In the Wrong Paradise | Page 3

sun.
The sea, though still moved by a swell, was now much smoother, and,
but for a strange vision, I might have believed that I was recovering my
strength. I must, however, have been delirious or dreaming, for it
appeared to me that a foreign female, of prepossessing exterior, though
somewhat indelicately dressed, arose out of the waters close by my side,
as lightly as if she had been a sea-gull on the wing. About her head
there was wreathed a kind of muslin scarf, which she unwound and
offered to me, indicating that I was to tie it about my waist, and it
would preserve me from harm. So weak and exhausted was I that,
without thinking, I did her bidding, and then lost sight of the female.
Presently, as it seemed (but I was so drowsy that the time may have
been longer than I fancied), I caught sight of land from the crest of a
wave. Steep blue cliffs arose far away out of a white cloud of surf, and,
though a strong swimmer, I had little hope of reaching the shore in
safety.
Fortunately, or rather, I should say, providentially, the current and
tide-rip carried me to the mouth of a river, and, with a great effort, I got
into the shoal-water, and finally staggered out on shore. There was a
wood hard by, and thither I dragged myself. The sun was in mid
heavens and very warm, and I managed to dry my clothes. I am always
most particular to wear the dress of my calling, observing that it has a
peculiar and gratifying effect on the minds of the natives. I soon dried
my tall hat, which, during the storm, I had attached to my button-hole
by a string, and, though it was a good deal battered, I was not without
hopes of partially restoring its gloss and air of British respectability. As
will be seen, this precaution was, curiously enough, the human means

of preserving my life. My hat, my black clothes, my white neck-tie, and
the hymn-book I carry would, I was convinced, secure for me a
favourable reception among the natives (if of the gentle brown
Polynesian type), whom I expected to find on the island.
Exhausted by my sufferings, I now fell asleep, but was soon wakened
by loud cries of anguish uttered at no great distance. I started to my feet,
and beheld an extraordinary spectacle, which at once assured me that I
had fallen among natives of the worst and lowest type. The dark places
of the earth are, indeed, full of horrid cruelty.
The first cries which had roused me must have been comparatively
distant, though piercing, and even now they reached me confused in the
notes of a melancholy chant or hymn. But the shrieks grew more shrill,
and I thought I could distinguish the screams of a woman in pain or
dread from the groans drawn with more difficulty from a man. I leaped
up, and, climbing a high part of the river bank, I beheld, within a
couple of hundred yards, an extraordinary procession coming from the
inner country towards the mouth of the stream.
At first I had only a confused view of bright stuffs--white, blue, and
red--and the shining of metal objects, in the midst of a crowd partly
concealed by the dust they raised on their way. Very much to my
surprise I found that they were advancing along a wide road, paved in a
peculiar manner, for I had never seen anything of this kind among the
heathen tribes of the Pacific. Their dresses, too, though for the most
part mere wraps, as it were, of coloured stuff, thrown round them,
pinned with brooches, and often clinging in a very improper way to the
figure, did not remind me of the costume (what there is of it) of
Samoans, Fijians, or other natives among whom I have been privileged
to labour.
But these observations give a more minute impression of what I saw
than, for the moment, I had time to take in. The foremost part of the
procession consisted of boys, many of them almost naked. Their hands
were full of branches, wreathed in a curious manner with strips of white
or coloured wools. They were all singing, and were led by a woman
carrying in her arms a mis-shapen wooden idol, not much unlike those

which are too frequent spectacles all over the Pacific. Behind the boys I
could now distinctly behold a man and woman of the Polynesian type,
naked to the waist, and staggering with bent backs beneath showers of
blows. The people behind them, who were almost as light in colour as
ourselves, were cruelly flogging them with cutting branches of trees.
Round the necks of the