Wanderings Among South Sea Savages | Page 5

green beetles
and cockroaches. Our meals were all taken together on deck, and
consisted of yams, ship's biscuit and salt junk.
We had a grand breeze to start with, but toward evening it died down
and we lay becalmed. All hands being idle, the Samoans spent the time
in singing the catchy songs of Samoa, most of which I was familiar
with from my long stay in those islands, and their delight was great
when I joined in. About midnight a large whale floated calmly
alongside, not forty yards from our little schooner, and we trembled to
think what would happen if it was at all inclined to be playful. We
whistled all the next day for a breeze, but our efforts were not a success
until toward evening, when we were rewarded in a very liberal manner,
and arrived after dark at the village of Cawa Lailai,[1] on the island of
Koro. On our landing quite a crowd of wild-looking men and women,
all clad only in sulus, met us on the beach. Although it is a large island,
there is only one white man on it, and he far away from here, so no
doubt I was an interesting object. I put up at the hut of the "Buli" or

village chief, and after eating a dish of smoking yams, I was soon
asleep, in spite of the mosquitoes. It dawned a lovely morning and I
was soon afoot to view my surroundings. It was a beautiful village,
surrounded by pretty woods on all sides, and I saw and heard plenty of
noisy crimson and green parrots everywhere. I also learnt that a few
days previously there had been a wholesale marriage ceremony, when
nearly all the young men and women had been joined in matrimony.
Taking a guide with me, I walked across the island till I came to the
village of Nabuna,[2] on the other coast, the LURLINE meanwhile
sailing around the island. It was a hard walk, up steep hills and down
narrow gorges, and then latterly along the coast beneath the shade of
the coconuts. Fijian bridges are bad things to cross, being long trunks
of trees smoothed off on the surface and sometimes very narrow, and I
generally had to negotiate them by sitting astride and working myself
along with my hands. In the village of Nabuna lived the wife and four
daughters of the Samoan captain. He told me he had had five wives
before, and when I asked if they were all dead, he replied that they
were still alive, but he had got rid of them as they were no good.
The daughters were all very pretty girls, especially the youngest, a little
girl. of nine years old. I always think that the little Samoan girls, with
their long wavy black hair, are among the prettiest children in the
world.
We had an excellent supper of native oysters, freshwater prawns and
eels, fish, chicken, and many other native dishes. That evening a big
Fijian dance ("meke-meke"), was given in my honour. Two of the
captain's daughters took part in it. The girls sit down all the time in a
row, and wave their hands and arms about and sing in a low key and in
frightful discord. It does not in any way come up to the very pretty
"siva-siva" dancing of the Samoans, and the Fiji dance lacks variety.
There is a continual accompaniment of beating with sticks on a piece of
wood. All the girls decorate themselves with coloured leaves, and their
bodies, arms and legs glisten as in Samoa with coconut-oil, really a
very clean custom in these hot countries, though it does not look
prepossessing. Our two Samoans in the crew were most amusing; they

came in dressed up only in leaves, and took off the Fijians to perfection
with the addition of numerous extravagant gestures. I laughed till my
sides ached, but the Fijians never even smiled. However, our Samoans
gave them a bit of Samoan "siva-siva" and plenty of Samoan songs, and
it was amusing to see the interest the Fijians took in them. It was, of
course, all new to them. I drank plenty of "angona," that evening. It is
offered you in a different way in Samoa. In Fiji, the man or girl, who
hands you the coconut-shell cup on bended knee, crouches at your feet
till you have finished. In Fijian villages a sort of crier or herald goes
round the houses every night crying the orders for the next day in a
loud resonant voice, and at once all talking ceases in the hut outside
which he happens to be.
The next two days it blew a regular hurricane, and the captain dared not
venture out to sea, our schooner lying safely