolk Island. Thither the 
 Bishop, Clergy, and remaining scholars followed 
 in due time, and the Melanesian Mission cleared 
 out bag and baggage from New Zealand in the 
 summer of 1867. 
 
 With the greater advantages of Norfolk Island, 
 a milder winter and easier access to the scene of 
 operations, the progress of the Mission became 
 more marked. Viewed from the outside, how- 
 ever, the definite results were not very great. 
 Those only who were patiently following out the 
 
Melanesia, ii 
 
 system of working devised by the founder of the 
 Mission, saw, in the few faint patches of dawn 
 then chequering the darkness of heathenism, 
 the assurance that sooner or later the day would 
 break. 
 
 Three years after Bishop Patteson was killed 
 I joined the Mission, and entered into possession 
 of his house in Norfolk Island. Though the house 
 had not been tenantless in the meanwhile, the 
 furniture and arrangements were exactly as he 
 left them when he started for his last voyage. 
 But it was not the fact that I found his father's 
 arm-chair in my sitting-room, and a few photo- 
 graphs and a pair of old silver candlesticks 
 standing on the mantel-piece, which most deeply 
 impressed me ; it was the evidence I saw, 
 or rather was conscious of, that the memory of 
 the Martyr Bishop was a living power for good 
 in the hearts of the people for whom he had 
 lived and died, and that in the testimony of 
 their lives it could be said that he, though dead, 
 was still speaking. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 NORFOLK ISLAND. 
 
 Description of Norfolk Island — Former Inhabitants — Ruins 
 of Convict Prisons — Refractory Cells — Present In- 
 habitants, their Employment — A Whaling Adventure — 
 The Rev. G. H. Nobbs. 
 
 AS a rule, I think, much-praised scenery is 
 disappointing, at any rate at first sight. 
 But Norfolk Island is an exception. No descrip- 
 tion that I have read of this island exaggerates 
 its loveliness. On shore the broad sweeps ot 
 grass land, broken here and there into valleys 
 and undulations, give it a park-like appearance, 
 while the clusters of Norfolk Island pines, their 
 picturesque forms sharply defined in the yellow 
 sunlight, with depths of restful shadows, seem to 
 be the result of artistic cultivation rather than 
 chance disposition. 
 
 Looking seaward the scene is not less fair: 
 
Norfolk Island, 13 
 
 bays with white, sandy beaches, and crested 
 waves ; rocky chasms where the long swell 
 dashes itself into foam ; rocks and islets, fan- 
 tastic in form and rich in colour ; while burnin;? 
 with brilliance, as if it had drunk in every blight 
 glow of sunset, PhiHp Island stands out of the 
 many tints of blue and opal of the surrounding 
 sea. 
 
 The position of Norfolk Island is Lat. 29° 3^, 
 S., Long. 167° 56', E. 
 
 This lovely spot was once used as a penal 
 settlement for convicts of the worst type, whose 
 characters were such as to disqualify them for 
 the amenities of Botany Bay and Van Diemen's 
 Land. It was the last home on earth for those 
 who had been transported for the term of their 
 natural lives. 
 
 Though the station has been abandoned for 
 more than thirty years, yet the traces still remain 
 of the use to which the island once was put, and 
 the character of its inhabitants. 
 
 A huge, unsightly block of ruins, gaunt and roof- 
 less, stands hard by the pier. This a stone wall 
 
14 " Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 surrounds, and is entered by a gateway garnished 
 with chains and fetters. Here were the prisons. 
 Beyond are the guard-houses, with the rusty iron 
 cranks at which the convicts toiled away their 
 time, and the tread-mill house, though the wheel 
 has disappeared. A little way inland a broad, 
 Avell-made road runs east and west, and along it 
 stand the soldiers' barracks, officers' quarters, 
 and the well-built, comfortable houses of the 
 military and civil officials belonging to the 
 executive of the establishment ; while on a com- 
 manding site, overlooking it all, is Government 
 House, where the Commandant used to live. 
 
 But the saddest of all the memories of the con- 
 vict days are, I think, suggested by the ruins 
 of the punishment cells, in which the refractory 
 prisoners were confined. 
 
 Fancy a block of apparently solid masonry, in 
 shape like a large brick. On the outside a flight of 
 stone steps, such as j^ou sometimes see in an old 
 farmyard leading up to a granary. Go up these 
 steps and you will find yourself on the flat top 
 of the building. Down, one side runs a deep 
 
Norfolk Island. 
 
 narrow trench, like an area, into which sht- 
 hke apertures open. At regular intervals on 
 the flat top trap-doors are placed, covered by 
 stone slabs ; lift up one of these and you look 
 down through the only aperture save the window 
 into one of these cells. A more dismal hole one 
 could hardly imagine, damp and gloomy, as the 
 scanty light struggles in through the narrow slit. 
 Into these noisome dens the poor wretches told 
 off for punishment were lowered and there con- 
 fined. What wonder was it that murders were 
 committed at Norfolk Island just to escape, by 
 a death sentence, from that life which was only 
 a source of torture to the possessor ! 
 
 The present inhabitants came from Pitcairn's 
 Island. They were brought to Norfolk Island 
 by the order of the Queen, and endowed with 
 houses and lands when the convict settlement was 
 abandoned, Pitcairn's Island having become too 
 small for their rapidly increasing numbers. 
 
 No greater boon, one would suppose, could 
 have been conferred upon these descendants of 
 the mutineers of the Bounty^ whose exemplary 
 
1 6 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 conduct had brought them under the Sovereign's 
 favourable notice; but strange to say, some few 
 were dissatisfied with the change. Norfolk 
 Island, small as it is, oppressed them with its 
 vastness, with its roads (there was only a wheel- 
 barrow track at Pitcairn), and especially with 
 its stone houses, in which the echo of their voices 
 was a novelty too startling for their nerves ; and 
 so this minority elected to return to their old 
 home, much to the satisfaction, no doubt, of their 
 more canny compatriots, whose share in the good 
 things at Norfolk Island was thus appreciably 
 increased. 
 
 These ci devant Pitcairners have received a very 
 few immigrants, the privilege of membership 
 being most jealously guarded, and conceded in 
 a few cases only; but the increase in the popula- 
 tion, the result of intermarriages, has been 
 remarkably large. 
 
 The community principle is still in practice to a 
 considerable extent. In the early days at Pitcairn 
 this answered well enough, and it is a difficult 
 matter to abolish it now, when almost everyone is- 
 
Norfolk Island. ij 
 
 more or less nearly related to everyone else, but 
 it bars the way to an improvement in the condition 
 of the people, both morally and socially, which is 
 greatly needed ; because the Norfolkers of to-day, 
 whatever else might have been said of them 
 at Pitcairn's Island, may be divided into two 
 classes: those who work and those who don't. 
 If it were not for this community principle, the 
 scripture rule would be carried out, and a man 
 who has got work to do, and won't do it, not 
 because he can't, but because he won't, would 
 have to starve. Instead of this the industrious 
 ones keep the lazy ones. 
 
 To show what can be done with the means at 
 hand, there are many — I will not mention names — 
 who are living in comfort, in well-built, pretty 
 homes, their allotments stocked with every kind 
 of produce which the soil will yield, owning a 
 large number of horses and cattle : and, in keeping 
 with this material prosperity, ordering their house- 
 holds well, and bringing up their children in the 
 fear of God, some to carry on the cultivation of 
 the soil, others to follow professions and trades 
 
1 8 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 in the neighbouring colonies : while on the other 
 hand, there are others who would starve were it 
 not for getting a dinner here and a supper there, 
 because they won't work. If they did starve 
 they would none of them be missed, but many of 
 them have wives and little ones, and for them 
 the case is hard. 
 
 Besides agriculture the Norfolkers have another 
 branch of industry, viz., whaling. From July to 
 November whales abound round Norfolk Island, 
 to catch which two companies of whalers have 
 been formed; the shareholders must be ready, 
 either to man the boats or else provide a substi- 
 tute, on the equitable adjustment of half profits. 
 The value of these shares varies considerably 
 with the season's yield of whale oil. I have 
 heard of a share being worth £^o, and at another 
 time of only a trifling margin of profit to be 
 divided after paying expenses. But even in 
 prosperous times the whaling brings a very 
 doubtful gain to those engaged in it, because 
 each year a large proportion of the profits are 
 forestalled. 
 
Norfolk Island. ig 
 
 I 
 
 Merchants in the colonies are confiding enough 
 to send down large consignments of goods, which 
 are eagerly snapped up, on the strength of the 
 prospect of oil from whales then spouting some- 
 where between Norfolk Island and the South 
 Pole. The result of this is that extravagance is 
 fostered, and the zeal of the whalers is perceptibly 
 diminished, so much of their work having the 
 flavour of -^hat sailors call '*the dead horse" 
 about it. 
 
 Whaling, as everyone knows, is a hazardous 
 enterprise. With the Norfolkers, however, 
 accidents are of rare occurrence ; still they do 
 happen occasionally, as the following story will 
 show. 
 
 One evening, just as the boatmen after long 
 waiting were thinking that another blank day would 
 be added to the record of the season, a shoal of 
 •whales was sighted close inshore. All was bustle 
 in a moment. Two boats were launched and 
 manned, and the rival crews gave way with a 
 will to be first to get fast to a whale. A 
 look-out was posted on the nearest high ground 
 
20 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 to watch the boats and give the alarm in case of 
 accident, but no one thought of danger, the 
 whales were close in, and it was fondly expected 
 that by sunset the whalers would return with 
 their prize. 
 
 Isaac Christian's boat was the first to get 
 fast, and the whale took it straight out to sea. 
 As the daylight began to fail, and the boat drew 
 farther away, the look-out man thought he should 
 have a better view from another point not far off, 
 so he ran down one slope and up another, but 
 when he gained his second vantage ground, the 
 *' fast boat " could nowhere be seen ; in vain he 
 looked, and others, coming in answer to his 
 signals, also strained their eyes to no purpose. 
 Sometimes they thought they saw something 
 where the boat might have been, but the rapidly 
 deepening gloom soon made it impossible to 
 distinguish an object at sea as small as that on 
 which they were intent. 
 
 No time was lost in going to the rescue. Ten 
 boats were quickly afloat, rowing and sailing in 
 every direction where it seemed possible that 
 
\ m. 
 
 
 im' 
 
 ■mk 
 
 
 
 
 ''\iii? 
 
 1 I 
 
Norfolk Island. 23 
 
 the current might have carried the whalers. 
 But though the search was kept up with untiring 
 energy all through the night, it was not till the 
 morning that they found what they were 
 seeking. 
 
 This was what happened in the few minutes 
 that the look-out man was running from one hill 
 to another. 
 
 After the first rush out to sea, the whale — a 
 cow with her calf — stopped to blow, and came 
 to the surface; the usual tactics were pursued, 
 and the calf was speared, as the cow, whose 
 maternal instincts are so strong that she will not 
 leave her calf, may then as a rule be killed without 
 difficulty. It was not, however, the case now. 
 The whale made straight for the boat, and with 
 one crash of her flukes smashed it up like a 
 basket. 
 
 No blame attached to anyone, for the Norfolkers 
 are skilful boatmen, and cool hands from long 
 experience, but the mischief was done in less 
 time than it would take to tell, much less to 
 write, and the crew were in the water, their boat 
 
24 ^^'i Years in Melanesia. 
 
 with her planks like a bundle of staves which once 
 were a cask, only holding together here and there 
 by the ribs and thwarts. 
 
 Their position was most critical. It was 
 impossible to swim to shore, as the accident 
 happened three miles out to sea. This in itself 
 was no great distance for such swimmers as the 
 Norfolkers. Some years before a boat's crew 
 under similar circumstances, with the current in 
 their favour, swam in nearly seven miles; but 
 now a strong ebb tide was sending them out to 
 sea, and against this they could have done nothing. 
 Their danger was two-fold : cold and exhaustion 
 (for it was mid-winter), and the sharks. All that 
 could be done they did: they lashed the oars 
 across the boat to cl eck her as much as possible 
 from rolling over and over, as a water-logged 
 boat will do on the smallest provocation, and 
 each taking his stand round their frail life-raft, 
 they trod the water slowly to keep their blood in 
 circulation. 
 
 The other danger soon made itself apparent, 
 as the sharks came in large numbers to feast off 
 
Norfolk Island, 25 
 
 the dead calf, coming at times to such close 
 quarters, that one of the men told me afterwards 
 he felt a shark graze against his body. 
 
 Who can tell the horrors of that night, as, cold 
 and exhausted, the men clung to the water- 
 logged boat, which the rising wind and sea 
 continually tossed and rolled ; their position 
 the while made worse by the alternations of 
 hope and despair through which they passed, 
 as they saw the lights, carried by the boats 
 searching for them, approach and pass by, once 
 so close that they could recognise the face of 
 the man steering as he held his lantern above 
 his head. One shout then and all might have 
 been saved ; but their voices were feeble and 
 leeward, and at times only could they see or 
 be seen as they rose on a wave. Through all 
 that night those men never lost their faith and 
 trust in God, and from time to time they prayed 
 and sang hymns. ** I am sure He sent His 
 angel and stopped the mouths of the sharks," 
 one of the men said to me, as he described the 
 scene. 
 
26 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 With the cold of daybreak Isaac Christian 
 died. His last prayer was that they would make 
 his body fast to the boat so that the sharks 
 might not devour it while his friends were still 
 aHve. This was done, and deliverance soon came. 
 Fletcher Nobbs, whose boat passed close by in 
 the night, again found himself almost alongside 
 of them just as the day became light enough 
 to make the surrounding sea visible. Friends 
 were close at hand to save; friends on shore 
 were looking eagerly for what they now saw in 
 the grey light of the morning, waiting with 
 intense interest as the boat came in, with the 
 oft-repeated questions in their hearts and on 
 their lips : Are they all alive ? are any lost ? 
 are my dear ones safe ? At last the boat came 
 home, and the news was told : sorrow for some, 
 and joy for others. 
 
 Any reference, however slight, to our neighbours 
 on Norfolk Island, would be incomplete without 
 a mention of one who for many years was the 
 central figure in the community. George 
 Hunn Nobbs, a name known far and wide 
 
Norfolk Island, 27 
 
 (and those who knew him knew also wh}^ his 
 name was so well known), lived for fifty-six years 
 among these people ; not as a teacher in the 
 first instance, when he landed at Pitcairn's 
 Island after a hazardous voyage from Panama, 
 but as gradually taking that place, and as he 
 ably filled it, winning the love and confidence of 
 the people, till he became the spiritual pastor 
 and master of the community. No more 
 striking testimony to his worth and power 
 is there than the impress of his vigorous per- 
 sonality which he has left upon his work. 
 
 It was but yesterday, so to speak, that I 
 joined the group of three generations gathered 
 round his death-bed, and though we sorrowed 
 for the loss of our old friend, and over the 
 broken link between the past and present, 
 it was not a sorrow without hope, for we knew 
 how well the old man had borne the burden 
 and heat of the day. And to-day his children 
 stand out marked men in the Norfolk Island 
 Community, as examples of what industry and 
 well-doing can efiect. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 Arrival at Norfolk Island— The Mission Staff— Routine of 
 Mission College— The Southern Cross Mission Bar- 
 quentine— First Sight of the Tropical Islands— The 
 Natives— Banks and Solomon Island Schools— Outrage 
 and Cannibalism at St. Christoval— Florida— Takua — 
 Ysabel— Head-hunting— Tree-houses— Death of Com- 
 modore Goodenough — Return to Norfolk Island. 
 
 T T THEN I first arrived at Norfolk Island the 
 ^ ^ Mission staff consisted of seven Euro- 
 peans, of whom five were in Holy Orders. These 
 were the Rev. R. H. Codrington, the Rev. John 
 Palmer, the Rev. Charles Bice, the Rev. J. R. 
 Selwyn, the Rev. John Still, Mr. William 
 Kendall, and Mr. Alexander Kenny ; of these, Mr. 
 Palmer, Mr. Bice, and Mr. Selwyn were married. 
 The Rev. R. H. Codrington was then head 
 of the Mission; he had declined to accept the 
 bishopric on the grounds that the bishop must 
 
First Impressions. 2g 
 
 be a sea-going man, to be which he was physically 
 unsuited. Looking back, I remember how un- 
 reasonable we considered Dr. Codrington's refusal. 
 But he was wiser than we; he has shown that 
 the study of the Melanesian languages is the 
 department of his work on which his abilities 
 may best be employed. His knowledge and 
 labours in this department may be in some mea- 
 sure appreciated by a study of the comparative 
 Grammar of Forty Melanesian Languages, which 
 the University of Oxford has recently published, 
 and the value of which they have recognised by 
 conferring upon him the honour of a Doctor of 
 Divinity degree. 
 
 The Rev. J. R. Selwyn, son of Bishop Selwyn 
 of New Zealand and Lichfield, was consecrated 
 Bishop of Melanesia in the beginning of 1877. 
 
 The Southern Cross, the mission vessel, brought 
 me to Norfolk Island when she came down from 
 Auckland in April. After the usual delay of 
 two or three days, discharging cargo and shipping 
 passengers, the ship sailed for her first trip that 
 year to the islands with the returning party of 
 
30 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 scholars, and Bishop Selwyn and Dr. Codrington, 
 as I will call them for convenience sake, though 
 I am anticipating their respective titles. 
 
 There are two distinct phases of existence 
 in the life of a Melanesian missionary, the time 
 which he spends at Norfolk Island, and that 
 spent in the different islands of the Mission-field. 
 
 At S. Barnabas College, Norfolk Island, one's 
 life is passed in routine. The day is divided 
 in this wise — at 6 a.m. the bell rings for rising ; 
 6.45 Matins, breakfast after Matins; 8 till 9.30 
 school, then work in the fields till it is time 
 to return for dinner, which is at i p.m. ; 2 till 3 
 school, then play till tea-time, which is at 6 ; after 
 tea, Evensong ; after Evensong, school till 8. 
 At 9.45, the bell rings to call the boys indoors, 
 all of whom are supposed to be lying down for the 
 night at 10 p.m. Wednesday is a half-holiday ; 
 Saturday is a whole one. 
 
 The boys live in three houses ; of these, when 
 I joined the Mission, two were under the care of 
 Dr. Codrington, and the Rev. J. Still, and the third 
 (Bishop Patteson's) was assigned to me. The girls 
 
First Impressions. 33 
 
 live in the houses of the married members of the 
 staff, under the care of their wives. The married 
 Melanesians, the teachers, who with their wives 
 and families have come up to Norfolk Island 
 for rest, and often medical treatment, live in 
 some little houses, and in a kind of barracks 
 called generally by the scholars " Alalange Paen " 
 (under the Pines), from the fact of a clump 
 of Norfolk Island pines over-shadowing their 
 quarters. 
 
 How strange it all seemed at first ! The 
 throng of dusky faces, black and tawny, their 
 fuzzy hair reminding me of a housemaid's Turk's 
 head, and their polyglot speech so confusing 
 and, as it seemed, confused. Shall I ever know 
 one from another ? was my first thought. The 
 group I had photographed before I left Norfolk 
 Island gives an idea of what I saw ; though only 
 three or four of the boys, now men grown, who 
 compose it, were there when I first arrived. 
 
 The ship and half the school gone, we settled 
 down to regular work. Of course I could do 
 very little to help in the way of teaching. I 
 
 D 
 
34 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 had to learn the Mota language, which is the 
 vernacular used at S. Barnabas, as a preliminary 
 to everything else. At first, I remember, I took 
 the charge of the kitchen garden in work time, 
 in sowing and ordering which I studied colloquial 
 Mota with my gang of under-gardeners. Three 
 months quickly passed away, and then the 
 ship came back, bringing Bishop Selwyn and 
 Dr. Codrington, but leaving the scholars to be 
 fetched by us, who were now to go for the second 
 trip. This was the experience I had long looked 
 forward to, the first sight of the tropical islands 
 of the Pacific, and the actual work of the Mission 
 upon the field of its operations. Mr. Bice, Mr. 
 Still, Mr. Kenny and I were the white party 
 on board. 
 
 The Southern Cross is a barquentine. Her 
 gross register is 150 tons. She has an 
 auxiliary screw driven by a compound engine of 
 about 100 horse power : this is available only 
 in a calm, or near land, but small as it is, it 
 is of the greatest value in saving time, and 
 frequently in avoiding danger. She is com- 
 
First Impressions. 35 
 
 manded by Captain Bongard, and her comple- 
 ment of men is a mate, boatswain, engineer, 
 cook and six sailors, all Europeans. 
 
 This accessory to our work entails a very 
 considerable expense, as those who know the 
 cost of ships can tell, but it is absolutely indis- 
 pensable from the nature of the work itself. 
 
 With the first sight of the tropical islands I 
 
 I was, I confess, disappointed ; the dense masses 
 of foliage, and the dull, dark colour of the trees, 
 
 I -did not come up to my expectations of what a 
 tropical island would be like. Neither did the 
 results of the work of the Mission among the 
 natives, as I was able to apprehend and appreciate 
 it, make up for my disappointment. 
 
 Miss Yonge's Life of Bishop Patteson had, 
 I think, prepared me for something more than 
 I was able to identify at first acquaintance. 
 There was also this to be said : a severe 
 ■epidemic of measles w^as passing through the 
 islands that year, from the effects of which a 
 great number of the natives were suffering. This 
 would account for much of the listlessness and 
 
36 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 untidiness which I was so surprised to see at 
 Mota, the head island station, and which so 
 unfavourably impressed Commodore Good- 
 enough, who landed at that island about this 
 time. My opinion may have been hastily 
 formed, but such as it was I must give it if I 
 am to relate my own experience in this work. 
 
 Passing through the New Hebrides we landed 
 Mr. Kenny at Ambrym, and Mr. Bice at Opa; 
 then, calling at a few places only in the Banks 
 Islands on our way down, for we had to call 
 everywhere to pick up some one on our way 
 back, we made sail for the Solomon Islands. 
 
 It was here that both Mr. Still's and my 
 interest centred. He was then in charge of 
 the southward division of the Solomon group, 
 the Bauro district ; while I was about to be 
 introduced to the sphere of my future work, 
 the most northern islands as yet reached by the 
 Melanesian Mission. 
 
 The Solomons are different in appearance and 
 character from the Banks and the New Hebrides. 
 There is the same predominating feature of dense^ 
 
First Impressions, 37 
 
 dark green foliage, but it is varied in some islands 
 by large open spaces covered only by grass of a 
 colour much lighter than that of the trees ; and 
 the size of the Islands, some more than 100 
 miles long, and the height of the mountain 
 ranges, some as much as 8,000 feet above the sea, 
 make so great a contrast to the smaller islands 
 we had lately left, that my ideas of tropical scenery 
 were thereby more fully realized. 
 
 The Church in the Solomons is even now in 
 growth and development far behind the point 
 to which it has attained in the Banks' Islands : 
 then it was immeasurably behind. We had left 
 a native priest at Mota, and a native deacon at 
 Ara, with a good staff of teachers at work in the 
 different islands of the southern group in well 
 established schools ; and the native Christians 
 had already reached very considerable num- 
 bers, especially in the Banks Islands, the 
 result of which was seen in the altered lives and 
 habits of the people. We now found ourselves in 
 a very different state of things. There was then 
 no school in the Solomons that did not depend 
 
38 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 for its existence upon the presence of one of the 
 Mission staff. There were those who were fit 
 to be teachers, men who had completed a long 
 course of training at Norfolk Island, but the}^ had 
 as yet been unable to stand alone against the 
 weight of opposition and indifference presented 
 by the minds and habits of the people. There 
 were also among the natives some old scholars, 
 trained and I believe baptized in New Zealand long 
 before ; but they had lapsed into heathenism, and 
 so were rather a hindrance than a help to Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 What the people were like the following story 
 will best illustrate. 
 
 In one of the villages at which Mr. Still and 
 I landed we saw in the canoe-house the trophies 
 of a recent fight. These canoe-houses are fine 
 specimens of native architecture and of skill in 
 carving; they are used not only for housing 
 canoes, but for feasts and gatherings, and are 
 representative of the power of the chief and of 
 the place to which they belong. In one of these, at a 
 place called Mata, in the Island of San Christoval, 
 
First Impressions. 39 
 
 we saw ranged along the roof broken spears, and 
 clubs with their keen edges jagged and hacked ; 
 while on the ground, scattered here and there, 
 were skulls and fragments of human bones. A 
 party of men had come from the Island of 
 Malanta, about forty or fifty miles away, to attack 
 the village. The Mata men, warned of their 
 coming, prepared an ambush for their enemies, 
 and in the grey light of the early morning, at 
 the moment when the canoes touched the shore, 
 and the crews were intent on getting safely 
 through the surf, so that they could neither 
 fight nor fly, their enemies rushed upon them 
 and killed them to a man. This, however 
 terrible and deplorable such internecine warfare 
 may be, they were justified in doing, for they 
 would have been themselves killed if the attack 
 had been successful ; but what was that in horror 
 to the feast which followed, the terrible traces 
 of which we saw ? 
 
 From the Bauro district we ran down to the 
 Floridas, and anchored in Mboli harbour. At 
 last, after nearly four weeks in the ship, I reached 
 
w^ 
 
 BraiiqharrtS. 
 
 >*va//, 
 
 Motuti I. 
 
 ow: 
 
 §- Duff C roup *V 
 
 lo; 
 
 NuKapu ;^J\^P 
 
 TinaWulal. -Rrf>L(?i S-> 
 
 Santa Cruz l-to^^ <V 
 
 1>5- ^^ 
 
 & 
 
 <3)Tapoua I. 
 
 
 5. 
 
 Torres l?.f 
 
 Tucopia l.aj 
 
 ValuRhandi 
 
 Va n ua LavaV V- o Mota I . 
 
 _Y^„ 
 
 SanlaMariar^^^O*^ 
 
 
 \C Crunberlarxjd^ 
 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 ^ 
 
 %. 
 
 16[5° 
 
 
 ^^Mcralaua 
 
 Tasrrumr 
 
 Aurora I 
 
 '^5*'Bartholomew \ 
 JBovgcamrJle St \ \ S' 
 
 66' ■ "v* i p/ \ 
 
 lA^^^W^ 
 
 
 Pentcostl. 
 laFiji 
 doom.- 
 
42 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 the islands I was looking forward with such 
 interest to see. 
 
 The chart will show that the Floridas are a 
 group of small islands lying about midway between 
 Malanta and Guadalcana, which are situated on 
 either side of the Indispensable Straits. There 
 are three large inhabited islands in the group, 
 which, for convenience sake, I will call Mboli, 
 Gaeta, and Olevuga, though these names apply 
 only to the principal districts on each. A narrow 
 channel, called Sudamore Passage, sixteen miles 
 long and in places only a hundred yards broad, 
 separates Mboli from Gaeta to the eastward, 
 and a wider strait, known as Sandfly Passage, 
 from the island of Olevuga to the westward. 
 Besides these there are some fifty uninhabited 
 islands of varying sizes, from the large island of 
 Buona Vista, so named by the Spaniards, to 
 tiny islets not an acre in extent. 
 
 The scenery here is very lovely. I wish 
 I could give some idea in language of the 
 queer-shaped hills with their fantastic peaks, 
 their slopes covered with long yellow-green grass, 
 
First Impressions, 43 
 
 and crowned with cocoa palms or nut-trees : the 
 long streak of sandy beach, dazzlingly white, 
 meeting the pale blue water, of the tint of an 
 Italian sky ; and as one looks landward from the 
 sea, valleys and mountains, where greens and 
 purples blend in softening distance. 
 
 Up to the time of which I am now writing, when 
 I first saw this scene, nearly all that had been 
 done by the Mission in this district was to be 
 found at Mboli. The material results obtained, 
 however, were by no means inconsiderable. A 
 Church school, the best native work for the 
 Mission in the islands up to that time, had been 
 built, but at considerable expense ; and in this a 
 large number of scholars, young and old, assembled 
 for instruction, as long as the party from Norfolk 
 Island were on the spot. But when the Southern 
 Cross carried off the missionary and his scholars, 
 the school collapsed, because there were no 
 teachers old enough and reliable enough to carry 
 it on by themselves, and no native converts to 
 Christianity to rally round them and back up 
 their efforts. 
 
44 ^^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 Mboli harbour is one of the best in the Solomon 
 Islands ; it is easy to get into, easy to get 
 under weigh from, and safe in all weathers. The 
 station was, I suppose, chosen from its natural 
 advantages in this respect. 
 
 Takua, the Mboli chief, requires more than a 
 passing notice, as his name will occur several 
 times in this story. He was no worse, but rather 
 better than one would expect a savage chief 
 to be, able to do as he pleased, and with the 
 example of centuries of savage deeds as a pre- 
 cedent on which to shape his rule. He is an old 
 man now, and his power, then very considerable, 
 is now rapidly on the wane ; so much so that 
 I think of him as belonging to the past rather 
 than the present. Whatever may be Takua's 
 failings (they are many and great, no doubt), 
 he has been a friend to the Mission at a 
 time when his protection was most needed, 
 not only to gain a footing in the country, but 
 to preserve the missionaries from danger. No 
 doubt he found that it paid him to act the part 
 of patron, for there were heavy fees directly and 
 
First Impressions, 45 
 
 indirectly paid for the privilege of his patronage ; 
 still I cannot dismiss the memory of many a 
 friendly act done by the old man in the days 
 gone by, without, at any rate, very considerably 
 qualifying the statement that worldly wisdom 
 was the only motive that ruled his actions. 
 
 As a race the people are small of stature, but 
 they are active and strong. In colour they vary 
 considerably from dark brown to light tawny. 
 Ordinary native male attire, though scanty, is 
 decent. The women dress modestly, in ample 
 petticoats made of cocoa-nut iibre. 
 
 While the SotUhern Cross was at anchor in 
 Mboli harbour I slept on shore for one night, 
 to make a beginning, and to take formal 
 possession of the little house left by my pre- 
 decessor. From Mboli we went round the 
 Floridas picking up returning scholars ; among 
 whom was Charles Sapibuana, a man who was 
 to play an important part in the work of the 
 Church in this district. He had married in the 
 April of that year and had returned to Gaeta, his 
 native country, with his wife, but only for a 
 
46 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 visit, the unsettled state of the place making it 
 impossible for him to begin work there alone. 
 He was returning, therefore, to Norfolk Island 
 to wait until the following year, when I should 
 be able to stay with him for a time, and give 
 him such assistance as the presence of a white 
 man would afford. 
 
 From the Floridas we went to Ysabel, the 
 most northern limit of our work. We had then 
 only one station on this large island, at a 
 village called Nuro, and even this was not 
 established permanently. Mano Wadrokal, a 
 native of Nengone, one of the Loyalty Islands, 
 was in charge of this school; but as he now 
 returned to Norfolk Island with his wife, to be 
 ordained, the school collapsed. 
 
 The Ysabel natives lived then in great fear of 
 raids made by the head-hunters ; a danger which 
 still exists, but is not so serious now. The 
 practice of head-hunting with some of the Solomon 
 Island Chiefs seems to be an absorbing passion. 
 The strangest feature of the case is, that the 
 heads of people with whom they are only not 
 
First Impressions, 47 
 
 definitely friendly, as well as the heads of their 
 avowed enemies, are valuable to add to the 
 collection. With them a head counts one, be the 
 owner thereof who he may. Such a collection 
 therefore becomes indicative, and the measure, of 
 a chiefs power. A. with 500 heads is a greater 
 man than B. with only 300. 
 
 To obtain these trophies, a zeal and an enter- 
 prise are shown worthy of a better cause ; fleets 
 of canoes are equipped and despatched to make 
 raids upon other islands far and near. I heard 
 of one of these flotillas coming 200 miles to 
 attack a village ; others, no doubt, of whom I 
 have not heard, have come from even greater 
 distances. To guard against this danger the 
 natives of Ysabel build houses in the trees, 
 and made forts upon rocky promontories jutting 
 out into the sea, as cities of refuge. I went up 
 into one of these tree-houses when I landed at 
 Ysabel. The tree in which the house was built 
 must have been 150 feet high. The lower 
 branches had been lopped off, leaving a bare 
 straight stem below the platform on which 
 
48 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 the house was built, 80 feet from the 
 ground. It was reached by a ladder, made by 
 lashing rungs across a stout pole spliced in 
 lengths, the ends of the rungs on either side 
 being made fast by a rope of twisted canes. 
 This description does not, I know, tend to 
 give an impression of security, while contem- 
 plating the thought of this ladder; and I shall 
 be believed when I say that the ladder did not 
 feel a bit more secure than the description reads. 
 The rungs had a most uncomfortable trick 
 of giving way in a slanting direction beneath 
 one's feet ; and the whole ladder creaked and 
 swayed about in an unpleasant manner, so that 
 I was very glad when I scrambled up on to 
 the platform, and entered the house. Here a 
 surprise awaited me : I had no idea from below 
 of the skill and neatness which the construction 
 of these houses would display. 
 
 The floor — smooth and flat, and perfectly clean 
 — was made of split bamboos closely plaited; 
 these had been laid upon a layer of soft bark, 
 which again rested upon the woodwork of the 
 
First Impressions, 49 
 
 platform. The side walls were made of bamboos 
 firmly lashed together, and the roof thatched with 
 the leaves of the sago palm. In the centre of the 
 house was a small circle of stones keeping in its 
 place a layer of sand, on which the fire was made. 
 In a corner of the house was piled a heap of 
 yams for food, and a large bowl for water stood 
 beside it. The interior of the house measured 
 thirty feet by fifteen, and I was told that forty 
 people had once taken refuge there. When an" 
 attack is expected the women and children go up 
 into these houses, or into the forts, and the men 
 keep watch. The news of one of the flotillas 
 being in sight is sent down the coast by a peculiar 
 cry, once heard never to be forgotten. If the 
 enemy land, the men, if compelled to do so by a 
 superior force, follow the women, and defend 
 their position by hurling down stones upon the 
 heads of their pursuers if they are rash enough 
 to come within range. A heap of large stones was 
 standing ready on the platform outside the door 
 of the house. Stories are told of the trees being 
 cut down by the enemy erecting a penthouse at 
 
50 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 the base, beneath the shelter of which they can 
 work untouched by the stones, and of parties 
 being surprised, after a long siege, by some one 
 climbing the tree and setting fire to the house. 
 But as a rule, if warning is given, the defenders 
 are secure ; the plan of attack most to be dreaded 
 is when the enemy can land in the dark, lie con- 
 cealed till the first glimmer of dawn, and then 
 fall upon their victims and kill all before them. 
 
 The ship's head was now turned southward, 
 and we began to feel homeward bound. 
 
 I will not unnecessarily prolong this chapter 
 by recounting our daily experiences on board the 
 Southern Cross on the voyage back. Those who 
 know what life is like on board a small sailing 
 ship know what it is to do 500 miles " full and 
 by " in the teeth of a fresh south-east trade wind, 
 and then another 1000, making " a short leg and 
 a long one ; " but my powers of description are not 
 equal to painting the picture for those who do 
 not know: our courses being first S.E. from the 
 Solomons to Mota, and then south from Mota to 
 Norfolk Island. 
 
First Impressions. 51 
 
 The one painful incident of the voyage happened 
 at Mota. When we called there on our return 
 from the Solomons I found a letter waiting for me, 
 which had been left by H.M.S. Pearl a few days 
 before we arrived. It was from the chaplain, 
 the Rev. J. Payne, telling me of the attack made 
 by the natives of Santa Cruz upon Commodore 
 Goodenough and his officers. The story is well 
 known, I need not repeat it. But the letter, 
 written by one who was on board at the time, 
 and while there was still hope of saving the 
 Commodore's life, made it all seem very real and 
 doubly sad. 
 
 At last, for we had head winds for several days, 
 we sighted Norfolk Island, and steamed up to the 
 town anchorage ; and as if to make our return the 
 happier, a schooner had just come in from Auck- 
 land, bringing a mail from England. After nearly 
 a year's wanderings, for I did not settle down at 
 Norfolk Island when I first arrived, with this 
 voyage so close ahead, it was pleasant to come 
 back and find rest and a hearty welcome. I can 
 now remember with an effort ten of these returns 
 
52 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 from the Island voyage, but the memory of this 
 one brings with it an interest I never felt in any 
 other. I cannot expect my friends in the Mission 
 who have homes at Norfolk Island, and all 
 they hold dear awaiting their return, to sym- 
 pathise with me ; but as the years have passed, 
 the attraction of the work in the Solomon Islands 
 has become the greater, till I have come to look 
 upon the time spent at Norfolk Island as a period 
 through which I had to pass before returning 
 to that work in which my chief interests were 
 enlisted. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HEATHEN SUPERSTITIONS. 
 
 Burial Customs — Tindalos — Number — Names — Classes — 
 Witchcraft — Charms— Fear Causing Death — Sacrifices 
 — Sorcerers — Secret Societies — Bugbears. 
 
 ^ I ^HE natives of Florida are not cannibals. 
 ^ I have never been able to satisfy myself 
 whether or not in former years they practised 
 cannibalism ceremonially. By ceremonial canni- 
 balism I mean the eating of a morsel of the flesh 
 of a chief slain in battle, in the superstitious belief, 
 that the power of the dead warrior is thereby 
 communicated. The native testimony on this 
 point is conflicting, nothing of the kind having 
 been done there in the memory of the present 
 generation. The grosser form of cannibalism, as it 
 is practised at S. Christoval and Malanta, where 
 human flesh is regarded as a luxury, is held in as 
 much abhorrence by a Florida man as by a 
 
54 ^^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 European. The fact, however, that there is 
 uncertainty in the minds of the present generation 
 as to their ancestors' practice in this matter, 
 induces me to mention the subject; and I place 
 it at the beginning of this chapter on Heathen 
 Superstitions, under the head of which ceremonial 
 cannibalism must be classed. 
 
 The burial customs vary in the different islands. 
 At Florida they form an interesting example of 
 the native superstitions. A dead man's posses- 
 sions are taxed, and the inheritors bring the sum 
 at which their respective shares are assessed to 
 the funeral, to be wrapped up and buried with the 
 deceased in his winding-sheet of mats. This 
 legacy duty forms sometimes a considerable 
 amount ; and the items range from a heavy sum 
 of native money paid by the heir to a grove of 
 cocoanuts, down to a few pipes and a little 
 tobacco, contributed by the legatee who receives 
 the deceased's smoking stock. The idea is not 
 that the dead man will want the money in his 
 new abode. I used to think that this was the 
 case : the answers to my questions on the subject 
 
Heathen Superstitions. 55 
 
 were equivocal, and the old people were naturally 
 reticent, knowing that I was only prompted by 
 curiosity ; when, however, I came to know Florida 
 well enough to understand the general con- 
 versation, I came to the conclusion that it was 
 only a tax upon the legatees. 
 
 After the funeral an altar-like structure is raised 
 outside the dead man's house, on which are placed 
 food, pipes, and tobacco. This is for the consump- 
 tion of the departed spirit during the few days it 
 is supposed to linger near its old house, while the 
 old attractions are still too strong to allow it 
 to obey the summons to migrate to its new 
 sphere. 
 
 The whole structure of the religious superstition 
 of the people is based upon a belief in the existence 
 and the powers of the ghosts of their ancestors. 
 The general name "Tindalo " is applied to these 
 ghosts, and the word " Mana " signifies their 
 spiritual power. It will be convenient to use 
 these terms in speaking of this subject. The 
 vowels are pronounced with the sound which 
 they have in Italian. 
 
56 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 The number and names of these Tindalos are 
 legion. They are classified into groups of those 
 who exercise powers in sickness, health, love, 
 war, fishing, fighting, agriculture, and so forth. 
 Besides these there are private Tindalos which 
 are possessed by certain individuals, such as 
 chiefs, doctors, warriors, orators, &c., whose 
 '* Mana " is shown in the powers of mind or 
 body displayed by their possessors. 
 
 When a chief dies, he is canonized, at any 
 rate for a time, by his tribe or immediate followers, 
 and his spirit becomes a Tindalo. He is sacri- 
 ficed to, invoked, and sworn by. If the devotee 
 is successful in the enterprise for which he has 
 invoked the Tindalo's aid, then the Tindalo' s 
 "■ Mana " is considered strong, and his reputation 
 spreads, till, with continued or marked success, it 
 becomes established. On the other hand failure 
 consigns him to the limbo of obscurity. I can 
 only account in this way for the fact that while 
 there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of 
 Tindalos known by name among the old people 
 of whom I have inquired, yet there are few 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 57 
 
 comparatively speaking, who have attained to 
 the dignity of tribal or even class pre-eminence, 
 and whose names are heard in the oaths 
 with which the conversation of the natives is 
 emphasized. 
 
 The following are examples of the classes into 
 which the Tindalos are divided : — 
 
 The **Keramo" class gives "Mana" in fighting. 
 "Put petticoats on his Keramo," is a common 
 taunt of a chief, in contemptuous allusion to the 
 pusillanimity of the ** Mana " in the strength of 
 which his enemy fights. 
 
 The ** Bagea " class presides over the sea. If 
 a canoe begins to roll or gets swamped, one of 
 these marine Tindalos has, in some way, been 
 outraged and must be propitiated. The word 
 *' Bagea " means a shark ; and the following 
 story will show how the native mind connects 
 the fish with the superstition. I remember being 
 caught in a heavy blow, when I was crossing 
 from one island to another in my whale- 
 boat. I had with me a native of the island I 
 had just visited. I had taken him as pilot. 
 
58 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 A heavy sea soon got up, requiring us to be 
 very careful in the management of the boat, 
 for we were twenty or thirty miles from land. 
 As the seas followed us up on the boat's quarter, 
 the pilot, who was not accustomed to a boat, 
 though a good hand in a canoe, crouched in 
 terror watching the waves ; presently, he seemed 
 more comfortable in his mind, and began to 
 chatter in his own language, which I did not 
 understand. The case was soon explained by 
 one of my boat's crew, who understood the 
 stranger's language, saying, "Look at that 
 shark, he fancies that it is his grandfather come 
 to protect him ; he is praying to it," 
 
 From this, and many other indications, it 
 would seem that some, at any rate, of the marine 
 Tindalos are believed to live in the bodies of 
 the sharks, and thus the name " Bagea " is given 
 to this class. 
 
 The amatory Tindalos are called " Luvaolu." 
 There is no other meaning to the word. At 
 one place, a small spring bubbling up from a 
 rock is believed to be the haunt of a group of 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 59 
 
 these. A fragment of a woman's dress, or a lock 
 of her hair procured through the offices of a 
 go-between, if dipped in this magic fountain, 
 gives rise to reciprocal affection, while bathing in 
 the water is believed to render a woman's charms 
 particularly attractive. At another place, a 
 Tindalo of this class plays at times upon his 
 flute ; for a consideration bestowed upon the 
 functionary who presides over his mysteries, 
 the obdurate lady may be induced to wander 
 within hearing of the ghostly melody, with 
 a satisfactory result. Nothing is supposed to 
 happen by chance, and no one dies a natural 
 death. Of a sick man it is said, "A Tindalo 
 is making him ill," because of something the 
 sick man has done to incur the Tindalo's 
 anger ; or, of one who dies, " A Tindalo has 
 killed him." 
 
 Sicknesses and deaths are considered to spring* 
 from two causes — a Tindalo's displeasure, visited 
 directly upon the person who has incurred it, 
 and Sorcery. I will give instances of both these. 
 Again and again I have had schools boycotted 
 
6o Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 because the chief of the village had fallen sick. 
 Nearly all the schools now permanently es- 
 tablished in this district have had in their early 
 days to go through this troublesome experience. 
 A school has begun with twenty or thirty children 
 and young people. All has gone on well for a 
 time, when some day, without any warning, when 
 the bell has been rung as usual for school, no one 
 has come. After a bit the reason would 
 appear, ** The chief is ill.'" This expression I 
 soon found to be a euphemism ; it meant that 
 the chief's personal Tindalo was angry because 
 of the school, and he was venting his displeasure 
 on his devotee, who was compelled to stop the 
 school to save his life. 
 
 There is a small island mid channel between 
 Mboli and Gaeta, believed to be the haunt of 
 a whole host of Tindalos. No one would land 
 upon it, and as for eating food there, it would 
 literally have been as much as a man's life was 
 worth to do so, for he would certainly die of 
 fright afterwards. This island is about half- 
 way between two central stations, and so was 
 
Heathen Superstitions. 6i 
 
 a most convenient place to land at for refreshment 
 Vvrhen going from one to the other. My crew, who 
 were Christians, had of course no scruples, and 
 would laugh at the fears of their friends. A 
 favourite trick of theirs was to put the empty 
 meat-tins in a conspicuous place where the}^ 
 could be seen by a passing canoe. These tins 
 are in great request as balers, but much as the 
 natives coveted the prize, no one was rash enough 
 to land and possess himself of it ; till in time 
 there came to be a collection of tins, the reHcs of 
 half-a-dozen lunches, standing in a tempting row 
 upon the rocks of the island. 
 
 From my boat's crew I often heard of the 
 anxious enquiries from the people about my 
 health, or whether anything unlucky had hap- 
 pened to me after one of these picnics, with a 
 view to connecting some misfortune with what in 
 their opinion was cause sufficient to produce every 
 evil under the sun. Once, after I had made 
 the passage on a more than usually hot day, 
 and was compelled to lie down with an attack 
 of fever and ague, the popular opinion was, 
 
62 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 " I told you so, the Tindalos have got him at 
 last." 
 
 The system of Sorcery has many strange 
 features. It is interwoven with the Tindalo 
 superstition, and rests upon it : the leading 
 idea being, that by means of a fragment of food 
 or other media, the vital forces of the person who 
 has partaken of the food can be brought into 
 contact with the power of a Tindalo and destroyed. 
 
 The Sorcerers are a hereditary class. I have 
 known instances where a sacrifice could not be 
 offered because the priest or sacrificer refused 
 to do his part, and because there was no one of 
 the same family to take his place; but these 
 might have been exceptional cases. 
 
 If a man has a grudge against another, he tries 
 to possess himself of what he can convert into a 
 charm. A fragment of food is generally the thing 
 used, but a lock of hair will do as well, or a piece 
 of tobacco cut from the twisted roll with which 
 the man has filled his pipe. The charm is 
 then taken, with the fee, to the Sorcerer, who 
 places it inside a shell in the haunt of his Tindalo, 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 63 
 
 on whom he calls to consume the victim. The 
 next thing is to send word to the man that he is 
 being bewitched, the result of which message 
 almost invariably is to make him feel ill. Events 
 may then take one or other of two courses. The 
 Sorcerer may be " squared " by a heavy bribe, 
 and induced to give up the charm ; in which case, 
 such is the power of mind over body, the victim 
 will recover ; or else, if the Sorcerer himself is the 
 enemy, or if he has been heavily paid to push 
 matters to the bitter end and allow no com- 
 promise, the victim dies. 
 
 At Mboli a chief named Savui, second only in 
 power to Takua, was ill ; he was bewitched, 
 the people said, by a Sorcerer of great repute 
 whose Tindalo was so strong that no one dared 
 to punish him within the limits of the Tindalo's 
 power. Savui was certainly very ill, he was 
 suffering from what I think was remittent fever. 
 His friends from far and near came together, as is 
 usual when a chiefs death is imminent. They 
 had tried to redeem the charm, but the sum 
 named as the price was too great. Savui was 
 
64 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 known to be a rich man, and the Wizard and his 
 friends fixed their price at an immoderate figure 
 accordingly. Then came a struggle, superstition 
 and love of life on one side, and the love of money 
 on the other. The former gained the day, and 
 the price was paid, a sum in native shell money 
 that would buy six or eight large pigs ; on the 
 receipt of which the charm, a fragment of 
 betel nut, was given up, and brought back 
 in triumph, and from that moment Savui began 
 to recover, and in a week or ten days' time he 
 was as well as ever. 
 
 It will be seen from this story how difficult it 
 was to combat this superstition. If there be no 
 Tindalos, the people would say, what makes a 
 man ill, or why does he get well when the cause 
 of his illness is removed ? There is a ludicrous 
 element about this story, but of a widely different 
 type is another, of which the scene is laid at 
 Ysabel. Bera, the chief of a large province of 
 this island, had a grandson named Kikolo. Bera's 
 son was dead, and he had appointed that Kikolo 
 should succeed him. The voung man was at this 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 65 
 
 time about 22 or 23 years old. He had been a 
 scholar in our school, and was peaceably and 
 kindly disposed ; in this respect he was a marked 
 contrast to his grandfather, who was the worst 
 obstructionist I had to encounter. When I 
 arrived at Ysabel one year at the beginning oi the 
 season, Kikolo was ill ; he was in consumption 
 apparently. I told Bera that I could do nothing 
 for him, beyond giving him some medicine to 
 relieve his cough at night. He continued in 
 about the same state until I left Ysabel in my boat 
 for Florida ; but on my return in the Southern Cross 
 two months afterwards, he was dead, and I then 
 learned the story of his death. A large bay, 
 along the shores of which the villages are built, is 
 studded with tiny islands; I now noticed on 
 several of these, which are usually uninhabited, 
 signs of a regular habitation, and the traces of a 
 large number of people having been gathered 
 together. The reason was this : Bera, finding his 
 grandson continued to get worse, tried the experi- 
 ment of taking him. first to one of these islets and 
 then another, in the hope of getting him out of 
 
 F 
 
66 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 the reach of the Tindalo, who was killing him. In 
 this hope, Bera and all his immediate followers 
 moved from island to island, building houses, 
 making fences, setting up palisades, and going 
 through the whole process of opening out a new 
 country at each place. And all the time the most 
 elaborate precautions were taken to prevent the 
 possibility of some traitor in the camp further 
 bewitching the dying man in one or other of the 
 methods usually adopted. A description seems 
 very poor, after seeing what I am attempting to 
 describe ; but it appeared to me a singularly touch- 
 ing spectacle, the traces of this desperate struggle 
 with the irresistible. But the worst part of the story 
 remains to be told. Finding that ever5^hing they 
 had done was of no avail, the last dread expedient 
 was tried — a human sacrifice. A party of men 
 were sent to steal a victim ; they had fixed upon 
 one, a child about three or four years old : him 
 they decoyed from his mother's care, and out of 
 her hearing, as she was working in her garden ; 
 then, snatching him up, the robbers put him in a 
 canoe they had in waiting, and paddled across to 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 67 
 
 the little island on which Kikolo lay. There, beside 
 the dying man, the victim's throat was cut, and 
 as the life-blood ebbed away the old man called 
 upon the Tindalo to take the life he now was 
 offering in lieu of that which he longed to save. It 
 was strange that Bera should not have seen 
 death already stamped upon Kikolo's face and 
 so stayed his hand : it surely must have been 
 already there, for he also died before that day 
 was done. 
 
 When at last it appeared to Bera that all hope 
 was gone, he caused Kikolo to be carried to his 
 chief place of abode, that he might die there, and 
 be buried as a chief, with a general gathering of 
 the people to cry and howl for the appointed 
 number of days. As soon as the news reached 
 the Mission Station that Kikolo was dead, the 
 native teacher offered to make a coffin and bury 
 him decently. This Bera agreed to, and the man 
 went home to set to work. However, it was not 
 to be. Bera had then a mother living, an old 
 hag of upwards of eighty years, who was the 
 cause of nearly all the atrocities Bera had 
 
68 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 committed, and seemed to exercise an unaccount- 
 able influence over him. 
 
 In this instance she persuaded him not to 
 Hsten to the teacher's suggestion but to observe 
 the barbarous obsequies that generations of 
 chiefs had been buried with. The dead man 
 was aqcordingly placed upright in a deep grave, 
 and the earth filled in till it reached his neck; 
 the grave being then about half full, fires were 
 lighted round the head from which the scorched 
 flesh soon dropped, leaving the skull bare, and 
 this was carried to the canoe-house and set up, 
 to be sacrificed to as a Tindalo. The dead man's 
 young wife and child were next dragged to the 
 open grave and strangled there, and their bodies 
 thrown in, together with his possessions, guns, 
 rifles, money and valuables of all kinds. The 
 work of destruction was not even yet complete. 
 Every one there brought an oflering, some article 
 of value, which he cast into the grave: rows of 
 cocoanut trees were cut down, and groves of 
 bananas hacked to pieces : then the grave was 
 filled in, and a heap of stones piled over it, and 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 69 
 
 the whole assembly began the dismal crying and 
 wailing which lasted many days — a fit type of 
 the sorrow which has no hope. 
 
 Periodical sacrifices and feasts are made in 
 connection with this superstition; some to 
 inaugurate the time of eating the first fruits 
 of certain trees, others to make certain localities 
 sacred. 
 
 I was present at one of the former class, 
 at least at the gathering of people before the 
 sacrifice was offered. This I could not see, for 
 the priests declined to offer it in my presence. 
 The chief of the district introduced me to the 
 function, but he was as much blamed by his 
 people for doing so as they dared, for only a 
 privileged few were admitted to see the mysteries. 
 The place of meeting was the top of a little 
 hill which had been cleared of the undergrowth. 
 Inside a space fenced in, three or four men were 
 busily engaged in cracking the large almond- 
 like nuts of the country, and pounding the kernels 
 into a mash with which they were making cakes ; 
 a goodly supply of these delicacies had been 
 
70 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 made and dished up on banana leaves. They 
 reminded me of rows of roly-poly puddings. 
 Outside this cooking pen others were preparing 
 the fuel for the fire on which the puddings were 
 to be baked. The ritual, I was told, consisted 
 in calling upon the Tindalos who presided over 
 the nut-trees to partake of the first fruits in the 
 shape of the baked puddings. After a reasonable 
 time had elapsed, the very sensible conclusion 
 was arrived at and acted upon, " The Tindalos 
 won't eat, so we will;" and the feast was con- 
 sumed to the general satisfaction of the party. 
 
 I have only two more points to refer to before 
 I conclude this subject : these are secret societies, 
 and bugbears. The party into which my friend 
 the chief so inconsiderately introduced me was 
 a secret society. There were many such at 
 Florida, and no doubt there are many in existence 
 at the neighbouring islands where the old system 
 still prevails. 
 
 Admittance to these societies was purchased 
 by the payment of a considerable sum of native 
 money, and conferred extensive privileges. These 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 71 
 
 were — the right to land on certain portions 
 of the beach, which the uninitiated were 
 prevented from doing save by the payment of 
 a fine — the right of way along certain paths 
 — and, above all, a share in the fines in food and 
 money from their less privileged fellow-country- 
 men or visitors. It was in this way that a system 
 of what I have called bugbears was set up. I 
 will give, as an illustration of this, a story, with 
 which I will conclude the chapter. 
 
 When the downfall of the Tindalos happened at 
 Florida three years ago, it was frequently a ques- 
 tion on which I had to use whatever influence I 
 possessed among the people, how to prevent these 
 initiated Elders from being roughly handled by 
 the younger men, who then found out how they 
 had been victimized through their fears. I 
 remember once seeing two old men crying 
 bitterly. They were surrounded by half-a-dozen 
 young fellows, who were making in derision the 
 noises which were once supposed to proceed 
 from the mouths of the Tindalos; and this 
 was the story they told me: 
 
72 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 " You blame us," they said, " for tormenting 
 these men, but you don't know how they have 
 punished us while they were able to do so. 
 This was one of their dodges to get a feast. 
 They and their friends would come to us who 
 were not initiated, and say, * You must prepare 
 a feast for the Tindalos, to-night they will come.' 
 Then they would stop up the windows and 
 fasten the door of the house from the outside, 
 leaving only a small space open above, large 
 enough for their purpose. * If you look out, 
 or stop cooking till all is ready, you will die,' 
 they would say; and then they would go away 
 till night. And we, pity us, would break nuts, 
 scrape cocoanuts, and pound yams, till the 
 heat of the cooking fires, and the dust inside 
 the house, and our perspiration would torture 
 us. At nightfall the Tindalos would come, 
 screaming, whistling, hissing, their bodies 
 covered with leaves, so that even if we had 
 dared to look out we should not have recognised 
 them ; and we, trembling and weary, would hand 
 out the bowls of food we had cooked through 
 
Heathen Superstitions, 73 
 
 the hole above the door, which pairs of hands 
 would take and carry off into the darkness." 
 
 Human nature is much the same ever5rwhere. 
 I thought of this as I looked at the statue in 
 one of the temples at Pompeii, and saw the 
 place where the priest used to stand and speak 
 through its marble lips. And again when I 
 saw the church at Naples, in which is treasured 
 the vial holding the blood of S. Januarius. The 
 Solomon Islanders are not singular in their 
 belief in Tindalos. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 NATIVE CUSTOMS. 
 
 Agriculture— Fishing— Canoe Building— House Building— 
 House and Canoe Inaugurating — Native Money — 
 Dunning for Debt — Marriage — Dancing Parties. 
 
 T HAVE heard it suggested that tropical 
 -*- islanders live upon fish and the fruits of 
 the earth which grow of themselves, and that 
 their lives are spent in idleness. This may be 
 true of some, but it certainly is not the case 
 with the natives of the Solomons. They have 
 to work, and work hard, to get a living. 
 
 The root crops consist chiefly of various 
 kinds of yams, to cultivate which systematic 
 labour is required. This is conducted upon the 
 " Bee " principle, and the method is something 
 like this : 
 
 First the undergrowth is cut down ; and this, 
 when dry, is raked into heaps round the trunks of 
 
Native Customs. 75 
 
 the larger trees and set on fire. Then the trees 
 are felled, and the branches lopped off, with 
 which the garden is fenced; a second burning 
 clears up the rubbish and consumes or chars 
 the fallen trunks. The garden is now ready 
 for cultivation. The men prize up the hard 
 ground with long poles sharpened to a point, 
 and the women plant the yams in the loosened 
 earth. When the young shoots appear, canes 
 are stuck in the ground for them to climb up, 
 and their progress is attended to and checked 
 from time to time if their growth is too rapid. 
 A curious custom used to be in vogue at Florida, 
 which has now fallen into disuse, much to the 
 relief of agriculturists. When the planting 
 day of a chiefs garden arrived, the planters 
 were obliged to sleep hard by the garden 
 fence in shanties hurriedly made of boughs, 
 or anything they could get hold of to form a 
 shelter ; and they were further compelled to 
 work the next morning on an empty stomach 
 till the job was finished ; the reason for this 
 asceticism being to prevent anyone on 
 
7^ Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 his way to work in the morning, ignorantly, or 
 with malice prepense against the chief, from 
 treading upon forbidden {i.e. Tindalo's) ground, 
 and so provoking the wrath of one of the host of 
 Agricultural Tindalos, whose displeasure would 
 be shown by making, not only the day's work 
 of the trespasser unproductive, but the whole crop 
 a failure. It is only fair to the chiefs to mention 
 that a feast of all the delicacies of the season 
 crowned the labours of the day. 
 
 A garden is not of much use the second year, 
 and is of little or none the third ; and there is 
 nothing to renew the energy of the soil but to 
 let it lie fallow for many years, till nature has 
 done the work of restoration. 
 
 It is strange that I never heard of disputed 
 titles to land ; but everyone seems to know to 
 whom it belongs, even though it has lain fallow 
 for years and is covered with bush. 
 
 Fishing in some of the islands is a recognised 
 trade: the fishermen do no other work, but sell 
 their fish in return for garden produce. Nets of 
 many kinds are in use mad^and handled with con- 
 
Native Customs. 77 
 
 siderable skill ; and various devices are practised 
 in the so-called gentle craft, such as kite-fishing 
 and decoys. A small palm-leaf kite hovers astern 
 of a canoe, kept up in a calm by the pace with which 
 the canoe is travelling, while in a light breeze the 
 fisherman need not add to his labours by paddling. 
 From the tail of the kite, just bobbing along the 
 surface of the sea, a ball of cobweb hangs. This 
 is a deadly bait for the " Guard fish," in whose 
 long, scissor-like jaws the glutinous morsel jams. 
 When a suitable fish for the purpose has been 
 caught by a hook and line, or other method, he 
 is made to serve as a decoy. His jaw is bcred 
 below the teeth, and through the hole a fine line 
 is threaded and made fast. The poor fish is now 
 restored to his native element and swims about 
 alongside the canoe. Other fish soon come to 
 join their comrade, who, by skilful manoeuvring 
 on the part of the fisherman, are brought within 
 reach of a large-mouthed landing net, in which, 
 with a dexterous sweep, they are enclosed. 
 
 There is nothing, however, which shows the 
 ingenuity and taste of the Solomon Islander so 
 
78 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 much as his skill in canoe building. In the New 
 Hebrides the naval architecture is of the rudest 
 description. There the natives coast along the 
 shore in unwieldy logs, hollowed out, and steadied 
 by a ricketty outrigger. In the Solomons they 
 make long voyages, and fearlessly cross from island 
 to island, fifty or more miles apart, in well-built, 
 plank-made canoes. 
 
 The labour and skill shown in the construction 
 of these are very considerable. A tree will only 
 split up into two planks, each half has to be 
 reduced, first by adze-like tools, and then by 
 rubbing with a hard, flat stone. When the ship- 
 wright has made and fitted the planks he requires 
 for his purpose, he bores holes with a drill along 
 the edge of each plank, about the size, and nearly 
 as close, as the lace holes in a pair of boots. The 
 planks are then firmly laced together with a fine 
 creeper-like plant, dried and prepared for the 
 purpose, and the canoe is squeezed into shape by 
 an outside frame, and the inside purchase of the 
 ribs and thwarts. As the supple boards yield to 
 the pressure, the lacing is gradually drawn tighter 
 
Native Customs, 79 
 
 till the planks meet as nearly as possible. The 
 joints are now cemented with a substance they 
 have ready to hand. This is a brown nut, round 
 and smooth, as large as a lawn tennis ball, and 
 holding a kernel the size of a walnut. This kernel 
 is scraped into a reddish brown pulp, which is 
 plastered over the joints and laces, and sets as hard 
 as iron, so hard that the side of a canoe is often 
 stove in, and a plank smashed, without the seams 
 giving way. A canoe of the ordinary class is now 
 complete ; but a man of taste, who can afford to 
 pay for it, will have his canoe ornamented 
 with inlaid devices in mother-of-pearl. This 
 inlaying process is a tedious job, as each piece 
 of mother-of-pearl has to be rubbed into shape 
 on a stone or filed, and then stuck into the cement 
 while it is plastic. The rubbers and filers — files 
 are in great request for this purpose — need not 
 be skilled workmen. When a chief has a canoe 
 built, he requisitions his dependants for these 
 prepared pieces — 1,000 or 2,000 per village — 
 which the artist fashions into devices and patterns 
 on the sides of the canoe. I have heard of 50,000 
 
So Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 of these pieces being used to inlay one canoe. 
 This entails considerable expense in food and 
 native money. But the owner is to some extent 
 recouped for his outlay if he has a successful 
 maiden trip with his canoe ; the custom being, 
 when a valuable canoe is launched, for the chief to 
 whom it belongs to visit his friends with a chosen 
 party, and send the hat round at each place. 
 
 There is great variety of size and shape in 
 these canoes, but they are all plank-built : from 
 the common Florida ** Roko," which holds four 
 or five men, to the fighting " Peko," the best 
 builders of which live at Ysabel. These latter 
 vary from the ordinary " Peko," which carries 
 about twenty men, to those of extraordinary size ; 
 the largest I have seen was built for a crew of 
 fifty, but canoes of even larger dimensions still are 
 said to exist. 
 
 There are two kinds of houses, (without counting 
 the Ysabel tree-houses), — the house built on the 
 ground, and the raised house. The latter is, 
 from our point of view, much the better. The 
 platform on which the house is built is raised on 
 
Native Customs, 8i 
 
 piles, the height varying, according to the taste 
 of the builder, from two or three feet to eight or 
 ten. It is made of strong joists resting on 
 the piles, across which smaller poles are laid; 
 these again are covered with the thick outer 
 bark of a tree like that on which the betel nut 
 grows. This bark is about half an inch thick, 
 and very hard : the tree itself is hollow. Strips 
 of this bark will flatten down and form a good 
 substitute for boards. On the flat surface thus 
 formed a plaited layer of long leaves is laid from 
 a tree of the palm type, and then the matted «floor 
 over all. This is made from small bamboos split 
 open, with their joints carefully chipped away; 
 these are plaited into a firm, close, and very neat 
 flooring. The sides of the house are formed of 
 larger bamboos laid lengthways ; the uprights, 
 which carry the roof, keeping them firm and in 
 their place. The ends of the house in which are 
 placed the door and windows, are made with the 
 bamboos set perpendicularly. The roof, covered 
 with a thatch, rests upon a ridge-pole supported 
 by king-posts firmly embedded in the ground, 
 
82 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 which rise up through the raised floor. The thatch 
 is made of the leaves of the sago palm. Each 
 long, ribbon-like leaf is doubled over a reed, and 
 firmly pinned in its place with a short length 
 of strong, brittle fibre, the backbone of the leaf 
 of another kind of palm ; a reed from six to eight 
 feet long would be covered by from twenty-five 
 to thirty palm leaves, their long stems and 
 points doubled together extending a yard from 
 the reed. These screens are made and stacked 
 in readiness for the thatching day. The thatch- 
 ing is done by a working " Bee," and almost the 
 largest house is thatched in a day, though weeks 
 may have been spent in preparing the palm leaf 
 screens. One of the last houses built for me 
 required 3000 of these screens for the thatch. A 
 ladder-like scaffold is made inside the house, on 
 which the thatchers stand shoulder to shoulder, in 
 a long line the whole length of the roof, while 
 others are ready outside to pass up the screens ; 
 these are securely tied to the rafters, layer upon 
 layer, the reeds being about an inch apart, till the 
 ridge-pole is nearly reached. A narrow space along 
 
Native Customs, 83 
 
 the top is left to be covered in by an elaborate 
 structure, a work of art in itself, which finishes off 
 the house. This long saddle is made whole, on 
 a frame on the ground, the exact length required, 
 and is hoisted up on the heads of the workmen, 
 who ascend the roof by an outside stage. This is 
 another day's work, and requires another working 
 *' Bee," after which the house-warming feast is 
 given, not only to the workmen, but to the friends 
 of the householder, who come from far and near 
 for the occasion. 
 
 The description is not suggestive of horrors, 
 but there is a barbarous custom in use on 
 these occasions, where it has not been abolished 
 by the influence of Christian teaching. It is 
 called, so at least the phrase may be translated, 
 " washing the house." It means adding eclat 
 to the event, and prestige to the giver of 
 the feast, by taking a life. I remember how, 
 some years ago, I and my boat's crew might 
 have afforded the necessary subject for this cere- 
 mony, if I had not profited by my knowledge of 
 this national custom. 
 
84 Te7i Years iu Melanesia, 
 
 We were on our way from Ysabel to Gaeta ; 
 and as we passed a large village, we saw a 
 great crowd of natives on the shore, and I 
 remembered that Tambukoru, the chief of the 
 district, had been for some months past engaged 
 in building a house. My boat's crew were Ysabel 
 men, and the relations between their country 
 and Tambukoru's people were not then of a 
 friendly character. Of this fact I was aware ; 
 and so, though we were very tired after 
 being up all night, and though Tam- 
 bukoru had always been civil enough to me, 
 I determined not to land at his place. I was 
 made the more cautious from two canoes coming 
 out to us, one after the other, as we passed, 
 with messages asking us to go on shore and 
 join the party. When we had been at Gaeta 
 a few days, we heard that my Ysabel fellows, 
 who had been seen and recognised, were to have 
 been killed if we had landed, to inaugurate the 
 house. Their plan of attack was hastily laid 
 when they saw us approaching, and three men 
 were told oflf to hold me, whom they said they 
 
Native Customs. -85 
 
 did not intend to kill, while my crew were 
 dispatched. But there is little doubt we should 
 have all shared the same fate in the melee. The 
 moral of this story is, never visit people in 
 company with their enemies. It seems a simple 
 enough rule, and yet many of the white traders, 
 who have been killed in these islands, have lost 
 their lives because they have failed to keep it. 
 The victim on these occasions is usually some poor 
 creature who has been taken prisoner in war, or 
 kidnapped, and who is kept alive by his captors, 
 either to ** wash " one of their own houses or 
 canoes, or else to be sold for the same purpose 
 to a neighbouring chief. 
 
 I have spoken several times of the native shell 
 money. The process of its manufacture indicates 
 considerable intelligence : I will try to describe it. 
 The money-makers inhabit a chain of islets 
 fringing the shores of the large island of 
 Malanta. They have no other industry save 
 fishing, and they buy their food with money. 
 The Floridas are separated from them by 30 
 miles of sea, and Ysabel by 50 or 60 miles. Mr. 
 
86 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 Babbage's system of division of labour is strictly 
 followed out in this native mint. The women 
 dive for the pink and white shells, from which 
 is made respectively the gold and silver currency. 
 Another set of people break them into small 
 pieces, which are passed on and rubbed smooth 
 between two hard stones. Then more skilful 
 workmen round them off and bore them through 
 piece by piece. The drill used is of the whorle 
 and spindle pattern, tipped with flint. The bits 
 of shell, smooth, rounded, and pierced, are now 
 strung in fathom lengths, and stretched upon 
 a board. Two men, one at either end of the 
 board, rub the string with a grooved stone till 
 it is quite smooth and even, and about the 
 thickness of a cedar pencil. Another party finishes 
 off the strings with tortoise-shell ornaments, and 
 makes them up into bunches of two, three, four, 
 and up to ten strings in a bunch. The money 
 is now made. When a sufficient quantity is pre- 
 pared, a trading party sets out for the Floridas, 
 Ysabel, or other islands, to buy food. The 
 canoes they build for this trade are very large, 
 
Native Customs. 87 
 
 some large enough to ship two or three tons of 
 cargo — pigs, yams, and cocoanuts, with which 
 they will return home. 
 
 Custom has established a regular tariff for yams 
 and cocoanuts, 50 of the former and 100 of the 
 latter being the equivalent for a fathom of a single 
 string of red money. The white will only buy half 
 as much. In the pork market, however, there is 
 considerable scope for bargaining, because the 
 owner and the buyer, as is sometimes the case in 
 other countries also, have each their own ideas of 
 the value of a pig, which seldom exactly coincide. 
 It is a noticeable fact that the Malanta men, 
 from smartness acquired by long practice in 
 this business, almost invariably get the best 
 of the bargain. So much so, that when the 
 money passes into circulation at Florida, it 
 soon depreciates in value fully 50 per cent. 
 Besides this shell money, porpoise teeth and 
 dog's teeth are used as currency. Dog's teeth 
 are the more valuable in the ratio of one to 
 five. A porpoise tooth represents the smallest 
 sum in use ; its equivalent value is ten cocoanuts. 
 
88 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 A dog has only two teeth available for this 
 purpose, those on the lower jaw immediately 
 behind the large fangs. A proof, I think, of 
 the antiquity of these islanders, is the fact that, 
 though there are very few dogs, yet the teeth 
 possessed by chiefs and rich people may be 
 numbered by tens of thousands. They are 
 pierced and strung, and made up into necklaces, 
 which are handed down from generation to 
 generation, as among the most coveted of a 
 man's possessions. 
 
 Debt is recoverable by a legal process, which, 
 though rough and ready, is simple, and, moreover, 
 works well. If a man has a claim against another 
 he "duns " him for the amount. I use the word 
 "dun" as the best translation of the Florida 
 word which expresses this practice. The claim 
 may be for value received by loan, or purchase 
 money not paid, or it may be for damages for 
 loss or \n]\iry. 
 
 If public opinion, which the chiefs voice largely 
 influences, decides that the claim is a fair one, 
 the plaintiff proceeds to *' dun ' the defendant. 
 
Native Customs, 89 
 
 The first night a party of women come to 
 the debtor's door, and take up a position out- 
 side his house, prepared to sit in silence till the 
 morning, if compelled to do so. The news soon 
 spreads — ** So-and-so is being dunned " — and 
 friends and sight-seers collect. The practical 
 question is now considered, the same that 
 Mr. Mantalini asked under similar circum- 
 stances, What amount will they take and go ? 
 
 Considerable delay, however, often happens 
 at this stage. Messengers are sent to and fro 
 between the chief, who is responsible for the 
 legal process, and the debtor. 
 
 The chief is now very dignified and reserved, 
 no ordinary person may speak to him. A pro- 
 fessional pleader must be engaged, a man 
 whose social position entitles him to address 
 the chief on such an occasion, and whose 
 forensic skill — inspired by a Tindalo — enables 
 him to obtain for his client some modification 
 in the terms demanded. The ordinary course, 
 however, is to pay up at once, and not incur 
 the cost of counsel's advocacy; experience going 
 
90 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 to prove that this gentleman rarely reduces the 
 damages by the amount of his fee, which is a 
 certainty in any case, and must be paid, like a 
 barrister's — at least so it is said — before he goes 
 into court. When a chief duns another chief, 
 the case is a more serious one, and the legal 
 proceedings are longer and more costly. 
 
 The dernier ressort behind the action is the 
 secret of its power. If the claim is not settled 
 the first night, the female bailiffs are again dis- 
 patched — this is equivalent to the second "going " 
 of the auctioneer — for the third night the men 
 come and set fire to the house, seize the pig, 
 smash the canoe, and destroy everything be- 
 longing to the defendant upon which they can 
 lay their hands. 
 
 Matters are very seldom pressed to this bitter 
 end. 
 
 The marriage customs vary very considerably 
 in the different islands of the Solomon group. 
 At Ysabel wives are cheap, at Florida very 
 expensive, but everywhere a girl is a property of 
 more or less value to her father and friends. 
 
Native Customs, 91 
 
 The marriage customs begin with tattoomg. 
 This adornment is absolutely indispensable to the 
 girl's prospect of being sought in marriage. A 
 serious process is involved in the operation. The 
 tattooer, or taxidermist, belongs to the medical 
 profession ; he is distinctly a speciality man. He 
 possesses a Tindalo, whose **mana'* enables him 
 to operate painlessly. Fancy what a practice a 
 dentist who possessed such a Tindalo would 
 soon acquire ! This man's services command a 
 very considerable fee. He sets about the opera- 
 tion in the following manner. He first engages 
 a company of professional singers — soloists and 
 chorus ; in the case of a chief, still greater 
 expense is incurred by the necessity of furnishing 
 the vocalists with an entirely new repertoire of 
 songs composed for the occasion. The concert 
 begins at sunset, and is kept up with unflagging 
 energy all through the night. To this the poor 
 child who is to be tattooed is compelled to listen ; 
 her friends nudge her to keep her awake if tired 
 nature asserts itself in sleep. With sunrise the 
 taxidermist sets about his work ; and, with con- 
 
92 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 siderable skill, judging from the after effect, 
 carves or scratches with a bamboo knife, a net- 
 work pattern on the girl's face and bosom. It 
 is considered a point of honour to bear, with 
 Spartan fortitude, the pain of this operation. 
 The Tindalo, however, gets the credit of its 
 painlessness ; at least his reputation, and that of 
 the specialist who possesses him, suffers if the 
 patient gives utterance to her feelings by sob or 
 cry. After the operation, sleep comes to the 
 rescue, and when the child awakes, nothing more 
 serious is the matter than a little smarting and 
 stiffness — a trifling discomfort, and small in 
 comparison with the pleasing consciousness that 
 she is now eligible for a matrimonial offer. 
 From this time her friends keep a watchful eye 
 over her movements, and check any symptom of 
 levity on her part, or the slightest approach to 
 familiarity with anyone of the opposite sex. 
 
 I am describing the rule, there are exceptions, 
 but I need not refer to them with more than this 
 passing notice. 
 
 Honourable proposals follow in the course of 
 
Native Cttstoins, 93 
 
 time, and then dawns a day of good things 
 for her friends. All who have subscribed 
 for the tattooing now expect to receive back 
 their subscriptions with interest ; and the amount 
 demanded from the suitor varies directly with 
 the girl's rank, and the number and social posi- 
 tion of her friends. I remember a case where a 
 sum of native money was demanded by a chief 
 for his daughter, which would have cost £50 
 worth of trade to buy. 
 
 Young men who have no rich friends, or are 
 too lazy to make friends by their readiness to 
 work, sometimes wait for years for a wife. But 
 where a suitor has reasonable hopes of ultimately 
 raising the sum required for a particular girl, he 
 can lodge a certain amount on account with her 
 father, and so engage the object of his choice. 
 This precaution secures him from the danger of 
 being cut out by a wealthier suitor. 
 
 A chief's daughter seldom marries young, 
 because the avaricious parent demands such an 
 exorbitant price for her hand that few men are 
 rash enough to even contemplate the thought 
 
94 ^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 of becoming her suitor. The large sum I 
 have mentioned was demanded by Takua, the 
 Mboli chief, for his eldest daughter ; and the 
 luckless wight whose vanity led him to commit 
 the folly of allowing his people to make the 
 matrimonial overtures, was mulcted in a heavy 
 fine for his presumption, when his inability to 
 raise the required sum became known. It often 
 happens that a chiefs daughters do not marry 
 till their father dies ; then they are bought for 
 an old song by some middle-aged widower, 
 polygamist, or impecunious person who has 
 waited in vain for many years to obtain a 
 partner. The whole system is bad ; and, as 
 may be inferred, is the cause of a host of 
 troubles, often involving bloodshed, for the moral 
 code of the natives is very severe — though, 
 perhaps, that is not quite the way to express 
 the case, because the idea of property seems to 
 occupy a place in the native aspect of the 
 question. I believe that the establishment and 
 progress of Christianity will introduce a thorough 
 reform in the native marriage customs. I have 
 
Native Customs. 95 
 
 the more confidence in saying this because 
 indications are not wanting of changes in the 
 right direction having already begun. 
 
 When her price had been paid, the girl is 
 handed over to the care of her future husband's 
 friends. She lives with her mother-in-law until 
 such time as the bride and bridegroom are 
 permitted to live together as man and wife. 
 A short time after the money has been paid, 
 the receivers provide a feast for the subscribers. 
 A large portion of the purchase-money has to 
 be spent in this way. A second, a return feast, 
 is given to the girl's people, and then the cere- 
 monies are at an end. A wife's friends are, 
 however, never quit of their responsibility for 
 her actions. If she quarrels with her husband, 
 he refuses to eat anything she cooks, and her 
 friends have to make up the quarrel by sending 
 the sulky husband a present. One of Takua's 
 wives accidentally set fire to his new canoe- 
 house, which was burnt to the ground, and the 
 new canoe inside. The woman's unlucky friends 
 had to pay a large fine, which Takua demanded 
 
96 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 for his wife's carelessness. This seems to be 
 the one privilege a Florida man enjoys, as a 
 set-off to the long price he has to pay for his 
 wife. There is another privilege enjoyed by 
 the native of Ysabel, at least I have heard it 
 considered as such : all communications between 
 him and his mother-in-law are strictly forbidden. 
 
 The love of dancing seems to be strongly de- 
 veloped in the mind of the black man. This 
 taste he shares with the European, but the two 
 styles are widely different. The dances of the 
 South Sea Islanders resemble rather the elaborate 
 evolutions of a pantomime ballet, than the exer- 
 cise as it is practised socially amongst our 
 selves. 
 
 The natives of the New Hebrides are far in 
 advance of the Solomon Islanders in their skill 
 as dancers. I was present some years ago at a 
 public dance at Mota^ and I was much struck by 
 the ingenuity shown in the various figures of the 
 dance, and the knowledge of their parts displayed 
 by the dancers. The whole spectacle was an 
 admirable specimen of native design, carried out 
 
Native Customs, 97 
 
 by careful preparation and long practice. We 
 have nothing in the Solomon Islands to compare 
 with the sight I then saw. Dancing, however, is 
 made a more paying business in the Solomons, 
 and the principle is more generally recognized 
 that the chief pleasure is conferred upon the 
 spectators, for which it is only reasonable that the 
 dancer should be paid. The New Hebrides 
 dancer is paid, but not so highly as the Solomon 
 Islander, though his performance is worth more 
 money. 
 
 When a chief contemplates getting up a dancing 
 party, he and his advisers first choose the dance, 
 after which they select the dancers from a host 
 of applicants, and the whole performance is put 
 in rehearsal. A year or even longer is a very 
 ordinary time of preparation for one of these 
 dances. Of the five or six in common use I will 
 try to give some description of one, a " Sonruka." 
 
 Thirty-six dancers are required, who take up 
 their position in a wedge-like phalanx. Four 
 ranks of fours, four of threes, and four of twos, one 
 rank behind the other ; the big men are placed in 
 
 H 
 
98 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 tha front, and the smaller men and boys tail off 
 in the rear. 
 
 The dancers pipe for their own dancing, and 
 the dancing consists in wriggling the body, bent 
 double, swaying the head, arms, and legs, and 
 marking time with the feet ; strings of dry nut- 
 shells bound round the ankles, emitting the sneez- 
 ing sound of cymbals as the dancers stamp. The 
 leaders play the melody on pan-pipes, to which 
 less skilled musicians put in an accompaniment 
 with bamboo trumpets of different lengths. The 
 music changes with the figures of the dance, and 
 marks the time and change of the steps — one, 
 two, three, right; one, two, three, left. There 
 are two noteworthy peculiarities in the music, 
 the frequent occurrence of fifths, and syncopated 
 time in the deep notes of the accompaniment. 
 
 As every gesture has been rehearsed, and the 
 heads, legs, arms, and feet move as if by clock- 
 work in time to the music, the general effect is 
 very pleasing. 
 
 The chief who owns the party, like an enter- 
 prising manager, spares no expense to enhance 
 
Native Customs* gg 
 
 the spectacular effect of his dance. Strange de- 
 vices in white cockatoo's feathers, in shape not 
 unlike the plumes on the head of a hearse-horse, are 
 held in the hand unoccupied with the pan-pipes ; 
 gaudy coloured waist cloths, dog's and porpoise' 
 teeth necklaces, and ornaments of every kind, are 
 in requisition to bedeck the dancers. When the 
 performers are ready, and the time is arranged so 
 as to coincide with the calm season of the year, 
 the party is brought together and a start is 
 made. 
 
 The final act of preparation used to consist in a 
 solemn function, placing the dancers under the 
 protection, and in communication with some 
 potent Tindalo, whose " mana " made their 
 movements agile, their music inspiring, and 
 generally conduced to the success of the 
 •enterprise. The fortunate functionary who 
 presided over the Tindalos mysteries and 
 performed the ceremony, received a heavy fee 
 for his services. But the chief was wise enough to 
 let this stand over till the final division of the 
 profits at the end of the tour, so that the amount 
 
100 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 varied with the supposed success of his spells. 
 Besides the dancers there is a mixed multitude* 
 whose numbers add to the dignity of the proceed- 
 ing. I met last year a party from Olevuga which 
 numbered 350, and manned a fleet of thirty 
 canoes of various sizes. But I have heard of 
 dancing parties where the numbers were con- 
 siderably greater. 
 
 The round of visits generally occupies three 
 months. At each place visited several perform- 
 ances are given, after which the spectators supply 
 their entertaining visitors with food, and the 
 chief contributes so much money. The amount 
 varies with the dignity of the visitor, and the 
 general approval accorded to the efforts of the 
 dancers. 
 
 These dancing parties are among the most 
 harmless of the native customs, and latterly we 
 have been able to utilize them to the spread of 
 Christianity. At first the Christians held aloof 
 because of the Tindalo influence upon the 
 dancers, and because they would have to give 
 up school and prayers during the tour. But 
 
Native Customs. loi 
 
 when their numbers came to be considerable, 
 the idea occurred to some of us, to let a Christian 
 party go attended by a teacher as Chaplain, if 
 the chief would consent to forego the Tindalo 
 part of the business. On several occasions this 
 has been done. A large dancing party started 
 three years ago from Gaeta with a contingent 
 of fifty Christians, and went the round of the 
 Floridas. Each night and morning those 
 men met together for prayers, and though at first 
 they had to encounter ridicule, the ridicule 
 in time gave way before their pertinacity. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ISLAND PHENOMENA. 
 
 Geological Features: Volcanoes — Hot Spring— Estuaries— 
 River-caves. Tides : Peculiarities — Eccentricities — 
 Attempted Explanations. Curiosities in the Animal 
 Kingdom : The Sand Fowl—The Tabe-vatu (Hold-the- 
 Stone) — Strange Fish. 
 
 EVEN from the standpoint of an unscientific 
 observer, there are many noteworthy 
 phenomena in the Solomon Islands. The general 
 formation of the group is volcanic. Hills of 
 fantastic shape, extinct craters, and deep furrows 
 made by streams of lava flowing down to the 
 sea, show on all sides the action of fire upon the 
 face of the land. 
 
 The only instance of this force being still active 
 is in the island of Savo, where there are springs 
 of boiling mud, emitting jets of steam similar to 
 those in the Rotorua district in New Zealand ; 
 
Island Phenomena, 103 
 
 but the native words for volcano, lava, pummice, 
 and many others of a similar kind, show that such 
 things once existed, and at no very distant 
 date, or the words would have passed out of use. 
 
 In the physical geography of the Solomons, a 
 remarkable feature is the river-like estuary, by 
 which many of the islands are cut through. 
 That which separates Mboli from Gaeta is 16 
 miles long, with an average width of 100 yards, 
 and a depth of 7 fathoms. The narrowest part 
 is about 60 yards across, and there is a patch 
 200 yards long with only three fathoms of water 
 upon it. As the sea is approached, the channel 
 widens into a V-shaped mouth, and the soundings 
 increase. The banks shelve rapidly into deep 
 water ; in places they are nearly perpendicular, like 
 the sides of the Suez Canal. For a little distance on 
 either shore mangroves and swampy vegetation, 
 the haunt of alligators, flourish, and then the 
 hills rise abruptly. The tide runs through very 
 strong ; at the full and change of the moon there 
 is a four-knot current varying with the ebb and 
 flow. This estuary forms an excellent water-way. 
 
104 ^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 For several years I have used it in boating 
 expeditions, and latterly Captain Bongard has 
 taken the Southern Cross through. 
 
 I should imagine that the formation is due to 
 volcanic action. If we fancy a long, narrow 
 island cracking, and breaking its back by the 
 upheaval of some portion, this crack zig-zagging 
 wath the configuration of the hills and the 
 inequalities of the land, and then the sea rushing 
 in and filling up the rent, we have a picture of 
 the formation of one of these estuaries. 
 
 The same action appears in the form of the 
 whole Solomon group. The chart shows that the 
 islands lie in the arc of a circle roughly following 
 the outline of the coast of North Queensland, 
 and stretching downwards from New Guinea in a 
 south-easterly direction. The islands are for the 
 most part long and narrow, and separated by 
 straits only a few miles across. It is probable, 
 therefore, that at some remote period they were 
 connected with New Guinea, and possibly formed 
 with it a continuation of the Malay Peninsula. 
 The fact that there are opossums in the Solomons 
 
Island Phenomena, 105 
 
 adds strength to this supposition — the presence 
 of this four-footed animal suggesting that at some 
 time there was an overland route to the island on 
 which he now lives ; and again, the similarity 
 between the Solomon Island opossum and his 
 neighbour in New Guinea, makes it probable 
 that they are both descended from a common 
 ancestor. 
 
 Another curiosity is the river caverns. There 
 is one of these at Gaeta, and hearing the people 
 speak of it as a wonder, I made an expedition to 
 the place. The native name is '* Suku," and as 
 there is no single word in English which describes 
 this phenomenon, I may for brevity use the 
 Florida equivalent. 
 
 After a long walk inland, up and down hill, we 
 struck the course of the Gaeta river at a point 
 where it flows through a deep ravine. Descend- 
 ing a side of this we waded up the bed of the 
 stream, which has here been cut through the solid 
 rock by the action of the water. The floor of the 
 cutting is flat, and the sides vertical. After we 
 had gone a few hundred yards we suddenly came 
 
io6 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 round a bend, in view of the mouth of a huge 
 cave, in an almost perpendicular wall of rock. 
 This was the «' Suku." The face of the cHff 
 blocked one extremity of the ravine. For some 
 distance it rose straight upwards, and then sloped 
 off into the side of the mountain. High up against 
 the sky the forest trees shut out the sunshine ; 
 and nearer to us, overhanging rocks and clumps of 
 ferns, tangled masses of undergrowth, and creepers 
 hanging in serpent folds from branch to branch, 
 cast a deep gloom over the scene. The lips of 
 the cavern's mouth were fringed with ferns and 
 moss and lichens, fresh and green from the 
 moisture ever dripping from the rocks; and 
 within we could dimly see clusters of huge sta- 
 lactites, like jagged teeth, hanging down from 
 the roof. 
 
 Inside the cave the water was for the most part 
 shallow, but there were holes and large stones in 
 the way which made our progress slow. At one 
 time I had to crawl along a ledge of rock jutting 
 out from the wall over a deep pool, and at another 
 to scramble over boulders ; but a friendly hand. 
 
Island Phenomena, 107 
 
 belonging to some one whose light apparel made 
 it a matter of no moment to him whether he was 
 in or out of the water, was always ready to help me. 
 
 The scene in the " Suku " was most weird. 
 The echoing roof rang with the sound of our 
 voices, the rushing of the water, and the screeching 
 of the bats, which clung in scores to the stalactites, 
 or, scared by the light of our torches, flapped 
 wildly about on all sides. When, two years 
 afterwards, I was inside the Great Pyramid, I was 
 reminded of this scene ; and I wished that I had 
 had the magnesian wire in the Suku with which 
 the Arabs then lit up the work of ages long gone 
 by, that I might have had a better view of this 
 marvel of nature. 
 
 After we had gone in about 200 yards, we came 
 to where the cavern forked. One arm. by far 
 the larger though not the longer, extended only 
 a little distance and then came to an abrupt end. 
 The other, out of which the river rushed, led away 
 into the heart of the mountain ; but so low was 
 the roof that it did not seem to be more than a 
 yard clear of the water. 
 
io8 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 And here my description of the ** Suku" would 
 come to an end if I had not heard the experience 
 of someone more adventurous than myseh', which 
 I can now add as a sequel to the story. 
 
 I don't know whether I have succeeded in 
 painting this picture as it appeared to me ; or 
 whether the reader will feel inspired by a spirit of 
 enterprise greater than I felt, but I frankly con- 
 fess that I was not induced to explore further the 
 mystery of the river's source. I was the more 
 reluctant to do so from the fact that only a few 
 days before we had killed an alligator in this river, 
 which measured 12 ft. 6 in. from his nose to 
 his tail. It is true that alligators come up from 
 the sea for what they can get, and at this point 
 we were ten miles from the village where the 
 alligator's presence had been lately felt by the 
 loss of our pigs and poultry. Still there was just 
 a possibility of another making the Suku his place 
 of retirement by day; and, as it would be ex- 
 tremely unpleasant to come face to face with such 
 an obstructionist, possessing in such close quarters 
 an undeniably advantageous position, I thought 
 
Island Phenomena, 109 
 
 that in the circumstances discretion was the better 
 part of valour. No one had at that time 
 penetrated beyond this point, and here I turned 
 to retrace my steps. The mouth of the cavern, 
 which was as large as a railway tunnel, looked 
 quite small in the distance, and the long stalactite 
 fangs, clearly defined against the daylight, hung 
 down like the spikes of a portcullis. 
 
 When I described the Suku to Bishop Selwyn, 
 he at once declared that he would follow up the 
 course of the river as far as he could. Two years 
 afterwards, when he stayed at Gaeta while I was 
 in England, he was able to put this resolution 
 into practice. 
 
 Taking candles and matches, a bundle of stout 
 fishing lines, and a hatchet, he started one day 
 with a couple of guides for the place. When they 
 came to the point where the course of the river 
 turns off into the small arm ot the cavern, they 
 made fast one end of the fishing line to a rock, 
 and taking the roll with them they paid it out as 
 they advanced. The object of this was twofold, 
 to measure the distance, and as a precaution, in 
 
no Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 case their candle came to an end, when they 
 would be able to find their way back by the 
 line. 
 
 In places the roof was so low that they had 
 to crouch as they waded, in others it rose so 
 high that the faint light of their candles failed 
 to pierce its gloom. Sometimes as the channel 
 widened the water was shallow ; and again, *as 
 it narrowed, the water came breast high. At 
 last they saw a flicker of daylight, and presently 
 they came out into a valley, which the guides 
 had never seen before, on the other side of the 
 mountain. The river, now a little stream, rose 
 close by, and flowed into the opening from 
 which they had just emerged. 
 
 The length of the cavern was 730 yards. The 
 only living creature they met was a huge eel, but 
 he was quite friendly, and did not offer to fight or 
 ily. He might have been blind as he lived in the 
 dark, but he was strangely indifferent to what must 
 have been a most exceptional incident in his life, 
 a visit from a bishop. 
 
 I have given up trying to understand the 
 
Island Phenomena, iii 
 
 tides, the subject presents so many eccentricities. 
 High water is at 5 o'clock a.m. and p.m. 
 generally through the Solomons at the full and 
 change of the moon. The time does not vary 
 from month to month at any one place, but as 
 the group lie mainly eastward and westward, the 
 crest of the tidal wave reaches one end of the 
 chain a little sooner than it reaches the other. 
 When the sun is north of the equator, and 
 the latitude and declination are of contrary 
 names, the morning tide is higher than 
 the evening tide. At the equinox the morning 
 and evening tides are nearly equal, and when 
 the sun is south of the line, declination and 
 latitude being then of the same name, the 
 evening tide is higher than the morning 
 tide. 
 
 It has been suggested that the higher of the 
 two tides in the twenty-four hours is that 
 directly due to the moon's attraction ; and that 
 the crest of the lunar tidal wave follows the 
 moon into north or south latitude. But I 
 have not observed that the moon's declination 
 
112 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 has any effect at all upon this condition of 
 the tides. 
 
 Another explanation is that the south-east 
 trade wind blows when the sun is north of the 
 line, and when it is south the north-west mon- 
 soon. Of these the trade wind is more constant 
 and regular by day, and drops more generally 
 by night than the monsoon ; and therefore the 
 force of the wind acts on a different tide at 
 different periods of the year. If the periods 
 were more closely synchronised this fact might 
 account for the respective differences in the 
 tides, but this is not the case. The trade wind, 
 though it is caused by the sun being north of the 
 line, blows from May till November in the 
 Solomons, and the monsoon from January till 
 the end of March. 
 
 Another peculiarity in the tides is that for 
 four or five days after the full and change of 
 the moon, the time of high water of the morn- 
 ing tide varies very little, and then it almost 
 suddenly seems to disappear. A week later it 
 re-appears unmistakably between two and three 
 
Island Phenomena, 113 
 
 o'clock in the afternoon, and becomes the 
 evening spring-tide when the fourteen days are 
 complete. The following illustration will show 
 this fact more clearly. 
 
 Soon after I began to stay at Florida, before 
 I had time to learn these tidal eccentricities, I 
 was contemplating a boat trip from Mboli to 
 another island. I saw that the tide was well up 
 at 7 a.m. one morning, so I arranged to start at 
 7.30 the next day, thinking that I should have 
 plenty of water under my boat to clear the 
 reefs. I remember a man saying to me, "You 
 must start earlier to-morrow, or you will not get 
 out." But thinking that the tide, though it 
 waits for no man, is at least punctual in keeping 
 its appointments, I paid no attention to his 
 friendly advice. What was my surprise the 
 next morning, while I was having my breakfast 
 at 7 o'clock, to see one of my boat's crew run 
 in from the beach, and hear him say, " The tide 
 is falling fast, up and let us launch the boat or 
 we shall stick on the reef!" 
 
 On another occasion, I remember local know- 
 
 I 
 
114 ^^^* Years in Melanesia, 
 
 ledge being at fault. I had made my arrange- 
 ments subject to advice from the natives, but 
 the tide played us the same trick, falling before 
 we expected it to fall, and we were left high and 
 dry on a long stretch of sand over which we 
 expected to float. The men who were with me 
 were not astonished, and merely remarked, "The 
 tide has cheated us to-day." 
 
 I do not mean to imply that the tide, on any 
 day, ever turns sooner than on the day pre- 
 ceding it, but that the tidal wave appears to 
 bring up a large body of water for four or five 
 days after the full and change of the moon, 
 which suddenly diminishes in volume; and 
 that the crest of this tidal wave appears to be 
 broader on those days, so that it is then difficult 
 to see exactly when the tide begins to ebb, a 
 condition which is quickly discernible when this 
 larger volume of water no longer flows. 
 
 In some charts the fact is stated that at a 
 given place there is only one tide in the twenty- 
 our hours. I do not venture to dispute the state- 
 ment, for I am not familiar with any of the 
 
Island Phenomena. 115 
 
 places where this pecuUarity is said to exist. 
 But I can understand how such a belief might 
 be entertained at Florida, if the tides were 
 observed only at the first and last quarter of 
 the moon. At those times the reefs are bare 
 by day and covered by night, when the sun is 
 north of the equator, and it seems as if the 
 day tide had disappeared; but careful observa- 
 tion shows a very slight ebb and flow about 
 noon. The friction of the islands upon the 
 tidal wave, where the current flows through 
 narrow and intricate channels which retard its 
 progress, is seen in many instances; but these 
 present no peculiarities worthy of note. 
 
 The strange forms of animal life in the 
 Solomons would make an excellent subject for 
 description to anyone competent to deal with it. 
 As I only write from the standpoint of an ordi- 
 nary observer, I shall attempt no more than to 
 give a few instances of curiosities in natural 
 history which appear of exceptional interest. 
 
 The " Koleo," a bird well known in Africa, 
 lays its egg in the sand. The Solomon Island 
 
Ii6 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 sand-fowl is peculiar, in that it does not raise 
 a mound of sand over its eggs, and in not having 
 a crest on its head. In size and appearance it 
 resembles a moor-hen, and, like a moor-hen, 
 will not fly if it can help doing so. The colour 
 of the bird is reddish-brown, and of its egg^ 
 which is very large in proportion, like the colour 
 of a Galene's. 
 
 By day the birds live in the "bush," and at 
 night they come down to the shore to lay their 
 eggs. I'hey burrow, like rabbits, in the sand ; 
 and having deposited their eggs, go about 
 their business, and take no further interest in 
 the matter. The soft, warm sand eifectually 
 does the duties of an incubator and foster- 
 mother; and the young chick, by a wonderful 
 provision of nature, is able to shift for itself 
 from the first. 
 
 The natives of Savo, where these birds abound, 
 turn their presence to profitable account by 
 farming. The beach, which the birds use as a 
 laying ground, because the sand is suitable for 
 their purpose, is divided into allotments, which 
 
Island Phenomena, 117 
 
 are jealously guarded by the people to whom 
 they belong. Each morning in the season the 
 owner digs with a wooden spade for eggs in the 
 soft sand; sometimes he finds them down as 
 deep as his own height. The bird's place of 
 retirement by da}^ is not allowed to be disturbed, 
 and a certain number of eggs are left for hatching. 
 To kill a sand-fowl at Savo is considered a far 
 more heinous offence than to take the life of some 
 common-place individual, or stranger, without 
 friends to avenge his death. 
 
 I remember once seeing a boy carrying a stone 
 as big as half a brick, in what appeared to be a 
 kind of sling. The youngster was bringing some- 
 thing to show me which he evidently considered 
 worth looking at, for he was grinning all over his 
 face as he came up. 
 
 " My father," said he, ** have you yet seen a 
 " Hold-the-stone ? " 
 
 I informed him that I had not, as far as i was 
 aware, had that advantage. 
 
 " See, here is one we have just found.'* 
 
 Then, to my surprise, I saw that what I 
 
ii8 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 thought was a sHng was an enormous lanky 
 creature, apparently of the beetle tribe, which 
 the boy was holding by its antennae, while it 
 clutched the stone in its claws. The weight it 
 carried drew out the length of the creature like 
 a piece of elastic. When the stone was allowed 
 to rest on the ground, the prehensile claws 
 gradually relaxed their grip, and I saw that they 
 were prickly inside, and evidently capable of 
 sustaining a considerable weight. 
 
 The "Tabe-vatu," for such is his name, was 
 not exclusively wedded to the pursuit of lifting 
 stones. My shooting-boots were standing near, 
 and he picked up one of them as if the effort 
 required were mere child's play to him. 
 
 The boys informed me that if a Tabe-vatu 
 happens to fall from the top of the roof upon a 
 sleeper at night — a not infrequent occurrence, 
 they said — he grips the leg or arm on which 
 he alights, like the stones ; and that much forti- 
 tude is required to get rid of him. Every effort 
 to dislodge him only serves to make him dig in 
 his claws the deeper, and cling the tighter. 
 
Island Phenomena. lig 
 
 Perfect repose is absolutely necessary to disabuse 
 him of the idea that such violent measures are 
 indispensable to his personal security ; if this is 
 observed, he lets go his hold, and may be 
 brushed off. 
 
 Some of the chiefs have great netting opera- 
 tions every year. The first time I saw the fish 
 brought to shore after one of these, I was 
 reminded of the sight which appeared to Sir 
 Rupert the Fearless, in the Ingoldsby Legends, 
 at the bottom of the Rhine, as the fish crowded 
 about him — 
 
 "Their figures and forms to describe language fails, 
 They'd such very odd heads, and such very odd tails." 
 
 There were fish, red, blue, and yellow. Fish 
 with huge gaping mouths, and mouths small and 
 round like the neck of a bottle. Some had scales, 
 and others only hides to gh as leather. 
 
 One, the Box-fish, is so ridiculously like the 
 square bottles in which the traders bring the Hol- 
 lands which they consider a part of their equipment 
 for a trading campaign, that the natives call these 
 bottles by the name of the fish ; and another, a 
 
120 Te7i Years in Melanesia. 
 
 hideous black monster, resembles more closely 
 a crow with its wings stretched out, than any- 
 thing to which we are accustomed to apply the 
 name of fish. The natives believe, I can't say 
 with what certainty, that this brute will drown 
 a man swimming for his life, by getting on his 
 head and pressing him down. The fish is strong 
 enough to do this, for each wing or flap is as 
 big as a large turbot, and the weight of the 
 part in the middle is considerable. But the fish 
 which appeared to me as the strangest of all was 
 the Boila. I am obliged to use only the native 
 name, for I have sought in vain for a description 
 of this marine curiosity in books of natural 
 history. 
 
 The weight of the Boila I saw was about 30 
 or 40 lbs., but the natives say that they are 
 caught much larger. The colour is deep Prussian 
 blue. It swims edgeways, and the breadth across 
 its back is that of a good sized salmon. The 
 head is quite flat, and as square with the neck 
 as if it had been cut down at right angles to the 
 back with a knife. The front of the head is 
 
Island Phenomena, I2i 
 
 formed of a hard bony substance, and is covered 
 by a skinny cartilage; this, as will be seen, is 
 the business end of the fish. 
 
 Below the square head is a mouth furnished 
 with two, not rows of teeth, for there are no 
 divisions, but nippers. The Boila seeks its food 
 by charging the clumps of coral which form a 
 refuge for the small crabs. These rocks it shatters 
 with its head as a battering ram, and then the 
 crabs, deprived of their shelter, fall an easy prey, 
 their hard shells proving of no avail as a protec- 
 tion against the nipper-like- teeth and powerful 
 jaws of their enemy. I never saw a Boila at work, 
 the natives, however, are quite clear about what 
 he does ; but I have seen a man who had his 
 jaw broken by incautiously trying to grapple 
 with one of these fish in a net in shallow 
 water, when the Boila charged him with fatal 
 effect. 
 
 I have prolonged this chapter to a greater length 
 than I intended. But I have not attempted to 
 deal with the subject generally, to do so would 
 be beyond my knowledge. I have only sought 
 
122 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 to present to the reader — from the view of an 
 ordinary observer — a picture of some of the strange 
 sights and scenes with which I myself have been 
 especially interested. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ISLAND TRADERS. 
 
 LabourTraders— Profits— Principles— Kidnapping— Risks- 
 Outrages — Government Agents — The Hally Bally 
 Tncident — Decline of Labour Trade— Recent Restric- 
 tions, Traders in staple commodities of Export : Copra 
 — B^ch-le-mer — Pearl Oyster — Barter-tarifif — Agents, 
 White and Black— Wreck of the Stanley-^A Good 
 Bargain. 
 
 npWO classes of traders visit these islands. 
 -■- Those who trade in "labour," and those 
 who trade in the staple commodities of the island 
 produce. The two classes are quite distinct, and 
 the feeling between them is not of the most 
 friendly character. 
 
 The Polynesian labour trade has received 
 some pubHc attention in England. Reports in 
 the newspapers of outrages committed upon 
 the natives in the pursuit of this enterprise, 
 followed by acts ol reprisal on their part, and 
 wanton murder, have from time to time called 
 
124 ^^'^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 forth much feeling upon this subject ; to the 
 expression of which no doubt is in a measure 
 due the legislation passed of late years by the 
 Colonial Government. The whole question has 
 been reconsidered, changes introduced, and 
 restrictions, once a dead letter, made compulsory ; 
 so that the labour trade is now on a different 
 footing from that on which it stood ten or fifteen 
 years ago. 
 
 Its leading features I will briefly describe. 
 Extra labour is required on the sugar plantations, 
 and for general purposes, in Queensland, Fiji, 
 and other colonies. To supply this want, ships 
 are dispatched to the islands of the Western 
 Pacific to obtain labourers. Each ship carries 
 an agent of the Colonial Government, who is 
 responsible for the observance of the rules of 
 the service. The "labour" is recruited, and 
 carried to the port of his destination, and there 
 allotted to the applicants. In three years from 
 the date of arrival, the term of service is com- 
 pleted. The labourer's pay is £6 per annum. 
 But the sum of £iS does not represent the full 
 
Island Traders, 125 
 
 value of three years' work. The employer has, in 
 addition, to pay a capitation fee to the owner of the 
 ship, or captain, which forms the remuneration the 
 purveyor receives for his services. This amount 
 varies with the demand and supply in the labour 
 market ; the highest price I have heard of able- 
 bodied labourers bringing to their ship was £2^ 
 per head. But in roughly estimating the profits of 
 the trade, £^ must be deducted for the Government 
 license, and in some cases £$ for the return fare. 
 It would, however, be within the mark to say 
 that ;^I9 or ;^20 per man awaited the importer 
 of foreign labour at the time and place of which 
 I am speaking. What the gross returns may 
 amount to, the following statement will suggest 
 approximately : — The captain of a Queensland 
 schooner engaged in this trade, told me that he 
 had made as many as five trips to the Solomon 
 Islands in a year, returning each time with about 
 sixty recruits. This would account for the high 
 rate of pay commanded by the captains of labour 
 ships, amounting, when they receive a fixed 
 salary, to £^0 or £^0 per month ; and for my 
 
126 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 informant, whose interests were directly affected 
 by the number of his passengers, being able to 
 say with considerable satisfaction, that fifteen 
 months ago he had borrowed ;f 300, out of which 
 he secured a share in his schooner. This loan he 
 had repaid, and if the present trip was a lucky 
 one, he would have a nice sum to the good, 
 enabling him, among other luxuries, to give ** the 
 old woman" silk dresses and champagne. 
 
 The labourers now say that on the whole they 
 are well treated and well cared for. Their pay 
 is deposited at stated times, and handed over to 
 them in cash or orders, at the expiration of their 
 term of service. In the old days, if a labourer 
 died before his time was up, his employer was the 
 gainer. They can now buy what they please in the 
 various stores ; save only guns and ammunition, 
 from which they have lately been debarred by a re- 
 cent restriction in the English colonies. The goods 
 purchased are packed, shipped, and put in charge 
 of the Government agent, who personally con- 
 ducts a return party to their homes, and superin- 
 tends the recruiting of a fresh lot. If a labourer 
 
Island Traders. 127 
 
 thinks proper he can, when his time is up, re- 
 engage himself. Some do this, but at terms 
 considerably more favourable to themselves than 
 those under which they served their apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 This is a rough sketch of the general outline 
 of the labour trade at the present time. In its 
 early days the value of the labourers might not 
 have been so high ; but on the other hand, I have 
 a strong suspicion that there was no deduction 
 made on account of the return fare, at least I 
 am sure that in a vast number of cases it was 
 an unnecessary item to consider. 
 
 From what I have said, the fact will, I think, 
 be evident, that between the two sums, that paid by 
 the employer, and that received by the employe, , 
 there must always have remained a considerable 
 margin, from which the enterprising purveyor 
 could derive a handsome profit ; though, perhaps, 
 the risks attendant upon the pursuit of his 
 business were not out of proportion to its pecu- 
 niary advantages. 
 
 It is not surprising that with so much induce- 
 
128 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 ment, unscrupulous men would stop short of no 
 crime to effect their purpose, when they were not 
 deterred by the fear of punishment. There was 
 a time, and that not very long ago, when with 
 the name of the labour trade was associated the 
 story of deeds of lawlessness and reckless cruelty, 
 more terrible than 'the horrors described in 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 
 There are men now in the islands, still in the 
 prime of life, who have been themselves kid- 
 napped, but rescued and brought back by a 
 man-of-war. They, and others, eye-witnesses, 
 tell how canoes were enticed alongside a ship 
 under pretence of trading, but were broken by 
 large stones dashed down from the deck, and 
 their occupants set swimming for their lives. A 
 boat then lowered, would catch every man that 
 could be caught, and kill those that could not, 
 so that dead or alive, the natives were put on 
 board the ship — the living to go as "labour," 
 the dead as the price of living substitutes, their 
 heads being cut oflf and sold to some collector 
 of such trophies, with whom the captain was in 
 
Island Traders. 129 
 
 partnership. But I need not repeat the stories 
 told in the reports of the trial of the Cavly and 
 other notorious kidnappers. Those days are past, 
 and with them, I trust, the deeds of violence 
 which disgraced them. 
 
 The risks involved in this trade are great ; more 
 so now, perhaps, than in former years, because 
 the trader is as much answerable to the man-of- 
 war for an unprovoked or hasty resort to fire- 
 arms, as is the native; and, from being so much 
 more accessible to the arm of the law, he has 
 to be the more careful. The chief danger lies in 
 the actual work of recruiting, which is done by 
 the ship's boats. The vessel lies " off and on," and 
 her boats go on shore ; if they have returning 
 "labour" to land at that particular place, their task 
 is so much easier, as they have the advantage of 
 a personal introduction from some mutual friend 
 who can speak to the character of the ship and 
 her skipper. 
 
 In one of these boats (they generally go in 
 pairs) the Government agent must take his place, 
 attended by one of the mates and two of the 
 
 K 
 
130 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 ship's hands, whose ^3.y is considerably increased 
 to compensate them for their risk. The rest of 
 the crew is made up of black men. This landing 
 party is the cat's-paw that pulls the chestnuts 
 out of the fire, and it is sad to think how often 
 they share the fate spoken of in the fable. Not 
 a year passes but some of these poor fellows 
 are the victims of outrage. A man is angry 
 because his wife or sister has been recruited, 
 perhaps by another ship, and he revenges himself. 
 A returned labourer has a grudge against some 
 one, and embraces this opportunity to wipe out 
 the score. But a great number of these murders 
 are committed by the natives for no more cause 
 than a boy has for breaking a window. 
 
 With the outrages upon ships the case is some- 
 what different. Where these have occurred, the 
 cupidity of the natives has been aroused by the 
 desire to possess themselves of the " trade " and 
 stores of the ship ; added to this, there is always 
 the inducement held out by the hlat brought by 
 success in such an undertaking. To one or other or 
 both of these motives must be ascribed the cutting 
 
Island Traders, 131 
 
 out of the Dancing Wave^ at Florida, in 1875 ; of 
 the Rj-^ple, at Bougainville, in 1880; of the BorealiSf 
 at Malanta, in 1883; and a host of other casualties 
 too numerous to mention, that have occurred 
 during the years I have been visiting these 
 islands. 
 
 It may be asked, why are the people in the 
 ships not more careful ? The answer is, that 
 familiarity with a condition of danger makes it 
 practically impossible to keep up at all times 
 such vigilance as is necessary to ensure safety ; 
 and it must be remembered that the people in 
 the ship do not know the language of the natives, 
 who are thus able to talk freely in the ears of 
 their victims, and mature their plans up to 
 the very moment of attack. I have always 
 given the labour ships two pieces of advice, 
 unfortunately without effect. Don't let the 
 natives, under any circumstances, bring their 
 weapons on board when they come to trade, and 
 don't recruit women. 
 
 To this latter cause a large proportion of the 
 outrages are due. Single women may be recruited 
 
132 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 under the same conditions as single men — it is, 
 I think, a great pity that it is so; the fact, 
 however, remains. Sometimes a man and woman 
 present themselves for shipment, saying that they 
 are husband and wife. They are accepted as 
 such, but in very many cases the couple have 
 taken advantage of the presence of the labour 
 ship to elope, and in aiding them a fruitful source 
 of trouble is -opened. At some places women 
 who have no husbands go off to labour ships, 
 but not as "labour." 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the Government 
 agent is able to stop all irregularities. He is 
 now the master even of the captain ; he can 
 order him to put his ship about and go back, if 
 his instructions are not carried out. Unfortu- 
 nately the Government agent does not always 
 assert his authority. His position on board is 
 no doubt a trying one, as the captain's interests 
 may sometimes run counter to a strict sense of 
 his duty. For instance, he has to pass all the 
 recruits before their names are entered on the 
 ship's list. If the captain is paid so much per 
 
Island Traders, • 133 
 
 head, everyone rejected as being under age, or 
 otherwise unfit, is so much money out of the 
 captain's pocket. No doubt it is more pleasant, 
 in the close confinement of the schooner's cabin, 
 to be on good terms with the captain and mate, 
 than to be regarded, as a Government agent once 
 told me his skipper said he looked upon him, in 
 the light of a natural enemy. But the most diffi- 
 cult case of all is that which another Government 
 agent, a very different stamp of man, described 
 when he said, " If the captain can get us, in an un- 
 guarded moment, to pass over some irregularity, it 
 is difficult afterwards to assert our full authority." 
 
 The following case which came under my 
 notice will illustrate this side of the question, 
 and explain a not uncommon source of danger. 
 
 While I was staying at Ysabel, in 1883, two 
 labour ships on the same day anchored off 
 the island — one the Isabella^ of Port Mackay, a 
 well-known trader, the other a stranger. The 
 Isabella brought up in the bay close to my house 
 and the Mission station ; the stranger at another 
 anchorage, near also to another of our Mission 
 
134 ^^^^ Years in Melanesia. 
 
 stations three or four miles down the coast. My 
 custom was to visit labour ships when possible, 
 as I had no desire to keep aloof from men law- 
 fully engaged, and who acted fairly by the natives. 
 My boat on this occasion was launched and 
 manned, and we ran down the coast with a fair 
 wind, and alongside the stranger. We found the 
 ship to be the Hally Baily, of P'iji. The captain, 
 Government agent, and mate, received me politely 
 on board. They showed me over the ship, which 
 was clean and well appointed, particularly the 
 labourers' quarters amidships. 
 
 " We have no women on board, as you see," 
 said the Government agent. '* We have no 
 accommodation for them." 
 
 Soon after this I left the ship. I was hardly 
 away again in my boat, when one of my fellows 
 said to me — 
 
 " They told you a lie, there were four women in 
 the ship; they hid them with a sail while you 
 were below." 
 
 My first thought was to go back ; my second, 
 that I should do no good if I did. I certainly did 
 
Island Traders, 135 
 
 not know the circumstances of the case, and I did 
 not suspect what would happen on the morrow. 
 
 The next morning the Hally Baily sailed. I 
 remember noticing how a whole fleet of canoes 
 followed the ship as she went out of the harbour, 
 until she gathered way and shook them off. Soon, 
 however, the news came, " The ship has stolen 
 four women " — that was what the people said — 
 and soon afterwards the Isabella's boats came back 
 from a recruiting expedition down the coast. They 
 had touched at the place off which the Hally Baily 
 had anchored, and they found the people furious 
 at what had taken place. The head teacher of 
 a school we have at a station on the hills near 
 there, when he saw the Isabella's boats approach, 
 ran down among the excited crowd gathered on 
 the beach, and warned the boats off, making 
 them understand, as well as he was able, that 
 he could not prevent mischief if they stayed. 
 This hint they wisely took, and came back to 
 their ship with all speed. I do not think that 
 those women were compelled to go on board the 
 ship against their will, but they had no intention 
 
1^6 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 ■J 
 
 of being recruited and carried away to Fiji. 
 And I feel sure that if the teacher had not been 
 there with a small party of his own people, the 
 natives would have vented their displeasure on 
 the Isabella's boats. 
 
 I cannot enter into further particulars, save 
 only to say that the unfortunate women who 
 were carried off belonged to the very lowest of 
 the people, even in the people's own estimation. 
 
 We communicated with the owners of the ship. 
 They are a firm of merchants at Fiji, well 
 known and highly respected. No blame attached 
 to them. They had done everything in their 
 power in sending the ship well found and well 
 equipped to sea. The captain was discharged, 
 and I should not be surprised to find that the 
 Government agent shared his fate ; I cannot see 
 why the one should suffer, and not the other. 
 But I do not know this to be a fact. 
 
 This story has a sequel, which is worthy of 
 record. A yea-t or two afterwards, a trading 
 schooner from Fiji touched at Norfolk Island 
 on her way to New Zealand. I happened to be 
 
Island Traders. 
 
 -^37 
 
 there at the time, and having letters to send 
 away, I rode to the town settlement off which the 
 schooner was lying at anchor. 
 
 *' There is a gentleman come on shore who has 
 visited your islands," said one of the Norfolkers 
 to me. 
 
 So I went to the house where the gentleman 
 was resting after a ramble on shore, and I 
 entered into conversation with him about the 
 Solomons, with which I soon saw he was familiar. 
 Still I did not recognize him, though I felt that 
 I had seen his face before. The gentleman was 
 in this respect like Mr. Dombey, ** he was rather 
 red and rather bald ; " and when, in his politeness 
 to see me off, he put on his hat to come out in 
 the sun, I knew him in a moment. 
 
 " You were once a Government agent on board 
 the Hally Baily^ were you not ? " 
 
 " Yes 1 am sorry that I deceived you about 
 
 those women. The captain got his discharge 
 for it." 
 
 ** Did he ? But you did not deceive me for 
 long, I assure you ; before I was clear of your 
 
138 Teji Years in Melanesia. 
 
 ship, one of my crew said, * That man deceived 
 you, there were women on board, hidden by a 
 sail.' " 
 
 I did not envy that man his feeHngs at that 
 moment ! 
 
 The labour trade is dying a natural death, at 
 least as far as my experience goes. Each year 
 fewer labour ships are seen in the Solomons, and 
 the people are less and less eager to embark in 
 them. Last year a fatal blow was struck at the 
 labour trade by the English colonies, viz., the pro- 
 hibition to sell firearms and ammunition to the 
 returning labourers, to possess which is the chief 
 inducement to the native to leave his home. The 
 same restrictions were also put upon dealing in 
 such commodities in the islands. The "musket," 
 which for antiquity might have fought at Inker- 
 mann, and the cheap powder, which formed a 
 portion of the price paid to the friends of a recruit 
 by the recruiter, as an equivalent for the loss of 
 his society, are now strictly disallowed. Some 
 tangible consideration is given on these occasions. 
 The natives speak of the transaction as "buying," 
 
Island Traders. 139 
 
 and where it is dispensed with, as " stealing ;" 
 but, if recognized at all by the rules of the labour 
 trade, it is described by a euphemism, though the 
 meaning is the same. 
 
 I shall not be sorry, I confess, when I hear that 
 the trade in South Sea Island labour has come to 
 an end, and that the natives are left, as they were 
 before the trade sprang into existence, to follow 
 their own occupations at home. With the spread 
 of Christianity it must disappear; for with 
 extremely few exceptions, Christians will not 
 leave their country on such a venture, preferring 
 to lead a quiet life at home, and work for the 
 support of their families. But another cause is 
 in existence, which will bring about the same 
 result in a more expeditious manner than Chris- 
 tianity. So at least it seems to me. The natives 
 are tired of it, and public opinion will no longer 
 permit the use of unfair means to overcome their 
 reluctance. 
 
 The island produce available for trade consists 
 of cocoanuts, bech-de-mer, pearl oyster shells, and 
 tortoiseshell. At one time, not long ago, what was 
 
140 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 thought to be vegetable ivory was in the market, 
 but this has turned out to be " bogus," at least 
 it is no longer in demand. 
 
 The two first form the chief staples of export. 
 The cocoanuts are split in two halves, and dried 
 over a slow fire till the kernel comes away from 
 the shell; this is called ''copra," and in this 
 form it is shipped and carried to the colonies, 
 where, by the aid of machinery, the oil is ex- 
 tracted. 
 
 The bech-de-mer is a large sea-slug, found in the 
 coral reefs, and in lagoons, which partially dry 
 at low water ; in size and shape it resembles a 
 German sausage; the colour varies with the 
 variety, from yellow to reddish-brown, and black. 
 The process of preparation, and the odour of the 
 creature when prepared, is simply sickening. It 
 is cut open, disembowelled, and dried over a fire, 
 after which it is ready to be shipped to China. 
 A more unappetising morsel it would h^ hard to 
 imagine ; and yet by the culinary skill of the 
 expert Celestial, it is transformed, so it is said, into 
 a delicious dish. Bech-de-mer is an especially 
 
Island Traders. 141 
 
 valuable export to the people, because under no 
 circumstances will they eat it themselves. 
 
 Pearl oyster shell is obtained by diving. Skil- 
 ful divers can, with patience, collect a good deal 
 for sale, but they cannot compete with the pro- 
 fessional diver, who comes equipped with the 
 necessary appliances. 
 
 Turtle are fairly plentiful at some of the islands. 
 The shell is used for making ornaments, as well 
 as an article of barter. 
 
 The price paid for cocoanuts by the trader is 
 about ;^4 per ton, or is. per 100. The "trade" con- 
 sists of pipes and tobacco, calico and fancy print, 
 hats, shirts, and trousers, knives, axes, saucepans, 
 and so forth. The two first items on the list are most 
 popular with men, the two second among women. 
 A stick of tobacco for ten cocoanuts, and a fathom 
 of fancy print for one hundred, being the ordi- 
 nary tariff. Bech-de-mer is sold at the same rate. 
 These prices are fair, if the quality of the ** trade '* 
 is fair also. 
 
 The trader employs agents at different centres, 
 who collect the island produce in readiness for 
 
142 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 the ship, which calls at fixed times for what has 
 been collected. Some of these agents are white 
 men, and some are black. The former is more 
 expensive than the latter in pay, but he does 
 more business. The method of going to work is 
 as follows : — The trader brings a white man to an 
 island, or he engages a black man on the spot, 
 whom he thinks he can trust, and hands over to 
 him a consignment of goods, with which he buys 
 the island produce from the natives in readiness 
 for the return of his employer. The black man 
 is never more than a stipendiary agent ; but if the 
 white man is industrious and careful, he can soon 
 square his account, and trade for himself, selling 
 his goods to the trader, and receiving a fresh stock 
 of trade for further and more extensive opera- 
 tions. Few of these men, however, do this. 
 They are generally idle fellows, who have tried 
 and failed at almost everything requiring industry 
 or energy, till they come down to the wretched 
 life which such a business seems almost inevitably 
 10 entail. In many instances their end is either 
 death by fever and ague, or worse ; or else they 
 
Island Traders, 143 
 
 involve themselves in some complication with the 
 natives, which ends fatally. There are some 
 exceptions, no doubt, to this rule ; but the condi- 
 tion and surroundings of their lives are such as to 
 constitute a source of both bodily and spiritual 
 danger. We, the missionaries, do all in our 
 power to promote trade where it is fairly carried 
 on ; and some of the natives employed as collecting 
 agents, on our recommendation, have been found 
 to do their work well, and give satisfaction to 
 their employers. The growth of trade may be 
 measured by the changed appearance of the 
 natives seen on a Sunday at one of the Christian 
 villages of Florida or Ysabel. The men are then 
 clad in shirts and trousers, some even with the 
 addition of a straw hat. The women modestly 
 dressed in petticoats and jackets, neatly made by 
 themselves from fancy prints of unaesthetic shades. 
 That this is a step in the right direction all will 
 admit. And it shows, moreover, that the minds of 
 the people, freed from the bondage of heathenish 
 ideas, are expanding into new and happier 
 channels. 
 
144 ^^^ Years in Melanesia. 
 
 I have given some account of the two classes 
 of traders who visit these islands. Their aims 
 are different, and their interests dissimilar. I will 
 finish this chapter with a story, in which these 
 appear for once united by the force of circum- 
 stances and the exigencies of the case. 
 
 Three years ago, the Stanley, a Queensland 
 labour ship, returning from the Solomons to 
 Australia with a full complement of recruits, 
 was wrecked on a coral reef. By what error in 
 judgment or misfortune the accident happened, 
 I know not. The ship was "lying to" in thick, 
 dirty weather, blowing a gale of wind, when on a 
 sudden the roar of the breakers was heard, and 
 the gleam of the surf was seen through the mist. 
 The ship had not way enough to ** stay," and in 
 trying to "wear," she ran head first on shore. 
 Fortunately the wind and sea moderated enough 
 to let the crew land, and enable them to get the 
 ship's stores on shore, and to utilize the wreckage, 
 but their position was one of great danger ; they 
 were on a bare reef, awash at high water in bad 
 weather, more than loo miles from the nearest 
 
Island Traders. 147 
 
 land. In all they were about 100 men, black and 
 white. They acted with skill and presence of 
 mind. First, with great labour and difficulty, 
 they built a sea wall with the loose stones lying 
 on the reef, to serve as a breakwater. Then, in 
 the space thus sheltered, they made a large raft 
 from the timbers and planks of the ship ; on this 
 they set up huts and tents to protect them from 
 the scorching heat, and to preserve their stores. 
 Some time was spent in this work, and several of 
 their number died before it was finished, from 
 exposure to the sun, and from being continually 
 wet. They had food and water enough to last 
 for many days, with care. They began with a 
 panakin of water apiece per day ; later on this 
 allowance was reduced, but it was hopeless to 
 wait without making an effort for help, because 
 the position of the reef is well known, and ships 
 give it a wide berth. When all their arrange- 
 ments were completed, they despatched a party 
 in the boat to look for assistance. With a fair 
 wind the boat reached the island of S. Christoval, 
 and coasting down the weather side, they landed 
 
148 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 and struck across the island, coming out at one 
 of our Mission stations. From this point they 
 crossed in a canoe to the island of Ugi, where 
 ships of all descriptions frequently anchor. There 
 they were fortunate enough to find a large 
 vessel, belonging to a well known trader in 
 island produce. To him they told the story of 
 their mishap, and entered into the question of 
 the remuneration he would require to go to the 
 rescue of their friends. The terms finally agreed 
 upon were /'12 a head for a passage to Australia ; 
 and until this arrangement was recorded in a 
 legal form, the captain, who is evidently a man of 
 business, declined to ^* up anchor," and start on 
 his errand of mercy. 
 
 How this arrangement was arrived at I know 
 not, but I should fancy that the idea of " halves " 
 was not altogether excluded from the calculation 
 on which it was based. The trader would lose 
 time and money by going unpaid, while a 
 valuable cargo was awaiting salvage on the reef. 
 Whether the remuneration demanded was 
 reasonable or excessive, I will not venture an 
 
Island Traders, 149 
 
 opinion. I only know that the captain of the 
 vessel, from whom I heard the story, regarded 
 the transaction as a slice of good luck, and about 
 the most lucrative job on which he had been 
 engaged during the time he had traded in the 
 Solomon Islands, 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MEN-OF-WAR IN THE ISLANDS. 
 
 Men-of-War Schooners — Compensation for a White Man's 
 Life — Murder of Captain Schwarts : Punishment — 
 Massacre of Lieut. Bower, R.N., and his Boat's Crew 
 — Cause — Attempts to Punish — Bishop Selwyn's Inter- 
 vention — Pardon of Kalekona and his Son — Escape of 
 Puko — Surrender of Three Murderers — Vigilance of 
 Men-of-War against White Men's Lawlessness — Friendly 
 Feeling and Work of Men-of-War with the Melanesian 
 Mission. 
 
 FROM a missionary's point of view the 
 presence of men-of-war in the islands is a 
 source of much good. To the peaceable and well- 
 disposed natives, the invariable kindness of the 
 officers is an incentive to good behaviour and 
 an encouragement to regard a man-of-war as a 
 friend rather than an enemy ; while to the 
 lawless they bring home the knowledge that 
 there is a power in existence to punish brutal 
 outrage, which sooner or later, in some way 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 151 
 
 or another, will make itself felt. In a rash 
 moment this power may be braved, but when 
 the native mind calms down to a condition not 
 inaccessible to the suggestions of common sense, 
 it becomes open to the conviction that a Nemesis 
 in this shape has to come. To us personal!}. 
 they bring a visit from English gentlemen, par- 
 ticularly welcome when such an event is so 
 exceptional to the rule of our lives. 
 
 When I first visited these islands, and for 
 several years afterwards, the people thought 
 that the men-of-war schooners, which they 
 occasionally saw, were the typical representa- 
 tives of the law. Visits of the larger men-of- 
 war had been so few and so far between, that 
 with the great majority of the people they 
 were as unreal as bugbears and as little feared. 
 The policy which commissioned these small 
 schooners was not a success ; they certainly did 
 not impress the natives with the idea of a 
 man-of-war's power, but rather served to create 
 an impression which it took several severe lessons 
 to change. The schooners were withdrawn 
 
152 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 from the Australian squadron and sold four or 
 five years ago. 
 
 Another mistake, I think, was made in allow- 
 ing the natives to escape by a fine, paid generally 
 in pigs, from the consequences of an unprovoked 
 outrage. 
 
 The Times of October 26th, 1886, in a leading 
 article on Captain Clayton's recent report on 
 outrages in the Solomon Islands, implied that 
 this custom of giving compensation for murders 
 had been declined by the man-of-war, as if it 
 emanated from the people. This is not a fair 
 statement of the case. The arrangement in the 
 first instance was introduced, or at any rate, 
 willingly agreed to, by the man-of-war on the 
 authority of the High Commissioner of the 
 Pacific. This fact is well-known in Australia 
 and Fiji, but I will give some instances of the 
 kind which came under my own observa- 
 tion. 
 
 In the year 1879, a white trader was killed by 
 the natives of Guadalcana. I never heard any 
 particular reason assigned for the murder. A 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands, 153 
 
 little time afterwards the chief and a party of 
 people from the place came to Florida, to visit 
 Kalekona, the chief of Gaeta. The two men were 
 brothers or cousins. I was staying at Gaeta at 
 the time, and 1 told these men that a large man- 
 of-war would come and punish them, for I had 
 heard that the captain of the vessel to which the 
 trader belonged had gone to Sydney to lay the 
 case before the Commodore. " No," said the 
 chief, " the captain will be gentle, he will take 
 pigs, we have plenty." I tried to assure him 
 that he was mistaken, but the event proved that 
 I was wrong, and he was right. H.M.S. Dance 
 visited the place shortly afterwards, and pigs 
 vvere accepted. I will not venture to say that 
 ihis policy directly caused what followed, but I 
 cannot help thinking, from the experience I 
 have had of these people, that in a large degree 
 it contributed to its being brought about. Captain 
 Schwarts, trading under the English flag, was 
 killed a short time afterwards at Cape March, 
 about fifty miles from the scene of this outrage ; 
 and in the next year the worst and most wanton 
 
154 ^^'^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 murders of all were committed by the Gaeta 
 people on Kalekona's authority. 
 
 In the month of October, 1880, H.M.S. Sandfly 
 was at anchor off the coast of Guadalcana. The 
 Sandfly was a little schooner carrying a crew of 
 thirty men, commanded by Lieutenant Bower. 
 Her armament consisted of one small Armstrong 
 gun, and a rocket apparatus. Leaving the 
 schooner at anchor in charge of the sub-lieu- 
 tenant, Lieut. Bower set out upon a surveying 
 expedition in the whale boat, taking with him a 
 crew of four of his men. 
 
 On the evening of the fourth or fifth day, they 
 landed to bivouac on a small island called 
 Mandoliana, which lies about three miles off the 
 coast of Gaeta. Mandoliana is uninhabited, and 
 used only for a fishing ground ; no huts are there, 
 or signs of a regular habitation. It is shaped 
 like a pear. At the stalk end there is a sandy 
 beech of dazzling whiteness, gently shelving 
 seaward. Large trees cover the island and 
 fringe this beach, forming a shelter from the 
 heat and falling dews. No more tempting place 
 
Men-of'War in the Islands, 155 
 
 for camping out could have met the eyes of the 
 sailors. 
 
 On shore at Gaeta an unpleasant state of things 
 existed at this time ; a constitutional deadlock 
 caused by a combination of untoward events. 
 
 A sum of money belonging to Kalekona had 
 been stolen. The money was stored in an 
 uninhabited house, under the belief that its 
 place of repose was unknown, or that, if discovered, 
 the prestige of its possessor would be a suffi- 
 cient guarantee for its safety. Both of these 
 suppositions were, however, at fault. From the 
 description in Chapter V. of the native currency, 
 it will be seen that money is an eminently steal- 
 able article. If the thief can get clear off with 
 his swag, he adopts a similar course to the 
 burglar when he drops the silver candlesticks 
 into the melting pot ; he distributes and re- 
 strings the coral units in the fathoms of 
 shell money, so that they appear in a new 
 and different form; like the pearls, spilt 
 from the Queen's necklace burst in dancing, 
 which never reposed again in their old order 
 
156 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 round their owner's neck. So a five-stringed 
 bunch of money, four or five fathoms long, the 
 pride of a chief, who hoards his fortune in this 
 unwieldy form, may be transformed by experienced 
 hands into a dozen sums of lesser and more 
 negotiable value, and so defy detection. 
 
 When all his efforts had failed to discover the 
 thief, Kalekona crossed to Guadalcana, and took 
 up his abode with his kinsman, the chief in whose 
 territory the white trader had been killed. From 
 thence he sent word to his people that if they 
 desired the privilege of his presence once more 
 in their midst, they must either find the thief, or 
 raise a subscription and replace the lost money. 
 This course is a very ordinary one for a sulky 
 chief to pursue under such circumstances. A 
 chiefless tribe has many dangers to fear — law- 
 lessness from within, invasion from without, and 
 possible disintegration. The tribesmen will resort 
 to every possible effort or known expedient to 
 bring such a state of things to an end. I was 
 staying at Gaeta during a part of this time, and I 
 was often engaged trying to patch up feuds, and 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands, 157 
 
 prevent open disturbances. One day a pig would 
 be stolen, and there was no one to apply to that 
 the missing property might be restored and the 
 thief punished. At another time rumours would 
 reach us that a neighbouring chief was about to 
 embrace this favourable opportunity of wiping 
 out an old score by attacking us in the disor- 
 ganized state of our defences. And again, some 
 lesser Gaeta chief with a small following would 
 be reported as about to leave the country and 
 cast in his lot with a neighbouring potentate. 
 
 At last the money was replaced, and Kalekona 
 brought back. He was still, however, in the 
 sulks, a state of mind which some further compli- 
 cation relating to his son and his son's wife served 
 to make worse. Not long after his return to Gaeta 
 his anger again broke out, and he declared this 
 time that nothing but a head would restore him 
 to his accustomed equanimity. In vain his people 
 sought a victim on the spot, whose head would 
 afford the required bribe ; there was no one avail- 
 able, and as their money had been spent in the 
 subscriptions lately raised to replace the sum 
 
158 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 stolen, they had none with which to buy from a 
 neighbour what they wanted. At this time we 
 had left the Solomons on our return to Norfolk 
 Island, and I had taken Charles Sapibuana, the 
 head teacher from Gaeta, that he might be 
 prepared for deacon's orders. This, as the case 
 turned out, was unfortunate, lor I cannot help 
 thinking that if one of us had been at 
 Gaeta at this time as in other years, the awful 
 tragedy I am about to describe would not have 
 happened. We left early that year to be present 
 at the consecration of the Patteson Memorial 
 Chapel at Norfolk Island. 
 
 We must now return to the evening when 
 Lieutenant Bower landed at Mandoliana, for the 
 story has reached this point. Vuria, Kalekona's 
 son, and a man named Holambosa, stood watching 
 the boat as it passed seaward of Gaeta. When 
 they saw from the high ground the party land on 
 the island, they knew that the opportunity had 
 come for which they had long looked: the 
 chance of getting a head, possibly heads, for 
 Kalekona — an occasion for establishing the 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands, 159 
 
 reputation of a chiefs son, who had not yet killed 
 his man, — and the possibility of gaining the fame 
 which such an enterprise, successfully carried out, 
 would bring to the whole tribe over which the 
 shadow of their recent troubles was still hanging. 
 They soon found three men to join them, Tavu, 
 Utumate, and Puko. The whole party paddled 
 across in a canoe to Mandoliana, where they 
 landed on the other side of a point which hid 
 them from the view of the sailors. What followed 
 I will tell in Vuria's words as nearly as I can 
 remember them. He described the scene to me, 
 as we stood on the spot two years afterwards. 
 
 " We landed on the other side of that point 
 just as the sun was setting, and we crept through 
 the bushes till we could see the sailors on the 
 beach. Three were bathing in the sea, one was 
 cooking, and the captain was standing over there 
 drawing in a book. We waited till we thought 
 the right time had come, and then Holambosa gave 
 the sign, and we all rushed out. I rushed out 
 here, and there Utumate, and further on 
 Holambosa and Tavu, and we fell on the men 
 
i6o Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 with our tomahawks. Their guns were in 
 the boat and on the sand, but we were between 
 them and the guns, and they had no time to take 
 them up. One sailor and the captain ran along 
 the sand, Utumate and Tavu followed them : we, 
 the others, cut down the three who stayed, though 
 one sailor seized a boat-stretcher and fought hard. 
 Presently Utumate and Tavu came back saying 
 that the captain had turned on Utumate with his 
 fists, on which he ran back, and that the sailor 
 had escaped Tavu by running into the thick bush, 
 where he dared not follow. Then we cut off the 
 heads of the three men we had killed." 
 
 With these the murderers returned to Gaeta to 
 tell their story. Not a moment was lost, when 
 they heard that the chief of the party had 
 escaped, in setting out to secure, if possible, the 
 prize of his head to crown the ghastly trophy of 
 their exploit. Kalekona at once sent a party to 
 Mandoliana to watch through the night for their 
 victim, and he himself followed before daybreak. 
 Meanwhile the sailor,, a man named Savage, who 
 had escaped, wisely deeming that the sea and the 
 
Men-of- War in the Islands. i6r 
 
 sharks were less dangerous than his foes on shore, 
 determined to swim for his Hfe, and try to reach, if 
 possible, the mainland of Florida, below Gaeta, some 
 ten miles down the coast. His attempt was success- 
 ful. After being a long time in the water, carried 
 backwards and forwards by the current, and being 
 exposed to the sharks, several of which he saw, 
 he reached Hongo, where a native took care o' 
 him, and persuaded the chief to spare his life. 
 This man has since become a Christian, his name 
 is Peter Pitia. There Savage remained till the 
 Sandfly y in charge of the sub-lieutenant, came to 
 look for their missing comrades, and from him 
 they learned the story of the outrage. 
 
 But to return to MandoHana. Lieutenant 
 Bower, after making desperate attempts to launch 
 the whale boat, as his footprints in the sand 
 showed, found a hollow tree in which he probably 
 hoped to lie hid until pursuit was over. This 
 tree, of which I made a sketch, is one of 
 the Banyan class. To those who are not familiar 
 with such trees some description may be in- 
 teresting. This particular tree is in an early 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 stage of its growth. At first the tiny tendrils 
 of a creeper twist round the trunk and arms of 
 some tree; these, as they grow, tighten their 
 hcid until in time they envelope the tree in a 
 deadly embrace. The branches wither and 
 drop, and the trunk crumbles away, but the 
 mould made by the trunk ever remains, rising 
 upward like a shaft in the midst of the para- 
 site. The new tree, now firmly established, 
 spreads on all sides, sending up large branches, 
 and sending down from above long pendant 
 feelers, tipped with a crop of prehensile fibrous 
 fingers, which, when they touch the ground, take 
 root, and add to the stability of the tree. 
 Then they swell and spread till they become in 
 time involved into the central growth, like the 
 twisted strands in a coil of rope. 
 
 Up into this hollow cylinder poor Bower 
 climbed. As a hiding-place it had a great fault, 
 it was too obviously good. The tree is a con- 
 spicuous object, and the strange shaft in its centre, 
 though serving effectually to hide anyone inside, 
 is the very place one would explore to look for 
 
MeU'Of'War in the Islands, 163 
 
 a fugitive. I must pass over the details here, lest 
 perchance I might give pain to some friend. I need 
 only say that he did not long escape the hungry 
 eyes, keen as hawks, and that the end soon came. 
 The sub-lieutenant in charge of the Sandfly 
 waited till such time as he felt justified in acting 
 on his own responsibility, and then went to 
 look for the surveying party. He crossed the 
 straits to Florida, and ran down the coast, 
 till he was attracted by the signals which 
 Savage made at Hongo. From him he learned 
 the fate of his commander, and the name of the 
 tribe who had committed the outrage. The 
 first thing the sailors did was to bury the dead 
 bodies of their comrades, lying headless where 
 they fell at Mandoliana, and afterwards they 
 turned their attention to the punishment of the 
 murderers. Not much could be done with their 
 little vessel and greatly diminished numbers, but 
 they sent a boat with a landing party to burn 
 Kalekona's canoe-house and canoes and the huts 
 along the shore. The natives opposed their 
 landing, and another man was lost, shot before 
 
164 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 the boat touched the beach, and then the enemy 
 fled away into the bush. The attack was boldly 
 carried out, and so far successful that Kalekona's 
 property was destroyed, which could not be 
 replaced without months of labour ; but from the 
 native point of view it failed because, as the}' 
 said, " they did not kill anyone." After this 
 the Sandfly made sail for Sydney, to report the 
 matter to the Commodore. 
 
 I was about to start for England when the 
 news of the outrage reached Norfolk Island ; 
 and I hastened to Sydney, hoping to be able 
 to give Commodore Wilson some information as 
 to the places and people against whom he was 
 about to send a man-of-war ; but when I arrived 
 at Auckland in January 1881 H.M.S. Emerald 
 had left Sydney for Florida. I was greatly 
 perplexed what to do, whether to go on to 
 England or turn back to Norfolk Island and 
 wait for the next island voyage. Bishop Selwyn 
 had long before arranged to take my place 
 during my absence, but I was naturally reluctant 
 to allow him to encounter the extra work and 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 165 
 
 anxiety this affair was certain to entail. I 
 thought also that my knowledge of the people 
 and their language might be of some use in 
 furthering the ends of justice. By the advice 
 of the Bishop of Auckland, however, I made 
 no change in my plans, and the event showed 
 that this was right. Everything that a mis- 
 sionary could do under such circumstances 
 Bishop Selwyn did, and that his efforts were 
 not inconsiderable may be inferred from tha 
 fact that he received the thanks of Parliament 
 for his assistance on this occasion. 
 
 The Emerald steamed down to Florida, and 
 called first at Hongo, where guides were obtained 
 to lead the attacking party. The blue jackets 
 landed at Gaeta two or three times, and marched 
 some distance inland, burning houses and 
 firing where they saw anything to fire at ; but 
 the people, warned of their approach, retreated 
 to where pursuit was impossible. During this 
 time they lived in a state of constant fear, 
 and suffered much from exposure at night, for 
 they had fled from their houses, many of which 
 
l66 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 had been burned, and from want of food, for 
 they had great risk to face in getting to their 
 gardens, so that several of the old and weak 
 people died. At that time there were not more 
 than a hundred Christians, young and old, at 
 Gaeta ; but they were obliged to fly to the bush 
 with the others, though their village, recognised 
 by a cross over a grave, was spared by the 
 forbearance of the officer in charge of the sailors. 
 Uncomfortable as this state of existence 
 undoubtedly was, the proof of a man-of-war's 
 power which most impressed the native mind 
 was the effect of a shot which passed through 
 a house perched on a hill two miles from the 
 sea. A group of people were standing watching 
 the ship, and ridicuHng the idea of her being 
 able to do them any harm, when a white 
 puff of smoke leaped out of her side, followed 
 by a shell which crashed through the house near 
 where they were standing, and burst close by. 
 They told me themselves how they flung down 
 their arms, and fled in all directions, while the 
 people in the house crawled out, as they said, 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 167 
 
 like serpents, with the general opinion of a 
 man-of-war greatly altered from that day forth. 
 But for all this the Emerald was obliged to 
 return to Sydney without killing or capturing 
 any of the murderers, and without having held 
 parley with the natives. 
 
 Public opinion at home and in the colonies 
 had been greatly aroused by the story of 
 lliis outrage, so that Commodore Wilson sent 
 another expedition to Florida, consisting of 
 H.M.S. Cormorant and two of the small schooners; 
 with this our mission vessel came in contact, 
 and Bishop Selwyn placed his services at 
 Captain Bruce's disposal, and undertook to 
 make his terms known to the natives. 
 The agreement ultimately arrived at between 
 the contending parties was, that Kalekona's 
 life should be spared on condition that he 
 used his power to capture four of the murderers, 
 and that his son Vuria should be held a hostage 
 as security for his good intentions till the men 
 were given up. Holambosa, Tavu, and Utumate 
 were caught without much delay. Holambosa was 
 
1 68 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 shot on the scene of the murders. Utumate was 
 hung by the Mboli people, the blue-jackets 
 superintending his execution ; and Tavu was 
 taken to another island and shot there. Puko 
 alone escaped; the Mboli people, who were his 
 friends, kept him concealed while the pursuit 
 was at its hottest, and afterwards his brother, 
 who is a petty chief, carried him away to his 
 own place, some twenty-five miles from Gaeta, 
 on another of the Florida islands. 
 
 The obvious objection to this settlement was 
 that Kalekona and his son Vuria, who were 
 the most guilty, escaped the most severe punish- 
 ment. Without entering at greater length into 
 the question, I will only say that at any rate 
 a considerable instalment of justice was meted out, 
 and that, after the first attempt of the men-of-war 
 to catch the murderers had failed. Everyone felt 
 that Kalekona ought not to have escaped ; but 
 how was he to be taken? His tribe would 
 never have given him up to moral pressure. 
 There was but one way to ensure his capture, 
 to land a force and invade Gaeta. Then he 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 169 
 
 must have been killed or captured just as Cete- 
 wayo was ; but it is terrible to think of the loss 
 of life and misery such a course would have 
 entailed upon a host of innocent people. He 
 has since passed beyond the reach of punishment 
 here. 
 
 While these things were happening at Florida 
 I was in England, and when I returned to the 
 Solomons in the early part of 1882, all, or nearly 
 all, the disturbing influences had passed away. 
 One more attempt was made that year to get 
 hold of Puko, but since then the matter has been 
 allowed to drop. 
 
 H.M.S. Diamond came to Gaeta while I was there, 
 and hearing what they wanted I told them where 
 Puko was said to be, and I undertook to show 
 them the way to the place. We reached Nago, the 
 district where Tinge, Puko's brother, is chief, 
 just at sunset and anchored in the little bay. 1 
 went on shore, but the village was deserted, save 
 only by a herd of hungry pigs clamouring for their 
 supper. After walking for some time a few men 
 appeared. They had been hiding, but hearing 
 
170 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 my voice and their own language, and seeing that 
 I was alone, they showed themselves. Tinge, 
 they said, was away at Mboli. I took them on 
 board the Diamond, under promise of a safe return, 
 to tell their own story. Beyond this we could do 
 no more that night. The next morning a party 
 of us went to Mboli in the steam cutter, starting 
 before daylight and returning to the ship by noon 
 with Tinge. From him Captain Dale demanded 
 the surrender of Puko, but he declared that he 
 had not seen him for three months, and further 
 that he believed he was dead. This statement 
 could not be believed, and Tinge was informed 
 that he and all his people must leave Nago and 
 go to another of the FlDrida Islands, where they 
 could find an asylum with Tinge's kinsman, the 
 chief, until either Puko was delivered up, or there 
 were satisfactory proofs of his death. At the -same 
 time the village was burnt by the blue jackets 
 that there might be no shelter for the outlaw. 
 Tinge and all his following cleared out from Nago 
 then and there, glad to escape so easily the 
 punishment threatened the year before to those 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 171 
 
 who sheltered the murderers. From what I 
 heard afterwards, I beHeve that Tinge did not 
 speak the truth in saying that he did not know 
 where Puko was ; but Captain Dale's action has 
 attained the end desired, for from that day forth 
 I never heard tidings of the missing man, or even 
 of late years a rumour of his existence. 
 
 With the surrender of Vuria to his friends the 
 next year, the story of this sad catastrophe comes 
 to an end. However much our sympathies are 
 enlisted by the record of this unfortunate accident, 
 which an accumulation of untoward circuthstances 
 combined to produce, there is still some place in 
 our feelings left for the assurance that it has 
 sufficed to impress on. the men-of-war's men the 
 absolute necessity for excessive caution in all 
 their island work ; .while it has taught the natives 
 that a power exists to punish wrong ; and there- 
 fore, though the price paid for the lesson has been 
 great, its teaching has not been in vain. 
 
 The action of the men-of-war in the Islands 
 is not directed against the black men only. Their 
 mission is to do justice all round. Their orders 
 
172 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 are to inspect labour ships, and see whether or not 
 the rules of the trade are being observed, and to 
 give redress to the natives if any white man is 
 found dealing unfairly by them. Not long since 
 the Diamond found a vessel recruiting "labour " 
 with more guns on board than the regulation 
 quantity ; the guns were confiscated, and the ship 
 sent back ; because, by a recent Act of the Colonial 
 Governments, arms are now only allowed sufficient 
 for the protection of the ship ; not for trading pur- 
 poses, or in the possession of returning labourers. 
 One or more of the commanding officers, besides 
 the Admiral, are Deputy High Commissioners of 
 the Pacific; in this capacity they can arrest a white 
 man in the Islands for lawless practices, and 
 either try him there by court-martial, or take him 
 for trial to Sydney. On two occasions when I 
 have fallen in with a man-of-war in the Solomons, 
 a white trader was on board under arrest. 
 
 I cannot conclude this chapter without express- 
 ing my deep sense of the kindness invariably 
 shown by the men-of war's men to us, the mission- 
 aries as we meet on a common field of work. Our 
 
Men-of-War in the Islands. 173 
 
 methods of working are dissimilar, though our 
 aims have much in common. Such cordial good- 
 will and friendly acts are neither unappreciated 
 by those towards whom they are shown, nor 
 unproductive of good among the people whom 
 they and we alike are trying to benefit ; as we 
 teach them that a reign of law brings prosperity 
 and peace to those who obey, from which they 
 may learn that higher peace springing from a 
 knowledge of Him who ordereth all things. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 RISE OF CHRISTIANITY AND FALL OF THE TINDALOS. 
 
 Difficulties of the Language — First Baptisms — Spiritual 
 Upheaval — Charles Sapibuana — Downfall of the Tin- 
 dalos — Their Power Doubted — Their Power Defied — 
 Destruction of Tindalo Emblems — Retarding Influences 
 to Final Extinction — Superstitious Fear : Alligator 
 Story — Intimidation : Bonesi Story — Obstructionists : 
 Bera, Kouna— State of the People's Mind at this 
 Time— Tindalo Pool at Mboli— Abraham Baule, Ex- 
 priest. 
 
 TF I have at all succeeded in presenting the 
 -*" picture of heathen life which ten years' 
 experience of its strange phases has impressed 
 upon my mind, the reader will understand how 
 little likelihood there once seemed to me that I 
 should ever see that state of bondage to fear and 
 evil give place to the love and light of Christianity, 
 and the strong man's house and possessions spoiled 
 by the coming of a stronger than he. 
 
 The ignorance of the people of our motive in 
 
Rise of Christianity, 175 
 
 visiting their islands was at first most dishearten- 
 ing, till familiarity taught me that this obstacle 
 was only one of the many we had to encounter. 
 I used to hear such questions asked as these : 
 " What does he come for ? He does not buy 
 cocoanuts, or ship men ; what does he want ? He 
 says that his country is good, better than ours ; 
 why did he leave it ? " 
 
 It was not until I had spent two or three seasons 
 at Florida that I became familiar with the lan- 
 guage. The way in which the native mind ex- 
 presses its ideas was the hardest task to learn : the 
 words in common use, and the grammatical prin- 
 ciples by which they are put together, was a much 
 simpler matter. I did not begin the Ysabel language 
 until I was fairly at home in Florida, the second 
 however came pretty easily, for the two are much 
 alike, though both are as unintelligible to a Mota 
 man as French or English. I have a vivid recol- 
 lection of the time when I began to understand 
 the general conversation without effort or dis- 
 tracting effect upon what I was saying or doing at 
 the moment, and the people began to talk to me 
 
176 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 freely, using the same colloquial expressions as they 
 were wont to do in speaking to each other. From 
 that time I was content to forego the use cf my 
 own language. 
 
 Before the rise of Christianity, in going from 
 place to place, I used to preach to the people ; but 
 I soon saw that indiscriminate preaching was of 
 no avail in dealing with the heathen. At first I 
 spoke through an interpreter, one of the Norfolk 
 Island scholars, to whom I used to tell in Mota 
 what I wanted him to say to his own people in 
 their own tongue. After awhile I was able to 
 dispense with this assistance, and to speak to the 
 people myself. They would listen, make com- 
 ments, laugh, and take it all as a matter of course^ 
 as part of a white man's strangeness, and I felt at 
 the time, and subsequent experience has confirmed 
 the correctness of my first impression, that the 
 new ideas glanced off their minds like the pro- 
 verbial water from a duck's back. 
 
 The results I have seen in these islands are due 
 to the successful carrying out of the system upon 
 which this Mission is worked, which consists in 
 

 
 ir'i 
 
Rise of Christianity. 179 
 
 teaching the people by schools, begun with only 
 children as scholars, but in time extending their 
 influence to the parents, and by the moral power 
 and authority of teachers from among their own 
 countrymen. 
 
 In 1875 there was no permanent school in the 
 Ploridas or at Ysabel. Numbers of people, young 
 and old, used to meet for school at Mboli and 
 Nuro, in Ysabel, during the periodical visits of 
 the Norfolk Island scholars to their homes ; these 
 gatherings, however, depended upon the presence 
 of one of the Mission staff, and when the Southern 
 Cross carried away the returning party to Norfolk 
 Island they collapsed. Still the labours of other 
 men on which I entered were very considerable, 
 and indispensable to such success as I have 
 been privileged to see. I refer chiefly to the 
 scholars from this district whom I found in Bishop 
 Patteson's house at Norfolk Island, and to the 
 general preliminary work at Florida and Ysabel, 
 which had been done before I came. 
 
 One by one, as teachers of suflicient intelligence 
 and authority were available, we were able to 
 
i8o Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 start schools at places from which the men, who 
 then returned to teach, had been taken as boys 
 years before. While their training was going on 
 at Norfolk Island, I had to strengthen the hold 
 already gained upon the goodwill of the people 
 by visits and friendly intercourse, and provide for 
 a future supply of teachers by taking fresh 
 scholars. 
 
 I have referred in a former chapter to the 
 trying time through which these schools had to 
 pass before they gained stability. At one place 
 the superstitious fears of a chief, who fancied his 
 Tindalo was angry because of the school, would 
 put a summary form of the " Closure " upon its 
 infant operations. At another, failing health 
 and disappointed hopes in a teacher, or his want 
 of personal courage and resolution, very pardon- 
 ^ able under circumstances often most trying, would 
 cause his efforts to fall off. In a few cases a 
 teacher's misconduct has proved a stumbling- 
 block to his scholars and a hindrance to his work. 
 And to all this there was added, everywhere at 
 first, a frequent clash between school routine and 
 
Rise of Christianity, i8i 
 
 the native customs, such as a dancing party or a 
 succession of working bees ; until experience, and 
 a foothold gained, taught me how to deal with the 
 difficulty. 
 
 It was a day of very small things at first, but 
 still we gained ground ; and, in 1878, the event to 
 which I had so earnestly looked forward came 
 about, the first adult baptism in the district. 
 
 I must pause here in my story to make more 
 than a passing mention of the life and work of 
 Charles Sapibuana, because so much of what 
 has been done is due to him. Sad at heart am 
 I to write of his life as passed away, for Florida's 
 sake, because his loss there is irreparable ; for 
 my own, because in him I have lost a friend 
 with whom through trying times I have worked 
 side by side, and ever found faithful and 
 true. 
 
 In 1866 Bishop Patteson first brought him 
 to New Zealand from Florida. He was then 
 probably about twelve years old. There at 
 Koimarama and at S. Barnabas, Norfolk Island, 
 he received the teaching which was to bear such 
 
1 83 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 fruit. His course of training was only broken 
 by the usual holiday spent among his owi? 
 people every two years, and was continued until 
 1877, when he, with his wife and child — for 
 during the last two years at Norfolk Island he 
 had married — settled at Gaeta, his native island, 
 to begin work as a teacher. The ground there 
 was entirely unbroken. If any attempts at 
 school had been made before this date, they 
 were only such as he and other Gaeta 
 scholars had been able to make during their 
 holidays. 
 
 He was soon at work, and at once his 
 power began to be felt ; for from the first he set 
 himself against what was wrong with quiet 
 and unflinching determination. Of course he 
 met with bitter and dangerous opposition ; but 
 he passed unhurt through all, though the threats 
 of vengeance and plans to kill him might well 
 have daunted a less determined man. The 
 conversion of his brother and his brother's wife, 
 who were baptized in 1878, was the first fruit 
 of his labours. This event I have already men- 
 
Rise of Christianity. 1S3 
 
 tioned : from it the rise and progress of Chris- 
 tianity at Florida may be said to date. 
 
 In 1882 he was ordained Deacon in the 
 presence of his people, and from this time till 
 he left Gaeta at the end of 1885 for Norfolk 
 Island, the increase in his work was even 
 more marked ; while his influence among all, 
 whether Christian or Heathen, proportionately 
 developed. But of late years his health had 
 greatly failed, and he much required rest and care. 
 The time also had come when a priest from among 
 the people was needed to minister to the spiritual 
 want of the native church, and surely Charles 
 Sapibuana was one who had used the office of 
 a Deacon well. I advised him therefore to • 
 return with me to Norfolk Island, hoping that 
 a visit there would restore him to his former 
 strength, and would moreover enable him in 
 the quiet time to prepare for the Priesthood. 
 
 But it was not to be. When we arrived, 
 nearly everyone was ill ; an epidemic 01 influenza 
 of a very severe type had got possession of the 
 island. Sooner or later we all caught it ; in 
 
184 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 Charles Sapibuana's case it developed pleuro- 
 pneumonia, under which his vital powers 
 succumbed with terrible rapidity, and he passed 
 away on the morning of the 23rd Sunday after 
 Trinity, 1885. 
 
 Alas ! for our hopes of his future work at 
 Florida, and the refreshment he would gain 
 from the rest at Norfolk Island. His work on 
 earth was done, and the rest he entered into 
 is that perfect rest which remaineth for the 
 people of God. 
 
 The year following the first baptisms at Gaeta 
 witnessed a remarkable feature in the dawn of 
 Christianity in this district. I call it a spiritual 
 upheaval, for so it appeared to me. Groups of 
 men and women, after the catechumen classes 
 were over in the evening, would come to ask 
 questions about things they had just heard ; one 
 group after another, till late at night and for 
 very weariness we could see no more. These 
 people, by refusing to observe all kinds of 
 heathen practices, braved their chief's displeasure, 
 a source of real peril when deahng with men 
 
Rise of Christianity . 185 
 
 able to take life, and indifferent to its value. 
 They let go their old superstition, and faced 
 danger in the strength of the new religion ; 
 refusing to attend sacrifices, treading on forbidden 
 ground where sickness once was found through 
 fear, and doing things which once brought death. 
 What made these people anxious to be taught ? 
 Their hearts were by nature wild and savage, 
 as the outrage showed which men of the same 
 tribe, and ruled by the same chief, committed 
 on the Sandfly s crew. Were not the chiefs alive 
 to the fact that the new teaching was antagonistic 
 to their Tindalos ? Their action in stopping the 
 schools showed that they were; or was all this 
 due to a white man's influence, or because the 
 people valued a white man's life, or feared the 
 vengeance of a man-of-war ? That this was not 
 the case their acts towards white men have shown 
 sufficient proof. But were not these pheno- 
 mena evidences of the presence of some power 
 stirring in the hearts of the people, producing 
 a feeling more easy to be conscious of than to 
 describe ? How I wished for a man calling 
 
iS6 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 himself an Agnostic, to see what I saw then, 
 that I might ask him questions such as these ! 
 
 In this year I made a start at Ysabel. 
 Hitherto the school on that island had been 
 in charge of the Rev. Mano Wadrokal, a native 
 of the Loyalty Islands. But he did not get on 
 well with the other teachers or with the chief, 
 so the Bishop took him awa}^ the year before 
 and left the island on my hands. Twelve or 
 fourteen adults were then baptized, and the 
 second school, at a village called Tega, showed 
 encouraging signs of life and activity. 
 
 The next year the Sandfly incident occurred, 
 and all its attendant troubles. The Christians at 
 Gaeta found this a very trying time. From 
 without, they were involved in the general blame 
 and efforts to punish; while from within, the 
 guilty people, Kalekona and his immediate fol- 
 lowing, regarded them with disfavour as openly 
 condemning the outrage. Then followed the 
 year when I was in England, and Bishop Selwyn 
 took my place. What mischief would have 
 happened if the Bishop had not been there, 
 
Rise of Christianity. 187 
 
 I know not, but I should cot have left my post 
 had I not known how ably my place would be 
 supplied. In the beginning of 1882 I returned 
 to find that the Florida schools had weathered 
 the storm, and in a great measure recovered 
 from their contact with the iron hand of war. 
 I had a long and encouraging season's work in 
 the Solomons that year; nearly 100 adults were 
 baptized, and I was glad to see, from many 
 indications, that neither the man-of-war's lesson 
 to the lawless nor the kindness of the officers 
 to the well-disposed had been given in vain. 
 
 In 1883 a remarkable event happened — the 
 beginning of the end of the Tindalos, at Florida. 
 The movement began at Gaeta, and the first 
 indication we received of it was the appearance 
 of Kalekona and some of his people at the school 
 one evening, saying that they had destroyed their 
 charms and relics, and that they wished to be 
 taught. 
 
 To show the importance of this action, I must 
 describe the state of affairs at that time. There 
 were seven schools at work in the Floridas, about 
 
1 88 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 250 adults had been baptized, and perhaps half 
 as many more were either in catechumen classes, 
 or else hovering on the edge of the influence 01 
 Christianity. As converts were made they openly 
 gave up the old superstition and its practices, 
 separating themselves thereby from the masses of 
 the people on whom no impression seemed to 
 have been made. But indications were not want- 
 ing that the general belief in the power of the 
 Tindalos had been shaken. 
 
 Not long before a large dancing party, belong- 
 ing to a chief named Dikea, was weather-bound 
 at Gaeta. This misfortune not unfrequently 
 happens when too much time has been spent on 
 the tour, and the trade-wind season, or the trade- 
 wind out of season, finds the dancers away from 
 home. The consequences are serious, especially 
 to the chief of the party ; because the people, 
 though willing enough to pay for the pleasure 
 they derive from seeing the dance, very speedily 
 show their visitors that they outstay their 
 welcome, and must pay for their board, if they 
 don't move on to the next place when the 
 
Rise of Christiajiity. 189 
 
 entertainment is over. To buy food they must 
 disburse some of the hard-earned receipts of the 
 tour, a piece of extravagance to which they are 
 loth to yield. In vain Dikea, by sacrificing to his 
 Tindalos, now tried to make a calm. The trade- 
 wind had come up fresh, and it did not blow 
 itself out for a fortnight : each day he tried his 
 enchantments from a different point of land, 
 jutting out into some nasty bit of sea, over 
 which he hoped to pass with his flotilla. Poor 
 man ! he had a bad time ; he was hungry from 
 insufficient food, though he had money enough, 
 if he would spend it, to buy all the yams in the 
 place ; chagrined at the failure of his spells, 
 both now and at first — for the dancers had been 
 carefully " washed," as I have described in 
 * Heathen Customs,' — and irritated by what 
 the Christian party were not slow to say, if 
 not to him, at any rate to his followers. At last 
 the wind lulled and he got under weigh ; but he 
 swore by all his Tindalos that he would never 
 come to Gaeta again on such an errand, because 
 the power of the new teaching was too strong there. 
 
I go Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 The news that Kalekona and his following had 
 destroyed their Tindalos soon spread through 
 the Floridas, and every evil under the sun was 
 prophesied as the result of their action. As the 
 time passed and no untoward event happened, 
 public opinion adopted Dikea's theory to account 
 for the phenomenon. 
 
 " The power of the new teaching is too strong 
 at Gaeta," they said ; " but let Kalekona and his 
 party come out of the circle of its influence, and 
 try to do anything that wants • mana ' (power) to 
 do, they will soon find the difierence." 
 
 An opportunity was not long in presenting itself 
 which tested the accuracy of this supposition. A 
 neighbouring chief named Rogani owed Kalekona 
 a sum of money. The debt was a just one, 
 but Rogani, hearing that Kalekona had 
 destroyed his Tindalos, refused to pay, and 
 made sacred every distrainable asrticle he 
 possessed, fully persuaded that he had thereby 
 made his property safe. The Tindalos at Rogani's 
 village were notoriously strong, and were dreaded 
 accordingly. I have seen a child not more 
 
Rise of Christianity. 191 
 
 than two or three years old Hght a fire there to burn 
 the skin of a yam he had eaten, lest by means of 
 a fragment left from his meal, an enemy should 
 bewitch him ; and a party of dancers come away 
 from the place starving, though they had abundance 
 of food in their canoes, because they dared not 
 eat a morsel there — so ingrained upon the native 
 mind was the superstition wuth its terrors. 
 
 Kalekona, however, was not to be daunted, or 
 denied his due, so taking a party strong enough 
 to overawe Rogani and his tribe on their own 
 merits, he started to dun his debtor. Rogani 
 awaited his coming, confident in the strength of 
 his Tindalos. But what was his horror when the 
 Gaeta men seized two large pigs, and shipped 
 them on board their canoes ; and in the hubbub and 
 confusion which ensued, someone shouted, '* Now 
 for his Tindalos," whereupon a rush was made for 
 the house in which the sacred emblems were pre- 
 served. Some of these were smashed, some carried 
 off as trophies, and the house set on fire ; Rogani 
 and his friends looking on, but not daring to resist. 
 
 I was away from Gaeta when this took place ; 
 
I Q2 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 on my return Kalekona described the scene, far 
 more graphically than I have, and ended by 
 naively saying, " There was not a man of us ill 
 afterwards." 
 
 The news of Kalekoiia*s triumph spread far 
 and wide, and from that day the Tindalos were 
 doomed at Florida. In a few months an ex- 
 traordinary change came over the places and 
 people. Ground once held to be sacred was 
 fearlessly trodden upon : certain places along 
 the beach, where only the initiated dared walk 
 or land from canoes without payment of a 
 fine, became public property : sacrifices were 
 dropped, because the priests were either under 
 the influence of Christian teaching and refused to 
 perform their functions, or because the people no 
 longer troubled about that which was found to 
 be of no avail ; and the relics and emblems of 
 the superstition were sold to me, or anyone 
 who would buy them, for what they would fetch. 
 Very strange and interesting are these; I was 
 able to secure some of the best, from being on the 
 spot at the time, and I need not say that to me 
 
Rise of Christianity. 193 
 
 they possess an interest far exceeding their 
 intrinsic worth as curiosities. 
 
 Each large ebony and ironwood clab seen in 
 the illustration bears the name of the Tindalo of 
 which it was the emblem. I have no idea how 
 old these emblems are. A very old man told me 
 before he died, that as a boy he remembered 
 the talk about their existence just as of late years. 
 
 The Tindalo ornaments, which the man seen 
 in the title-page is wearing, were preserved 
 in a grove where sacrifice was offered from time 
 to time. The sacred character of the emblems 
 was considered to be sufficient safeguard for 
 their security. The large circle on the man's 
 breast is nine inches in diameter, and it is a 
 remarkable fact, when we think that the maker 
 had only his eye to guide him, that the circle is 
 perfect. The armlet is six inches long and 
 one-eighth of an inch thick. The grooves 
 running round the circle show excellent work- 
 manship. A geologist told me that the 
 large circle was made from a clam shell, and 
 the armlet from a stalactite. This coincides 
 
 o 
 
194 ^^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 with the native opinion, though the emblems 
 belong to the class of relics the origin and age 
 of which are entirely unknown. There is a 
 cavern at the place from which the armlet 
 comes, out of the yawning mouth of which a 
 river rises, and stalactites six feet long hang from 
 the roof. This cavern was ''tambu," and the 
 armlet may have come originally from thence. 
 The clam shells found among these islands are 
 very large, quite large enough to yield material 
 from which the circle may have been cut. 
 
 These emblems were kept carefully concealed 
 in houses built for the purpose, and shown by the 
 priest only to those initiated into the secret society 
 over which the Tindalo presided. The only 
 clue to form an approximate estimate of 
 their age was some Tindalo money which was 
 stored along with one of these clubs. The money is 
 of a kind not in use now, like that described in 
 Chapter V., only smaller and better finished. It was 
 kept in a plaited basket of the ordinary kind. 
 As the basket decayed a fresh one was woven, 
 large enough to hold the old one, which was 
 
Rise of Christianity. 195 
 
 lifted into its new coat money and all, so that 
 the money was never handled. When one of 
 my teachers found this relic (its existence was 
 only known to a few), it was inclosed in a huge 
 nest of dry and withered layers of plaited grass, 
 from which we made out the traces of some 
 twenty to five-and-twenty baskets. At a very 
 moderate computation one of these baskets 
 would last for ten years, which would give from 
 200 to 300 years as tne age of the money. 'The 
 age of the clubs is probably much greater. 
 They are only emblems, and were never in- 
 tended to fight with, as they are too big and 
 too heavy for any but a giant to use ; and from 
 being made of ebony and other hard woods, 
 and always carefully preserved, they might be 
 1,000 years old as likely as 100. 
 
 Another interesting relic is Kalekona's own 
 tutelary Tindalo; it is a stone, the size and 
 shape of a lemon, carved into a rude resemblance 
 of a human face. Kalekona told me that before 
 he started upon any expedition by land or sea 
 it was his custom to go to the grove in which 
 
 I 
 
196 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 this effigy was stored, and pray to it, asking for 
 protection in danger and " mana " in fighting. No 
 one but himself had seen it for twenty years, or knew 
 its place of concealment. His father, before his 
 death, gave it to him, and he now gave it to me. 
 
 At first I thought that the immediate extinction 
 of the superstition would be as complete as its 
 first stages were rapid ; but time has shown that 
 several influences exist which have retarded its 
 downward course. These are superstitious fear, 
 intimidation, and dislike to the new ways in those 
 who love the old. 
 
 While I was staying at a village called Halavo 
 a sad accident happened. A woman while gather- 
 ing oysters in the lagoon was carried off by an 
 alligator. No one was near but her child, a little 
 boy of seven or eight years old, though several 
 women were filling their bamboos with water at 
 a well not far off. I was in my house at the time, 
 and with one or two men ran down to the spot 
 when we heard the woman's screams ; but not a 
 trace of her could we see, though the marks of 
 the alligator's claws in the sand, and where the 
 
Rise of Christianity, 197 
 
 brute had poised himself on his tail for his fata\ 
 spring, told plainly enough what had happened. 
 The boy's account was that he saw an alligator 
 rear itself out of the shallow water behind his 
 mother's back, and, before he had time to cry out, 
 seize her and drag her under. Some more men 
 now came in from work, and we made a thorough 
 search along the shores of the lagoon, but without 
 avail. Neither then nor afterwards, for the search 
 was again and again renewed, did we discover a 
 vestige of the poor victim of this sad tragedy. 
 The woman's husband was fetched from his 
 garden ; but he, poor fellow, was so stunned by 
 the shock that he could not assist us in the 
 search, but sat on a log holding his baby, and 
 listening to the other child, as he told between 
 his sobs the story of his mother's death. 
 
 The father, mother, and two children had been 
 baptized the year before ; and the heathen popu- 
 lation now loudly declared that the accident was 
 a Tindalo's doing ; the common belief being that 
 the alligators were either possessed by Tindalos, 
 or else employed by them to punish those who 
 
igS Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 had incurred their displeasure. When an3^one 
 was devoured, as this poor woman, it was con- 
 sidered as certain that the victim had brought 
 about his own fate by something he had done, as 
 a leper in the time of Moses was believed to be 
 marked by sin. 
 
 We soon heard the heathen people saying on 
 all sides, ** The Tindalos are angry because they 
 are deserted, but their 'mana' is strong enough here 
 to punish those who desert them; if the people 
 are not warned in time, the same fate will overtake 
 them all." 
 
 The result was that an element of reaction was 
 inclined to assert itself, but before long it was 
 subdued by the advance of Christianity. 
 
 The teachers and the first converts had always 
 to encounter intimidation and risk from heathen 
 prejudice. Though this obstacle was diminished 
 by the present attitude of the people's mind 
 towards the Tindalos, it still continued to exist. 
 While I was staying at Halavo, the 57ear after the 
 alligator incident, a party of men arrived from 
 Bonesi, a neighbouring district. These people 
 
Rise of Christianity. 199 
 
 had been very troublesome to the Christians at 
 Halavo, threatening to attack them because they 
 had given up their Tindalos, and stealing their 
 pigs because they did not fear punishment. 
 
 Hearing that the men had come, I went down 
 to the beach to have it out with them ; on my 
 way I met a man who said, '*The Bonesi men 
 say their chief will kill you, if he can get a chance, 
 for desecrating the Tindalos." This information 
 came very opportunely, for without it I had 
 nothing very definite to charge them with ; and 
 these people are as slippery as eels, and as 
 plausible as they are slippery. I found the 
 visitors surrounded by a group of Halavo men, 
 and I asked them how they dared " bring such a 
 word to me from their chief." They had nothing 
 to say in return, for every one had heard them 
 talking big. ** Tell your chief," I said, " that I 
 shall pass his place the day after to-morrow on 
 my way to Mboli, and if he has anything to say 
 to me, let him come down to the beach and say it : 
 I will land there." 
 
 I disclaim all title either to personal courage or 
 
200 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 foolhardiness in telling this story ; it only shows 
 that, having some knowledge of the native 
 character, I was able to take advantage of a 
 mistake into which my opponents, in this instance, 
 had incautiously fallen. The Bonesi chief dared 
 not injure me, because every powerful chief through 
 the Floridas was my friend ; and whatever 
 may be said about the treachery of these people 
 to those whom they regard as enemies, I have 
 never known them turn round on a friend. The 
 Bonesi men knew this fact well enough, and I 
 knew that they knew it, but the temptation to 
 boast before strangers had led them into the error 
 of ignoring it. The event showed this : punctual 
 to our appointment we landed at Bonesi — we had 
 no weapons — but not a sign of anyone was to be 
 seen, tliough I dare say that the people were 
 hiding in the bush not far off; my boat's crew 
 evidently thought so, for they shouted all kinds of 
 uncomplimentary remarks as they walked about 
 and leisurely filled our water-bottles at a spring. 
 The Halavo people were not troubled again by 
 threats or raids from Bonesi. 
 
i'our Tindalo emblems— Clubs and Spears— Shield— Bowl. 
 
Rise of Christianity. 203 
 
 I never heard of danger so real or so serious after 
 the break up of the Tindalos as that which Charles 
 Sapibuana met with in the early days of his 
 work. On one occasion he forbade the elder boys 
 in the school to attend an important sacrifice. 
 Everyone of any social position, as he came to 
 man's estate, was required to keep this feast. 
 Those who conformed to the custom enjoyed 
 certain privileges, and were respected accordingly; 
 but the proceedings involved, not only sacrifice 
 to a Tindalo, but participation in certain heathen 
 practices wrong in themselves. Sapibuana took 
 a decided line about this feast, and never 
 swerved from it. ''The boys shall not go," 
 he said ; and his influence was already strong 
 enough to make them obey. The chiefs and those 
 interested sent word that if he did not withdraw 
 his refusal they would kill him, burn his house, 
 and destroy his property. ** Very well," said 
 Sapibuana, '* they must do it, the boys shall not 
 go." He gained the day : the boys did not 
 attend the sacrifice, and he was not hurt ; but 
 why those threats were not carried out I am 
 
204 Ten Years m Melanesia, 
 
 profoundly convinced that God alone can 
 tell. 
 
 Superstitious fear and intimidation, such as 
 I have described, are not so difficult to deal with 
 as obstruction from powerful chiefs who do not 
 want to give up the old ways, men who love 
 darkness rather than light because their deeds are 
 evil. Bera, the Ysabel chief, was one of the 
 worst of these. While these events were in 
 progress at Florida, the Church was advancing 
 but slowly there ; because Bera, as long as he 
 lived, hindered and hampered our work at every 
 turn. He died in 1884, and the progress made 
 there since that time shows the greatness of the 
 obstacle which was then removed 
 
 Another instance of an obstructionist, of a tj^pe 
 even more pronounced than Bera, we met wuth 
 at Guadalcana. This large island is distant 
 about twenty miles from Florida ; the inhabitants 
 are cl a similar t3^pe, speak a language having 
 much in common, and the Tindalo superstition is 
 the same at both places. The year following the 
 break up at Florida I went to Guadalcana in 
 
Rise of Chrisiiamiy. 205 
 
 the Southern Cross to install the Rev. David 
 Ruddock at a place called Vaturanga, the chief 
 of which was a man named Kouna. Bishop 
 Selwyn was prevented from making that voyage 
 by the necessity of his presence at the general 
 synod of the New Zealand Church. 
 
 At first Kouna was inclined to further Mr. 
 Ruddock's efforts, but he soon discovered that a 
 result similar to that which had happened at 
 Florida would be attendant upon the success of 
 our teaching in his country ; and when I returned 
 in two months to take Mr. Ruddock away, Kouna 
 made it quite clear to us what his views were upon 
 the subject. ** I don't want you or your ship," he 
 said. '* If you come you will destroy my Tindalos, 
 I shall have to give up my wives, and snatching 
 slaves, and indiscriminate killing ; I would rather 
 remain as I am." 
 
 From this brief sketch of the various phases 
 of thought through which the native mind 
 passed at this most interesting crisis, the same 
 conclusion will, I think, suggest itself to the 
 reader, which the scenes I have endeavoured to 
 
2o6 Ten Years in Me^anesia. 
 
 describe presented to me ; that, however im- 
 portant the result of the action was which dealt 
 so severe a blow to the whole structure of the 
 Tindalo superstition, only a beginning was 
 thereby made ; that the work cannot be complete 
 till the mind, which has been all along imbued 
 with the thought of the supernatural, finds rest 
 and peace in the power of Christ. There were 
 cases where men said, "It is true that we feared 
 what did not exist when we believed in Tindalos, 
 and we have been all our lives in bondage. We 
 are free, now, and we will remain so." These, 
 however, were exceptions. What the general 
 feeling was, the following examples will show. 
 
 A certain pool at Mboli was believed to be 
 the haunt of Tindalos. While the superstition 
 reigned at Florida, no one would go near the 
 place, much less bathe there. One day on my 
 way to bathe, I asked a young man to join me. 
 I never expected that he would come. I only 
 asked him in joke; to my surprise he said he 
 would. Remarks were freely made by the 
 people we passed. " Luvu is going to bathe 
 
Rise of Christianity. 207 
 
 in the pool. He daren't do it. He had better 
 not, he will be ill if he does." Luvu, however, took 
 no notice, and we kept on our way. Presently we 
 reached the place where the descent to the pool 
 begins. The spot would make a study for an artist 
 of a haunted dell: a huge chasm in a hillside, 
 cut out by floods and the constant action of the 
 river, gloomy from its depth, and the shade 
 of overhanging rocks and trees ; the silence only 
 broken by the splash of the water bounding 
 down some fifty feet of almost perpendicular 
 cliff into the pool below. No wonder that the 
 scene suggested ideas of the supernatural to 
 superstitious minds. "I feel ill," said Luvu; 
 " I am going to have an attack of ague, I shiver 
 already ; you go down and bathe, and I will 
 light a fire and sit here till you return." I tried to 
 laugh him out of his fears, but it was of no use ; 
 they constituted a real source of danger to him. 
 When I came back, he said, " When I have re- 
 ceived baptism, I shall not be afraid to bathe there." 
 Another instance is of an old man named 
 Baulee : he was at one time a very high priest 
 
2o8 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 of the Tindalo mysteries, and the terror of the 
 Belaga district as a powerful wizard. On one 
 of my visits to the Mission station at that place 
 Baulee told me that he wanted to be baptized. 
 A year would have been the ordinary time for 
 his preparation, but the old man overcame my 
 hesitation, and I baptized him before the end 
 of the season. He had let go his hold, so he 
 said, of that power on which he had relied all 
 his life, and could I assure him that there was 
 a power in the new religion for him to lean 
 upon and trust to, and might he be baptized 
 that he might receive this power ? When the 
 time came for the yearly sacrifice to make the 
 beach sacred, Abraham Baulee refused to perform 
 his functions, and the matter fell into abeyance, 
 no one else knowing how to " throw the sacrifice." 
 The power of Christ, which has already broken 
 up the heathen soil, and cast down the strongholds 
 of superstition in the Florida district, must in time 
 complete the extinction of the Tindalos ; as the 
 spiritual life expands into a more vigorous 
 growth, and His blessed influence is extended 
 to the individual soul. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 GROWTH OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Increase in Schools : Number of Scholars— School Routine : 
 Reading, Writing, Music — Numbers Baptized— Benefits 
 Resulting from Christianity : Material — Abolition of 
 Tambu— Disappearance of Wizards— Cultivation of 
 " Tambu " Land — Honesty — Abolition of Polygamy — 
 Spiritual — Changed Lives— Charles Sapibuana — David 
 Tambukoru — Farewell. 
 
 X T TITH our giant enemy — Heathen Super- 
 ^ ^ stition — crippled and dying at Florida, 
 the mission stations showed signs of new and 
 more vigorous life. Schools sprang into exist- 
 ence at fresh centres, and those already 
 established showed a marked improvement in 
 more scholars, more regular attendance, and 
 better teaching. At the end of the period which 
 this story embraces there were nineteen schools 
 at Florida and Ysabel, taught by a staff of 
 
 I 
 
210 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 fifty three teachers, and having an aggregate 
 daily attendance of 753 children and young 
 people. 
 
 I did not encourage their elders to attend 
 the Day Schools. They have to work hard to get 
 a living, and there are periods of enforced 
 idleness from the nature of the seasons ; I 
 thought therefore that they were better employed 
 in their gardens than in trying to read or write. 
 Classes were arranged for them, two or three 
 evenings a week, at which oral instruction was 
 given. The daily routine was, morning prayer 
 as soon after sunrise as convenient, followed by 
 school for an hour, then work or play. The 
 time of evening school varied : at some places 
 it was convenient to have it before evensong, at 
 others afterwards. Evensong was at seven. T]i.e 
 teaching included reading and scripture instruc- 
 tion at isast once a day, writing two cr three 
 days a week, arithmetic now and then. Besides 
 this regular work, I used to teach English to a 
 few boys who showed sufficient aptitude to learn ; 
 all were keen to be taught, but no one knows 
 
Growth of the Church. 211 
 
 how difficult his own language is until he tries 
 to teach it to a South Sea Islander. 
 
 The people are very fond of music, and fairly 
 quick to iearn^up to a certain point. I taught 
 a few beys to play the harmonium, but I never 
 succeeded in getting them beyond Hymns 
 Ancient and Modern. Their voices, when the 
 ear has become used to their metallic quality, 
 are not unpleasant in chorus ; but the great 
 absence of treble voices in the boys, and the 
 tendency ol the girls to scream, when they have 
 overcome their nervousness so as to allow them 
 to sing above a whisper, make choir training 
 a difficult matter. With the secular singing I 
 was more successful. One night a week the 
 elder people used to come in crowds to listen 
 with the greatest pleasure to the practice of 
 such pieces as the " Anvil Chorus " from the 
 Trovatore, " Weel may the keel row," and 
 selections from '* Patience" and " lolanthe." ** It 
 sounds nice," an old man once said to me, 
 " but it will kill the songs of our country." 
 
 The people, under the influence of Christianity, 
 
212 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 are divided into three clearly-defined classes; (i) 
 Christians, (2) Catechumens, (3) Under instruc- 
 tion. When a person wants to be taught he 
 enters No. 3. If he desires to receive Baptism 
 he goes on in time to No. 2, and after Baptism 
 to No. I. A year in No. 3, and six months in 
 No. 2, is the usual course; though some, 
 Polygamists and the wives, for example, remain 
 much longer in No. 3 before they can make 
 up their minds to take the important step, 
 and face its consequences, of seeking Baptism. 
 
 The number of adult baptisms has kept pace 
 with the schools. In the year of the break-up 
 of the Tindalos nearly 200 adults were baptized, 
 in that following over 200, and in my last year 
 283. We do not count the infants — the children 
 of Christian parents are baptized as in Christian 
 countries. 
 
 The Sunday School is a fair gauge of the extent 
 of the Church's influence, because everyone 
 makes a point of being present who is not 
 hindered by some reasonable excuse. The 
 numbers vary considerably at the different 
 
The Growth of the Church, 213 
 
 stations, from about fifty of all ages and classes 
 at the smallest, to 230 at the largest. The 
 mean between these two numbers multiplied 
 by nineteen gives 2,660, which is a fair 
 approximation to the aggregate total. 
 
 The practical question now presents itself ; 
 Has the condition of the people been improved 
 by the downfall of the Native Superstitions, 
 and the rise of Christianity, or were it better to 
 have left them alone, and not to have given 
 them new ideas and a new responsibility ? I 
 shall endeavour to answer this by showing that 
 specific advantages, both material and spiritual, 
 have resulted from the change. 
 
 Certain localities were once held to be **tambu," 
 that is sacred. There were two kinds of these : 
 the haunts of Tindalos, where no man dared go, 
 such as the small island on which my boat's crew 
 and I used to lunch ; and places made " tambu " 
 by secret societies, like the beach at Balaga, which 
 it was Abraham Baulee's province, to make 
 sacred by a yearly sacrifice. If this "tambu" was 
 broken, punishment swiftly followed. In the first 
 
214 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 case, the fears of the careless intruder brought 
 sickness and sometimes death. In the second, 
 the priests and those initiated, jealously guarding 
 their vested interests, would extort a fine, or kill 
 their victim. The manner of proceeding was 
 either to club the man and fling his body into 
 the sea to be devoured by sharks, or to kill him 
 by biting his windpipe, which was wrapped 
 round with a cloth, so that the teeth marks did 
 not show, and then say " the Tindalo has killed 
 him." At the break up of the superstition these 
 practices were acknowledged. 
 
 The people are now free to go anywhere, and 
 they rejoice in their freedom. We heard some 
 men disputing about the " new teaching," and 
 one said, "While I believed in Tindalos I was 
 like a woman carrying a load ; I had to look where 
 I trod, and I moved slowly ; now I go where I 
 like, and I am as light as a dead leaf." Some 
 of the land once sacred is now under cultivation ; 
 it lay fallow for years, perhaps centuries, and it 
 bears the best crops in the district. For the 
 most part, however, spots once "tambu" are 
 
The Growth of the Church. 215 
 
 barren points where the winds howl and the sea 
 moans ; or rocky caverns in which the waves dash 
 with sullen roar ; or some gloomy dell, like the 
 pool at Mboli. At first the Christians reaped a 
 harvest by cultivating the " tambu " land, no man 
 forbidding them, and by hunting wild pigs in 
 forest tracts where man had never trod before, 
 but where the pigs abounded. All now share 
 the benefit equally. Another boon is the dis- 
 appearance of the Wizards. The break-up of the 
 superstition not only deprived these wretched 
 men of the means whereby they frightened people 
 to death, but turned the tables upon them with 
 a startling novelty. Shorn of their power and no 
 longer dreaded, two or three of them were killed 
 by friends of their intended victims. 
 
 By nature the people are dishonest : with them 
 crime consists in being found out. In the old 
 days we had to keep a sharp look-out when the 
 ship was off Florida, lest the natives should steal 
 whatever they could lay their hands upon. Last 
 year a cutter belonging to a trader was at anchor 
 near one of the Mission stations. Only one white 
 
2i6 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 man was on board — the trader, and the deck of the 
 vessel was crowded with natives bartering their 
 cocoanuts. In the confusion some young men were 
 successfully cheating the trader by an old dodge ; 
 by one man standing behind the buyer and passing 
 the cocoanuts already bought back through several 
 hands to the salesman. The general opinion 
 on board, though the people were only heathen, 
 was that it was too bad to cheat the man. 
 Presently the teacher, with a party of Christians 
 and the chief, came alongside ; when they heard 
 what was going on they seized these fellows, and 
 having made them give back the " trade " they had 
 stolen, they pitched them overboard to swim for 
 their canoes. Before Christianity came to Florida, 
 the people would not have dreamt of thus punish- 
 ing such theft, because they would have con- 
 sidered the trick as good business. 
 
 With the Tindalos the power of the chiefs has 
 greatly declined. This was inevitable: a chief 
 was powerful because he possessed a powerful 
 Tindalo. I do not speak of this as a benefit. 
 Were it not that in Christian unity at least an 
 
The Growth of the Church, 217 
 
 equivalent has been found, I should consider it a 
 loss. 
 
 I will give two examples of how this unity is 
 shown. Kalekona died at Gaeta before my last 
 Island stay. In days gone by the death of a chief 
 caused serious trouble. Quarrels and bloodshed 
 frequently resulted from the wrangling between 
 rival claimants to the vacant power, and some 
 neighbouring enemy would be sure to take this 
 favourable opportunity to pay out an old grudge 
 by making war on the tribe. The Gaeta Christians 
 now decided whom they would have as their new 
 chief; he was the rightful claimant, and they stood 
 by him, saying, that though they no longer carried 
 arms, yet they had not flung them away, and they 
 would use them if compelled to do so. The 
 Mboli people also offered to send 100 men to 
 help them if necessary. The result was that no 
 trouble of any kind occurred ; but the fact struck 
 the old people as strange, for they spoke of it to 
 me as " a miracle," so surprising did this peaceful 
 settlement appear in their eyes. 
 
 The other instance is even more remarkable. 
 
21 8 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 The Ysabel people still live in fear of the head- 
 hunters. The danger is not so great now as 
 formerly, but it still exists. In 1884 we began a 
 school at a place called Boko. When I returned 
 five or six months afterwards, nearly all the 
 scholars had been killed. A strong flotilla of 
 head-hunters had made a raid upon the place, and 
 killed forty- five men, women, and children. The 
 natives keep watch when they hear tidings of the 
 enemy, but after a desultory fashion : there is no 
 organization or unity about their efforts. The 
 Mission Stations at Ysabel now have men told off 
 for this duty. Weapons and ammunition have 
 been purchased by them from the traders, or 
 contributed by returned labourers. The night is 
 divided into watches, and the watch is mustered 
 and changed by ringing the school-bell. The 
 result has been so far satisfactory. The know- 
 ledge of what the people are doing has spread far 
 and wide, and no raid has been attempted at any 
 place where regular watch is kept. 
 
 I had an opportunity of seeing how the system 
 worked during the last year I stayed at Ysabel. 
 
Growth of the Church. 219 
 
 One evening some men brought word that they 
 had seen four large canoes ; the crews were on 
 shore on a large desert island off the coast ot 
 Ysabel. There was no such fright or confusion 
 on hearing the news, as I have seen under similar 
 circumstances. We said Evensong, and had 
 school as usual ; then Hugo Gorovaka, the head- 
 teacher, called the names of the men who were 
 to keep watch. The watch was doubled, the 
 watchfires lit, rifles loaded, cartridges placed in 
 the men's belts, and then the rest of the 
 people went quietly to their houses. Hugo 
 remained on duty as captain all night. The 
 next morning we heard that the flotilla be- 
 longed to a chief who had come to buy (or 
 steal) a head to '* wash " a new canoe. He was 
 a friend of a chief who lived about ten miles 
 from us up the coast; but for all that he was 
 quite capable of attacking us if he dared to do 
 so, for he belonged to that strange class of 
 doubtful friends which an Ysabel chief owns, 
 whose intentions in paying a visit are not clearly 
 known until they are declared. 
 
220 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 The Baptism of men who have been 
 polygamists, is a subject which stands midway 
 in the consideration of the material and spiritual 
 results of Christianity. Changes for the better 
 of both kinds have resulted, I submit, from 
 the Church's attitude. The whole question was 
 dealt with at the last Church Congress, and in 
 the columns of the Guardian and Church Times 
 last year ; and in speaking of it now I desire to 
 write with all deference to the opinions of men 
 far wiser and more learned than myself, with 
 whom I am not able to agree. 
 
 Bishop Selwyn makes it a sine qua non that a 
 polygamist shall put away all but one wife before 
 he receives Baptism. That this is the right course 
 in Melanesia I cannot for a moment doubt, though 
 the case of the woman put away is in some respects 
 a hard one. She loses the protection of the 
 common husband, and, if a chiefs wife, a certain 
 amount of dignity. But she need not be home- 
 less and friendless, or compelled to lead such a 
 life as many of those who take the opposite 
 view of this question assume to be inevitable. 
 
Growth of the Church. 221 
 
 There are respectable people who will give her a 
 home for the sake of her work, and with such she 
 can live. Many of these women become Christians, 
 and in the spiritual consolation and freedom from 
 superstitious fear which they then enjoy, find 
 greater happiness than they ever had as heathen ; 
 and though in their new life there may be somewhat 
 of the hardness which Christianity accepts, yet they 
 would not return to the old conditions so contrary 
 to the faith in which they now find peace. 
 
 Over and above the general considerations in 
 favour of this view of the case, which others have 
 ably expressed, there remains the significant fact 
 that in these particular islands a strong feeling 
 exists in the minds of the native converts them- 
 selves against allowing a polygamist to receive 
 Baptism; and I feel sure that, if an exception 
 were once made, no matter how hard the case 
 might appear at the time, it would set up a prece- 
 dent most difficult to deal with in the time to come. 
 
 There can be no question that results affecting 
 the spiritual welfare of the people follow from 
 the decadence of polygamy ; and the material 
 
222 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 results, though not so important, are equally 
 evident. I have spoken of the difficulty young 
 men find in getting a wife, because of the large 
 sums of money which the relations of the woman 
 demand. This is in a measure due to the 
 expense of the tattooing process, but beyond this 
 there is the action of the universal law that 
 supply and demand regulate the price. The 
 women only slightly out-number the men. If, 
 therefore, one man has five wives, the next 
 four men must compete for what remains over 
 and above the proportion of a wife apiece, and 
 the value of the object competed for is enhanced 
 accordingly. 
 
 That considerable benefits have resulted from 
 such material changes all will admit; but they 
 are small when compared with the spiritual 
 changes which Christianity has made in the 
 lives of the people. 
 
 The story of the Sandfly massacre shows what 
 the Gaeta men are by nature, and the life and 
 work of Charles Sapibuana is a proof of what a 
 Gaeta man may rise to by the grace of God. 
 
Growth of the Church, 223 
 
 There was no difference originally between 
 Sapibuana and his countrymen. He was a 
 daring man, as his brother was whom he first 
 brought to Christ; but his brother, while Sapi- 
 buana was a boy at Norfolk Island, led an un- 
 provoked attack upon a ship; and such an one 
 might he have become had not God raised him 
 up to work for His honour and glory. 
 
 Sapibuana was educated at the Mission 
 College, away from the surroundings of heathen 
 life, and the advantages he thus gained were very 
 great ; but the same power which worked in him 
 is asserting itself in the converts to Christianity 
 at Florida and Ysabel, producing changes in their 
 lives, and results every whit as remarkable. 
 
 Next to Gaeta and Mboli, the most important 
 tribe among the Floridas live at Hongo. Their 
 chief, a man named Tambukoru, has an influence 
 second to no other. He used to be the terror of 
 every petty chief far and near. If one of them 
 wanted to avenge himself upon another against 
 whom he had a grudge, he would bribe Tambu- 
 koru to kill some of his enemy's men. 
 
224 ^^^ Years in Melanesia, 
 
 A. once sent a sum of native money to Tambu- 
 koru, with a request that he would kill B. This 
 he was not prepared to do, for some reason or 
 other, so he sent to B. and said, " A. has paid me 
 to kill you ; if you want to live you must send men 
 to see the money and measure it, that you may 
 change it," — that is, give piece for piece. This 
 compromise B. gladly accepted, and so Tambukoru 
 got two sums of money of equal value for doing 
 nothing. This instance of Tambukoru' s power 
 will show what his character was. We began to 
 attack Hongo from Gaeta in 1878, but we did not 
 get a school permanently established there till 1883. 
 It was a very hard place to make a beginning 
 at, but I never saw the work go ahead better, 
 not even at Gaeta, than it did there when we 
 once got it started. The last year I was in the 
 Solomons I saw as remarkable a spiritual up- 
 heaval at Hongo as I witnessed at Gaeta in 1879. 
 It was not only that twenty adults received 
 Baptism, but there were the same tokens of a 
 power working in the hearts of the people in a 
 remarkable manner. 
 
Growth of the Church, 225 
 
 In this case Tambukoru was deeply and visibly 
 affected by its influence. Night after night he 
 came to be taught, and when I was not at Hongo 
 he used to go to Gaeta, and stay from Saturday 
 to Monday, that he might be taught by Sapi- 
 buana. On the day his people were baptized I 
 asked him to come into the chapel to see the 
 service, as being in the 3rd class he would not 
 otherwise have done this ; and I shall never forget 
 the expression on that man's face, as I looked at 
 him from time to time during the service. Nor was 
 I the only one who saw him changed ; when the 
 Southern Cross was at Hongo, not many days 
 afterwards. Captain Bongard said to me, *' How 
 is it that Tambukoru has not been off to the ship ? " 
 
 ** Don't you see him now," I replied, "he has 
 been standing by you for the last five minutes." 
 
 The expression of surprise on Captain Bongard's 
 face was a measure of the changed look in 
 Tambukoru's. I need not say how greatly I should 
 have rejoiced had I been able to admit him to 
 Baptism, but on such short notice it was not to 
 be thought of. We often talked about Baptism, 
 
 Q 
 
226 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 and I knew how much he looked forward to it, 
 though he clearly saw that among other things it 
 entailed giving up his wives. 
 
 Since I have been in England I have heard from 
 one of my old scholars that Bishop Selwyn has 
 baptized 56 adults at Hongo, among whom was 
 David Tambukoru. That the Bishop should 
 have had this privilege I rejoice to hear, for I can 
 never forget how much his self-denying exertions 
 at Florida, while I was absent in 1881, helped to 
 make the work roll on.* 
 
 Have I painted a picture of a Mission's success 
 in colours too glowing ? I have not intended to 
 do so, and I certainly have not tried to disguise 
 the fact that the picture has a dark side ; I only 
 assert that the bright side is brighter and more 
 encouraging than the dark side is gloomy and 
 forbidding. Neither do I desire to represent the 
 native Christians as better than they really are, 
 or better than others. I claim only that they 
 
 * The Bishop stayed in this district last year to assist 
 the Rev. J. Holford Plant— my successor— in starting upon 
 his new work. 
 
Growth of the Church, 227 
 
 have learnt, however imperfectly, that wilfd sir- 
 degrades the souls of God's creation to a deptti 
 even greater than that in which they once were 
 sunk as slaves of superstition; that in Christ, 
 through the sacraments of His Church, there is 
 a power to resist sin and lead a life, peaceful and 
 happy, such as they never knew before. 
 
 The chart shows the Floridas as a group of 
 islands lying about 25 miles from Guadalcana. 
 This large island is thickly populated, but the 
 people are still untouched by our efforts, though 
 for many years we have tried to gain a footing 
 there. For this reason the work of the Church 
 at Florida is so important, as a means towards 
 this end ; that by the Florida teachers, with Gaeta 
 as a base of operations, the position may be 
 attacked and the day gained. 
 
 May He whose Spirit has moved upon the 
 waters in that distant spot among the islands of 
 the Pacific, bringing light and life to Florida, 
 complete the work by sending that life and hght 
 across the straits to the multitudes of Guadalcana^ 
 still lying in heathen darkness. 
 
228 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 The series of farewells I had to say began at 
 Ysabel and ended at Gaeta. In many respects 
 the same scene was enacted over and over again, 
 but at Gaeta several circumstances combined to 
 make the occasion very memorable. Gaeta is 
 the most important station at Florida, and the 
 place at which I liked the people best. Charles 
 Sapibuana also was leaving Gaeta for his visit to 
 Norfolk Island. How little we thought that the 
 parting between him and his friends was for ever ! 
 But perhaps it was a foreboding of a sorrow that 
 was to be which helped to make the scene so 
 sad. 
 
 The Southern Cross was lying at anchor in 
 the harbour about two miles from the principal 
 village. We were to sleep on board the night 
 before we sailed, so that we might start with 
 daylight. Everyone accompanied us down to 
 the beach to wish us good-bye there. We had a 
 farewell service in the large canoe house, in which 
 300 or 400 people were assembled. Sapibuana 
 and I spoke to each of them in turn. 
 
 How fast the years liad flown away since the 
 
Growth Of the Church. 
 
 first night I stayed at Gaeta ! The memory of 
 that time recalls a strange picture, but not so 
 strange as the contrast between the two scenes. 
 Within a mile of the spot where we were now 
 met together, I first landed among a crowd of 
 men gathered upon the beach — many no doubt 
 the same on both occasions. All were armed, 
 as is usual where mutual distrust among friends, 
 and a common antipathy to strangers, is the rule 
 of life. They were civil enough to me, though 
 rough and noisy among themselves ; and I felt 
 as I looked upon them crowding round me that 
 they were wild and savage children of nature, 
 without one softening influence in their lives. 
 Could these be the same people, who, decently 
 clad, now sat listening to our farewell words with 
 earnest faces and tearful eyes ? 
 
 The service over, and the last hymn sung, the 
 gathering of people broke up into groups to sit 
 outside upon the sand, and talk till late into the 
 night. But a sense of sadness was over every- 
 thing, and on each of us — the sadness of 
 parting. 
 
230 Ten Years in Melanesia. 
 
 How lovely the scene was on which we looked ! 
 As the feathery arms of the cocoanut trees swayed 
 gently in the murmuring night wind; the shadows 
 shifted and bright bands of moonlight fell now 
 here, now there, upon the beach. The tiny 
 waves, and seaward flow of the ebbing tide, 
 lapped softly on the shore. The deep gurgling 
 note of the bull-frog, mingling with a chorus of 
 shrill chirpings, rang out from the bush; while 
 overhead, in a cloudless sky, the dazzling moon 
 blazed, and the faint stars twinkled, looking down 
 through the balmy air. 
 
 But, breaking the stillness, " eight bells " is 
 struck on board the Southern Cross, anchored close 
 in shore ; and then the bell tolls for prayers with 
 the sailors. A boat is coming for me, I must go. 
 As I make my way through the crowd of men and 
 women, pressing round me to shake hands, I say 
 my last good-bye. 
 
 After prayers, from the vessel's deck I trace 
 the people returning to the villages by their 
 torches sparkling like fire-flies in the deep gloom 
 of the forest through which the pathway leads. 
 
Growth of the Church. 231 
 
 A few men still sit talking with Sapibuana round 
 their fires; but the f<res presently burn low, 
 Sapibuana comes off to the ship, and the men lie 
 down in the canoe-house waiting to see the last 
 of us in the morning. 
 
 The night soon passes, and at daybreak the 
 clanking of the steam-winch, and the rattle of the 
 chain in the hawse-hole and along the deck 
 tell that we are off. Captain Bongard has a ticklish 
 bit of seamanship before him to get his ship out 
 of the harbour, for the entrance is narrow and the 
 trade wind blows right in. The interest and 
 excitement of the moment for a time over- 
 power all other thoughts, but we are soon outside 
 in the open and " lying to" to ** cat the anchor." 
 
 For a few moments I look for the last time 
 at the familiar view. 
 
 Across the straits the distant mountains of 
 Guadalcana, their summits gleaming with the 
 rosy tints of early morning — ^just to windward of 
 the ship, some tiny islets, mere rocks with a 
 crown of trees and stunted undergrowth clinging 
 to the coral, round which the tide-rips rush, and 
 
232 Ten Years in Melanesia, 
 
 roar — and shoreward, the long strip of white 
 sand with its fringe of cocoanuts, the deep bay we 
 have just left, and a group of figures on a jutting 
 point waving a last farewell. 
 
 "Fill the fore yard,"— *' Aft fore sheet," rings 
 out in the captain's voice ; and then in quick suc- 
 cession, ** Set the outer jib," — " Sheet home top- 
 gallant sails." The Southern Cross spreads her 
 white wings, and heeling over to the freshening 
 trade-wind, bounds forward on her course. The 
 well-known outlines of the Floridas fade and 
 become indistinct, till they melt and disappear 
 in the hazy brightness where sea and sky join in 
 the brilliance of the morning sun, and I look back 
 on ten years in Melanesia as on a memory of 
 the past. 
 
 L^' 
 
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