We hired two hammock boys. I was pleased, for they carried my violin and my friend’s camera; also a load of photo plates and curios. South Sea Island heat is wintery compared to the dense, muggy atmosphere of the West Coast. By night a white mist creeps out of the primeval jungle glooms; and at dawn the sunrise looks ghostly, as it gleams across the glimmering slopes and gullies, and sparkles a blaze of forked chameleon light on the jungle world. Far away the natives are beating the tom-toms in the hidden villages as you walk along like a man asleep and scratch yourself; for each night was a nightmare of restlessness: though we wrapped our feet up and sealed all the holes in our mosquito nets, we did so in vain. The mosquitoes got at us somehow, and their bodies were bloated with our blood long before dawn. Ants, too, abound, and they are as big as half-a-walnut shell, and go moving along in vast battalions, attacking friend and foe alike. There are centipedes also, and when one rises from one’s extemporised bed they rush off on a thousand legs to hide from the sudden blaze of light.
Thick grass ten feet high, and fern-trees a foot higher, grow on the jungle slopes, and at dusk they are afire with crimson and yellowish blooms, tropical orchids and flowers one has never seen before.
One evening at dusk we arrived at a village called, I think, Kafolo. King Buloa ruled the dominion, and the priests consulted Ju-Jus. The Ju-Ju is a hideous idol, carved to satisfy the heathenish ideas of the African natives, who still worship wood and stone, as the Islanders did in the South Seas years ago. Polynesian Islanders are educated gentlemen compared with the usual run of West Coast and Nigerian natives.
As we crossed the river by a bridge of logs that divided the village from the jungle, we sighted a tiny city of huts. We waved our hands and approached slowly, with a little apprehension. The King (or high chief), dressed in an old pink striped shirt, came out of his kraal and welcomed us. His face looked like a black, gnarled tree trunk carved into human shape, till his thick-lipped mouth opened with a smile revealing three or four remaining teeth. He held over his frizzly head a large white umbrella, a present from some trader, which intensified his dusky shade. Out of the huts under the jungle palms came the ebony-coloured population—good-humoured-looking men, women, girls and piccaninnies. The King invited us into his palace. The skulls of fallen foes ornamented the door. We stepped inside the royal kraal and were somewhat surprised by the comfortable surroundings. Native tapestry, made of fibre and woven grass of various hues, covered the walls, and the floor of the first apartment was hidden by thick matting, on which squatted several ebony-coloured females, who belonged to the royal harem. As we entered they started jabbering and rolling their dark eyes. Chairs and tables covered with matting made up quite a decent amount of furniture, evidently purchased from traders. A Ju-Ju, surrounded by empty gin bottles, stood in the doorway of the next room. It had fierce-looking glass eyes and a face that looked half human and half crocodile. We expressed delight at all we saw, for we were alone there and felt that by being friendly with the chief we were keeping on the safe side. Then the old high chief stood erect and had his photograph taken; he was as pleased as a child with our attentions. I played the violin to him, and he was greatly delighted as I scraped away; his eyes glittered with pleasure and curiosity. I made him hold the violin, and he made several scrapes; his fat lips widened with fright until they reached his ears when the strings wailed. That night, as sunset smudged with a yellowish gleam the misty, heat-laden horizon, and a myriad creeping insects came forth to hum and buzz, Mr T—— and I graciously accepted King Buloa’s invitation to attend a village ceremony. He made signs to us and said, “Much good you like see,” wrapped a large brown blanket, red striped, about him, the very sight of which made us perspire, for the heat was terrific, and majestically slinging one end over his shoulder walked in front of us, to lead the way to the jungle ballroom.
I saw a sight that night which outdid, in grotesqueness and lewdness, anything which I had seen in the South Seas. The royal opera box was a square-rigged set of bamboo poles lashed together with strong native fibre. Mats slung over the cross-bars made comfortable seats, elevated about six feet, whereon Mr T—— and I sat, and the chief with crossed legs in the middle.
Four native girls had just reached maidenhood and had been sold to four respective husbands for so many bullocks. It was the custom to confer on such maidens an honour which, to Western civilisation, was one of great degradation and shame. Afterwards the girls were brought forth to stand in the middle of the cleared jungle, so that the whole tribe could gaze upon them as the festival dancers whirled round them. There they stood before us, revealing a similar timidness to that seen in a young bride at an English wedding. The King started the applause by striking a huge bamboo rod on the side of the primitive opera box as he drank large bowls of palm wine. He was soon drunk, reeled and shouted: “Fu Fu, Ki Ki!” The glimpsing moonlight streamed through the palms on to the maidens’ faces and on to the dark hordes of shrieking natives who whirled around them. Those erstwhile maids stood embracing each other, then unclasped, chanted and clapped their hands in rhythmic motion, and then, to the delight of the assembly, imitated every gross gesture.
My friend kept close to me and I to him as the besotted King slipped off his seat and fell on to the next rung, still shouting: “Ki Ki!” One of the maidens was really handsome for a negress; she had fine eyes, full lips and a well-rounded figure of light mahogany colour; the curves of her body resembled a Grecian bronze. She stood for a moment perfectly still in the moonlight, with one knee timidly crossing the other, ere she turned to show her comeliness to the admiring audience! As they sang the native orchestra crashed away on tom-toms and wooden drums. Some plucked strings that were stretched across gourds; others blew, with their big black lips, at bamboo flutes. They played out of tune, but the tempo of the primitive strains suited the dance exactly. “Mvu! Mvu!” shouted the King, and then he made signs that I should play. Without a moment’s hesitation I held the violin to my chin and played like a happy barbarian, though my heart thumped with apprehension.
Again they danced as I played on, and through my brain flashed reminiscences of my tribal solos in Samoa and elsewhere. Suddenly the circling ring opened and from a hut close by came the dancers for the second act. By the throne they ran, dressed in grotesque festival costume, painted in hideous lines of white from head to foot. They looked like hordes of skeletons from the tribal cemetery jumping round living maidens. So rhythmically did they whirl, and so fantastic was the sight, that they seemed monstrous puppets strung on wires pulled by some mysterious hand in the dark jungle; for often they would stop perfectly still, and then in the moonlight once more whirl away. How the audience of men, women and children stared and clapped as they squatted on their haunches on mats; and they encored just as they do in the music halls of London town when the ladies in tights whirl and jump before fascinated audiences.
There I sat with T——, gasping with curiosity as the King thumped, and playing on, far happier than when, dressed in an evening suit and tight, high collar, I fiddled in city orchestras, playing every night the accompaniments of the poor hits of the day to affected stage voices.
Notwithstanding the apparent lewdness, their innocence almost sanctified the smiling scene of dark faces, and I realised that it was but a custom truthfully expressing primeval man’s original idea of the beautiful. So we were not shocked, though we drank deep from the whisky flask to steady our nerves ere the head chief sucked at it.