[4]. The Fijian race is fast dying out. Thousands of Indians arrive yearly, and the result is that Mohammedanism is secretly over-throwing Christianity and the noble, if futile, efforts of many true missionaries in Fiji and elsewhere.
Native Girls making Kava
My comrade kept me up nearly the whole night cheerily telling me of the wild escapades of those days, and was extremely amusing as he described Fijian weddings, which were conducted something after the Samoan fashion as far as the fantastic dancing went, but there the similarity ended. By night most of the weddings were performed, the king or head chief of the tribe taking a seat on the throne, solemnly gazing on as a kind of spiritual figure-head, as from the forest for miles around came leaping the natives, attracted by the boomed notes of the lais (wooden drum), all to assemble and witness the wedding, as the native bride, flushed with pleasure, attired in the scant robe of the period, danced the wild fantastic can-can of the South Seas before the assembled encoring tribe, dressed only in a string of shells that jingled at her sulu-cloth. There on the chosen moonlit night under the tamnu and bread-fruit trees she swayed and swerved in all the postures that would reveal her beauty to the bridegroom’s eyes, and the ring of natives would make the forest and hills re-echo as their voices extolled her female charms, as the old high priest chanting the special service gazed enviously, nudging the bride as an encore hint whenever she did anything especially pleasing to the dusky onlookers. “Mbula! Mbula!” they would shout when at last, perspiring, trembling and excited, she stood at rest. “Mbula! Mbula!” they would still cry, which meant “may the gods send thee many children,” and then the bridegroom also danced as the old king or chief descended from his throne to welcome the bashful bride, and to bow her into his home before the great wedding feast, for it was the custom of certain tribes that the bride should receive the king’s kiss first. More I cannot say, excepting for the grim rumour and respect for the first-born, whose lineaments often resembled those of the old king who officiated at the wedding, and such was the great respect held for those children who were the first born, and consequently of blood-royal, that the unloved maidens of those wild Isles, as innocent as in the Garden of Eden, and of the ways of the Western world, would often ambitiously throw themselves across the path of the royal favour.
Oft sought the king the unloved forlorn maid
With witnesses to prove she’d been betrayed!
On the other hand some of the tribes outdid the high standard of the morals of advanced civilisation, and it was considered the height of impropriety for a maid to eat in the presence of a marriageable man, and everlasting disgrace lay on the head of the native girl who had once touched a bed mat whereon had slept a man, and many of the old customs of the South Seas are still practised secretly, and this was, and is, common knowledge to the white residents of the Pacific.
But to go back to my comrade the trader, I stayed at his homestead for some time. It was a romantic spot; by our front door curled the waves up the shore, and by night across the moonlit bay in canoes paddled the natives, singing as they fished.
We made a neat galley cooking stove just outside by the door, whereby we sat at night, as the fire blazed and the cooking fish spluttered in the frying-pan. My chum was a splendid cook, and served up many dishes of yams and bread fruit, entrées, done in native fashion. From the village a mile away, inland, the natives would come every morning and clean our one-roomed dwelling out. On the wooden walls above our bunks were photographs of our relations and friends in England. I was very happy there with my amiable chum, who was always in a joking mood, and would cheerily sing as I played the fiddle.
He was a bit gone on a half-caste Samoan girl, and the only little hitch that disturbed our friendship was through my foolishness in responding to the native girl’s wish to learn to play the violin. I was innocent enough, and as soon as I saw the way the wind blew I shut right down, and the fiddle lessons ceased, and so the sulky look on my comrade’s face faded and once more the cheery smile returned; and by the crackling fire and spluttering stews, into my ears was poured the lore of the South Seas, with the human note of reality in it, till we retired to bed, and the warm wind in moonlight waved the shadows of the palm leaves outside over our faces as we lay unsleeping in our coffin-shaped bunks, my chum one side and I the other side, talking and dreaming till “Are you asleep, Middy?” sounded far away, as I sleepily answered, “Yes” over and over again as he talked on, till at last even the sound of the waves outside faded away and we both slept.