Tahiti to Fiji
Sunday, June 14th, at Sea.
Lat. 20-42 S. 839 miles from Rarotonga.
Long. 174-44 W., 431 miles to Fiji.
On Tuesday we were before Rarotonga: on Tuesday according to the ways of the place, where, as in Samoa, the missionaries made an error in time, and have never dared to rectify it. But to us outsiders it would have been nearly a Monday, though later, no doubt, the captain would throw off a day for us as we went west, perhaps even drop it here politely.
Rarotonga of the Cook Islands is a little island about twenty miles around, with outlines reminding one of Moorea; the look of a great crater whose sides had been broken out, leaving sharp crags and here and there curious peaks.
I had been suffering very much from my ancient enemy, sciatica, which declared itself almost as soon as we left Tahiti, and has kept me in pain up to this moment. But I managed to get ashore, and to take a long walk along the pretty road that goes around the island. We called on the Resident, Mr. Moss who took us to see the Queen or Chiefess Makea, for whom we had a letter from Queen Marau. She was the usual tall, smiling Polynesian chiefess, pleased at the addresses of her letter, which made her out a queen, as she showed to the Resident. For I gathered in the careless accidents of conversation, she had been lately elected chiefess by a parliament composed of representatives of the islands who are supposed to have federated for a general government. But Makea is a chiefess of great descent, being straight from Rarika, one of the two chiefs who years ago met here, one of them coming from Tahiti, the other from Samoa; one driven away, the other in exploration; and who colonized the islands, and in the persons of their descendants fought for supremacy down to this date. So that it is something that this representative of one descent should have been agreed upon. Many of these traditions have been recorded by the Rev. W. W. Gill in his “Myths and Songs from the South Pacific”; though his book refers particularly to Mangaia which is a neighbouring island about one hundred miles distant.
“Yes,” said the Queen, “Moni Gill.” She had seen his book and proposed to make some corrections. Money Gill, he was nicknamed because he was so fond of money. Let me add that I also understood that the gentleman was generous enough and not mean.
The missionaries have had complete control all this time; and yet things “laissent à désirer,” as the French have it. There has been a system of “government,” as Mr. Moss rather ironically sounded the name. There had been one hundred policemen in this little island of Rarotonga. Each policeman was a deacon, and the punishment of everything was a fine; the fines being pooled together and divided afterward.
Many deeds were fined and punished that were innocent or excusable, but all the fining had not in these thirty years increased the chastity of the women. Though the reports of the missions do not carry out this fact, the individual missionaries admit it, and what weakening of real authority has resulted one can only guess.
Some years ago the missionaries objected to smoking. To-day our missionary on board has a cigar or pipe in his mouth most of the time. In those years Makea was fined and excommunicated for smoking a cigarette. Being driven out she became reckless, and I am “credibly informed,” drank and “even danced.” And so her example stood in the way, and the missionary came back to her and begged her to return and be disexcommunicated, even if she should smoke; so that at least others should not have her precedent for dancing. But she refused. How it all ended I should have liked to remain to inquire, of her or the Resident, but the steamer waits not, and I only get these queer little bits of information by chance hearing. But you know that I believe that one gets a good deal from such trifles. I find the British Resident cheerfully hopeful of getting these people under some shape of government other than the kind of thing they had which cannot last. He took us to the building which is a schoolhouse and Parliament house, and we heard a little of what he was doing to get them to regulate matters in some shape that can serve as a basis. But you can imagine what little difficulties come up when those of the neighbouring island, whose chiefess Namuru I saw at the Queen’s, had sent word in their innocence that they had fined a Chinaman for complaining to her and writing what they called a lying letter. In their Polynesian simplicity (and they are shrewd enough) they had forgotten that in an interview they had admitted all and given the Resident every detail.
But there is no doubt that everywhere, the native churchmen, put up to the use of arbitrary authority, will do many queer things—things that everybody knows of through all the South Seas, so that there is no need of detailing them. They suffer, too, from having but one book, the Bible, which (especially the Old Testament) they know by heart, and where they can easily find a precedent for anything they may choose. They might get ideas from other books, but then they would have to learn English, etc. “What then will happen?” say the missionaries. “Do you see these good people reading Zola?” Their conduct is somewhat Zolaish at times, but then it is carried out in their own language. Hence much objection to teaching them English or anything that might lead to danger. It is the old trouble that missionaries have always found—more especially if they were obliged by principle to suppose that they might have some liberty of choice. The position is a hard one. I saw the expression of the missionary’s wife when another hinted under his breath that perhaps the Catholic Sisters might be allowed to come and teach. Such an extremity, however, would blow things sky-high; and if it be necessary that there be education, perhaps the missionaries will consent rather than see the enemy bring it. The English protectorate has only lately been established, and naturally all these questions are fresh.
We took away with us the next day one of the missionaries, his wife and four children, who fill up quite a little corner of our little boat. The scene at their leaving was very pretty—as far as the apparent devotion of the native women who had charge of the children. They kissed their arms and legs, and so humbly the hands of the missionaries, with such an appealing look for answer. They are pretty young people, our clerical friends—the wife Irish, I should say—and are interesting as types. The poor little lady has been ill all the time, but I can see that even then she has a will of her own. The care of the small baby has devolved on the husband missionary, who has some trouble. The children are wild, good natured and Polynesian and sing hymns with the Polynesian accent and cadence, occasionally bursting out in a cheerful laugh when they have apparently hit it successfully.
We have a French captain of artillery who is leaving Tahiti for Noumea (New Caledonia) and who tells me things of his expedition in the Chinese war and the taking of Formosa; also a Tahitian judge on furlough, who confirms what I have seen of the oral claims to land through genealogies committed to memory, the authenticity of which he has to leave to his native associates on the bench to decide.
This afternoon we pass two little islands, Onga-Onga and Onga Hapai, uninhabited; to which people come at certain seasons to make a little copra. They seem lost and without relation, for we do not understand the ocean bottom that would make all rational. Near them, and some five miles from us, a long line thicker in the middle, is the new island thrown up some five years ago or so, of which Mr. Baker, premier of Tonga, gave us an account. He had visited the place while the eruption of mud was still active, had come quite close to it, even nearer than was safe, for the wind came near forcing him within range of the explosion. He has related it in a little pamphlet.
“This perhaps,” says Adams “was the beginning of an atoll, a mud eruption, spreading out like this one under the sea, a surface upon which the coral started.” We had seen in the morning of our second day out, a “low” island, Mauki—a low mass upon which any elevation counted—but it was a mere mass of grey-green upon violet and blue, in the twilight of that day, so that we did not make it out at all. The island besides has no outside lagoon like a true atoll, but a fresh-water lake inside; so that we have not yet seen an atoll.
The little volcanic islands, perhaps both belonging to one crater, are edges of its walls still standing, and a long ledge that runs to meet some projecting wall or dyke, may either belong to the side of the crater, or may it be a raised beach? Adams looks carefully through the glass, but there is too much haze. The little islands grow smaller and smaller as I write—little patches of sharp shape, of a fleshy violet on the clouded blue of sea and sky. It is late evening. The wind, which has been unfavourable, seems to veer a little. We have been unfortunate: the trades that should have blown steadily have almost deserted us, but we are fortunate to have a steamer. And all through we have felt cold, though not officially, that is to say, at midday the thermometer marks from 80 to 83.
Monday, June 15th.
Still fine weather, blue sea, blue sky; some little islands—the end of a chain of reefs and islands Onga Fiki appears in the horizon and promises us arrival for to-morrow.
The passengers are more cheerful, the children less feverish. The little missionary lady plays on the piano and sings a hymn, the Judge leaning over her.
The Captain “profite de son dernier jour pour perfectionner” his English, and bewails with me the unreasonableness of English or British pronunciation. “Why,” says he, “does the steward say ‘am,’ for ‘ham,’ I suppose, for he can’t mean anything else, and why does he say there is much ‘hair’ when the wind blows? French seems more logical.” I comfort him as best I can, but he no doubt has a hard time before him.
More islands to the northwest, and later at night we shall make others, and to-morrow be at Suva of Fiji; unless we run on some reef, but the captain has been here before—some ten years ago, it is true.