Chapter IIIThe Segond Channel—life on a PlantationWhen the tide rose, we returned to the yacht and continued our cruise northward, passed the small islands of Rano, Atchin, Vao and others, crossed the treacherous Bougainville Strait between Malekula and Santo, and came to anchor in the Canal du Segond formed by Santo and Malo. This channel is about eight miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest point. On its shores, which belong to a French company, is a colony of about a hundred and fifty Frenchmen. The Segond Channel would be a good harbour but for very strong currents caused by the tides, which are unfavourable to small boats; its location, too, is not very central. The shores are flat, but rise abruptly at some points to a height of 150 m. There are level lands at the mouth of the Sarrakatta River and on the tablelands.The Sarrakatta is one of the sights of the New Hebrides, and a pull up the narrow stream affords one of the most impressive views to be had of tropical vegetation. The river cuts straight through the forest, so that the boat moves between two high walls of leafy green. Silently glides the stream, silently broods the forest, only the boat swishes softly, andsometimes a frightened fish splashes up. Every bend we round shows us new and surprisingly charming views: now we pass a giant tree, which towers up king-like on its iron-hard trunk far above the rest of the forest, trunk and limbs covered with a fine lacework of tender-leaved lianas; now we sweep along a high bank, under a bower of overhanging branches. The water caresses the tips of the twigs, and through the leaves the sun pours golden into the cool darkness. Again we glide into the light, and tangled shrubbery seams the river bank, from which long green strands of vines trail down and curl in the water like snakes. Knobby roots rise out of the ground; they have caught floating trunks, across which the water pours, lifting and dropping the wet grasses that grow on the rotten stems. Farther up the bushes are entirely covered with vines and creepers, whose large, thick leaves form a scaly coat of mail under which the half-strangled trees seem to fight in vain for air and freedom. In shallow places stiff bamboos sprout, their long yellow leaves trembling nervously in an imperceptible breeze; again we see trees hung with creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while we catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees, the tree-fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row back down stream, and like dream-pictures all the various green shapes of the forest sweep by and disappear.The Resident introduced me to the Frenchplanters, Mr. and Mrs. Ch., and asked them to take me in, which they agreed to do. Having rented an old plantation from the French company, they had had the good fortune to find a regular frame house ready for them.After I had moved into my quarters the Resident returned to Vila, and I remained on the borders of the wilderness. What followed now was a most unsatisfactory time of waiting, the first of many similar periods. Having no servants, I could undertake nothing independently, and since the planters were all suffering from lack of hands, I could not hire any boys. As the natives around the French plantations at the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated, I saw hardly any; but at least I got a good insight into the life on a plantation, such as it was.With his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about thirty boys, with whom he was trying to work the completely decayed plantation. Many acres were covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable management of the French company, the planters had changed continually and the system of planting just as often. Every manager had abandoned the work of his predecessor and begun planting anew on a different system, so that now there was an immense tract of land planted which had never yet yielded a crop. In a short time such intended plantations are overgrown with bush and reconquered by the wilderness; thus thousands of coffee trees were covered with vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It seem incredible that in two weeks, on clearedground, grass can grow up as tall as a man, and that after six months a cleared plantation can be covered with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one’s finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming fertility and the jealous advances of the forest are his most formidable enemies, directs his most strenuous efforts to keeping clear his plantation, especially while the plants are young and unable to fight down the weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the beginning it is the one essential duty, more so than planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an enormous task before him, and as he could not expect any return from the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as all planters do, and sowed corn, which yields a crop after three months.His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in rags, were just then occupied in gathering the big ears of corn. Sluggishly they threw the golden ears over their shoulders to the ground, where it was collected by the women and carried to the shed on the beach—a long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr. Ch. urged the men to hurry, as the corn had to be ready for shipment in a few days, thePacific, the French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates rapidly in the islands owing to the humid climate, so it cannot be stored long, especially where there is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can only be gathered just before the arrival of a steamer, making these last days very busy ones everywhere. It is fortunate for the planters that the native labourers are not yet organized and do not insist on an eight-hourday. As it was, Mr. Ch. had to leave more than half his crop to rot in the fields, a heavy rain having delayed the harvesting.The humidity at the Segond Channel is exceptionally great. As we stood on the fine coral sand that forms the shores of the channel, our clothes were damp with the rain from the weeds and shrubs which we had passed through while stumbling through the plantation. The steel-grey sea quivers, sleepy and pulpy looking; in front of us, in a grey mist, lies the flat island of Aore, the air smells mouldy, and brown rainclouds roll over the wall of primeval forest surrounding the clearing on three sides. The atmosphere is heavy, and a fine spray floats in the air and covers everything with moisture. Knives rust in one’s pocket, matches refuse to light, tobacco is like a sponge and paper like a rag. It had been like this for three months; no wonder malarial fever raged among the white population. Mr. Ch., after only one year’s sojourn here, looked like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She did the hard work of a planter’s wife with admirable courage, and, while she had never taken an active part in housekeeping in France, here she was standing all day long behind a smoky kitchen fire, cooking or washing dishes, assisted only by a very incapable and unsophisticated native woman.On our return to the house, which lies about 200 mètres inland, we found this black lady occupied with the extremely hard and puzzling task of laying thetable. It seemed to give her the greatest trouble, and the deep distrust with which she handled the plates found eloquent expression in queer sighs and mysterious exclamations in her native tongue, in resigned shakes of the head and emphatic smacking of the lips. She was a crooked bush-woman from the north of Malekula, where the people, especially the women, are unusually ugly and savage. A low forehead, small, deep-set eyes, and a snout-like mouth gave her a very animal look; yet she showed human feeling, and nursed a shrieking and howling orphan all day long with the most tender care. Her little head was shaved and two upper teeth broken out as a sign of matrimony, so she certainly was no beauty; but the sight of her clumsy working was a constant source of amusement to us men, very much less so to her mistress, to whom nothing but her sincere zeal and desire to help could make up for her utter inefficiency.OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ON AMBRYM.OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ONAMBRYM.It cannot be denied that the women from those islands, where their social standing is especially low, are not half so intelligent and teachable as those from places where they are more nearly equal to the men; probably because they are subdued and kept in degradation from early youth, and not allowed any initiative or opinions of their own. But physically these women are very efficient and quite equal to the men in field work, or even superior, being more industrious.The feat of setting the table was accomplished in about an hour, and we sat down to our simplemeal—tinned meat, yams and bananas. Then the foreman came in. Only a short time ago he was one of the finest warriors in the interior of Malekula, where cannibalism is still an everyday occurrence. He, too, wears his hair short, only, according to the present fashion, he lets the hair on his forehead grow in a roll-shaped bow across the head. He is well built, though rather short, and behaves with natural politeness. His voice is soft, his look gentle and in the doorway his dark figure shines in the lamplight like a bronze statue.Mr. Ch. tells him that the boys will have to work all night, at the same time promising an encouragement in the shape of a glass of wine to each. The natives’ craving for alcohol is often abused by unscrupulous whites. Although the sale of liquor to natives is strictly forbidden by the laws of the Condominium, the French authorities do not even seem to try to enforce this regulation, in fact, they rather impressed me as favouring the sale, thus protecting the interests of a degraded class of whites, to the detriment of a valuable race. As a consequence, there are not a few Frenchmen who make their living by selling spirits to natives, which may be called, without exaggeration, a murderous and criminal traffic.Others profit indirectly by the alcoholism of the islanders by selling liquor to their hands every Saturday, so as to make them run into debt; they will all spend their entire wages on drink. If, their term of engagement being over, they want to return to their homes, they are told that they are still deepin debt to their master, and that they will have to pay off by working for some time longer. The poor fellows stay on and on, continue to drink, are never out of debt, and never see their homes again. This practice has developed of late years in consequence of the scarcity of labour, and is nothing but slavery. It might easily be abolished by a slight effort on the part of the Government, but there is hardly any supervision over French plantations outside Port Vila, and in many plantations conditions exist which are an insult to our modern views on humane treatment. On English plantations there is but little brutality, owing to the Government’s careful supervision of the planters and the higher social and moral standing of the settlers in general.My host had some European conscience left, and treated his hands very humanely, but I dare say that in course of time, and pressed by adverse circumstances, even he resorted to means of finding cheap labour which were none too fair. The French by-laws permit the delivery of alcohol to natives in the shape of “medicine,” a stipulation which opens the door to every abuse.The boys were soon on hand, each awaiting his turn eagerly, yet trying to seemblasé. Some drank greedily, others tasted the sour wine in little sips like old experts; but all took care to turn their backs to us while drinking, as if from bashfulness. Then they went to work, giggling and happy.Meanwhile, those on the sick-list were coming up for the planter’s inspection. The diseases are mostlytuberculosis, colds, indigestion, fever and infections, and it is evident that if they receive any medical treatment at all, it is of a primitive and insufficient description. The planters work with fearfully strong plasters, patent medicines and “universal remedies,” used internally and externally by turns, so that the patient howls and the spectator shudders, and the results would be most disheartening if kind Nature did not often do the healing in spite of man’s efforts to prevent it. Naturally, every planter thinks himself an expert doctor, and is perfectly satisfied with his results.Mr. Ch. was ill with fever, nevertheless we went down to the work-shed. It was a pitch-dark night, the air was like that in a hothouse, smelling of earth and mould. The surf boomed sullenly on the beach, and heavy squalls flogged the forest. Sometimes a rotten branch snapped, and the sound travelled, dull and heavy, through the night.From far away we hear the noise of the engine peeling the corn-ears. Two of the natives turn the fly-wheels, and the engine gives them immense pleasure, all the more, the faster it runs. The partners are selected with care, and it is a matter of pride to turn wheels as long and as fast as possible; they encourage each other with wild shrieks and cries. It seemed as if the work had turned to a festival, as if it were a sort of dance, and the couples waited impatiently for their turn to drive the engine. The delight of the boys in the noise of the machinery was very favourable to the progress of the work, andat midnight a long row of full sacks stood in the shed. We stopped the work and told the boys to go to sleep. But the demon of dancing had taken hold of them, and they kept it up all night, and then went straight to work in the fields when the sun rose. By the third evening everything was ready for the arrival of thePacific, and the boys were deadly tired and lame.We were just sitting down to dinner one dull, heavy night, when we heard a steamer’s long, rough whistle. ThePacific. Everyone jumps up in excitement, for thePacificbrings a taste of civilization, and her arrival marks the end of a busy week and breaks the monotony of daily life. We run to the shore and light strong lamps at fixed points, to indicate the anchorage, and then we rush back to finish dinner and put on clean clothes. Meanwhile, the boys have been roused, and they arrive, sleepy, stiff and unwilling, aware that a hard night’s work is before them, loading the produce into the tenders.The steamer approaches quickly, enormous and gay in the darkness, then she slowly feels her way into the harbour, the anchor falls, and after a few oscillations the long line of brightly lit portholes lies quiet on the water, only their reflection flickers irregularly on the waves through the night. In all directions we can see the lights of the approaching boats of the planters, who come to announce their shipments and to spend a gay evening on board. There are always some passengers on the steamer, planters from other islands on their way to Vila orSydney, and soon carousing is in full swing, until the bar closes.All next day the steamer stays in the channel, taking on produce from every plantation, and for two days afterward merrymaking is kept up, then the quiet monotony of a tropical planter’s life sets in once more.Sometimes a diversion is caused by a boy rushing up to the house to announce that some “men-bush” are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers a few words in broken “biche la mar,” describing what he wants to buy—knives, cartridges, powder, tobacco, pipes, matches, calico, beads. “All right,” says Mr. Ch., and some of the men bring up primitive baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, filled with coprah or bunches of raw cocoa-nuts. All of them, especially the women, have carried great loads of these things from their villages in the interior on the poorest paths, marching for days.The baskets are weighed and the desired goods handed to the head-man. Here the whites make a profit of 200–300 per cent., while on the other islands,where there is more competition, they have to be satisfied with 30 per cent. Each piece is carefully examined by the natives: the pipes, to see if they draw, the matches, whether they strike, etc., while the crowd behind follows every movement with the greatest attention and mysterious whispers, constantly on the watch for any menace to safety. The lengthy bargaining over, the delegation turns away and the whole crowd disappears. In the nearest thicket they sit down and distribute the goods—perhaps a dozen boxes of matches, a few belts, or some yards of calico, two pounds of tobacco, and twenty pipes, a poor return, indeed, for their long journey. Possibly they will spend the night in the neighbourhood, under an overhanging rock, on the bare stone, all crowded round a fire for fear of the spirits of the night.Sometimes, having worked for another planter, they have a little money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time, except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering them other services. On the plantations they are suspicious and lazy, but quite harmless as long as they are not provoked. Mr. Ch. had had about thirty menworking on his plantation for quite some time, and everything had gone well, until one day one of them had fallen into the Sarrakatta and been drowned. According to native law, Mr. Ch. was responsible for his death, and should have paid for him, which he omitted to do. At first there was general dismay, no one dared approach the river any more; then the natives all returned to their villages, and a few days later they swarmed round the plantation with rifles to avenge their dead relative by murdering Mr. Ch. He was warned by his boys, who were from Malekula for the most part, and this saved his life. He armed his men, and after a siege of several weeks the bushmen gave up the watch and retired. But no one would return to work for him any more.FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.Altogether, the bushmen of Santo are none too reliable, and only the memory of a successful landing expedition of the English man-of-war a year ago keeps them quiet. On that occasion they had murdered an old Englishman and two of his daughters, just out of greed, so as to pillage his store. They had not found much, but they had to pay for the murder with the loss of their village, pigs and lives.I tried to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him. We sailed through the channel one rainy morning, but the wind dieddown and we had to anchor, as the current threatened to take us back. We profited by the stop to pay a visit to a Mr. R., who cultivated anarchistic principles, also a plantation which seemed in perfect condition and in direct opposition to his anti-capitalistic ideas. Mr. R. was one of those French colonists who, sprung from the poorest peasant stock, have no ambitions beyond finding a new and kindlier home. Economical, thrifty, used to hard work in the fields, Mr. R. had begun very modestly, but had prospered, and was now, while still a young man, the owner of a plantation that would make him rich in a few years. This good, solid peasant stock, of which France possesses so much, makes the best colonists, and as a rule they succeed far better than those who come to the tropics with the idea of making a fortune in a few years without working for it. These fall into the hands of the big Nouméa companies, and have the greatest trouble in getting out of debt. Not only do these firms lend money at exorbitant interest, but they stipulate that the planter will sell them all his produce and buy whatever he needs from them, and as they fix prices as they please, their returns are said to reach 30 per cent.Besides these two kinds of French settlers, there is a third, which comes from the penitentiary in Nouméa or its neighbourhood. We shall meet specimens of these in the following pages.After having duly admired the plantation of Mr. R.—he proved himself a real peasant, knew every plant by name, and was constantly stopping to picka dead leaf or prune a shoot—we continued our journey and arrived at Tangoa. Tangoa is a small island, on which the Presbyterian mission has established a central school for the more intelligent of the natives of the whole group, where they may be trained as teachers. The exterior of this school looks most comfortable. One half of the island is cleared and covered with a green lawn, one part is pasture for good-looking cattle, the other is a park in which nestle the cottages of the teachers,—the whole looks like an English country-seat. At some distance is a neatly built, well-kept village for the native pupils. I presented an introduction to the director. He seemed to think my endeavours extremely funny, asked if I was looking for the missing link, etc., so that I took a speedy leave.We spent a few lazy days on board the little cutter; the natives would not come down from their villages, in spite of frequent explosions of dynamite cartridges, the usual signal of recruiters to announce their arrival to the natives. It rained a good deal, and there was not much to do but to loaf on the beach. Here, one day, I saw an interesting method of fishing by poisoning the water, which is practised in many places. At low tide the natives rub a certain fruit on the stones of the reef, the juice mixes with the water in the pools and poisons the fish, so that after a short while they float senseless on the surface and may easily be caught.After a few days I was anxious to return to the Segond Channel, as I expected the arrival of theEnglish steamer, which I wanted to meet. I could not find any guide, and the cutter was to stay for some days longer, so I decided to go alone; the distance was only about 15 km., and I thought that with the aid of my compass I would find my way along the trail which was said to exist.I started in the morning with a few provisions and a dull bush-knife, at first along a fairly good path, which, however, soon divided into several tracks. I followed the one which seemed most likely to lead to my destination, but arrived at a deep lagoon, around which I had to make a long detour. Here the path came to a sudden stop in front of an impenetrable thicket of lianas which I could hardly cut with my knife. I climbed across fallen trunks, crawled along the ground beneath the creepers, struck an open spot once in a while, passed swamps and rocks,—in short, in a very little time I made an intimate acquaintance with the renowned Santo bush. Yet I imagined I was advancing nicely, so much so that I began to fear I had gone beyond my destination. About four o’clock in the afternoon I struck a small river and followed its crooked course to the coast, so as to get my bearings. Great was my disappointment on finding myself only about 1½ km. from the lagoon which I had left in the morning. This was a poor reward for eight hours’ hard work. I was ashamed to return to the cutter, and followed the shore, not wishing to repeat that morning’s experience in the forest. The walk along the beach was not agreeable at all, as it consisted ofthose corroded coral rocks, full of sharp points and edges, and shaped like melted tin poured into water. These rocks were very jagged, full of crevices, in which the swell thundered and foamed, and over which I had to jump. Once I fell in, cut my legs and hands most cruelly and had only my luck to thank that I did not break any bones, and got safely out of the damp, dark prison. But at least I could see where I was, and that I was getting on, and I preferred this to the uncertain struggle in the forest. In some places the coast rose to a high bank, round which I could not walk. I had to climb up on one side as best I could and descend on the other with the help of trees and vines. Thus, fighting my way along, I was overtaken by the sudden tropical night, and I had to stop where I was for fear of falling into some hole. A fall would have been a real calamity, as nobody would ever have found me or even looked for me on that lonely coast. I therefore sat down where I was, on the corals where they seemed least pointed. I did not succeed at all in making a fire; the night was quite dark and moonless, and a fine rain penetrated everything. I have rarely passed a longer night or felt so lonely. The new day revived my spirits, breakfast did not detain me long, as I had nothing to eat, so I kept along the shore, jumping and climbing, and had to swim through several lagoons, swarming, as I heard afterwards, with big sharks! After a while the coral shore changed into a sand beach, and after having waded for some hours more in the warm water with the little rags that wereleft of my boots, I arrived dead tired at the plantation of Mr. R. He was away, so I went to his neighbour’s, who was at dinner and kindly asked me to join him. Although it was only a flying-fox, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a meal after a twenty-four hours’ fast.The men were just starting for Mr. Ch.’s, and took me with them. My adventure had taught me the impassableness of the forest, and after that experience I was never again tempted to make excursions without a guide.Chapter IVRecruiting for NativesA few days later the English steamer came, bringing my luggage but no hope of improvement in my dull existence. A French survey party arrived too, and set to work, but as they had not enough boys with them, I could not join them. I spent my days as well as I could, collected a few zoological specimens, and read Mr. Ch.’s large stock of French novels until I felt quite silly.At last an occasion offered to see primitive natives. George, the son of a neighbour, had agreed to go recruiting for Mr. Ch. As I have said before, providing sufficient labour is one of the most important problems to the planter in the New Hebrides. Formerly there were professional recruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have followed any other occupation, and sold the natives to the planters at a fair profit. In their schooners they hung about the shore, filled the natives with liquor and kidnapped them, or simply drove them on board wholesale, with the help of armed Loyalty boys. Their methods were as various as they were cruel, murder was a daily occurrence, and, of course, the recruiters were hated by the natives, who attacked and killed them whenever they got a chance. Thebetter class of planters would not countenance this mode of procedure, and the natives are now experienced enough not to enlist for work under a master they do not know. Also the English Government keeps a strict watch on the recruiting, so that the professional recruiter is dying out, and every planter has to go in search of hands for himself. But while the English Government keeps a sharp eye on these matters, the French Government is as lenient in this as in the question of the sale of alcohol, so that frequent kidnapping and many cruelties occur in the northern part of the group, and slavery still exists. I shall relate a few recruiting stories later on: some general remarks on the subject may not be amiss here.MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.In years past the natives crowded the recruiting schooners by hundreds, driven by the greed for European luxuries, by desire for change, and inexperience; to-day this is the case in but very few and savage districts. Generally the natives have some idea of what they may expect; moreover, by trading with coprah they can buy all they need and want. They enlist nowadays from quite different motives. With young people it is the desire to travel and to “see the world,” and to escape the strict village laws that govern them, especially in sexual matters, and to get rid of the supervision of the whole tribe. Sometimes, but only in islands poor in cocoa-nut trees, it is the desire to earn money to buy a woman, a very expensive article at present. Then many seek refuge in the plantations from persecutionof all sorts, from revenge, or punishment for some misdeed at home. Some are lovers who have run away from their tribe to escape the rage of an injured husband. Thus recruiting directly favours the general anarchy and immorality, and indirectly as well, since the recruiters do their best to create as much trouble as possible in the villages, knowing it will be to their advantage. If they hear of a feud raging between two tribes, they collect at the shore and try to pick up fugitives; if there is no war, they do their best to occasion one, by intrigue, alcohol, oragents provocateurs. They intoxicate men and women, and make them enlist in that condition; young men are shown pretty women, and promised all the joys of Paradise in the plantations. If these tricks fail, the recruiters simply kidnap men and women while bathing. This may suffice to show that, as a rule, they do not use fair means to find hands, and it is hardly surprising that where they have been they leave behind them wrecked families, unhappiness, enmity, murder and a deep hatred of the white man in general as the cause of all this misery. This recruiting is not only immoral in the highest degree, but also very harmful to the race, and it is to-day one of the principal reasons for its decay.Those planters who from principle or from fear of the law do not resort to such means generally have a special recruiting district, where they are well known, and where the natives know the treatment they are likely to get on the plantation, and feel sure they will not be cheated, and will be taken backto their homes in due time. These planters, I am happy to say, find hands enough, as a rule, while the natives take care not to go to a French plantation if they can help it. The system of recruiting is very simple. The cutter anchors at some distance offshore, and a dynamite cartridge is exploded to announce her arrival; some time afterwards one of the whale-boats goes ashore, all the crew armed to the teeth, while the other boat lies a short distance off, to watch the natives, and to cover the retreat of those in the first boat in case of attack. The planter, as a rule, stays on board his cutter. These warlike practices are really unnecessary in many places, but as one never knows what indiscretions the last recruiter may have committed, and as the natives consider all whites as belonging to one organization, it is the part of prudence to follow this old recruiting rule.I will not pretend to say that the natives will never attack without provocation. Even Cook, who certainly was both careful and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty that no attack on a recruiting-ship or on any white man occurs without some past brutality on the part of a European to account for it. As one of the Governments does nothing to abolish kidnapping, and as the plantations go to ruin for want of labour, it would be to the interest both of the settlers and of the natives to abolish the present recruiting systementirely, and to introduce a conscription for work in its place, so that each male would have to work for a term of years on a plantation for adequate wages and good treatment. This would be of advantage to the islanders even more than to the planters. It would create order, and would employ the natives in useful work for the development of their own country.It will appear from all this that recruiting is still a somewhat dangerous undertaking, especially on the north-west coast of Malekula, the home of the most primitive and savage tribes of all the group.George, our captain, was a strange fellow, about seventeen years of age: he might just as well have been forty. Pale, with small grey eyes and a suspicious look, a long hooked nose, and narrow, yet hanging lips, he walked with bent back and crooked knees, always bare-footed, in blue dungaree trousers, green shirt and an old weather-beaten hat. He hardly ever spoke; when he did, it was very suddenly, very fast and very low, so that no one could understand him except his boys, who evidently knew instinctively what he meant. The natives are very clever in these matters. He was brave, an excellent sailor for his age, and he knew the channels and all the anchorages. His boat may have been 6 or 7 mètres long and 3 mètres wide; she was cutter-rigged, and was probably very suitable for a trip of a few days, but quite insufficient for a cruise of several weeks, such as we were planning. The deck was full of cases of provisions, so that only a little space was clear for us at the stern. Thecabin was about 2 mètres long, 1½ mètre wide, and 1½ mètre high, and was crammed with stuff—tinned meats, cloths, guns, trading goods, etc. One person could wriggle in it, crawling on hands and knees, but two had to wind round each other in impossible positions, and it was quite unthinkable that both should spend the night below. But with the happy carelessness and impatience of a long-delayed start, we did not think of the hardships of the future, and in fair weather, when the stay on deck in the brisk breeze was extremely pleasant, as on that first morning, existence on board seemed very bearable; but when it rained, and it rained very often and very hard, it was exceptionally disagreeable.Mr. George took no interest in such details. Although he could have improved matters without much trouble, he was too lazy to take the trouble. The sun- and rain-sail was fixed so low that one could not stand upright, and anyone who has experienced this for some time knows how irritating it is. For food George did not seem to care at all. Not only did he lack the sense of taste, but he seemed to have an unhuman stomach, for he ate everything, at any time, and in any condition; raw or cooked, digestible or not, he swallowed it silently and greedily, and thought it quite unnecessary when I wanted the boys to cook some rice for me, or to wash a plate. The tea was generally made with brackish water which was perfectly sickening. George had always just eaten when I announced that dinner was ready, andfor answer he generally wrapped himself in his blankets and fell asleep. The consequence was that each of us lived his own life, and the companionship which might have made up for many insufficiencies on board was lacking entirely.It was the first sunny day after many rainy ones when the current carried us through the channel. When we got on too slowly the oars had to help. After several hours we arrived in the open, and a fresh breeze carried us quickly alongside the small islands of Aore, Tutuba and Malo. Blue, white-crested waves lifted us up so high that we could look far over the foaming sea, and again we sank down in a valley, out of which we could only see the nearest waves rolling threateningly towards us. Behind us the little dinghy shot down the swells, gliding on the water like a duck. In the late afternoon we approached the north point of Malekula, and followed the west coast southward, towards the country of the “Big Nambas”—our destination. Contrasting with other islands of the archipelago, Malekula does not seem densely covered with vegetation at this point. We do not see much of the impenetrable bush, but rather a scanty growth of grass on the coral reefs, a few shrubs and she-oaks, then a narrow belt of forest covering the steep cliffs and sides of the hills, on whose backs we find extensive areas covered with reed-grass. Even a luxuriant forest does not look gay on a dull day, and this barren landscape looked most inhospitable in the grey mist of the afternoon. We slowly followed a coast of ragged coral patches,alternating with light sand beaches. Towards nightfall we anchored near a stony shore, flanked by two high cliffs, in about 10 fathoms of the most transparent water. We could see in the depths the irregular shapes of the rocks, separated by white sand, and the soft mysterious colours in which the living coral shines like a giant carpet. The sea was quiet as a pond, yet we were on the shores of that endless ocean that reaches westward to the Torres Straits.Torn clouds floated across the hills towards the north-west, the stars shone dull, and it was very lonely and oppressively silent, nowhere was there a trace of life, human or animal. Lying on deck, I listened to the sound of the surf breaking in the different little bays near and far, in a monotonous measure, soft and yet irresistible. It is the voice of the sea in its cleansing process, the continual grinding and casting out of all impurities, the eternal war against the land and its products, and the final destruction of the earth itself.The district of the Big Nambas, to whose shores we had come, takes its name from the size of a certain article of dress, the “Nambas,” which partly replaces our trousers, and is worn in different forms over the greater part of the archipelago, but nowhere of such size as here. It is such an odd object that it may well give its name to the country. Big Nambas is still the least known part of the islands, and hardly any white has ever set foot in the interior. Unlike those of other districts, the natives here have preserved their old habits and strict organization, and thisis evidently the reason why they have not degenerated and decayed. The old chiefs are still as powerful as ever, and preserve peace and order, while they themselves do as they please. Big Nambas has had but little contact with the whites, especially the recruiters, so that the population is not demoralized, nor the chief’s power undermined. Of course it is to the chief’s interest to have as strong a tribe as possible, and they reserve to themselves the right of killing offenders, and take all revenge in their own hands. They watch the women and prevent child-murder and such things, and although their reign is one of terror, their influence, as a whole, on the race is not bad, because they suppress many vices that break out as soon as they slacken their severity. The chiefs in Big Nambas seem to have felt this, and systematically opposed the intercourse with whites. But this district is just where the best workmen come from, and the population is densest, and that is why the recruiters have tried again and again of late years to get hold of Big Nambas, but with little success, for so far only few men have enlisted. One of them was on our cutter, and had to serve as interpreter. The other four of the five boys were from Malekula, a little farther south. Our man from Big Nambas was known on the plantation as Bourbaki, and had enlisted two years ago. Before that he had been professional murderer and provider of human flesh to the great chief. Now he was a useful and quiet foreman on the plantation, always cheerful, very intelligent, strong, brutal, with small,shrewd eyes and a big mouth, apparently quite happy in civilization, and devoted to George. He was one of the few natives who openly admitted his liking for human flesh, and rapturously described its incomparable tenderness, whiteness and delicacy. A year ago, when visiting his village, he had been inconsolable because he had come a day late for a cannibal feast, and had blamed his father bitterly for not having saved a piece for him. Aside from this ghoulish propensity, Bourbaki was a thoroughly nice fellow, obliging, reliable and as happy as a child at the prospect of seeing his father again. We expected good service and help in recruiting from him, and promised him ample head-money.A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.Bourbaki had run away without the permission of his chief, who was furious at the loss of his best man, and had given orders to kill the recruiter, a brother-in-law of George. Some natives had ambushed and shot at them while entering the whale-boat; the white had received several wounds, and a native woman had been killed. The boat pulled away rapidly. Bourbaki laughed, and, indeed, by this time the little incident was quite forgotten, as its only victim had been a woman.The morning was damp and dull. The hills came down to the sea in slopes of grey-green, the shore was a soft brown, and the rocks lay in dark patches on the beach, separated from the greyish-green of the sea by the white line of the breakers. The hollow sound of the dynamite explosions glided along the slopes and was swallowed in distant space.A few hours later, thinking the natives might be coming, we got our arms ready: each of us had a revolver and a repeating rifle, the boys had old Sniders. The cutter lay about 200 mètres off-shore, and we could see everything that was going on on the beach. Behind the flat, stony shore the forest-covered hills rose in a steep cliff to a tableland about 100 mètres high. On the water we were in perfect safety, for the villages lie far inland, and the Big Nambas are no sailors, hate the sea and possess no canoes. They only come to the beach occasionally, to get a few crabs and shell-fish, yet each tribe has its own place on the shore, where no stranger is admitted.We took Bourbaki ashore; he was very anxious to go home, and promptly disappeared in the bush, his Snider on his shoulder. We then returned to the cutter and waited. It is quite useless to be in a hurry when recruiting, but one certainly needs a supply of patience, for the natives have no idea of the value of time, and cannot understand the rush which our civilization has created.Late in the afternoon a few naked figures appeared on the beach. One of them signalled with a branch, and soon others followed, till about fifty men had assembled, and in the background, half-hidden by shrubs, stood half a dozen women. We entered the whale-boats, two boys and a white man in each, and slowly approached the shore. All the natives carried their rifles in their right hands and yams in their left, making signs to show that they wished to trade.We gave them to understand that they must first put down their muskets, and when they hesitated we cocked our rifles and waited. Some of them went back to the forest and laid down their guns, while the others sat down at a distance and watched. We promptly put down our rifles, approached and showed our trade-goods—tobacco, matches, clay pipes and calico. Hesitating, suspicious, yet tempted, they crowded round the boat and offered their yams, excitedly shouting and gesticulating, talking and laughing. They had quite enormous yams, which they traded for one or two sticks of tobacco or as many pipes. Matches and calico were not much in demand. Our visitors were mostly well-built, medium-sized men of every age, and looked very savage and dangerous. They were nearly naked, but for a belt of bark around their waists, about 20 cm. wide, which they wore wound several times around their bodies, so that it stood out like a thick ring. Over this they had bound narrow ribbons of braided fibres, dyed in red patterns, the ends of the ribbons falling down in large tassels. Under this belt is stuck the end of the enormous nambas, also consisting of red grass fibres. Added to this scanty dress are small ornaments, tortoise-shell ear-rings, bamboo combs, bracelets embroidered with rings of shell and cocoa-nut, necklaces, and thin bands bound under the knees and over the ankles.The beautiful, lithe, supple bodies support a head covered with long, curly hair, and the face is framed by a long and fairly well-kept beard. Theeyes roll unsteadily, and their dark and penetrating look is in no wise softened by the brown colouring of the scela. The nose is only slightly concave, the sides are large and thick, and their width is increased by a bamboo or stone cylinder stuck through the septum. Both nose and eyes are overhung by a thicktorus. The upper lip is generally short and rarely covers the mouth, which is exceptionally large and wide, and displays a set of teeth of remarkable strength and perfection. The whole body is covered with a thick layer of greasy soot. Such is the appearance of the modern man-eater.Just at first we did not feel any too comfortable or anxious to go ashore, and we watched our neighbours very carefully. They, however, were hardly less frightened and suspicious; but after a while, through the excitement of trading, they became more confident, forgot their suspicions and bargained noisily, as happy as a crowd of boys; still, any violent movement on our part startled them. For instance, several of them started to run for the woods when I hastily grabbed a pipe that a roll of the boat had set slipping off the seat.After having filled the boats to the brim with yams, and the first eagerness of bartering over, we ventured ashore. A suspicious crowd stood around us and watched every movement. We first showed them our weapons, and a violent smacking of the lips and long-drawn whistles, or a grunting “Whau!” bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the largerthe bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more respect for our “little guns.”Soon they became more daring, came closer and began to feel us, first touching us lightly with the finger-tips, then with their hands. They wanted to look at and handle everything, cartridge-belts, pipes, hats and clothes. When all these had been examined, they investigated our persons, and to me, at least, not being used to this, it was most disagreeable. I did not mind when they tucked up our sleeves and trousers and compared the whiteness and softness of our skin with their own dark hide, nor when they softly and caressingly stroked the soft skin on the inner side of our arms and legs, vigorously smacking their lips the while; but when they began to feel the tenderness and probably the delicacy of our muscles, and tried to estimate our fitness for a royal repast, muttering deep grunts, constantly smacking their lips, and evidently highly satisfied with the result of their investigation, I did not enjoy the situation any more; still less when I saw an ugly-looking fellow trembling violently from greedy desire, rolling his eyes in wild exultation and performing an anticipatory cannibal dinner-dance. We gradually began to shake off this wearisomely intimate crowd; the fact that there were two of us, and that I was not alone in this situationwas very comforting. However, in the course of the next few years I became accustomed to this treatment, though I never again met it in such crudeness.We had slowly approached the forest and could get a few glimpses of the women, who had kept quite in the background and hid still more when we came near. They had braided aprons around their waists and rolled mats on their heads. Nearly all of them carried babies on their hips, and they looked fairly healthy, although the children were full of sores. Evidently the men did not like our looking at the ladies; they pushed us back and drove the women away. We returned to the boats, and the natives retired too, howling, shrieking and laughing. Towards evening another crowd arrived, and the performance was repeated in every detail. Happy over the bartered goods, they began to dance, first decorating themselves with tall branches stuck in the back of their belts. They jumped from one foot to the other, sometimes turning round, and singing in a rough, deep monotone. We withdrew to the boats, and they dispersed on the shore, lighted fires and roasted the yams they had left.Far away across the sea there was lightning, the surf boomed more heavily than by day, the cutter rolled more violently and restlessly and the whaleboat scraped against her sides, while the wind roared through the forest gullies and thunder threatened behind the hills. We felt lonely in the thick darkness, with the tempest approaching steadily, afloat on a tiny shell, alone against the fury of the elements.The lamp was blown out, and we lay on deck listening to the storm, until a heavy squall drove us below, to spend the night in a stuffy atmosphere, in uncomfortable positions, amid wild dreams. Next morning there were again about twenty men on the shore, and again the same performances were gone through. Evidently the people, influenced by Bourbaki, who was still in the village, were more confident, and left their weapons behind of their own accord. They came to trade, and when their provisions of yam were exhausted, most of them left; only a few, mostly young fellows, wanted to stay, but some older men stayed with them, so as to prevent them from going on board and enlisting. Evidently the young men were attracted by all our wonderful treasures, and would have liked to see the country where all these things came from. They imagined the plantations must be very beautiful places, while the old men had vague notions to the contrary, and were afraid of losing their young braves.During a lull in the proceedings we climbed the narrow, steep and slippery path up to the tableland in order to get an idea of the country behind the hills. Half-way up we met two old men carrying yam down to the beach. They were terrified at sight of us, began to tremble, stopped and spoke to us excitedly. We immediately laid down our rifles, and signed to them to approach, but they suddenly dropped their loads, ran off and disappeared in the bush. They evidently feared we had come to kidnap them, and we decided it was wiser to return to the beach, soas not to irritate the people. Shortly afterwards another crowd of natives came along the beach carrying yam. They approached with extreme care, ready to fight or fly, but they were less afraid of us than of the natives, for whom that part of the beach was reserved, and with whom we had been trading. They were enemies of the newcomers, who knew that they were outside their own territory and might expect an attack any moment. Squatting down near us, they anxiously watched the forest, ever ready to jump up. One of them, who spoke a little biche la mar, came up to me and asked me to anchor that night near their beach, and buy yams from them, which we promised to do. At a sound in the forest they jumped up and ran away. George, wishing to talk more with them, took his rifle and ran after them, but they had already retreated behind some boulders, and were waving their rifles and signalling him to stay where he was. They thought we were in a plot with other natives, and had ambushed them. To such a degree do these people live in constant fear, and thus arise misunderstandings which end in death, unless the whites are very prudent and quiet. Many a recruiter in our case would have welcomed this apparent provocation to shoot at the natives from a safe distance with his superior rifle.All day it rained in heavy squalls, coming from over the hills; everything was damp, the night was dark and still and we sighed in our narrow cell of a cabin. Next morning Bourbaki came back with a new crowd of natives, who again felt and investigated,happily, also, admired us. So vain is human-kind that even the admiration of cannibals is agreeable. I let some of them try my shot-gun, and everyone wanted to attempt the feat, although they were all badly frightened. They held the gun at arm’s length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank.WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.Bourbaki brought news that in a few days there was to be a great sacrificial feast in the village, and that, everybody being busy preparing for it, we had no chance of recruiting, neither could we see the great chief, he being shut up in his house, invisible to everybody except to a little boy, his servant. We landed a goat for Bourbaki’s father; the innocent animal caused terrible fright and great admiration. All the men retreated behind trunks or rocks and no one dared touch the strange creature. Bourbaki was very proud of himself for knowing goats, and fastened the poor little thing to a tree in the shade. He then coaxed three old men on board. Clumsily they entered the whale-boats, and even on board the cutter they squatted anxiously down and dared hardly move for fear the ship might capsize or they might slip into the water, of which they were quite afraid. They could hardly speak, and stared at everything, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They forgot their fears, however, in delight over our possessions. A saucepan proved a joy; the boards andplanks of the ship were touched and admired amid much smacking of the lips; a devout “Whau!” was elicited by the sight of the cabin, which seemed a fairy palace to them. Smaller things they approved of by whistling; in general they behaved very politely. If they did not understand the use of a thing, they shrugged their shoulders with a grimace of contempt. A mirror was useless to them at first; after a while they learned to see; they were frightened, and at last they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a little slip of paper, which they carefully hid in their belts. Our stock of cartridges impressed them deeply, and there was no end of whistling and grunting. Sugar and tea were objects of suspicion. They thought them poison, and took some along, probably to experiment on a good friend or a woman. Matches were stuck into the hair, the beard or the perforated ears. Pictures were quite incomprehensible.After an hour they left, less frightened than before, but still very glad to leave all the mysterious and uncanny things behind. Bourbaki made fun of their innocence, and thought himself very civilized,but he himself was dreadfully afraid of my camera: “White man he savee too much.”The weather cleared towards evening. Some natives stayed on the shore all night, lighted fires and sang songs in anticipation of the coming dance. Our boys mimicked them, laughed at them and felt very superior, though we whites failed to see much difference, and, as a matter of fact, a short time after having returned home these boys can hardly be told from ordinary bushmen. The shrieks of the savages pierced the velvet of the night like daggers, but by and by they quieted down, and we heard nothing more but the rhythmic rise and fall of the surf.In the silver light of the rising moon the boats rolled gently behind the ship like dark spots, and light clouds glided westward across the stars, eternally rising behind the black cliffs and disappearing in the universal dimness. We were asleep on deck, when suddenly a violent shower woke us up and banished us into that terrible cabin.No natives came next day; they were all busy preparing the feast. We had nothing to do but to loaf on the beach or on board, and smoke, as we had no fishing-tackle and no animals to shoot. The grey sky, the vague light, the thin rain, were depressing, and all sorts of useless thoughts came to us. We noticed the hardships of our existence on board, felt that we were wasting time, grew irritable and dissatisfied. If only my companion had been less sulky! But with him there could be no pleasant chat, no cosy evening hour over a cup of tea and a pipe; andI would almost have preferred being alone to thissolitude à deux. I sat on deck and listened to the breakers. Often they sounded like a rushing express train and awakened reminiscences of travel and movement. The cool wind blew softly from afar, and I could understand for the first time that longing that asks the winds for news of home and friends. I gave myself up wholly to this vague dreaming, call it home-sickness, or what you will, it enlivened the oppressive colourlessness of the days and the loneliness of the nights. As usual, a heavy shower came, luckily, perhaps, to interrupt all softer thoughts.Then followed a few clear days, which changed our mood entirely. The cutter rolled confidingly in the morning breeze, and the sun glowed warm and golden. In picturesque cascades the green forest seemed to rush down the slopes to the bright coral beach, on which the sea broke playfully. Once in a while a bird called far off in the depths of the woods. It was delicious to lie on the warm beach and be dried and roasted by the sun, to think of nothing in particular, but just to exist. Two wild pigs came to the beach in the evening to dig for yam that the natives had buried there; a chase, though unsuccessful, gave excitement and movement. We could venture far inland now without fear, for the natives were all away at the feast. Brilliant sunsets closed the days in royal splendour. Behind a heavy cloud-bank which hid the sun, he seemed to melt in the sea and to form one golden element. Out of the cloud five yellow rays shot across the steel-bluesky, so that it looked like one of those old-fashioned engravings of God behind a cloud. When everything had melted into one gorgeous fire, and we were still helpless before all that glory, the colours faded away to the most delicate combinations of half-tones; soon the stars came out glittering on the deep sky, first of all the Southern Cross. Halley’s comet was still faintly visible.In the morning the sky was cloudless, and changed from one lovely colour to the other, until the sun rose to give it its bright blue and paint the shore in every tint. Then every stone at the bottom of the sea was visible, and all the marvellous coral formations, with their weird shapes and fiery colours, glowed in rose and violet and pure golden yellow. Above lay big sea-stars, and large fish in bright hues floated between the cliffs in soft, easy movements, while bright blue little ones shot hither and thither like mad.Bourbaki arrived with his younger brother, a neat and gentle-looking boy. The feast was to begin that evening, and I asked Bourbaki if they had plenty of pigs to eat. “Oh no,” he said; “but that is of no importance: we have a man to eat! Yesterday we killed him in the bush, and to-day we will eat him.” He said this with the most innocent expression, as if he were talking about the weather. I had to force myself not to draw away from him, and looked somewhat anxiously into his face; but Bourbaki stared quietly into the distance, as if dreaming of the past excitements and the comingdelights; then he picked up a cocoa-nut and tore the husk off with his strong teeth. It made me shudder to watch his brutish movements, but he was perfectly happy that morning, willing and obedient. At noon he went away to his horrid feast, and for two days we saw nobody.We passed the time as usual; the weather was rainy again, and everything seemed grey,—the sky, the sea and the shore, and our mood. One is so dependent on surroundings.On the third day Bourbaki came back, a little tired, but evidently satisfied. Some of his friends accompanied him, and he brought word that the chief had given permission for a few boys to enlist, but that we would have to wait about ten days until he could come to the shore himself. Not wishing to spend the ten days there, doing absolutely nothing, we decided to go farther south, to Tesbel Bay, and try our luck at recruiting there, as we had another boy, Macao, from that district. George gave leave to Bourbaki, who had been somewhat savage these last days, to stay at home till our return, and he seemed delighted to have a holiday. We were all the more surprised when, just before we weighed anchor, Bourbaki came back, shaking hands without a word. We were quite touched by this remarkable sign of his affection, pardoned his many objectionable ways, and never thought that perhaps he might have ample reason not to feel altogether safe and comfortable at home.The wind being contrary, we had to tack aboutall night long without advancing. Squalls rushed over the water, and then, again, the breeze died down completely, only black, jagged clouds drifted westward across the sky, and here and there a few stars were visible. The cutter’s deck was crowded with stuff, and there seemed less room for us than ever, except in the hateful cabin. The boys sang monotonously “for wind,” quite convinced that the next breeze would be due to their efforts. A fat old man sang all night long in falsetto in three notes; it was unbearably silly and irritating, yet one could hardly stop the poor devil and rob him of his only pleasure in that dark night. We felt damp, restless and sleepless, and tried in vain to find some comfort. Next evening we reached the entrance of Tesbel Bay, and the wind having died down, we had to work our way in with the oars, a slow and hard task. Bourbaki yelled and pulled at the oars with all his might, encouraging the others. These are the joys of sailing.Tesbel Bay is framed on two sides by high cliffs. Big boulders lie in picturesque confusion where the surf foams white against the narrow beach. Wherever there is a foot of ground, luxurious vegetation thrives. Ahead of us lies a level valley that stretches far inland to the foot of a high mountain, whose head is lost in grey clouds. A little creek runs into the bay through high reed-grass, behind a sandbank. Just before setting, the sun shone through the clouds and smiled on the lovely, peaceful landscape, seeming to promise us a pleasant stay. The smoke of manyvillage fires rose out of the bush at a distance. Two ragged natives were loafing on the beach, and I engaged one of them for the next day, to guide me to some villages. Bourbaki and Macao marched gaily off, as they were to spend the night in Macao’s village.A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.Next morning, while being pulled ashore for my excursion inland, I saw Macao on the beach, crying, waving and behaving like a madman. He called out that Bourbaki was dead, and that we must come to the village. I took him into the boat and we returned to the cutter. Macao was trembling all over, uttering wild curses, sighing and sobbing like a child. Between the fingers of his left hand he frantically grasped his cartridges, and nervously kept hold of his old rifle. We could not get much out of him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had been shot towards morning and that he himself had run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have committed some misdemeanour; as there was a possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go and look for him; for satisfaction it was idle to hope.According to Macao the village was quite near, so we took our rifles, armed the boys, and in ten minutes we were ashore. The youngest, a fourteen-year-old boy, was left in the whale-boat, so as to be ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and as we followed him we watched right and left for apossible ambush. It was a disagreeable moment when we dived into the thicket, where we expected to be attacked any moment, and I could hardly blame another fat boy for dropping behind, too, to “watch the shore,” as he said. Not wishing to lose any time, we let him go, for we were anxious to be in the village before the natives should have time to rally and prepare for resistance.The path was miserable—slippery slopes, wildly knotted roots, stones, creeks and high reeds. We were kept quite busy enough watching our path, and were not careful at all about watching the bush; but we were confident that the natives, being very poor shots, would betray their presence by a random shot. We were exposed, of course, to shots from close quarters alongside the path, but we trusted to Macao’s sharp eyes to detect a hidden enemy. After an hour’s brisk walk, we asked Macao whether the village was still far off; every time we asked, his answer was the same: “Bim by you me catch him,” or, “Him he close up.” However, after an hour and a half, we began to feel worried. We had no idea whether we would find a peaceful village or an armed tribe, and in the latter case a retreat would doubtless have been fatal, owing to the long distance we would have had to go in the forest, where the white man is always at a disadvantage. But we had undertaken the adventure, and we had to see it through.After two hours we unexpectedly came upon a village. A dozen men and a few women were squatting about, evidently expecting some event.The presence of the women was a sign that the people were peacefully inclined. An old man, a relative of Macao’s, joined us, and a short walk through a gully brought us quite suddenly into a village square. About thirty men were awaiting us, armed with rifles and clubs, silent and shy. Macao spoke to them, whereupon they laid down their rifles and led us to a hut, where we found Bourbaki, lying on his back, dead. He had been sitting in the house when some one shot him from behind; he had jumped up and tried to fly, but had broken down and fallen where he was then lying. He must have died almost at once, as the bullet had torn a great hole in his body. His rifle and cartridges were missing, that was all.The villagers stood around us, talking excitedly; we could not understand them, but they were evidently not hostile, and we told them to bury Bourbaki. They began at once, digging a hole in the soft earth with pointed sticks. We then asked for the rifle, the cartridges and the murderer, and were informed that two men had done the killing. After some deliberation a number of men walked off, one of them a venerable old man, armed after the old fashion with a bow and a handful of poisoned arrows, which he handled with deliberate care; he also carried a club in a sling over his shoulder. Of all those strong men, this old one seemed to me the most dangerous but also the most beautiful and the most genuine. After a while they returned, and two other men slunk in and stood apart.The natives seemed undecided what to do, and squatted about, talking among themselves, until at last one of them pulled me by the sleeve and led us towards the two newcomers. We understood that they were the murderers, and each of us took hold of one of them. They made no resistance, but general excitement arose in the crowd, all the other natives shouting and gesticulating, even threatening each other with their rifles. They were split in two parties,—one that wanted to give up the murderers, and their relatives, who wanted to keep them. We told them that the affair would be settled if they gave up the murderers; if not, the man-of-war would come and punish the whole village. As my prisoner tried to get loose, I bound him, and while I was busy with this I heard a shot. Seeing that all the men had their rifles ready, I expected the fight to begin, but George told me his prisoner had escaped and he had shot after him. The man had profited by George’s indecision to run away.This actual outbreak of the hostilities excited the people so that we thought it best to retire, taking our single prisoner with us. A few of the natives followed us, and when we left the village the relatives of the murderer broke out in violent wailing and weeping, thinking, as did the prisoner, Belni, himself, that we were going to eat him up, after having tortured him to death. Belni trembled all over, was very gentle and inclined to weep like a punished child, but quite resigned and not even offering any resistance. He only asked Macao anxiously what we were going to dowith him. Macao, furious at the death of his comrade, for whom he seemed to have felt real affection, put him in mortal fear, and was quite determined to avenge his murdered friend. We shut Belni up in the hold of the cutter and told the natives that they would have to hand over Bourbaki’s rifle and cartridges, and pay us two tusked pigs by noon of the next day.On this occasion we learned the reason for the murder: Belni’s brother had had an intrigue with the wife of the chief, and had been condemned by the latter to pay a few pigs. Being too poor to do this, he decided to pay his debt in an old-fashioned way by killing a man, and Bourbaki was unlucky enough to arrive just at the right time, and being a man from a distant district, there was no revenge to be feared. Belni, therefore, chose him as his victim. The two brothers chatted all night with him and Macao, and asked to see Bourbaki’s rifle, which he carelessly handed to them. When, towards morning, Macao left them for a few moments, they profited by the opportunity to shoot Bourbaki from behind, and to run away. Macao, rushing back, found his friend dead, and fled to the shore. By this deed the wrong to the chief was supposed to be made good—a very peculiar practice in native justice. It may be a remnant of old head-hunting traditions, inasmuch as Belni’s brother would have given the dead man’s head to the chief in payment, this being even more valuable than pigs.The first excitement over, our boys were seized by fear, even Macao and the other one who had accompanied us. Although they were in perfect safety onboard the cutter they feared all sorts of revenge from Belni’s relatives,—for instance, that they might cause a storm and wreck the cutter. We laughed at them, but they would not be cheered up, and, after all, Macao’s horrible dread that his old father was surely being eaten up by this time in the village was not quite groundless. We were not in the brightest of humours ourselves, as this event had considerably lessened our chances of recruiting at Big Nambas; the chief made us responsible for Bourbaki’s death, and asked an indemnity which we could hardly pay, except with the tusked pigs we demanded here.We could not stay longer in Tesbel Bay, as our boys were too much frightened, and the natives might turn against us at any moment. We could hardly get the boys to go ashore for water and firewood, for fear of an ambush. In the evening we fetched Belni out of the hold. He was still doleful and ready to cry, but seemed unconscious of any fault; he had killed a man, but that was rather an honourable act than a crime, and he only seemed to regret that it had turned out so unsatisfactorily. He did not seem to have much appetite, but swallowed his yam mechanically in great lumps. The boys shunned him visibly, all but Macao, who squatted down close before him, and gave him food with wild hatred in his eyes, and muttering awful threats. Icy-cold, cruel, with compressed lips and poisonous looks like a serpent’s, he hissed his curses and tortured Belni, who excused himself clumsily and shyly, playing with the yam and looking from one dark corner to the other, like a boybeing scolded. The scene was so gruesome that I had Belni shut up again, and we watched all night, for Macao was determined to take the murderer’s life. It was a dry, moonlit night; one of the boys was writhing with a pain in his stomach, and we could do nothing to help him, so they were all convinced it was caused by Belni’s relatives, and wanted to sail immediately. A warm breeze had driven mosquitoes to the cutter; it was a most unpleasant night.Next noon the natives appeared, about twenty strong, but without the second murderer. They said the shot had hit him, and that he had died during the night. This might have been true, and as we could do nothing against the village anyway, we let the matter drop, especially as they had brought us Bourbaki’s rifle and two tusked pigs. The chief said he hoped we were satisfied with him, and would not trouble anyone but the murderers.We returned to the cutter, and the pigs were put in the hold, where they seem to have kept good company with Belni, after a little preliminary squealing and shrieking. Then we sailed northward, with a breeze that carried us in four hours over the same distance for which we had taken twenty-four last time. It was a bitterly cold night. We decided to return home, fearing the boys would murder Belni in an unwatched moment, as they had asked several times, when the sea was high, whether we would not throw Belni into the water now. The passage to Santo was very rough. The waves thundered against the little old cutter, and we had a nasty tide-rip. We werequite soaked, and looking in through the portholes, we could see everything floating about in the cabin—blankets, saucepans, tins and pistols. We did not mind much, as we hoped to be at home by evening.Rest, cleanliness and a little comfort were very tempting after a fortnight in the filthy narrowness of the little craft. We had no reason to be vain of our success; but such trips are part of the game, and we planned a second visit to Big Nambas to reconcile the chief. We were glad to greet the cloud-hung coast of Santo, and soon entered the Segond Channel. There we discovered that the old boat had leaked to such an extent that we could have kept afloat for only a few hours longer, and had every reason to be glad the voyage was at an end. It was just as well that we had not noticed the leak during the passage.We brought Belni ashore; the thin, flabby fellow was a poor compensation for vigorous Bourbaki. He was set to work on the plantation, and as the Government was never informed of the affair, he is probably there to this day, and will stay until he dies.
Chapter IIIThe Segond Channel—life on a PlantationWhen the tide rose, we returned to the yacht and continued our cruise northward, passed the small islands of Rano, Atchin, Vao and others, crossed the treacherous Bougainville Strait between Malekula and Santo, and came to anchor in the Canal du Segond formed by Santo and Malo. This channel is about eight miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest point. On its shores, which belong to a French company, is a colony of about a hundred and fifty Frenchmen. The Segond Channel would be a good harbour but for very strong currents caused by the tides, which are unfavourable to small boats; its location, too, is not very central. The shores are flat, but rise abruptly at some points to a height of 150 m. There are level lands at the mouth of the Sarrakatta River and on the tablelands.The Sarrakatta is one of the sights of the New Hebrides, and a pull up the narrow stream affords one of the most impressive views to be had of tropical vegetation. The river cuts straight through the forest, so that the boat moves between two high walls of leafy green. Silently glides the stream, silently broods the forest, only the boat swishes softly, andsometimes a frightened fish splashes up. Every bend we round shows us new and surprisingly charming views: now we pass a giant tree, which towers up king-like on its iron-hard trunk far above the rest of the forest, trunk and limbs covered with a fine lacework of tender-leaved lianas; now we sweep along a high bank, under a bower of overhanging branches. The water caresses the tips of the twigs, and through the leaves the sun pours golden into the cool darkness. Again we glide into the light, and tangled shrubbery seams the river bank, from which long green strands of vines trail down and curl in the water like snakes. Knobby roots rise out of the ground; they have caught floating trunks, across which the water pours, lifting and dropping the wet grasses that grow on the rotten stems. Farther up the bushes are entirely covered with vines and creepers, whose large, thick leaves form a scaly coat of mail under which the half-strangled trees seem to fight in vain for air and freedom. In shallow places stiff bamboos sprout, their long yellow leaves trembling nervously in an imperceptible breeze; again we see trees hung with creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while we catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees, the tree-fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row back down stream, and like dream-pictures all the various green shapes of the forest sweep by and disappear.The Resident introduced me to the Frenchplanters, Mr. and Mrs. Ch., and asked them to take me in, which they agreed to do. Having rented an old plantation from the French company, they had had the good fortune to find a regular frame house ready for them.After I had moved into my quarters the Resident returned to Vila, and I remained on the borders of the wilderness. What followed now was a most unsatisfactory time of waiting, the first of many similar periods. Having no servants, I could undertake nothing independently, and since the planters were all suffering from lack of hands, I could not hire any boys. As the natives around the French plantations at the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated, I saw hardly any; but at least I got a good insight into the life on a plantation, such as it was.With his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about thirty boys, with whom he was trying to work the completely decayed plantation. Many acres were covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable management of the French company, the planters had changed continually and the system of planting just as often. Every manager had abandoned the work of his predecessor and begun planting anew on a different system, so that now there was an immense tract of land planted which had never yet yielded a crop. In a short time such intended plantations are overgrown with bush and reconquered by the wilderness; thus thousands of coffee trees were covered with vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It seem incredible that in two weeks, on clearedground, grass can grow up as tall as a man, and that after six months a cleared plantation can be covered with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one’s finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming fertility and the jealous advances of the forest are his most formidable enemies, directs his most strenuous efforts to keeping clear his plantation, especially while the plants are young and unable to fight down the weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the beginning it is the one essential duty, more so than planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an enormous task before him, and as he could not expect any return from the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as all planters do, and sowed corn, which yields a crop after three months.His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in rags, were just then occupied in gathering the big ears of corn. Sluggishly they threw the golden ears over their shoulders to the ground, where it was collected by the women and carried to the shed on the beach—a long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr. Ch. urged the men to hurry, as the corn had to be ready for shipment in a few days, thePacific, the French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates rapidly in the islands owing to the humid climate, so it cannot be stored long, especially where there is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can only be gathered just before the arrival of a steamer, making these last days very busy ones everywhere. It is fortunate for the planters that the native labourers are not yet organized and do not insist on an eight-hourday. As it was, Mr. Ch. had to leave more than half his crop to rot in the fields, a heavy rain having delayed the harvesting.The humidity at the Segond Channel is exceptionally great. As we stood on the fine coral sand that forms the shores of the channel, our clothes were damp with the rain from the weeds and shrubs which we had passed through while stumbling through the plantation. The steel-grey sea quivers, sleepy and pulpy looking; in front of us, in a grey mist, lies the flat island of Aore, the air smells mouldy, and brown rainclouds roll over the wall of primeval forest surrounding the clearing on three sides. The atmosphere is heavy, and a fine spray floats in the air and covers everything with moisture. Knives rust in one’s pocket, matches refuse to light, tobacco is like a sponge and paper like a rag. It had been like this for three months; no wonder malarial fever raged among the white population. Mr. Ch., after only one year’s sojourn here, looked like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She did the hard work of a planter’s wife with admirable courage, and, while she had never taken an active part in housekeeping in France, here she was standing all day long behind a smoky kitchen fire, cooking or washing dishes, assisted only by a very incapable and unsophisticated native woman.On our return to the house, which lies about 200 mètres inland, we found this black lady occupied with the extremely hard and puzzling task of laying thetable. It seemed to give her the greatest trouble, and the deep distrust with which she handled the plates found eloquent expression in queer sighs and mysterious exclamations in her native tongue, in resigned shakes of the head and emphatic smacking of the lips. She was a crooked bush-woman from the north of Malekula, where the people, especially the women, are unusually ugly and savage. A low forehead, small, deep-set eyes, and a snout-like mouth gave her a very animal look; yet she showed human feeling, and nursed a shrieking and howling orphan all day long with the most tender care. Her little head was shaved and two upper teeth broken out as a sign of matrimony, so she certainly was no beauty; but the sight of her clumsy working was a constant source of amusement to us men, very much less so to her mistress, to whom nothing but her sincere zeal and desire to help could make up for her utter inefficiency.OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ON AMBRYM.OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ONAMBRYM.It cannot be denied that the women from those islands, where their social standing is especially low, are not half so intelligent and teachable as those from places where they are more nearly equal to the men; probably because they are subdued and kept in degradation from early youth, and not allowed any initiative or opinions of their own. But physically these women are very efficient and quite equal to the men in field work, or even superior, being more industrious.The feat of setting the table was accomplished in about an hour, and we sat down to our simplemeal—tinned meat, yams and bananas. Then the foreman came in. Only a short time ago he was one of the finest warriors in the interior of Malekula, where cannibalism is still an everyday occurrence. He, too, wears his hair short, only, according to the present fashion, he lets the hair on his forehead grow in a roll-shaped bow across the head. He is well built, though rather short, and behaves with natural politeness. His voice is soft, his look gentle and in the doorway his dark figure shines in the lamplight like a bronze statue.Mr. Ch. tells him that the boys will have to work all night, at the same time promising an encouragement in the shape of a glass of wine to each. The natives’ craving for alcohol is often abused by unscrupulous whites. Although the sale of liquor to natives is strictly forbidden by the laws of the Condominium, the French authorities do not even seem to try to enforce this regulation, in fact, they rather impressed me as favouring the sale, thus protecting the interests of a degraded class of whites, to the detriment of a valuable race. As a consequence, there are not a few Frenchmen who make their living by selling spirits to natives, which may be called, without exaggeration, a murderous and criminal traffic.Others profit indirectly by the alcoholism of the islanders by selling liquor to their hands every Saturday, so as to make them run into debt; they will all spend their entire wages on drink. If, their term of engagement being over, they want to return to their homes, they are told that they are still deepin debt to their master, and that they will have to pay off by working for some time longer. The poor fellows stay on and on, continue to drink, are never out of debt, and never see their homes again. This practice has developed of late years in consequence of the scarcity of labour, and is nothing but slavery. It might easily be abolished by a slight effort on the part of the Government, but there is hardly any supervision over French plantations outside Port Vila, and in many plantations conditions exist which are an insult to our modern views on humane treatment. On English plantations there is but little brutality, owing to the Government’s careful supervision of the planters and the higher social and moral standing of the settlers in general.My host had some European conscience left, and treated his hands very humanely, but I dare say that in course of time, and pressed by adverse circumstances, even he resorted to means of finding cheap labour which were none too fair. The French by-laws permit the delivery of alcohol to natives in the shape of “medicine,” a stipulation which opens the door to every abuse.The boys were soon on hand, each awaiting his turn eagerly, yet trying to seemblasé. Some drank greedily, others tasted the sour wine in little sips like old experts; but all took care to turn their backs to us while drinking, as if from bashfulness. Then they went to work, giggling and happy.Meanwhile, those on the sick-list were coming up for the planter’s inspection. The diseases are mostlytuberculosis, colds, indigestion, fever and infections, and it is evident that if they receive any medical treatment at all, it is of a primitive and insufficient description. The planters work with fearfully strong plasters, patent medicines and “universal remedies,” used internally and externally by turns, so that the patient howls and the spectator shudders, and the results would be most disheartening if kind Nature did not often do the healing in spite of man’s efforts to prevent it. Naturally, every planter thinks himself an expert doctor, and is perfectly satisfied with his results.Mr. Ch. was ill with fever, nevertheless we went down to the work-shed. It was a pitch-dark night, the air was like that in a hothouse, smelling of earth and mould. The surf boomed sullenly on the beach, and heavy squalls flogged the forest. Sometimes a rotten branch snapped, and the sound travelled, dull and heavy, through the night.From far away we hear the noise of the engine peeling the corn-ears. Two of the natives turn the fly-wheels, and the engine gives them immense pleasure, all the more, the faster it runs. The partners are selected with care, and it is a matter of pride to turn wheels as long and as fast as possible; they encourage each other with wild shrieks and cries. It seemed as if the work had turned to a festival, as if it were a sort of dance, and the couples waited impatiently for their turn to drive the engine. The delight of the boys in the noise of the machinery was very favourable to the progress of the work, andat midnight a long row of full sacks stood in the shed. We stopped the work and told the boys to go to sleep. But the demon of dancing had taken hold of them, and they kept it up all night, and then went straight to work in the fields when the sun rose. By the third evening everything was ready for the arrival of thePacific, and the boys were deadly tired and lame.We were just sitting down to dinner one dull, heavy night, when we heard a steamer’s long, rough whistle. ThePacific. Everyone jumps up in excitement, for thePacificbrings a taste of civilization, and her arrival marks the end of a busy week and breaks the monotony of daily life. We run to the shore and light strong lamps at fixed points, to indicate the anchorage, and then we rush back to finish dinner and put on clean clothes. Meanwhile, the boys have been roused, and they arrive, sleepy, stiff and unwilling, aware that a hard night’s work is before them, loading the produce into the tenders.The steamer approaches quickly, enormous and gay in the darkness, then she slowly feels her way into the harbour, the anchor falls, and after a few oscillations the long line of brightly lit portholes lies quiet on the water, only their reflection flickers irregularly on the waves through the night. In all directions we can see the lights of the approaching boats of the planters, who come to announce their shipments and to spend a gay evening on board. There are always some passengers on the steamer, planters from other islands on their way to Vila orSydney, and soon carousing is in full swing, until the bar closes.All next day the steamer stays in the channel, taking on produce from every plantation, and for two days afterward merrymaking is kept up, then the quiet monotony of a tropical planter’s life sets in once more.Sometimes a diversion is caused by a boy rushing up to the house to announce that some “men-bush” are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers a few words in broken “biche la mar,” describing what he wants to buy—knives, cartridges, powder, tobacco, pipes, matches, calico, beads. “All right,” says Mr. Ch., and some of the men bring up primitive baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, filled with coprah or bunches of raw cocoa-nuts. All of them, especially the women, have carried great loads of these things from their villages in the interior on the poorest paths, marching for days.The baskets are weighed and the desired goods handed to the head-man. Here the whites make a profit of 200–300 per cent., while on the other islands,where there is more competition, they have to be satisfied with 30 per cent. Each piece is carefully examined by the natives: the pipes, to see if they draw, the matches, whether they strike, etc., while the crowd behind follows every movement with the greatest attention and mysterious whispers, constantly on the watch for any menace to safety. The lengthy bargaining over, the delegation turns away and the whole crowd disappears. In the nearest thicket they sit down and distribute the goods—perhaps a dozen boxes of matches, a few belts, or some yards of calico, two pounds of tobacco, and twenty pipes, a poor return, indeed, for their long journey. Possibly they will spend the night in the neighbourhood, under an overhanging rock, on the bare stone, all crowded round a fire for fear of the spirits of the night.Sometimes, having worked for another planter, they have a little money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time, except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering them other services. On the plantations they are suspicious and lazy, but quite harmless as long as they are not provoked. Mr. Ch. had had about thirty menworking on his plantation for quite some time, and everything had gone well, until one day one of them had fallen into the Sarrakatta and been drowned. According to native law, Mr. Ch. was responsible for his death, and should have paid for him, which he omitted to do. At first there was general dismay, no one dared approach the river any more; then the natives all returned to their villages, and a few days later they swarmed round the plantation with rifles to avenge their dead relative by murdering Mr. Ch. He was warned by his boys, who were from Malekula for the most part, and this saved his life. He armed his men, and after a siege of several weeks the bushmen gave up the watch and retired. But no one would return to work for him any more.FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.Altogether, the bushmen of Santo are none too reliable, and only the memory of a successful landing expedition of the English man-of-war a year ago keeps them quiet. On that occasion they had murdered an old Englishman and two of his daughters, just out of greed, so as to pillage his store. They had not found much, but they had to pay for the murder with the loss of their village, pigs and lives.I tried to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him. We sailed through the channel one rainy morning, but the wind dieddown and we had to anchor, as the current threatened to take us back. We profited by the stop to pay a visit to a Mr. R., who cultivated anarchistic principles, also a plantation which seemed in perfect condition and in direct opposition to his anti-capitalistic ideas. Mr. R. was one of those French colonists who, sprung from the poorest peasant stock, have no ambitions beyond finding a new and kindlier home. Economical, thrifty, used to hard work in the fields, Mr. R. had begun very modestly, but had prospered, and was now, while still a young man, the owner of a plantation that would make him rich in a few years. This good, solid peasant stock, of which France possesses so much, makes the best colonists, and as a rule they succeed far better than those who come to the tropics with the idea of making a fortune in a few years without working for it. These fall into the hands of the big Nouméa companies, and have the greatest trouble in getting out of debt. Not only do these firms lend money at exorbitant interest, but they stipulate that the planter will sell them all his produce and buy whatever he needs from them, and as they fix prices as they please, their returns are said to reach 30 per cent.Besides these two kinds of French settlers, there is a third, which comes from the penitentiary in Nouméa or its neighbourhood. We shall meet specimens of these in the following pages.After having duly admired the plantation of Mr. R.—he proved himself a real peasant, knew every plant by name, and was constantly stopping to picka dead leaf or prune a shoot—we continued our journey and arrived at Tangoa. Tangoa is a small island, on which the Presbyterian mission has established a central school for the more intelligent of the natives of the whole group, where they may be trained as teachers. The exterior of this school looks most comfortable. One half of the island is cleared and covered with a green lawn, one part is pasture for good-looking cattle, the other is a park in which nestle the cottages of the teachers,—the whole looks like an English country-seat. At some distance is a neatly built, well-kept village for the native pupils. I presented an introduction to the director. He seemed to think my endeavours extremely funny, asked if I was looking for the missing link, etc., so that I took a speedy leave.We spent a few lazy days on board the little cutter; the natives would not come down from their villages, in spite of frequent explosions of dynamite cartridges, the usual signal of recruiters to announce their arrival to the natives. It rained a good deal, and there was not much to do but to loaf on the beach. Here, one day, I saw an interesting method of fishing by poisoning the water, which is practised in many places. At low tide the natives rub a certain fruit on the stones of the reef, the juice mixes with the water in the pools and poisons the fish, so that after a short while they float senseless on the surface and may easily be caught.After a few days I was anxious to return to the Segond Channel, as I expected the arrival of theEnglish steamer, which I wanted to meet. I could not find any guide, and the cutter was to stay for some days longer, so I decided to go alone; the distance was only about 15 km., and I thought that with the aid of my compass I would find my way along the trail which was said to exist.I started in the morning with a few provisions and a dull bush-knife, at first along a fairly good path, which, however, soon divided into several tracks. I followed the one which seemed most likely to lead to my destination, but arrived at a deep lagoon, around which I had to make a long detour. Here the path came to a sudden stop in front of an impenetrable thicket of lianas which I could hardly cut with my knife. I climbed across fallen trunks, crawled along the ground beneath the creepers, struck an open spot once in a while, passed swamps and rocks,—in short, in a very little time I made an intimate acquaintance with the renowned Santo bush. Yet I imagined I was advancing nicely, so much so that I began to fear I had gone beyond my destination. About four o’clock in the afternoon I struck a small river and followed its crooked course to the coast, so as to get my bearings. Great was my disappointment on finding myself only about 1½ km. from the lagoon which I had left in the morning. This was a poor reward for eight hours’ hard work. I was ashamed to return to the cutter, and followed the shore, not wishing to repeat that morning’s experience in the forest. The walk along the beach was not agreeable at all, as it consisted ofthose corroded coral rocks, full of sharp points and edges, and shaped like melted tin poured into water. These rocks were very jagged, full of crevices, in which the swell thundered and foamed, and over which I had to jump. Once I fell in, cut my legs and hands most cruelly and had only my luck to thank that I did not break any bones, and got safely out of the damp, dark prison. But at least I could see where I was, and that I was getting on, and I preferred this to the uncertain struggle in the forest. In some places the coast rose to a high bank, round which I could not walk. I had to climb up on one side as best I could and descend on the other with the help of trees and vines. Thus, fighting my way along, I was overtaken by the sudden tropical night, and I had to stop where I was for fear of falling into some hole. A fall would have been a real calamity, as nobody would ever have found me or even looked for me on that lonely coast. I therefore sat down where I was, on the corals where they seemed least pointed. I did not succeed at all in making a fire; the night was quite dark and moonless, and a fine rain penetrated everything. I have rarely passed a longer night or felt so lonely. The new day revived my spirits, breakfast did not detain me long, as I had nothing to eat, so I kept along the shore, jumping and climbing, and had to swim through several lagoons, swarming, as I heard afterwards, with big sharks! After a while the coral shore changed into a sand beach, and after having waded for some hours more in the warm water with the little rags that wereleft of my boots, I arrived dead tired at the plantation of Mr. R. He was away, so I went to his neighbour’s, who was at dinner and kindly asked me to join him. Although it was only a flying-fox, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a meal after a twenty-four hours’ fast.The men were just starting for Mr. Ch.’s, and took me with them. My adventure had taught me the impassableness of the forest, and after that experience I was never again tempted to make excursions without a guide.
When the tide rose, we returned to the yacht and continued our cruise northward, passed the small islands of Rano, Atchin, Vao and others, crossed the treacherous Bougainville Strait between Malekula and Santo, and came to anchor in the Canal du Segond formed by Santo and Malo. This channel is about eight miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide at its narrowest point. On its shores, which belong to a French company, is a colony of about a hundred and fifty Frenchmen. The Segond Channel would be a good harbour but for very strong currents caused by the tides, which are unfavourable to small boats; its location, too, is not very central. The shores are flat, but rise abruptly at some points to a height of 150 m. There are level lands at the mouth of the Sarrakatta River and on the tablelands.
The Sarrakatta is one of the sights of the New Hebrides, and a pull up the narrow stream affords one of the most impressive views to be had of tropical vegetation. The river cuts straight through the forest, so that the boat moves between two high walls of leafy green. Silently glides the stream, silently broods the forest, only the boat swishes softly, andsometimes a frightened fish splashes up. Every bend we round shows us new and surprisingly charming views: now we pass a giant tree, which towers up king-like on its iron-hard trunk far above the rest of the forest, trunk and limbs covered with a fine lacework of tender-leaved lianas; now we sweep along a high bank, under a bower of overhanging branches. The water caresses the tips of the twigs, and through the leaves the sun pours golden into the cool darkness. Again we glide into the light, and tangled shrubbery seams the river bank, from which long green strands of vines trail down and curl in the water like snakes. Knobby roots rise out of the ground; they have caught floating trunks, across which the water pours, lifting and dropping the wet grasses that grow on the rotten stems. Farther up the bushes are entirely covered with vines and creepers, whose large, thick leaves form a scaly coat of mail under which the half-strangled trees seem to fight in vain for air and freedom. In shallow places stiff bamboos sprout, their long yellow leaves trembling nervously in an imperceptible breeze; again we see trees hung with creepers as if wearing torn flags; and once in a while we catch sight of that most charming of tropical trees, the tree-fern, with its lovely star-shaped crown, like a beautiful, dainty work of art in the midst of the uncultivated wilderness. As if in a dream we row back down stream, and like dream-pictures all the various green shapes of the forest sweep by and disappear.
The Resident introduced me to the Frenchplanters, Mr. and Mrs. Ch., and asked them to take me in, which they agreed to do. Having rented an old plantation from the French company, they had had the good fortune to find a regular frame house ready for them.
After I had moved into my quarters the Resident returned to Vila, and I remained on the borders of the wilderness. What followed now was a most unsatisfactory time of waiting, the first of many similar periods. Having no servants, I could undertake nothing independently, and since the planters were all suffering from lack of hands, I could not hire any boys. As the natives around the French plantations at the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated, I saw hardly any; but at least I got a good insight into the life on a plantation, such as it was.
With his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about thirty boys, with whom he was trying to work the completely decayed plantation. Many acres were covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable management of the French company, the planters had changed continually and the system of planting just as often. Every manager had abandoned the work of his predecessor and begun planting anew on a different system, so that now there was an immense tract of land planted which had never yet yielded a crop. In a short time such intended plantations are overgrown with bush and reconquered by the wilderness; thus thousands of coffee trees were covered with vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It seem incredible that in two weeks, on clearedground, grass can grow up as tall as a man, and that after six months a cleared plantation can be covered with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one’s finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming fertility and the jealous advances of the forest are his most formidable enemies, directs his most strenuous efforts to keeping clear his plantation, especially while the plants are young and unable to fight down the weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the beginning it is the one essential duty, more so than planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an enormous task before him, and as he could not expect any return from the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as all planters do, and sowed corn, which yields a crop after three months.
His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in rags, were just then occupied in gathering the big ears of corn. Sluggishly they threw the golden ears over their shoulders to the ground, where it was collected by the women and carried to the shed on the beach—a long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr. Ch. urged the men to hurry, as the corn had to be ready for shipment in a few days, thePacific, the French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates rapidly in the islands owing to the humid climate, so it cannot be stored long, especially where there is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can only be gathered just before the arrival of a steamer, making these last days very busy ones everywhere. It is fortunate for the planters that the native labourers are not yet organized and do not insist on an eight-hourday. As it was, Mr. Ch. had to leave more than half his crop to rot in the fields, a heavy rain having delayed the harvesting.
The humidity at the Segond Channel is exceptionally great. As we stood on the fine coral sand that forms the shores of the channel, our clothes were damp with the rain from the weeds and shrubs which we had passed through while stumbling through the plantation. The steel-grey sea quivers, sleepy and pulpy looking; in front of us, in a grey mist, lies the flat island of Aore, the air smells mouldy, and brown rainclouds roll over the wall of primeval forest surrounding the clearing on three sides. The atmosphere is heavy, and a fine spray floats in the air and covers everything with moisture. Knives rust in one’s pocket, matches refuse to light, tobacco is like a sponge and paper like a rag. It had been like this for three months; no wonder malarial fever raged among the white population. Mr. Ch., after only one year’s sojourn here, looked like a very sick man; he was frightfully thin and pale and very nervous; so was his wife, a delicate lady of good French family. She did the hard work of a planter’s wife with admirable courage, and, while she had never taken an active part in housekeeping in France, here she was standing all day long behind a smoky kitchen fire, cooking or washing dishes, assisted only by a very incapable and unsophisticated native woman.
On our return to the house, which lies about 200 mètres inland, we found this black lady occupied with the extremely hard and puzzling task of laying thetable. It seemed to give her the greatest trouble, and the deep distrust with which she handled the plates found eloquent expression in queer sighs and mysterious exclamations in her native tongue, in resigned shakes of the head and emphatic smacking of the lips. She was a crooked bush-woman from the north of Malekula, where the people, especially the women, are unusually ugly and savage. A low forehead, small, deep-set eyes, and a snout-like mouth gave her a very animal look; yet she showed human feeling, and nursed a shrieking and howling orphan all day long with the most tender care. Her little head was shaved and two upper teeth broken out as a sign of matrimony, so she certainly was no beauty; but the sight of her clumsy working was a constant source of amusement to us men, very much less so to her mistress, to whom nothing but her sincere zeal and desire to help could make up for her utter inefficiency.
OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ON AMBRYM.OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ONAMBRYM.
OLD MAN WITH YOUNG WIFE ONAMBRYM.
It cannot be denied that the women from those islands, where their social standing is especially low, are not half so intelligent and teachable as those from places where they are more nearly equal to the men; probably because they are subdued and kept in degradation from early youth, and not allowed any initiative or opinions of their own. But physically these women are very efficient and quite equal to the men in field work, or even superior, being more industrious.
The feat of setting the table was accomplished in about an hour, and we sat down to our simplemeal—tinned meat, yams and bananas. Then the foreman came in. Only a short time ago he was one of the finest warriors in the interior of Malekula, where cannibalism is still an everyday occurrence. He, too, wears his hair short, only, according to the present fashion, he lets the hair on his forehead grow in a roll-shaped bow across the head. He is well built, though rather short, and behaves with natural politeness. His voice is soft, his look gentle and in the doorway his dark figure shines in the lamplight like a bronze statue.
Mr. Ch. tells him that the boys will have to work all night, at the same time promising an encouragement in the shape of a glass of wine to each. The natives’ craving for alcohol is often abused by unscrupulous whites. Although the sale of liquor to natives is strictly forbidden by the laws of the Condominium, the French authorities do not even seem to try to enforce this regulation, in fact, they rather impressed me as favouring the sale, thus protecting the interests of a degraded class of whites, to the detriment of a valuable race. As a consequence, there are not a few Frenchmen who make their living by selling spirits to natives, which may be called, without exaggeration, a murderous and criminal traffic.
Others profit indirectly by the alcoholism of the islanders by selling liquor to their hands every Saturday, so as to make them run into debt; they will all spend their entire wages on drink. If, their term of engagement being over, they want to return to their homes, they are told that they are still deepin debt to their master, and that they will have to pay off by working for some time longer. The poor fellows stay on and on, continue to drink, are never out of debt, and never see their homes again. This practice has developed of late years in consequence of the scarcity of labour, and is nothing but slavery. It might easily be abolished by a slight effort on the part of the Government, but there is hardly any supervision over French plantations outside Port Vila, and in many plantations conditions exist which are an insult to our modern views on humane treatment. On English plantations there is but little brutality, owing to the Government’s careful supervision of the planters and the higher social and moral standing of the settlers in general.
My host had some European conscience left, and treated his hands very humanely, but I dare say that in course of time, and pressed by adverse circumstances, even he resorted to means of finding cheap labour which were none too fair. The French by-laws permit the delivery of alcohol to natives in the shape of “medicine,” a stipulation which opens the door to every abuse.
The boys were soon on hand, each awaiting his turn eagerly, yet trying to seemblasé. Some drank greedily, others tasted the sour wine in little sips like old experts; but all took care to turn their backs to us while drinking, as if from bashfulness. Then they went to work, giggling and happy.
Meanwhile, those on the sick-list were coming up for the planter’s inspection. The diseases are mostlytuberculosis, colds, indigestion, fever and infections, and it is evident that if they receive any medical treatment at all, it is of a primitive and insufficient description. The planters work with fearfully strong plasters, patent medicines and “universal remedies,” used internally and externally by turns, so that the patient howls and the spectator shudders, and the results would be most disheartening if kind Nature did not often do the healing in spite of man’s efforts to prevent it. Naturally, every planter thinks himself an expert doctor, and is perfectly satisfied with his results.
Mr. Ch. was ill with fever, nevertheless we went down to the work-shed. It was a pitch-dark night, the air was like that in a hothouse, smelling of earth and mould. The surf boomed sullenly on the beach, and heavy squalls flogged the forest. Sometimes a rotten branch snapped, and the sound travelled, dull and heavy, through the night.
From far away we hear the noise of the engine peeling the corn-ears. Two of the natives turn the fly-wheels, and the engine gives them immense pleasure, all the more, the faster it runs. The partners are selected with care, and it is a matter of pride to turn wheels as long and as fast as possible; they encourage each other with wild shrieks and cries. It seemed as if the work had turned to a festival, as if it were a sort of dance, and the couples waited impatiently for their turn to drive the engine. The delight of the boys in the noise of the machinery was very favourable to the progress of the work, andat midnight a long row of full sacks stood in the shed. We stopped the work and told the boys to go to sleep. But the demon of dancing had taken hold of them, and they kept it up all night, and then went straight to work in the fields when the sun rose. By the third evening everything was ready for the arrival of thePacific, and the boys were deadly tired and lame.
We were just sitting down to dinner one dull, heavy night, when we heard a steamer’s long, rough whistle. ThePacific. Everyone jumps up in excitement, for thePacificbrings a taste of civilization, and her arrival marks the end of a busy week and breaks the monotony of daily life. We run to the shore and light strong lamps at fixed points, to indicate the anchorage, and then we rush back to finish dinner and put on clean clothes. Meanwhile, the boys have been roused, and they arrive, sleepy, stiff and unwilling, aware that a hard night’s work is before them, loading the produce into the tenders.
The steamer approaches quickly, enormous and gay in the darkness, then she slowly feels her way into the harbour, the anchor falls, and after a few oscillations the long line of brightly lit portholes lies quiet on the water, only their reflection flickers irregularly on the waves through the night. In all directions we can see the lights of the approaching boats of the planters, who come to announce their shipments and to spend a gay evening on board. There are always some passengers on the steamer, planters from other islands on their way to Vila orSydney, and soon carousing is in full swing, until the bar closes.
All next day the steamer stays in the channel, taking on produce from every plantation, and for two days afterward merrymaking is kept up, then the quiet monotony of a tropical planter’s life sets in once more.
Sometimes a diversion is caused by a boy rushing up to the house to announce that some “men-bush” are approaching. Going to the veranda, we see some lean figures with big mops of hair coming slowly down the narrow path from the forest, with soft, light steps. Some distance behind follows a crowd of others, who squat down near the last shrubs and examine everything with shy, suspicious eyes, while the leaders approach the house. Nearly all carry old Snider rifles, always loaded and cocked. The leaders stand silent for a while near the veranda, then one of them whispers a few words in broken “biche la mar,” describing what he wants to buy—knives, cartridges, powder, tobacco, pipes, matches, calico, beads. “All right,” says Mr. Ch., and some of the men bring up primitive baskets of cocoa-nut leaves, filled with coprah or bunches of raw cocoa-nuts. All of them, especially the women, have carried great loads of these things from their villages in the interior on the poorest paths, marching for days.
The baskets are weighed and the desired goods handed to the head-man. Here the whites make a profit of 200–300 per cent., while on the other islands,where there is more competition, they have to be satisfied with 30 per cent. Each piece is carefully examined by the natives: the pipes, to see if they draw, the matches, whether they strike, etc., while the crowd behind follows every movement with the greatest attention and mysterious whispers, constantly on the watch for any menace to safety. The lengthy bargaining over, the delegation turns away and the whole crowd disappears. In the nearest thicket they sit down and distribute the goods—perhaps a dozen boxes of matches, a few belts, or some yards of calico, two pounds of tobacco, and twenty pipes, a poor return, indeed, for their long journey. Possibly they will spend the night in the neighbourhood, under an overhanging rock, on the bare stone, all crowded round a fire for fear of the spirits of the night.
Sometimes, having worked for another planter, they have a little money. Although every planter keeps his own store, the natives, as a rule, prefer to buy from his neighbour, from vague if not quite unjustified suspicion. They rarely engage for any length of time, except when driven by the desire to buy some valuable object, generally a rifle, without which no native likes to be seen in Santo to-day. In that case several men work together for one, who afterwards indemnifies them for their help in native fashion by giving them pigs or rendering them other services. On the plantations they are suspicious and lazy, but quite harmless as long as they are not provoked. Mr. Ch. had had about thirty menworking on his plantation for quite some time, and everything had gone well, until one day one of them had fallen into the Sarrakatta and been drowned. According to native law, Mr. Ch. was responsible for his death, and should have paid for him, which he omitted to do. At first there was general dismay, no one dared approach the river any more; then the natives all returned to their villages, and a few days later they swarmed round the plantation with rifles to avenge their dead relative by murdering Mr. Ch. He was warned by his boys, who were from Malekula for the most part, and this saved his life. He armed his men, and after a siege of several weeks the bushmen gave up the watch and retired. But no one would return to work for him any more.
FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.
FRONT Of A CHIEF’S HOUSE ON VENUA LAVA.
Altogether, the bushmen of Santo are none too reliable, and only the memory of a successful landing expedition of the English man-of-war a year ago keeps them quiet. On that occasion they had murdered an old Englishman and two of his daughters, just out of greed, so as to pillage his store. They had not found much, but they had to pay for the murder with the loss of their village, pigs and lives.
I tried to find boys at the south-west corner of Santo, where the natives frequently descend to the shore. A neighbour of Mr. Ch., a young Frenchman, was going there in a small cutter to buy wood for dyeing mats to sell to the natives of Malekula, and he kindly took me with him. We sailed through the channel one rainy morning, but the wind dieddown and we had to anchor, as the current threatened to take us back. We profited by the stop to pay a visit to a Mr. R., who cultivated anarchistic principles, also a plantation which seemed in perfect condition and in direct opposition to his anti-capitalistic ideas. Mr. R. was one of those French colonists who, sprung from the poorest peasant stock, have no ambitions beyond finding a new and kindlier home. Economical, thrifty, used to hard work in the fields, Mr. R. had begun very modestly, but had prospered, and was now, while still a young man, the owner of a plantation that would make him rich in a few years. This good, solid peasant stock, of which France possesses so much, makes the best colonists, and as a rule they succeed far better than those who come to the tropics with the idea of making a fortune in a few years without working for it. These fall into the hands of the big Nouméa companies, and have the greatest trouble in getting out of debt. Not only do these firms lend money at exorbitant interest, but they stipulate that the planter will sell them all his produce and buy whatever he needs from them, and as they fix prices as they please, their returns are said to reach 30 per cent.
Besides these two kinds of French settlers, there is a third, which comes from the penitentiary in Nouméa or its neighbourhood. We shall meet specimens of these in the following pages.
After having duly admired the plantation of Mr. R.—he proved himself a real peasant, knew every plant by name, and was constantly stopping to picka dead leaf or prune a shoot—we continued our journey and arrived at Tangoa. Tangoa is a small island, on which the Presbyterian mission has established a central school for the more intelligent of the natives of the whole group, where they may be trained as teachers. The exterior of this school looks most comfortable. One half of the island is cleared and covered with a green lawn, one part is pasture for good-looking cattle, the other is a park in which nestle the cottages of the teachers,—the whole looks like an English country-seat. At some distance is a neatly built, well-kept village for the native pupils. I presented an introduction to the director. He seemed to think my endeavours extremely funny, asked if I was looking for the missing link, etc., so that I took a speedy leave.
We spent a few lazy days on board the little cutter; the natives would not come down from their villages, in spite of frequent explosions of dynamite cartridges, the usual signal of recruiters to announce their arrival to the natives. It rained a good deal, and there was not much to do but to loaf on the beach. Here, one day, I saw an interesting method of fishing by poisoning the water, which is practised in many places. At low tide the natives rub a certain fruit on the stones of the reef, the juice mixes with the water in the pools and poisons the fish, so that after a short while they float senseless on the surface and may easily be caught.
After a few days I was anxious to return to the Segond Channel, as I expected the arrival of theEnglish steamer, which I wanted to meet. I could not find any guide, and the cutter was to stay for some days longer, so I decided to go alone; the distance was only about 15 km., and I thought that with the aid of my compass I would find my way along the trail which was said to exist.
I started in the morning with a few provisions and a dull bush-knife, at first along a fairly good path, which, however, soon divided into several tracks. I followed the one which seemed most likely to lead to my destination, but arrived at a deep lagoon, around which I had to make a long detour. Here the path came to a sudden stop in front of an impenetrable thicket of lianas which I could hardly cut with my knife. I climbed across fallen trunks, crawled along the ground beneath the creepers, struck an open spot once in a while, passed swamps and rocks,—in short, in a very little time I made an intimate acquaintance with the renowned Santo bush. Yet I imagined I was advancing nicely, so much so that I began to fear I had gone beyond my destination. About four o’clock in the afternoon I struck a small river and followed its crooked course to the coast, so as to get my bearings. Great was my disappointment on finding myself only about 1½ km. from the lagoon which I had left in the morning. This was a poor reward for eight hours’ hard work. I was ashamed to return to the cutter, and followed the shore, not wishing to repeat that morning’s experience in the forest. The walk along the beach was not agreeable at all, as it consisted ofthose corroded coral rocks, full of sharp points and edges, and shaped like melted tin poured into water. These rocks were very jagged, full of crevices, in which the swell thundered and foamed, and over which I had to jump. Once I fell in, cut my legs and hands most cruelly and had only my luck to thank that I did not break any bones, and got safely out of the damp, dark prison. But at least I could see where I was, and that I was getting on, and I preferred this to the uncertain struggle in the forest. In some places the coast rose to a high bank, round which I could not walk. I had to climb up on one side as best I could and descend on the other with the help of trees and vines. Thus, fighting my way along, I was overtaken by the sudden tropical night, and I had to stop where I was for fear of falling into some hole. A fall would have been a real calamity, as nobody would ever have found me or even looked for me on that lonely coast. I therefore sat down where I was, on the corals where they seemed least pointed. I did not succeed at all in making a fire; the night was quite dark and moonless, and a fine rain penetrated everything. I have rarely passed a longer night or felt so lonely. The new day revived my spirits, breakfast did not detain me long, as I had nothing to eat, so I kept along the shore, jumping and climbing, and had to swim through several lagoons, swarming, as I heard afterwards, with big sharks! After a while the coral shore changed into a sand beach, and after having waded for some hours more in the warm water with the little rags that wereleft of my boots, I arrived dead tired at the plantation of Mr. R. He was away, so I went to his neighbour’s, who was at dinner and kindly asked me to join him. Although it was only a flying-fox, I enjoyed it as a man enjoys a meal after a twenty-four hours’ fast.
The men were just starting for Mr. Ch.’s, and took me with them. My adventure had taught me the impassableness of the forest, and after that experience I was never again tempted to make excursions without a guide.
Chapter IVRecruiting for NativesA few days later the English steamer came, bringing my luggage but no hope of improvement in my dull existence. A French survey party arrived too, and set to work, but as they had not enough boys with them, I could not join them. I spent my days as well as I could, collected a few zoological specimens, and read Mr. Ch.’s large stock of French novels until I felt quite silly.At last an occasion offered to see primitive natives. George, the son of a neighbour, had agreed to go recruiting for Mr. Ch. As I have said before, providing sufficient labour is one of the most important problems to the planter in the New Hebrides. Formerly there were professional recruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have followed any other occupation, and sold the natives to the planters at a fair profit. In their schooners they hung about the shore, filled the natives with liquor and kidnapped them, or simply drove them on board wholesale, with the help of armed Loyalty boys. Their methods were as various as they were cruel, murder was a daily occurrence, and, of course, the recruiters were hated by the natives, who attacked and killed them whenever they got a chance. Thebetter class of planters would not countenance this mode of procedure, and the natives are now experienced enough not to enlist for work under a master they do not know. Also the English Government keeps a strict watch on the recruiting, so that the professional recruiter is dying out, and every planter has to go in search of hands for himself. But while the English Government keeps a sharp eye on these matters, the French Government is as lenient in this as in the question of the sale of alcohol, so that frequent kidnapping and many cruelties occur in the northern part of the group, and slavery still exists. I shall relate a few recruiting stories later on: some general remarks on the subject may not be amiss here.MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.In years past the natives crowded the recruiting schooners by hundreds, driven by the greed for European luxuries, by desire for change, and inexperience; to-day this is the case in but very few and savage districts. Generally the natives have some idea of what they may expect; moreover, by trading with coprah they can buy all they need and want. They enlist nowadays from quite different motives. With young people it is the desire to travel and to “see the world,” and to escape the strict village laws that govern them, especially in sexual matters, and to get rid of the supervision of the whole tribe. Sometimes, but only in islands poor in cocoa-nut trees, it is the desire to earn money to buy a woman, a very expensive article at present. Then many seek refuge in the plantations from persecutionof all sorts, from revenge, or punishment for some misdeed at home. Some are lovers who have run away from their tribe to escape the rage of an injured husband. Thus recruiting directly favours the general anarchy and immorality, and indirectly as well, since the recruiters do their best to create as much trouble as possible in the villages, knowing it will be to their advantage. If they hear of a feud raging between two tribes, they collect at the shore and try to pick up fugitives; if there is no war, they do their best to occasion one, by intrigue, alcohol, oragents provocateurs. They intoxicate men and women, and make them enlist in that condition; young men are shown pretty women, and promised all the joys of Paradise in the plantations. If these tricks fail, the recruiters simply kidnap men and women while bathing. This may suffice to show that, as a rule, they do not use fair means to find hands, and it is hardly surprising that where they have been they leave behind them wrecked families, unhappiness, enmity, murder and a deep hatred of the white man in general as the cause of all this misery. This recruiting is not only immoral in the highest degree, but also very harmful to the race, and it is to-day one of the principal reasons for its decay.Those planters who from principle or from fear of the law do not resort to such means generally have a special recruiting district, where they are well known, and where the natives know the treatment they are likely to get on the plantation, and feel sure they will not be cheated, and will be taken backto their homes in due time. These planters, I am happy to say, find hands enough, as a rule, while the natives take care not to go to a French plantation if they can help it. The system of recruiting is very simple. The cutter anchors at some distance offshore, and a dynamite cartridge is exploded to announce her arrival; some time afterwards one of the whale-boats goes ashore, all the crew armed to the teeth, while the other boat lies a short distance off, to watch the natives, and to cover the retreat of those in the first boat in case of attack. The planter, as a rule, stays on board his cutter. These warlike practices are really unnecessary in many places, but as one never knows what indiscretions the last recruiter may have committed, and as the natives consider all whites as belonging to one organization, it is the part of prudence to follow this old recruiting rule.I will not pretend to say that the natives will never attack without provocation. Even Cook, who certainly was both careful and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty that no attack on a recruiting-ship or on any white man occurs without some past brutality on the part of a European to account for it. As one of the Governments does nothing to abolish kidnapping, and as the plantations go to ruin for want of labour, it would be to the interest both of the settlers and of the natives to abolish the present recruiting systementirely, and to introduce a conscription for work in its place, so that each male would have to work for a term of years on a plantation for adequate wages and good treatment. This would be of advantage to the islanders even more than to the planters. It would create order, and would employ the natives in useful work for the development of their own country.It will appear from all this that recruiting is still a somewhat dangerous undertaking, especially on the north-west coast of Malekula, the home of the most primitive and savage tribes of all the group.George, our captain, was a strange fellow, about seventeen years of age: he might just as well have been forty. Pale, with small grey eyes and a suspicious look, a long hooked nose, and narrow, yet hanging lips, he walked with bent back and crooked knees, always bare-footed, in blue dungaree trousers, green shirt and an old weather-beaten hat. He hardly ever spoke; when he did, it was very suddenly, very fast and very low, so that no one could understand him except his boys, who evidently knew instinctively what he meant. The natives are very clever in these matters. He was brave, an excellent sailor for his age, and he knew the channels and all the anchorages. His boat may have been 6 or 7 mètres long and 3 mètres wide; she was cutter-rigged, and was probably very suitable for a trip of a few days, but quite insufficient for a cruise of several weeks, such as we were planning. The deck was full of cases of provisions, so that only a little space was clear for us at the stern. Thecabin was about 2 mètres long, 1½ mètre wide, and 1½ mètre high, and was crammed with stuff—tinned meats, cloths, guns, trading goods, etc. One person could wriggle in it, crawling on hands and knees, but two had to wind round each other in impossible positions, and it was quite unthinkable that both should spend the night below. But with the happy carelessness and impatience of a long-delayed start, we did not think of the hardships of the future, and in fair weather, when the stay on deck in the brisk breeze was extremely pleasant, as on that first morning, existence on board seemed very bearable; but when it rained, and it rained very often and very hard, it was exceptionally disagreeable.Mr. George took no interest in such details. Although he could have improved matters without much trouble, he was too lazy to take the trouble. The sun- and rain-sail was fixed so low that one could not stand upright, and anyone who has experienced this for some time knows how irritating it is. For food George did not seem to care at all. Not only did he lack the sense of taste, but he seemed to have an unhuman stomach, for he ate everything, at any time, and in any condition; raw or cooked, digestible or not, he swallowed it silently and greedily, and thought it quite unnecessary when I wanted the boys to cook some rice for me, or to wash a plate. The tea was generally made with brackish water which was perfectly sickening. George had always just eaten when I announced that dinner was ready, andfor answer he generally wrapped himself in his blankets and fell asleep. The consequence was that each of us lived his own life, and the companionship which might have made up for many insufficiencies on board was lacking entirely.It was the first sunny day after many rainy ones when the current carried us through the channel. When we got on too slowly the oars had to help. After several hours we arrived in the open, and a fresh breeze carried us quickly alongside the small islands of Aore, Tutuba and Malo. Blue, white-crested waves lifted us up so high that we could look far over the foaming sea, and again we sank down in a valley, out of which we could only see the nearest waves rolling threateningly towards us. Behind us the little dinghy shot down the swells, gliding on the water like a duck. In the late afternoon we approached the north point of Malekula, and followed the west coast southward, towards the country of the “Big Nambas”—our destination. Contrasting with other islands of the archipelago, Malekula does not seem densely covered with vegetation at this point. We do not see much of the impenetrable bush, but rather a scanty growth of grass on the coral reefs, a few shrubs and she-oaks, then a narrow belt of forest covering the steep cliffs and sides of the hills, on whose backs we find extensive areas covered with reed-grass. Even a luxuriant forest does not look gay on a dull day, and this barren landscape looked most inhospitable in the grey mist of the afternoon. We slowly followed a coast of ragged coral patches,alternating with light sand beaches. Towards nightfall we anchored near a stony shore, flanked by two high cliffs, in about 10 fathoms of the most transparent water. We could see in the depths the irregular shapes of the rocks, separated by white sand, and the soft mysterious colours in which the living coral shines like a giant carpet. The sea was quiet as a pond, yet we were on the shores of that endless ocean that reaches westward to the Torres Straits.Torn clouds floated across the hills towards the north-west, the stars shone dull, and it was very lonely and oppressively silent, nowhere was there a trace of life, human or animal. Lying on deck, I listened to the sound of the surf breaking in the different little bays near and far, in a monotonous measure, soft and yet irresistible. It is the voice of the sea in its cleansing process, the continual grinding and casting out of all impurities, the eternal war against the land and its products, and the final destruction of the earth itself.The district of the Big Nambas, to whose shores we had come, takes its name from the size of a certain article of dress, the “Nambas,” which partly replaces our trousers, and is worn in different forms over the greater part of the archipelago, but nowhere of such size as here. It is such an odd object that it may well give its name to the country. Big Nambas is still the least known part of the islands, and hardly any white has ever set foot in the interior. Unlike those of other districts, the natives here have preserved their old habits and strict organization, and thisis evidently the reason why they have not degenerated and decayed. The old chiefs are still as powerful as ever, and preserve peace and order, while they themselves do as they please. Big Nambas has had but little contact with the whites, especially the recruiters, so that the population is not demoralized, nor the chief’s power undermined. Of course it is to the chief’s interest to have as strong a tribe as possible, and they reserve to themselves the right of killing offenders, and take all revenge in their own hands. They watch the women and prevent child-murder and such things, and although their reign is one of terror, their influence, as a whole, on the race is not bad, because they suppress many vices that break out as soon as they slacken their severity. The chiefs in Big Nambas seem to have felt this, and systematically opposed the intercourse with whites. But this district is just where the best workmen come from, and the population is densest, and that is why the recruiters have tried again and again of late years to get hold of Big Nambas, but with little success, for so far only few men have enlisted. One of them was on our cutter, and had to serve as interpreter. The other four of the five boys were from Malekula, a little farther south. Our man from Big Nambas was known on the plantation as Bourbaki, and had enlisted two years ago. Before that he had been professional murderer and provider of human flesh to the great chief. Now he was a useful and quiet foreman on the plantation, always cheerful, very intelligent, strong, brutal, with small,shrewd eyes and a big mouth, apparently quite happy in civilization, and devoted to George. He was one of the few natives who openly admitted his liking for human flesh, and rapturously described its incomparable tenderness, whiteness and delicacy. A year ago, when visiting his village, he had been inconsolable because he had come a day late for a cannibal feast, and had blamed his father bitterly for not having saved a piece for him. Aside from this ghoulish propensity, Bourbaki was a thoroughly nice fellow, obliging, reliable and as happy as a child at the prospect of seeing his father again. We expected good service and help in recruiting from him, and promised him ample head-money.A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.Bourbaki had run away without the permission of his chief, who was furious at the loss of his best man, and had given orders to kill the recruiter, a brother-in-law of George. Some natives had ambushed and shot at them while entering the whale-boat; the white had received several wounds, and a native woman had been killed. The boat pulled away rapidly. Bourbaki laughed, and, indeed, by this time the little incident was quite forgotten, as its only victim had been a woman.The morning was damp and dull. The hills came down to the sea in slopes of grey-green, the shore was a soft brown, and the rocks lay in dark patches on the beach, separated from the greyish-green of the sea by the white line of the breakers. The hollow sound of the dynamite explosions glided along the slopes and was swallowed in distant space.A few hours later, thinking the natives might be coming, we got our arms ready: each of us had a revolver and a repeating rifle, the boys had old Sniders. The cutter lay about 200 mètres off-shore, and we could see everything that was going on on the beach. Behind the flat, stony shore the forest-covered hills rose in a steep cliff to a tableland about 100 mètres high. On the water we were in perfect safety, for the villages lie far inland, and the Big Nambas are no sailors, hate the sea and possess no canoes. They only come to the beach occasionally, to get a few crabs and shell-fish, yet each tribe has its own place on the shore, where no stranger is admitted.We took Bourbaki ashore; he was very anxious to go home, and promptly disappeared in the bush, his Snider on his shoulder. We then returned to the cutter and waited. It is quite useless to be in a hurry when recruiting, but one certainly needs a supply of patience, for the natives have no idea of the value of time, and cannot understand the rush which our civilization has created.Late in the afternoon a few naked figures appeared on the beach. One of them signalled with a branch, and soon others followed, till about fifty men had assembled, and in the background, half-hidden by shrubs, stood half a dozen women. We entered the whale-boats, two boys and a white man in each, and slowly approached the shore. All the natives carried their rifles in their right hands and yams in their left, making signs to show that they wished to trade.We gave them to understand that they must first put down their muskets, and when they hesitated we cocked our rifles and waited. Some of them went back to the forest and laid down their guns, while the others sat down at a distance and watched. We promptly put down our rifles, approached and showed our trade-goods—tobacco, matches, clay pipes and calico. Hesitating, suspicious, yet tempted, they crowded round the boat and offered their yams, excitedly shouting and gesticulating, talking and laughing. They had quite enormous yams, which they traded for one or two sticks of tobacco or as many pipes. Matches and calico were not much in demand. Our visitors were mostly well-built, medium-sized men of every age, and looked very savage and dangerous. They were nearly naked, but for a belt of bark around their waists, about 20 cm. wide, which they wore wound several times around their bodies, so that it stood out like a thick ring. Over this they had bound narrow ribbons of braided fibres, dyed in red patterns, the ends of the ribbons falling down in large tassels. Under this belt is stuck the end of the enormous nambas, also consisting of red grass fibres. Added to this scanty dress are small ornaments, tortoise-shell ear-rings, bamboo combs, bracelets embroidered with rings of shell and cocoa-nut, necklaces, and thin bands bound under the knees and over the ankles.The beautiful, lithe, supple bodies support a head covered with long, curly hair, and the face is framed by a long and fairly well-kept beard. Theeyes roll unsteadily, and their dark and penetrating look is in no wise softened by the brown colouring of the scela. The nose is only slightly concave, the sides are large and thick, and their width is increased by a bamboo or stone cylinder stuck through the septum. Both nose and eyes are overhung by a thicktorus. The upper lip is generally short and rarely covers the mouth, which is exceptionally large and wide, and displays a set of teeth of remarkable strength and perfection. The whole body is covered with a thick layer of greasy soot. Such is the appearance of the modern man-eater.Just at first we did not feel any too comfortable or anxious to go ashore, and we watched our neighbours very carefully. They, however, were hardly less frightened and suspicious; but after a while, through the excitement of trading, they became more confident, forgot their suspicions and bargained noisily, as happy as a crowd of boys; still, any violent movement on our part startled them. For instance, several of them started to run for the woods when I hastily grabbed a pipe that a roll of the boat had set slipping off the seat.After having filled the boats to the brim with yams, and the first eagerness of bartering over, we ventured ashore. A suspicious crowd stood around us and watched every movement. We first showed them our weapons, and a violent smacking of the lips and long-drawn whistles, or a grunting “Whau!” bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the largerthe bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more respect for our “little guns.”Soon they became more daring, came closer and began to feel us, first touching us lightly with the finger-tips, then with their hands. They wanted to look at and handle everything, cartridge-belts, pipes, hats and clothes. When all these had been examined, they investigated our persons, and to me, at least, not being used to this, it was most disagreeable. I did not mind when they tucked up our sleeves and trousers and compared the whiteness and softness of our skin with their own dark hide, nor when they softly and caressingly stroked the soft skin on the inner side of our arms and legs, vigorously smacking their lips the while; but when they began to feel the tenderness and probably the delicacy of our muscles, and tried to estimate our fitness for a royal repast, muttering deep grunts, constantly smacking their lips, and evidently highly satisfied with the result of their investigation, I did not enjoy the situation any more; still less when I saw an ugly-looking fellow trembling violently from greedy desire, rolling his eyes in wild exultation and performing an anticipatory cannibal dinner-dance. We gradually began to shake off this wearisomely intimate crowd; the fact that there were two of us, and that I was not alone in this situationwas very comforting. However, in the course of the next few years I became accustomed to this treatment, though I never again met it in such crudeness.We had slowly approached the forest and could get a few glimpses of the women, who had kept quite in the background and hid still more when we came near. They had braided aprons around their waists and rolled mats on their heads. Nearly all of them carried babies on their hips, and they looked fairly healthy, although the children were full of sores. Evidently the men did not like our looking at the ladies; they pushed us back and drove the women away. We returned to the boats, and the natives retired too, howling, shrieking and laughing. Towards evening another crowd arrived, and the performance was repeated in every detail. Happy over the bartered goods, they began to dance, first decorating themselves with tall branches stuck in the back of their belts. They jumped from one foot to the other, sometimes turning round, and singing in a rough, deep monotone. We withdrew to the boats, and they dispersed on the shore, lighted fires and roasted the yams they had left.Far away across the sea there was lightning, the surf boomed more heavily than by day, the cutter rolled more violently and restlessly and the whaleboat scraped against her sides, while the wind roared through the forest gullies and thunder threatened behind the hills. We felt lonely in the thick darkness, with the tempest approaching steadily, afloat on a tiny shell, alone against the fury of the elements.The lamp was blown out, and we lay on deck listening to the storm, until a heavy squall drove us below, to spend the night in a stuffy atmosphere, in uncomfortable positions, amid wild dreams. Next morning there were again about twenty men on the shore, and again the same performances were gone through. Evidently the people, influenced by Bourbaki, who was still in the village, were more confident, and left their weapons behind of their own accord. They came to trade, and when their provisions of yam were exhausted, most of them left; only a few, mostly young fellows, wanted to stay, but some older men stayed with them, so as to prevent them from going on board and enlisting. Evidently the young men were attracted by all our wonderful treasures, and would have liked to see the country where all these things came from. They imagined the plantations must be very beautiful places, while the old men had vague notions to the contrary, and were afraid of losing their young braves.During a lull in the proceedings we climbed the narrow, steep and slippery path up to the tableland in order to get an idea of the country behind the hills. Half-way up we met two old men carrying yam down to the beach. They were terrified at sight of us, began to tremble, stopped and spoke to us excitedly. We immediately laid down our rifles, and signed to them to approach, but they suddenly dropped their loads, ran off and disappeared in the bush. They evidently feared we had come to kidnap them, and we decided it was wiser to return to the beach, soas not to irritate the people. Shortly afterwards another crowd of natives came along the beach carrying yam. They approached with extreme care, ready to fight or fly, but they were less afraid of us than of the natives, for whom that part of the beach was reserved, and with whom we had been trading. They were enemies of the newcomers, who knew that they were outside their own territory and might expect an attack any moment. Squatting down near us, they anxiously watched the forest, ever ready to jump up. One of them, who spoke a little biche la mar, came up to me and asked me to anchor that night near their beach, and buy yams from them, which we promised to do. At a sound in the forest they jumped up and ran away. George, wishing to talk more with them, took his rifle and ran after them, but they had already retreated behind some boulders, and were waving their rifles and signalling him to stay where he was. They thought we were in a plot with other natives, and had ambushed them. To such a degree do these people live in constant fear, and thus arise misunderstandings which end in death, unless the whites are very prudent and quiet. Many a recruiter in our case would have welcomed this apparent provocation to shoot at the natives from a safe distance with his superior rifle.All day it rained in heavy squalls, coming from over the hills; everything was damp, the night was dark and still and we sighed in our narrow cell of a cabin. Next morning Bourbaki came back with a new crowd of natives, who again felt and investigated,happily, also, admired us. So vain is human-kind that even the admiration of cannibals is agreeable. I let some of them try my shot-gun, and everyone wanted to attempt the feat, although they were all badly frightened. They held the gun at arm’s length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank.WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.Bourbaki brought news that in a few days there was to be a great sacrificial feast in the village, and that, everybody being busy preparing for it, we had no chance of recruiting, neither could we see the great chief, he being shut up in his house, invisible to everybody except to a little boy, his servant. We landed a goat for Bourbaki’s father; the innocent animal caused terrible fright and great admiration. All the men retreated behind trunks or rocks and no one dared touch the strange creature. Bourbaki was very proud of himself for knowing goats, and fastened the poor little thing to a tree in the shade. He then coaxed three old men on board. Clumsily they entered the whale-boats, and even on board the cutter they squatted anxiously down and dared hardly move for fear the ship might capsize or they might slip into the water, of which they were quite afraid. They could hardly speak, and stared at everything, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They forgot their fears, however, in delight over our possessions. A saucepan proved a joy; the boards andplanks of the ship were touched and admired amid much smacking of the lips; a devout “Whau!” was elicited by the sight of the cabin, which seemed a fairy palace to them. Smaller things they approved of by whistling; in general they behaved very politely. If they did not understand the use of a thing, they shrugged their shoulders with a grimace of contempt. A mirror was useless to them at first; after a while they learned to see; they were frightened, and at last they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a little slip of paper, which they carefully hid in their belts. Our stock of cartridges impressed them deeply, and there was no end of whistling and grunting. Sugar and tea were objects of suspicion. They thought them poison, and took some along, probably to experiment on a good friend or a woman. Matches were stuck into the hair, the beard or the perforated ears. Pictures were quite incomprehensible.After an hour they left, less frightened than before, but still very glad to leave all the mysterious and uncanny things behind. Bourbaki made fun of their innocence, and thought himself very civilized,but he himself was dreadfully afraid of my camera: “White man he savee too much.”The weather cleared towards evening. Some natives stayed on the shore all night, lighted fires and sang songs in anticipation of the coming dance. Our boys mimicked them, laughed at them and felt very superior, though we whites failed to see much difference, and, as a matter of fact, a short time after having returned home these boys can hardly be told from ordinary bushmen. The shrieks of the savages pierced the velvet of the night like daggers, but by and by they quieted down, and we heard nothing more but the rhythmic rise and fall of the surf.In the silver light of the rising moon the boats rolled gently behind the ship like dark spots, and light clouds glided westward across the stars, eternally rising behind the black cliffs and disappearing in the universal dimness. We were asleep on deck, when suddenly a violent shower woke us up and banished us into that terrible cabin.No natives came next day; they were all busy preparing the feast. We had nothing to do but to loaf on the beach or on board, and smoke, as we had no fishing-tackle and no animals to shoot. The grey sky, the vague light, the thin rain, were depressing, and all sorts of useless thoughts came to us. We noticed the hardships of our existence on board, felt that we were wasting time, grew irritable and dissatisfied. If only my companion had been less sulky! But with him there could be no pleasant chat, no cosy evening hour over a cup of tea and a pipe; andI would almost have preferred being alone to thissolitude à deux. I sat on deck and listened to the breakers. Often they sounded like a rushing express train and awakened reminiscences of travel and movement. The cool wind blew softly from afar, and I could understand for the first time that longing that asks the winds for news of home and friends. I gave myself up wholly to this vague dreaming, call it home-sickness, or what you will, it enlivened the oppressive colourlessness of the days and the loneliness of the nights. As usual, a heavy shower came, luckily, perhaps, to interrupt all softer thoughts.Then followed a few clear days, which changed our mood entirely. The cutter rolled confidingly in the morning breeze, and the sun glowed warm and golden. In picturesque cascades the green forest seemed to rush down the slopes to the bright coral beach, on which the sea broke playfully. Once in a while a bird called far off in the depths of the woods. It was delicious to lie on the warm beach and be dried and roasted by the sun, to think of nothing in particular, but just to exist. Two wild pigs came to the beach in the evening to dig for yam that the natives had buried there; a chase, though unsuccessful, gave excitement and movement. We could venture far inland now without fear, for the natives were all away at the feast. Brilliant sunsets closed the days in royal splendour. Behind a heavy cloud-bank which hid the sun, he seemed to melt in the sea and to form one golden element. Out of the cloud five yellow rays shot across the steel-bluesky, so that it looked like one of those old-fashioned engravings of God behind a cloud. When everything had melted into one gorgeous fire, and we were still helpless before all that glory, the colours faded away to the most delicate combinations of half-tones; soon the stars came out glittering on the deep sky, first of all the Southern Cross. Halley’s comet was still faintly visible.In the morning the sky was cloudless, and changed from one lovely colour to the other, until the sun rose to give it its bright blue and paint the shore in every tint. Then every stone at the bottom of the sea was visible, and all the marvellous coral formations, with their weird shapes and fiery colours, glowed in rose and violet and pure golden yellow. Above lay big sea-stars, and large fish in bright hues floated between the cliffs in soft, easy movements, while bright blue little ones shot hither and thither like mad.Bourbaki arrived with his younger brother, a neat and gentle-looking boy. The feast was to begin that evening, and I asked Bourbaki if they had plenty of pigs to eat. “Oh no,” he said; “but that is of no importance: we have a man to eat! Yesterday we killed him in the bush, and to-day we will eat him.” He said this with the most innocent expression, as if he were talking about the weather. I had to force myself not to draw away from him, and looked somewhat anxiously into his face; but Bourbaki stared quietly into the distance, as if dreaming of the past excitements and the comingdelights; then he picked up a cocoa-nut and tore the husk off with his strong teeth. It made me shudder to watch his brutish movements, but he was perfectly happy that morning, willing and obedient. At noon he went away to his horrid feast, and for two days we saw nobody.We passed the time as usual; the weather was rainy again, and everything seemed grey,—the sky, the sea and the shore, and our mood. One is so dependent on surroundings.On the third day Bourbaki came back, a little tired, but evidently satisfied. Some of his friends accompanied him, and he brought word that the chief had given permission for a few boys to enlist, but that we would have to wait about ten days until he could come to the shore himself. Not wishing to spend the ten days there, doing absolutely nothing, we decided to go farther south, to Tesbel Bay, and try our luck at recruiting there, as we had another boy, Macao, from that district. George gave leave to Bourbaki, who had been somewhat savage these last days, to stay at home till our return, and he seemed delighted to have a holiday. We were all the more surprised when, just before we weighed anchor, Bourbaki came back, shaking hands without a word. We were quite touched by this remarkable sign of his affection, pardoned his many objectionable ways, and never thought that perhaps he might have ample reason not to feel altogether safe and comfortable at home.The wind being contrary, we had to tack aboutall night long without advancing. Squalls rushed over the water, and then, again, the breeze died down completely, only black, jagged clouds drifted westward across the sky, and here and there a few stars were visible. The cutter’s deck was crowded with stuff, and there seemed less room for us than ever, except in the hateful cabin. The boys sang monotonously “for wind,” quite convinced that the next breeze would be due to their efforts. A fat old man sang all night long in falsetto in three notes; it was unbearably silly and irritating, yet one could hardly stop the poor devil and rob him of his only pleasure in that dark night. We felt damp, restless and sleepless, and tried in vain to find some comfort. Next evening we reached the entrance of Tesbel Bay, and the wind having died down, we had to work our way in with the oars, a slow and hard task. Bourbaki yelled and pulled at the oars with all his might, encouraging the others. These are the joys of sailing.Tesbel Bay is framed on two sides by high cliffs. Big boulders lie in picturesque confusion where the surf foams white against the narrow beach. Wherever there is a foot of ground, luxurious vegetation thrives. Ahead of us lies a level valley that stretches far inland to the foot of a high mountain, whose head is lost in grey clouds. A little creek runs into the bay through high reed-grass, behind a sandbank. Just before setting, the sun shone through the clouds and smiled on the lovely, peaceful landscape, seeming to promise us a pleasant stay. The smoke of manyvillage fires rose out of the bush at a distance. Two ragged natives were loafing on the beach, and I engaged one of them for the next day, to guide me to some villages. Bourbaki and Macao marched gaily off, as they were to spend the night in Macao’s village.A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.Next morning, while being pulled ashore for my excursion inland, I saw Macao on the beach, crying, waving and behaving like a madman. He called out that Bourbaki was dead, and that we must come to the village. I took him into the boat and we returned to the cutter. Macao was trembling all over, uttering wild curses, sighing and sobbing like a child. Between the fingers of his left hand he frantically grasped his cartridges, and nervously kept hold of his old rifle. We could not get much out of him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had been shot towards morning and that he himself had run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have committed some misdemeanour; as there was a possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go and look for him; for satisfaction it was idle to hope.According to Macao the village was quite near, so we took our rifles, armed the boys, and in ten minutes we were ashore. The youngest, a fourteen-year-old boy, was left in the whale-boat, so as to be ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and as we followed him we watched right and left for apossible ambush. It was a disagreeable moment when we dived into the thicket, where we expected to be attacked any moment, and I could hardly blame another fat boy for dropping behind, too, to “watch the shore,” as he said. Not wishing to lose any time, we let him go, for we were anxious to be in the village before the natives should have time to rally and prepare for resistance.The path was miserable—slippery slopes, wildly knotted roots, stones, creeks and high reeds. We were kept quite busy enough watching our path, and were not careful at all about watching the bush; but we were confident that the natives, being very poor shots, would betray their presence by a random shot. We were exposed, of course, to shots from close quarters alongside the path, but we trusted to Macao’s sharp eyes to detect a hidden enemy. After an hour’s brisk walk, we asked Macao whether the village was still far off; every time we asked, his answer was the same: “Bim by you me catch him,” or, “Him he close up.” However, after an hour and a half, we began to feel worried. We had no idea whether we would find a peaceful village or an armed tribe, and in the latter case a retreat would doubtless have been fatal, owing to the long distance we would have had to go in the forest, where the white man is always at a disadvantage. But we had undertaken the adventure, and we had to see it through.After two hours we unexpectedly came upon a village. A dozen men and a few women were squatting about, evidently expecting some event.The presence of the women was a sign that the people were peacefully inclined. An old man, a relative of Macao’s, joined us, and a short walk through a gully brought us quite suddenly into a village square. About thirty men were awaiting us, armed with rifles and clubs, silent and shy. Macao spoke to them, whereupon they laid down their rifles and led us to a hut, where we found Bourbaki, lying on his back, dead. He had been sitting in the house when some one shot him from behind; he had jumped up and tried to fly, but had broken down and fallen where he was then lying. He must have died almost at once, as the bullet had torn a great hole in his body. His rifle and cartridges were missing, that was all.The villagers stood around us, talking excitedly; we could not understand them, but they were evidently not hostile, and we told them to bury Bourbaki. They began at once, digging a hole in the soft earth with pointed sticks. We then asked for the rifle, the cartridges and the murderer, and were informed that two men had done the killing. After some deliberation a number of men walked off, one of them a venerable old man, armed after the old fashion with a bow and a handful of poisoned arrows, which he handled with deliberate care; he also carried a club in a sling over his shoulder. Of all those strong men, this old one seemed to me the most dangerous but also the most beautiful and the most genuine. After a while they returned, and two other men slunk in and stood apart.The natives seemed undecided what to do, and squatted about, talking among themselves, until at last one of them pulled me by the sleeve and led us towards the two newcomers. We understood that they were the murderers, and each of us took hold of one of them. They made no resistance, but general excitement arose in the crowd, all the other natives shouting and gesticulating, even threatening each other with their rifles. They were split in two parties,—one that wanted to give up the murderers, and their relatives, who wanted to keep them. We told them that the affair would be settled if they gave up the murderers; if not, the man-of-war would come and punish the whole village. As my prisoner tried to get loose, I bound him, and while I was busy with this I heard a shot. Seeing that all the men had their rifles ready, I expected the fight to begin, but George told me his prisoner had escaped and he had shot after him. The man had profited by George’s indecision to run away.This actual outbreak of the hostilities excited the people so that we thought it best to retire, taking our single prisoner with us. A few of the natives followed us, and when we left the village the relatives of the murderer broke out in violent wailing and weeping, thinking, as did the prisoner, Belni, himself, that we were going to eat him up, after having tortured him to death. Belni trembled all over, was very gentle and inclined to weep like a punished child, but quite resigned and not even offering any resistance. He only asked Macao anxiously what we were going to dowith him. Macao, furious at the death of his comrade, for whom he seemed to have felt real affection, put him in mortal fear, and was quite determined to avenge his murdered friend. We shut Belni up in the hold of the cutter and told the natives that they would have to hand over Bourbaki’s rifle and cartridges, and pay us two tusked pigs by noon of the next day.On this occasion we learned the reason for the murder: Belni’s brother had had an intrigue with the wife of the chief, and had been condemned by the latter to pay a few pigs. Being too poor to do this, he decided to pay his debt in an old-fashioned way by killing a man, and Bourbaki was unlucky enough to arrive just at the right time, and being a man from a distant district, there was no revenge to be feared. Belni, therefore, chose him as his victim. The two brothers chatted all night with him and Macao, and asked to see Bourbaki’s rifle, which he carelessly handed to them. When, towards morning, Macao left them for a few moments, they profited by the opportunity to shoot Bourbaki from behind, and to run away. Macao, rushing back, found his friend dead, and fled to the shore. By this deed the wrong to the chief was supposed to be made good—a very peculiar practice in native justice. It may be a remnant of old head-hunting traditions, inasmuch as Belni’s brother would have given the dead man’s head to the chief in payment, this being even more valuable than pigs.The first excitement over, our boys were seized by fear, even Macao and the other one who had accompanied us. Although they were in perfect safety onboard the cutter they feared all sorts of revenge from Belni’s relatives,—for instance, that they might cause a storm and wreck the cutter. We laughed at them, but they would not be cheered up, and, after all, Macao’s horrible dread that his old father was surely being eaten up by this time in the village was not quite groundless. We were not in the brightest of humours ourselves, as this event had considerably lessened our chances of recruiting at Big Nambas; the chief made us responsible for Bourbaki’s death, and asked an indemnity which we could hardly pay, except with the tusked pigs we demanded here.We could not stay longer in Tesbel Bay, as our boys were too much frightened, and the natives might turn against us at any moment. We could hardly get the boys to go ashore for water and firewood, for fear of an ambush. In the evening we fetched Belni out of the hold. He was still doleful and ready to cry, but seemed unconscious of any fault; he had killed a man, but that was rather an honourable act than a crime, and he only seemed to regret that it had turned out so unsatisfactorily. He did not seem to have much appetite, but swallowed his yam mechanically in great lumps. The boys shunned him visibly, all but Macao, who squatted down close before him, and gave him food with wild hatred in his eyes, and muttering awful threats. Icy-cold, cruel, with compressed lips and poisonous looks like a serpent’s, he hissed his curses and tortured Belni, who excused himself clumsily and shyly, playing with the yam and looking from one dark corner to the other, like a boybeing scolded. The scene was so gruesome that I had Belni shut up again, and we watched all night, for Macao was determined to take the murderer’s life. It was a dry, moonlit night; one of the boys was writhing with a pain in his stomach, and we could do nothing to help him, so they were all convinced it was caused by Belni’s relatives, and wanted to sail immediately. A warm breeze had driven mosquitoes to the cutter; it was a most unpleasant night.Next noon the natives appeared, about twenty strong, but without the second murderer. They said the shot had hit him, and that he had died during the night. This might have been true, and as we could do nothing against the village anyway, we let the matter drop, especially as they had brought us Bourbaki’s rifle and two tusked pigs. The chief said he hoped we were satisfied with him, and would not trouble anyone but the murderers.We returned to the cutter, and the pigs were put in the hold, where they seem to have kept good company with Belni, after a little preliminary squealing and shrieking. Then we sailed northward, with a breeze that carried us in four hours over the same distance for which we had taken twenty-four last time. It was a bitterly cold night. We decided to return home, fearing the boys would murder Belni in an unwatched moment, as they had asked several times, when the sea was high, whether we would not throw Belni into the water now. The passage to Santo was very rough. The waves thundered against the little old cutter, and we had a nasty tide-rip. We werequite soaked, and looking in through the portholes, we could see everything floating about in the cabin—blankets, saucepans, tins and pistols. We did not mind much, as we hoped to be at home by evening.Rest, cleanliness and a little comfort were very tempting after a fortnight in the filthy narrowness of the little craft. We had no reason to be vain of our success; but such trips are part of the game, and we planned a second visit to Big Nambas to reconcile the chief. We were glad to greet the cloud-hung coast of Santo, and soon entered the Segond Channel. There we discovered that the old boat had leaked to such an extent that we could have kept afloat for only a few hours longer, and had every reason to be glad the voyage was at an end. It was just as well that we had not noticed the leak during the passage.We brought Belni ashore; the thin, flabby fellow was a poor compensation for vigorous Bourbaki. He was set to work on the plantation, and as the Government was never informed of the affair, he is probably there to this day, and will stay until he dies.
A few days later the English steamer came, bringing my luggage but no hope of improvement in my dull existence. A French survey party arrived too, and set to work, but as they had not enough boys with them, I could not join them. I spent my days as well as I could, collected a few zoological specimens, and read Mr. Ch.’s large stock of French novels until I felt quite silly.
At last an occasion offered to see primitive natives. George, the son of a neighbour, had agreed to go recruiting for Mr. Ch. As I have said before, providing sufficient labour is one of the most important problems to the planter in the New Hebrides. Formerly there were professional recruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have followed any other occupation, and sold the natives to the planters at a fair profit. In their schooners they hung about the shore, filled the natives with liquor and kidnapped them, or simply drove them on board wholesale, with the help of armed Loyalty boys. Their methods were as various as they were cruel, murder was a daily occurrence, and, of course, the recruiters were hated by the natives, who attacked and killed them whenever they got a chance. Thebetter class of planters would not countenance this mode of procedure, and the natives are now experienced enough not to enlist for work under a master they do not know. Also the English Government keeps a strict watch on the recruiting, so that the professional recruiter is dying out, and every planter has to go in search of hands for himself. But while the English Government keeps a sharp eye on these matters, the French Government is as lenient in this as in the question of the sale of alcohol, so that frequent kidnapping and many cruelties occur in the northern part of the group, and slavery still exists. I shall relate a few recruiting stories later on: some general remarks on the subject may not be amiss here.
MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.
MAN FROM NITENDI, STA CRUZ, WITH ORNAMENTAL BREASTPLATE.
In years past the natives crowded the recruiting schooners by hundreds, driven by the greed for European luxuries, by desire for change, and inexperience; to-day this is the case in but very few and savage districts. Generally the natives have some idea of what they may expect; moreover, by trading with coprah they can buy all they need and want. They enlist nowadays from quite different motives. With young people it is the desire to travel and to “see the world,” and to escape the strict village laws that govern them, especially in sexual matters, and to get rid of the supervision of the whole tribe. Sometimes, but only in islands poor in cocoa-nut trees, it is the desire to earn money to buy a woman, a very expensive article at present. Then many seek refuge in the plantations from persecutionof all sorts, from revenge, or punishment for some misdeed at home. Some are lovers who have run away from their tribe to escape the rage of an injured husband. Thus recruiting directly favours the general anarchy and immorality, and indirectly as well, since the recruiters do their best to create as much trouble as possible in the villages, knowing it will be to their advantage. If they hear of a feud raging between two tribes, they collect at the shore and try to pick up fugitives; if there is no war, they do their best to occasion one, by intrigue, alcohol, oragents provocateurs. They intoxicate men and women, and make them enlist in that condition; young men are shown pretty women, and promised all the joys of Paradise in the plantations. If these tricks fail, the recruiters simply kidnap men and women while bathing. This may suffice to show that, as a rule, they do not use fair means to find hands, and it is hardly surprising that where they have been they leave behind them wrecked families, unhappiness, enmity, murder and a deep hatred of the white man in general as the cause of all this misery. This recruiting is not only immoral in the highest degree, but also very harmful to the race, and it is to-day one of the principal reasons for its decay.
Those planters who from principle or from fear of the law do not resort to such means generally have a special recruiting district, where they are well known, and where the natives know the treatment they are likely to get on the plantation, and feel sure they will not be cheated, and will be taken backto their homes in due time. These planters, I am happy to say, find hands enough, as a rule, while the natives take care not to go to a French plantation if they can help it. The system of recruiting is very simple. The cutter anchors at some distance offshore, and a dynamite cartridge is exploded to announce her arrival; some time afterwards one of the whale-boats goes ashore, all the crew armed to the teeth, while the other boat lies a short distance off, to watch the natives, and to cover the retreat of those in the first boat in case of attack. The planter, as a rule, stays on board his cutter. These warlike practices are really unnecessary in many places, but as one never knows what indiscretions the last recruiter may have committed, and as the natives consider all whites as belonging to one organization, it is the part of prudence to follow this old recruiting rule.
I will not pretend to say that the natives will never attack without provocation. Even Cook, who certainly was both careful and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty that no attack on a recruiting-ship or on any white man occurs without some past brutality on the part of a European to account for it. As one of the Governments does nothing to abolish kidnapping, and as the plantations go to ruin for want of labour, it would be to the interest both of the settlers and of the natives to abolish the present recruiting systementirely, and to introduce a conscription for work in its place, so that each male would have to work for a term of years on a plantation for adequate wages and good treatment. This would be of advantage to the islanders even more than to the planters. It would create order, and would employ the natives in useful work for the development of their own country.
It will appear from all this that recruiting is still a somewhat dangerous undertaking, especially on the north-west coast of Malekula, the home of the most primitive and savage tribes of all the group.
George, our captain, was a strange fellow, about seventeen years of age: he might just as well have been forty. Pale, with small grey eyes and a suspicious look, a long hooked nose, and narrow, yet hanging lips, he walked with bent back and crooked knees, always bare-footed, in blue dungaree trousers, green shirt and an old weather-beaten hat. He hardly ever spoke; when he did, it was very suddenly, very fast and very low, so that no one could understand him except his boys, who evidently knew instinctively what he meant. The natives are very clever in these matters. He was brave, an excellent sailor for his age, and he knew the channels and all the anchorages. His boat may have been 6 or 7 mètres long and 3 mètres wide; she was cutter-rigged, and was probably very suitable for a trip of a few days, but quite insufficient for a cruise of several weeks, such as we were planning. The deck was full of cases of provisions, so that only a little space was clear for us at the stern. Thecabin was about 2 mètres long, 1½ mètre wide, and 1½ mètre high, and was crammed with stuff—tinned meats, cloths, guns, trading goods, etc. One person could wriggle in it, crawling on hands and knees, but two had to wind round each other in impossible positions, and it was quite unthinkable that both should spend the night below. But with the happy carelessness and impatience of a long-delayed start, we did not think of the hardships of the future, and in fair weather, when the stay on deck in the brisk breeze was extremely pleasant, as on that first morning, existence on board seemed very bearable; but when it rained, and it rained very often and very hard, it was exceptionally disagreeable.
Mr. George took no interest in such details. Although he could have improved matters without much trouble, he was too lazy to take the trouble. The sun- and rain-sail was fixed so low that one could not stand upright, and anyone who has experienced this for some time knows how irritating it is. For food George did not seem to care at all. Not only did he lack the sense of taste, but he seemed to have an unhuman stomach, for he ate everything, at any time, and in any condition; raw or cooked, digestible or not, he swallowed it silently and greedily, and thought it quite unnecessary when I wanted the boys to cook some rice for me, or to wash a plate. The tea was generally made with brackish water which was perfectly sickening. George had always just eaten when I announced that dinner was ready, andfor answer he generally wrapped himself in his blankets and fell asleep. The consequence was that each of us lived his own life, and the companionship which might have made up for many insufficiencies on board was lacking entirely.
It was the first sunny day after many rainy ones when the current carried us through the channel. When we got on too slowly the oars had to help. After several hours we arrived in the open, and a fresh breeze carried us quickly alongside the small islands of Aore, Tutuba and Malo. Blue, white-crested waves lifted us up so high that we could look far over the foaming sea, and again we sank down in a valley, out of which we could only see the nearest waves rolling threateningly towards us. Behind us the little dinghy shot down the swells, gliding on the water like a duck. In the late afternoon we approached the north point of Malekula, and followed the west coast southward, towards the country of the “Big Nambas”—our destination. Contrasting with other islands of the archipelago, Malekula does not seem densely covered with vegetation at this point. We do not see much of the impenetrable bush, but rather a scanty growth of grass on the coral reefs, a few shrubs and she-oaks, then a narrow belt of forest covering the steep cliffs and sides of the hills, on whose backs we find extensive areas covered with reed-grass. Even a luxuriant forest does not look gay on a dull day, and this barren landscape looked most inhospitable in the grey mist of the afternoon. We slowly followed a coast of ragged coral patches,alternating with light sand beaches. Towards nightfall we anchored near a stony shore, flanked by two high cliffs, in about 10 fathoms of the most transparent water. We could see in the depths the irregular shapes of the rocks, separated by white sand, and the soft mysterious colours in which the living coral shines like a giant carpet. The sea was quiet as a pond, yet we were on the shores of that endless ocean that reaches westward to the Torres Straits.
Torn clouds floated across the hills towards the north-west, the stars shone dull, and it was very lonely and oppressively silent, nowhere was there a trace of life, human or animal. Lying on deck, I listened to the sound of the surf breaking in the different little bays near and far, in a monotonous measure, soft and yet irresistible. It is the voice of the sea in its cleansing process, the continual grinding and casting out of all impurities, the eternal war against the land and its products, and the final destruction of the earth itself.
The district of the Big Nambas, to whose shores we had come, takes its name from the size of a certain article of dress, the “Nambas,” which partly replaces our trousers, and is worn in different forms over the greater part of the archipelago, but nowhere of such size as here. It is such an odd object that it may well give its name to the country. Big Nambas is still the least known part of the islands, and hardly any white has ever set foot in the interior. Unlike those of other districts, the natives here have preserved their old habits and strict organization, and thisis evidently the reason why they have not degenerated and decayed. The old chiefs are still as powerful as ever, and preserve peace and order, while they themselves do as they please. Big Nambas has had but little contact with the whites, especially the recruiters, so that the population is not demoralized, nor the chief’s power undermined. Of course it is to the chief’s interest to have as strong a tribe as possible, and they reserve to themselves the right of killing offenders, and take all revenge in their own hands. They watch the women and prevent child-murder and such things, and although their reign is one of terror, their influence, as a whole, on the race is not bad, because they suppress many vices that break out as soon as they slacken their severity. The chiefs in Big Nambas seem to have felt this, and systematically opposed the intercourse with whites. But this district is just where the best workmen come from, and the population is densest, and that is why the recruiters have tried again and again of late years to get hold of Big Nambas, but with little success, for so far only few men have enlisted. One of them was on our cutter, and had to serve as interpreter. The other four of the five boys were from Malekula, a little farther south. Our man from Big Nambas was known on the plantation as Bourbaki, and had enlisted two years ago. Before that he had been professional murderer and provider of human flesh to the great chief. Now he was a useful and quiet foreman on the plantation, always cheerful, very intelligent, strong, brutal, with small,shrewd eyes and a big mouth, apparently quite happy in civilization, and devoted to George. He was one of the few natives who openly admitted his liking for human flesh, and rapturously described its incomparable tenderness, whiteness and delicacy. A year ago, when visiting his village, he had been inconsolable because he had come a day late for a cannibal feast, and had blamed his father bitterly for not having saved a piece for him. Aside from this ghoulish propensity, Bourbaki was a thoroughly nice fellow, obliging, reliable and as happy as a child at the prospect of seeing his father again. We expected good service and help in recruiting from him, and promised him ample head-money.
A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.
A CANNIBAL FROM BIG NAMBAS, WITH NOSE-STICK.
Bourbaki had run away without the permission of his chief, who was furious at the loss of his best man, and had given orders to kill the recruiter, a brother-in-law of George. Some natives had ambushed and shot at them while entering the whale-boat; the white had received several wounds, and a native woman had been killed. The boat pulled away rapidly. Bourbaki laughed, and, indeed, by this time the little incident was quite forgotten, as its only victim had been a woman.
The morning was damp and dull. The hills came down to the sea in slopes of grey-green, the shore was a soft brown, and the rocks lay in dark patches on the beach, separated from the greyish-green of the sea by the white line of the breakers. The hollow sound of the dynamite explosions glided along the slopes and was swallowed in distant space.
A few hours later, thinking the natives might be coming, we got our arms ready: each of us had a revolver and a repeating rifle, the boys had old Sniders. The cutter lay about 200 mètres off-shore, and we could see everything that was going on on the beach. Behind the flat, stony shore the forest-covered hills rose in a steep cliff to a tableland about 100 mètres high. On the water we were in perfect safety, for the villages lie far inland, and the Big Nambas are no sailors, hate the sea and possess no canoes. They only come to the beach occasionally, to get a few crabs and shell-fish, yet each tribe has its own place on the shore, where no stranger is admitted.
We took Bourbaki ashore; he was very anxious to go home, and promptly disappeared in the bush, his Snider on his shoulder. We then returned to the cutter and waited. It is quite useless to be in a hurry when recruiting, but one certainly needs a supply of patience, for the natives have no idea of the value of time, and cannot understand the rush which our civilization has created.
Late in the afternoon a few naked figures appeared on the beach. One of them signalled with a branch, and soon others followed, till about fifty men had assembled, and in the background, half-hidden by shrubs, stood half a dozen women. We entered the whale-boats, two boys and a white man in each, and slowly approached the shore. All the natives carried their rifles in their right hands and yams in their left, making signs to show that they wished to trade.We gave them to understand that they must first put down their muskets, and when they hesitated we cocked our rifles and waited. Some of them went back to the forest and laid down their guns, while the others sat down at a distance and watched. We promptly put down our rifles, approached and showed our trade-goods—tobacco, matches, clay pipes and calico. Hesitating, suspicious, yet tempted, they crowded round the boat and offered their yams, excitedly shouting and gesticulating, talking and laughing. They had quite enormous yams, which they traded for one or two sticks of tobacco or as many pipes. Matches and calico were not much in demand. Our visitors were mostly well-built, medium-sized men of every age, and looked very savage and dangerous. They were nearly naked, but for a belt of bark around their waists, about 20 cm. wide, which they wore wound several times around their bodies, so that it stood out like a thick ring. Over this they had bound narrow ribbons of braided fibres, dyed in red patterns, the ends of the ribbons falling down in large tassels. Under this belt is stuck the end of the enormous nambas, also consisting of red grass fibres. Added to this scanty dress are small ornaments, tortoise-shell ear-rings, bamboo combs, bracelets embroidered with rings of shell and cocoa-nut, necklaces, and thin bands bound under the knees and over the ankles.
The beautiful, lithe, supple bodies support a head covered with long, curly hair, and the face is framed by a long and fairly well-kept beard. Theeyes roll unsteadily, and their dark and penetrating look is in no wise softened by the brown colouring of the scela. The nose is only slightly concave, the sides are large and thick, and their width is increased by a bamboo or stone cylinder stuck through the septum. Both nose and eyes are overhung by a thicktorus. The upper lip is generally short and rarely covers the mouth, which is exceptionally large and wide, and displays a set of teeth of remarkable strength and perfection. The whole body is covered with a thick layer of greasy soot. Such is the appearance of the modern man-eater.
Just at first we did not feel any too comfortable or anxious to go ashore, and we watched our neighbours very carefully. They, however, were hardly less frightened and suspicious; but after a while, through the excitement of trading, they became more confident, forgot their suspicions and bargained noisily, as happy as a crowd of boys; still, any violent movement on our part startled them. For instance, several of them started to run for the woods when I hastily grabbed a pipe that a roll of the boat had set slipping off the seat.
After having filled the boats to the brim with yams, and the first eagerness of bartering over, we ventured ashore. A suspicious crowd stood around us and watched every movement. We first showed them our weapons, and a violent smacking of the lips and long-drawn whistles, or a grunting “Whau!” bespoke a gratifying degree of admiration and wonder. The longer the cartridges and the largerthe bullets, the more they impressed them, and our revolvers were glanced at with contempt and a shrug of the shoulders, expressing infinite disdain, until each of us shot a few rounds. Then they winced, started to run away, came back and laughed boisterously over their own fright; but after that they had more respect for our “little guns.”
Soon they became more daring, came closer and began to feel us, first touching us lightly with the finger-tips, then with their hands. They wanted to look at and handle everything, cartridge-belts, pipes, hats and clothes. When all these had been examined, they investigated our persons, and to me, at least, not being used to this, it was most disagreeable. I did not mind when they tucked up our sleeves and trousers and compared the whiteness and softness of our skin with their own dark hide, nor when they softly and caressingly stroked the soft skin on the inner side of our arms and legs, vigorously smacking their lips the while; but when they began to feel the tenderness and probably the delicacy of our muscles, and tried to estimate our fitness for a royal repast, muttering deep grunts, constantly smacking their lips, and evidently highly satisfied with the result of their investigation, I did not enjoy the situation any more; still less when I saw an ugly-looking fellow trembling violently from greedy desire, rolling his eyes in wild exultation and performing an anticipatory cannibal dinner-dance. We gradually began to shake off this wearisomely intimate crowd; the fact that there were two of us, and that I was not alone in this situationwas very comforting. However, in the course of the next few years I became accustomed to this treatment, though I never again met it in such crudeness.
We had slowly approached the forest and could get a few glimpses of the women, who had kept quite in the background and hid still more when we came near. They had braided aprons around their waists and rolled mats on their heads. Nearly all of them carried babies on their hips, and they looked fairly healthy, although the children were full of sores. Evidently the men did not like our looking at the ladies; they pushed us back and drove the women away. We returned to the boats, and the natives retired too, howling, shrieking and laughing. Towards evening another crowd arrived, and the performance was repeated in every detail. Happy over the bartered goods, they began to dance, first decorating themselves with tall branches stuck in the back of their belts. They jumped from one foot to the other, sometimes turning round, and singing in a rough, deep monotone. We withdrew to the boats, and they dispersed on the shore, lighted fires and roasted the yams they had left.
Far away across the sea there was lightning, the surf boomed more heavily than by day, the cutter rolled more violently and restlessly and the whaleboat scraped against her sides, while the wind roared through the forest gullies and thunder threatened behind the hills. We felt lonely in the thick darkness, with the tempest approaching steadily, afloat on a tiny shell, alone against the fury of the elements.The lamp was blown out, and we lay on deck listening to the storm, until a heavy squall drove us below, to spend the night in a stuffy atmosphere, in uncomfortable positions, amid wild dreams. Next morning there were again about twenty men on the shore, and again the same performances were gone through. Evidently the people, influenced by Bourbaki, who was still in the village, were more confident, and left their weapons behind of their own accord. They came to trade, and when their provisions of yam were exhausted, most of them left; only a few, mostly young fellows, wanted to stay, but some older men stayed with them, so as to prevent them from going on board and enlisting. Evidently the young men were attracted by all our wonderful treasures, and would have liked to see the country where all these things came from. They imagined the plantations must be very beautiful places, while the old men had vague notions to the contrary, and were afraid of losing their young braves.
During a lull in the proceedings we climbed the narrow, steep and slippery path up to the tableland in order to get an idea of the country behind the hills. Half-way up we met two old men carrying yam down to the beach. They were terrified at sight of us, began to tremble, stopped and spoke to us excitedly. We immediately laid down our rifles, and signed to them to approach, but they suddenly dropped their loads, ran off and disappeared in the bush. They evidently feared we had come to kidnap them, and we decided it was wiser to return to the beach, soas not to irritate the people. Shortly afterwards another crowd of natives came along the beach carrying yam. They approached with extreme care, ready to fight or fly, but they were less afraid of us than of the natives, for whom that part of the beach was reserved, and with whom we had been trading. They were enemies of the newcomers, who knew that they were outside their own territory and might expect an attack any moment. Squatting down near us, they anxiously watched the forest, ever ready to jump up. One of them, who spoke a little biche la mar, came up to me and asked me to anchor that night near their beach, and buy yams from them, which we promised to do. At a sound in the forest they jumped up and ran away. George, wishing to talk more with them, took his rifle and ran after them, but they had already retreated behind some boulders, and were waving their rifles and signalling him to stay where he was. They thought we were in a plot with other natives, and had ambushed them. To such a degree do these people live in constant fear, and thus arise misunderstandings which end in death, unless the whites are very prudent and quiet. Many a recruiter in our case would have welcomed this apparent provocation to shoot at the natives from a safe distance with his superior rifle.
All day it rained in heavy squalls, coming from over the hills; everything was damp, the night was dark and still and we sighed in our narrow cell of a cabin. Next morning Bourbaki came back with a new crowd of natives, who again felt and investigated,happily, also, admired us. So vain is human-kind that even the admiration of cannibals is agreeable. I let some of them try my shot-gun, and everyone wanted to attempt the feat, although they were all badly frightened. They held the gun at arm’s length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank.
WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.
WOMAN ON NITENDI, WITH LARGE SORE ON FOOT.
Bourbaki brought news that in a few days there was to be a great sacrificial feast in the village, and that, everybody being busy preparing for it, we had no chance of recruiting, neither could we see the great chief, he being shut up in his house, invisible to everybody except to a little boy, his servant. We landed a goat for Bourbaki’s father; the innocent animal caused terrible fright and great admiration. All the men retreated behind trunks or rocks and no one dared touch the strange creature. Bourbaki was very proud of himself for knowing goats, and fastened the poor little thing to a tree in the shade. He then coaxed three old men on board. Clumsily they entered the whale-boats, and even on board the cutter they squatted anxiously down and dared hardly move for fear the ship might capsize or they might slip into the water, of which they were quite afraid. They could hardly speak, and stared at everything, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They forgot their fears, however, in delight over our possessions. A saucepan proved a joy; the boards andplanks of the ship were touched and admired amid much smacking of the lips; a devout “Whau!” was elicited by the sight of the cabin, which seemed a fairy palace to them. Smaller things they approved of by whistling; in general they behaved very politely. If they did not understand the use of a thing, they shrugged their shoulders with a grimace of contempt. A mirror was useless to them at first; after a while they learned to see; they were frightened, and at last they roared with laughter, put out their tongues, admired their sooty faces and began to pull out their bristles, for they all wore their upper lips shaved. Naturally, they confused right and left, and became entirely bewildered. A watch did not impress them; the ticking seemed mysterious and not quite innocent, and they put the instrument away at a safe distance. They asked to see some money, but were much disappointed, having imagined it would look bigger and more imposing. They preferred a little slip of paper, which they carefully hid in their belts. Our stock of cartridges impressed them deeply, and there was no end of whistling and grunting. Sugar and tea were objects of suspicion. They thought them poison, and took some along, probably to experiment on a good friend or a woman. Matches were stuck into the hair, the beard or the perforated ears. Pictures were quite incomprehensible.
After an hour they left, less frightened than before, but still very glad to leave all the mysterious and uncanny things behind. Bourbaki made fun of their innocence, and thought himself very civilized,but he himself was dreadfully afraid of my camera: “White man he savee too much.”
The weather cleared towards evening. Some natives stayed on the shore all night, lighted fires and sang songs in anticipation of the coming dance. Our boys mimicked them, laughed at them and felt very superior, though we whites failed to see much difference, and, as a matter of fact, a short time after having returned home these boys can hardly be told from ordinary bushmen. The shrieks of the savages pierced the velvet of the night like daggers, but by and by they quieted down, and we heard nothing more but the rhythmic rise and fall of the surf.
In the silver light of the rising moon the boats rolled gently behind the ship like dark spots, and light clouds glided westward across the stars, eternally rising behind the black cliffs and disappearing in the universal dimness. We were asleep on deck, when suddenly a violent shower woke us up and banished us into that terrible cabin.
No natives came next day; they were all busy preparing the feast. We had nothing to do but to loaf on the beach or on board, and smoke, as we had no fishing-tackle and no animals to shoot. The grey sky, the vague light, the thin rain, were depressing, and all sorts of useless thoughts came to us. We noticed the hardships of our existence on board, felt that we were wasting time, grew irritable and dissatisfied. If only my companion had been less sulky! But with him there could be no pleasant chat, no cosy evening hour over a cup of tea and a pipe; andI would almost have preferred being alone to thissolitude à deux. I sat on deck and listened to the breakers. Often they sounded like a rushing express train and awakened reminiscences of travel and movement. The cool wind blew softly from afar, and I could understand for the first time that longing that asks the winds for news of home and friends. I gave myself up wholly to this vague dreaming, call it home-sickness, or what you will, it enlivened the oppressive colourlessness of the days and the loneliness of the nights. As usual, a heavy shower came, luckily, perhaps, to interrupt all softer thoughts.
Then followed a few clear days, which changed our mood entirely. The cutter rolled confidingly in the morning breeze, and the sun glowed warm and golden. In picturesque cascades the green forest seemed to rush down the slopes to the bright coral beach, on which the sea broke playfully. Once in a while a bird called far off in the depths of the woods. It was delicious to lie on the warm beach and be dried and roasted by the sun, to think of nothing in particular, but just to exist. Two wild pigs came to the beach in the evening to dig for yam that the natives had buried there; a chase, though unsuccessful, gave excitement and movement. We could venture far inland now without fear, for the natives were all away at the feast. Brilliant sunsets closed the days in royal splendour. Behind a heavy cloud-bank which hid the sun, he seemed to melt in the sea and to form one golden element. Out of the cloud five yellow rays shot across the steel-bluesky, so that it looked like one of those old-fashioned engravings of God behind a cloud. When everything had melted into one gorgeous fire, and we were still helpless before all that glory, the colours faded away to the most delicate combinations of half-tones; soon the stars came out glittering on the deep sky, first of all the Southern Cross. Halley’s comet was still faintly visible.
In the morning the sky was cloudless, and changed from one lovely colour to the other, until the sun rose to give it its bright blue and paint the shore in every tint. Then every stone at the bottom of the sea was visible, and all the marvellous coral formations, with their weird shapes and fiery colours, glowed in rose and violet and pure golden yellow. Above lay big sea-stars, and large fish in bright hues floated between the cliffs in soft, easy movements, while bright blue little ones shot hither and thither like mad.
Bourbaki arrived with his younger brother, a neat and gentle-looking boy. The feast was to begin that evening, and I asked Bourbaki if they had plenty of pigs to eat. “Oh no,” he said; “but that is of no importance: we have a man to eat! Yesterday we killed him in the bush, and to-day we will eat him.” He said this with the most innocent expression, as if he were talking about the weather. I had to force myself not to draw away from him, and looked somewhat anxiously into his face; but Bourbaki stared quietly into the distance, as if dreaming of the past excitements and the comingdelights; then he picked up a cocoa-nut and tore the husk off with his strong teeth. It made me shudder to watch his brutish movements, but he was perfectly happy that morning, willing and obedient. At noon he went away to his horrid feast, and for two days we saw nobody.
We passed the time as usual; the weather was rainy again, and everything seemed grey,—the sky, the sea and the shore, and our mood. One is so dependent on surroundings.
On the third day Bourbaki came back, a little tired, but evidently satisfied. Some of his friends accompanied him, and he brought word that the chief had given permission for a few boys to enlist, but that we would have to wait about ten days until he could come to the shore himself. Not wishing to spend the ten days there, doing absolutely nothing, we decided to go farther south, to Tesbel Bay, and try our luck at recruiting there, as we had another boy, Macao, from that district. George gave leave to Bourbaki, who had been somewhat savage these last days, to stay at home till our return, and he seemed delighted to have a holiday. We were all the more surprised when, just before we weighed anchor, Bourbaki came back, shaking hands without a word. We were quite touched by this remarkable sign of his affection, pardoned his many objectionable ways, and never thought that perhaps he might have ample reason not to feel altogether safe and comfortable at home.
The wind being contrary, we had to tack aboutall night long without advancing. Squalls rushed over the water, and then, again, the breeze died down completely, only black, jagged clouds drifted westward across the sky, and here and there a few stars were visible. The cutter’s deck was crowded with stuff, and there seemed less room for us than ever, except in the hateful cabin. The boys sang monotonously “for wind,” quite convinced that the next breeze would be due to their efforts. A fat old man sang all night long in falsetto in three notes; it was unbearably silly and irritating, yet one could hardly stop the poor devil and rob him of his only pleasure in that dark night. We felt damp, restless and sleepless, and tried in vain to find some comfort. Next evening we reached the entrance of Tesbel Bay, and the wind having died down, we had to work our way in with the oars, a slow and hard task. Bourbaki yelled and pulled at the oars with all his might, encouraging the others. These are the joys of sailing.
Tesbel Bay is framed on two sides by high cliffs. Big boulders lie in picturesque confusion where the surf foams white against the narrow beach. Wherever there is a foot of ground, luxurious vegetation thrives. Ahead of us lies a level valley that stretches far inland to the foot of a high mountain, whose head is lost in grey clouds. A little creek runs into the bay through high reed-grass, behind a sandbank. Just before setting, the sun shone through the clouds and smiled on the lovely, peaceful landscape, seeming to promise us a pleasant stay. The smoke of manyvillage fires rose out of the bush at a distance. Two ragged natives were loafing on the beach, and I engaged one of them for the next day, to guide me to some villages. Bourbaki and Macao marched gaily off, as they were to spend the night in Macao’s village.
A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.
A LARGE CANOE ON UREPARAPARA.
Next morning, while being pulled ashore for my excursion inland, I saw Macao on the beach, crying, waving and behaving like a madman. He called out that Bourbaki was dead, and that we must come to the village. I took him into the boat and we returned to the cutter. Macao was trembling all over, uttering wild curses, sighing and sobbing like a child. Between the fingers of his left hand he frantically grasped his cartridges, and nervously kept hold of his old rifle. We could not get much out of him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had been shot towards morning and that he himself had run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have committed some misdemeanour; as there was a possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go and look for him; for satisfaction it was idle to hope.
According to Macao the village was quite near, so we took our rifles, armed the boys, and in ten minutes we were ashore. The youngest, a fourteen-year-old boy, was left in the whale-boat, so as to be ready to pick us up in case of need. His elder brother, a tall, stout fellow, also preferred to stay in the boat; we left him behind, and this left five of us for the expedition. Macao showed us the way, and as we followed him we watched right and left for apossible ambush. It was a disagreeable moment when we dived into the thicket, where we expected to be attacked any moment, and I could hardly blame another fat boy for dropping behind, too, to “watch the shore,” as he said. Not wishing to lose any time, we let him go, for we were anxious to be in the village before the natives should have time to rally and prepare for resistance.
The path was miserable—slippery slopes, wildly knotted roots, stones, creeks and high reeds. We were kept quite busy enough watching our path, and were not careful at all about watching the bush; but we were confident that the natives, being very poor shots, would betray their presence by a random shot. We were exposed, of course, to shots from close quarters alongside the path, but we trusted to Macao’s sharp eyes to detect a hidden enemy. After an hour’s brisk walk, we asked Macao whether the village was still far off; every time we asked, his answer was the same: “Bim by you me catch him,” or, “Him he close up.” However, after an hour and a half, we began to feel worried. We had no idea whether we would find a peaceful village or an armed tribe, and in the latter case a retreat would doubtless have been fatal, owing to the long distance we would have had to go in the forest, where the white man is always at a disadvantage. But we had undertaken the adventure, and we had to see it through.
After two hours we unexpectedly came upon a village. A dozen men and a few women were squatting about, evidently expecting some event.The presence of the women was a sign that the people were peacefully inclined. An old man, a relative of Macao’s, joined us, and a short walk through a gully brought us quite suddenly into a village square. About thirty men were awaiting us, armed with rifles and clubs, silent and shy. Macao spoke to them, whereupon they laid down their rifles and led us to a hut, where we found Bourbaki, lying on his back, dead. He had been sitting in the house when some one shot him from behind; he had jumped up and tried to fly, but had broken down and fallen where he was then lying. He must have died almost at once, as the bullet had torn a great hole in his body. His rifle and cartridges were missing, that was all.
The villagers stood around us, talking excitedly; we could not understand them, but they were evidently not hostile, and we told them to bury Bourbaki. They began at once, digging a hole in the soft earth with pointed sticks. We then asked for the rifle, the cartridges and the murderer, and were informed that two men had done the killing. After some deliberation a number of men walked off, one of them a venerable old man, armed after the old fashion with a bow and a handful of poisoned arrows, which he handled with deliberate care; he also carried a club in a sling over his shoulder. Of all those strong men, this old one seemed to me the most dangerous but also the most beautiful and the most genuine. After a while they returned, and two other men slunk in and stood apart.
The natives seemed undecided what to do, and squatted about, talking among themselves, until at last one of them pulled me by the sleeve and led us towards the two newcomers. We understood that they were the murderers, and each of us took hold of one of them. They made no resistance, but general excitement arose in the crowd, all the other natives shouting and gesticulating, even threatening each other with their rifles. They were split in two parties,—one that wanted to give up the murderers, and their relatives, who wanted to keep them. We told them that the affair would be settled if they gave up the murderers; if not, the man-of-war would come and punish the whole village. As my prisoner tried to get loose, I bound him, and while I was busy with this I heard a shot. Seeing that all the men had their rifles ready, I expected the fight to begin, but George told me his prisoner had escaped and he had shot after him. The man had profited by George’s indecision to run away.
This actual outbreak of the hostilities excited the people so that we thought it best to retire, taking our single prisoner with us. A few of the natives followed us, and when we left the village the relatives of the murderer broke out in violent wailing and weeping, thinking, as did the prisoner, Belni, himself, that we were going to eat him up, after having tortured him to death. Belni trembled all over, was very gentle and inclined to weep like a punished child, but quite resigned and not even offering any resistance. He only asked Macao anxiously what we were going to dowith him. Macao, furious at the death of his comrade, for whom he seemed to have felt real affection, put him in mortal fear, and was quite determined to avenge his murdered friend. We shut Belni up in the hold of the cutter and told the natives that they would have to hand over Bourbaki’s rifle and cartridges, and pay us two tusked pigs by noon of the next day.
On this occasion we learned the reason for the murder: Belni’s brother had had an intrigue with the wife of the chief, and had been condemned by the latter to pay a few pigs. Being too poor to do this, he decided to pay his debt in an old-fashioned way by killing a man, and Bourbaki was unlucky enough to arrive just at the right time, and being a man from a distant district, there was no revenge to be feared. Belni, therefore, chose him as his victim. The two brothers chatted all night with him and Macao, and asked to see Bourbaki’s rifle, which he carelessly handed to them. When, towards morning, Macao left them for a few moments, they profited by the opportunity to shoot Bourbaki from behind, and to run away. Macao, rushing back, found his friend dead, and fled to the shore. By this deed the wrong to the chief was supposed to be made good—a very peculiar practice in native justice. It may be a remnant of old head-hunting traditions, inasmuch as Belni’s brother would have given the dead man’s head to the chief in payment, this being even more valuable than pigs.
The first excitement over, our boys were seized by fear, even Macao and the other one who had accompanied us. Although they were in perfect safety onboard the cutter they feared all sorts of revenge from Belni’s relatives,—for instance, that they might cause a storm and wreck the cutter. We laughed at them, but they would not be cheered up, and, after all, Macao’s horrible dread that his old father was surely being eaten up by this time in the village was not quite groundless. We were not in the brightest of humours ourselves, as this event had considerably lessened our chances of recruiting at Big Nambas; the chief made us responsible for Bourbaki’s death, and asked an indemnity which we could hardly pay, except with the tusked pigs we demanded here.
We could not stay longer in Tesbel Bay, as our boys were too much frightened, and the natives might turn against us at any moment. We could hardly get the boys to go ashore for water and firewood, for fear of an ambush. In the evening we fetched Belni out of the hold. He was still doleful and ready to cry, but seemed unconscious of any fault; he had killed a man, but that was rather an honourable act than a crime, and he only seemed to regret that it had turned out so unsatisfactorily. He did not seem to have much appetite, but swallowed his yam mechanically in great lumps. The boys shunned him visibly, all but Macao, who squatted down close before him, and gave him food with wild hatred in his eyes, and muttering awful threats. Icy-cold, cruel, with compressed lips and poisonous looks like a serpent’s, he hissed his curses and tortured Belni, who excused himself clumsily and shyly, playing with the yam and looking from one dark corner to the other, like a boybeing scolded. The scene was so gruesome that I had Belni shut up again, and we watched all night, for Macao was determined to take the murderer’s life. It was a dry, moonlit night; one of the boys was writhing with a pain in his stomach, and we could do nothing to help him, so they were all convinced it was caused by Belni’s relatives, and wanted to sail immediately. A warm breeze had driven mosquitoes to the cutter; it was a most unpleasant night.
Next noon the natives appeared, about twenty strong, but without the second murderer. They said the shot had hit him, and that he had died during the night. This might have been true, and as we could do nothing against the village anyway, we let the matter drop, especially as they had brought us Bourbaki’s rifle and two tusked pigs. The chief said he hoped we were satisfied with him, and would not trouble anyone but the murderers.
We returned to the cutter, and the pigs were put in the hold, where they seem to have kept good company with Belni, after a little preliminary squealing and shrieking. Then we sailed northward, with a breeze that carried us in four hours over the same distance for which we had taken twenty-four last time. It was a bitterly cold night. We decided to return home, fearing the boys would murder Belni in an unwatched moment, as they had asked several times, when the sea was high, whether we would not throw Belni into the water now. The passage to Santo was very rough. The waves thundered against the little old cutter, and we had a nasty tide-rip. We werequite soaked, and looking in through the portholes, we could see everything floating about in the cabin—blankets, saucepans, tins and pistols. We did not mind much, as we hoped to be at home by evening.
Rest, cleanliness and a little comfort were very tempting after a fortnight in the filthy narrowness of the little craft. We had no reason to be vain of our success; but such trips are part of the game, and we planned a second visit to Big Nambas to reconcile the chief. We were glad to greet the cloud-hung coast of Santo, and soon entered the Segond Channel. There we discovered that the old boat had leaked to such an extent that we could have kept afloat for only a few hours longer, and had every reason to be glad the voyage was at an end. It was just as well that we had not noticed the leak during the passage.
We brought Belni ashore; the thin, flabby fellow was a poor compensation for vigorous Bourbaki. He was set to work on the plantation, and as the Government was never informed of the affair, he is probably there to this day, and will stay until he dies.