We heard this evening the reports of two big guns in the direction of the watering place, so it is conjectured that a vessel is at anchor there. However it was too late to go and see.
Sunday, 25th July.—First Sunday ashore at Maewo, and a very quiet and pleasant day it has been. I think too, it has been one of the most gloriously brilliant days I have ever seen. The morning was beautiful, the midday marvellously resplendent, and the evening indescribably lovely. The place did look so beautiful too. I told the people they ought never to cease praising God for so beautiful a heritage as He had given them. They have not a want or a care, but I fear they fail to appreciate the beauty, according to the truth of the old adage which speaks of familiarity breeding contempt. We had Sunday school very early, for two reasons more especially, (1) because it is cooler in the morning, (2) because we are not plagued with blowflies which appear in untold numbers wherever there is any congregation of people.
After a short interval devoted to breakfast, we had Mattins, and after this a short service and an address for the teachers. We had a very few strangers present to-day, but all our own people turned up. We did away with the great midday feast to-day for the first time for many years, but some of the women cooked a large quantity of food which was distributed to the boys in the usual way. This food business had become too laborious, and too much the chief part of the day, so that I fancied a relaxation for a time would be beneficial.
Patrick went to Mandurvat to take service there, but I stayed at Tanrig. At six different stations, school and service have been held and the day duly observed.
Evensong was a pleasant service here, and the church looked very nice lit up with the new lamps. The strains of the harmonium too, gave an additional pathos and homeliness to the occasion. I gave an address on the Gospel for 5th Sunday after Trinity, which I think was understood and appreciated. We had much singing afterwards and the public part of the day ended with the Blessing. May that blessing ever rest upon us here and elsewhere, and may we always endeavour to do all to God’s glory.
Monday, 26th July.—I reckoned without my host last night when I rashly permitted Agnes and Kate to cook for me this week at their own request. They made a tremendous fuss about it, but the rice came to table uncooked, and in such a small quantity that my breakfast was spoilt and the coffee was anything but good. However they did their best and I dare say to-morrow they will do all right. They were both wonderfully good, and not only washed up for me but gave my premises a good sweep as well. Poor Agnes, she is hideously lame, but she pretends to the liveliness of a kitten. The fence around the school is rather high and I watched her endeavours to get over with her lameness and her petticoats. She managed better than I expected, but I stood by in readiness to lend her a helping hand in case she fell. She comes back fully impressed with a sense of her importance and dignity after so many years absence, and her friends made a great deal of her. To-day she is off with the other women on some excursion or other, and is fully convinced that she is as active as any of them. Before long no doubt she will fancy herself useful and engaging enough to be the life partner of Tilegi, and to be the faithful companion of his joys and sorrows. She is an intelligent girl, and her long training at Norfolk Island ought to make her useful here. She is perfectly charmed with her home, and she sees very plainly the beneficial results produced by Christianity. When she left, she herself was among the few baptized, now she comes back to the bosom of a Christian community with a good church and school, daily Morning and Evening Prayers, and perfect harmony and good will among all men. She will miss little at home now of what she has grown accustomed to at Norfolk Island, and it must be a pleasant realization to her. The girls, too, with whom she will have daily association are all Christians, and she will be spared the shock and repulsion of heathen women’s talk and actions. Her father has died in the interval, a truly godly man in his life, and a believer at the time of his death.
There is no face I miss here more than that of James, a true and faithful friend to me, and I firmly believe, too, of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Arthur tells me his death was perfectly peaceful and happy, and he desired at the last to depart and be with Christ which was far better. His two children followed him, and the three lie side by side in the quiet and rest of the grave. A reputed mother, but one who is really an aunt, Amina, takes charge of Agnes until Tilegi or some one else claims her as a bride, for in spite of her deformity I suppose she will not eschew marriage herself, or be allowed to remain in single blessedness by her friends, for here young ladies are not over plentiful, and to judge by the appearance of some already married there is no accounting for taste among the men of the place. Elizabeth, the wife of James, has found solace in another partner, but she spoke of her former husband with a due amount of grief and tears, and said to me, pointing in the direction of his grave, “He lies asleep over there.”
Yet there are here those who are ‘widows indeed,’ and good old Dorcas is one such. This old lady well deserves her name, for she is full of alms deeds, and kindness to all, and I firmly believe is a true follower of Jesus Christ. She lives alone with a little grandchild in her own hut and trains up dutifully the child in the way she should go. Very seldom is old Dorcas away from her seat in church, and she exercises a benign and gentle influence over her own sex in the village. Anna, another good old widow, has died in my absence, and the loss of such is much felt. Among the younger women there is a perfect colony of children, and this is most thankworthy as being a proof that infanticide has been quite stamped out, and formerly it seemed to be a sort of religious duty here. Children were looked upon as being uncanny as well as a nuisance, and if the mother did not kill her offspring herself, she found plenty of aiders and abettors in the old midwives who attended her. The father seemed utterly impotent to prevent the evil. Now the fathers have turned head nurses and are abundantly proud of their children.
This morning after Prayers and school I walked down to the river side at Rarava, whither almost the entire population had preceded me, and where I lit upon a busy scene. It was a most resplendent day, but the overhanging branches of the wide spreading foliage lent a charm and grateful shade to the occasion. The men were engaged in digging the ‘taro’ roots, from their irrigated beds, and the women busy washing and preparing them for culinary purposes. The ladies here, present no exception to a proverbial excess in the use of the ‘unruly member’ as the especially noticeable characteristic of the gentler sex in more favoured parts of the world, and a Babel-like clatter of tongues formed a striking accompaniment to the quietness and order of the work in hand. The taro beds of course are mud, pure and simple, and the taro when dug is a very dirty vegetable, it is covered over besides with long tenacious feelers for roots, and these are picked off with the fingers in the most skilled and practised manner much after the fashion of plucking and preparing a bird for table. When the cleaning and plucking process is perfected, the long stalks are collected to a head and tied up in convenient bundles with one of their own parts in the most ingenious and knowing manner. Two bundles are then arranged on one long pole, and carried by one bearer on the shoulder, one bundle before and another behind their backs. The weight is considerable, but here the burden is borne by the men, the women carry the broad leaves and other concomitants of native cookery. Beyond the cackle there was very much merriment which all seemed in accord with the dancing sparkling waters of the clear flowing river. The prospect around was most beautiful and although not extensive the landscape was most bewitching, and the eye was never tired with seeing.
These natives have great natural taste, which is displayed to a far greater degree in the arrangement and beautifying of their yam and taro gardens here, than in any other island I have seen.