On my return to Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time. His post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very few servants. The one here had, besides a teacher from Malekula, an old native who had quarrelled with his chief and separated from his clan. The good man was very anxious to marry, but no girl would have him, as he had had two wives, and had, quite without malice, strangled his second wife by way of curing her of an illness. I was reminded of this little episode every time I looked at the man’s long, bony fingers.
One day a native asked me for medicine for his brother. I tried to find out the nature of the ailment, and decided to give him calomel, urging his brother to take it to him at once. The man had eaten a quarter of a pig all by himself, but, of course, it was said that he had been poisoned. His brother, instead of hurrying home, had a little visit with his friends at the coast, until it was dark and he was afraid to go home through the bush alone; so he waited till next morning, when it was too late. The man’s death naturally made the murder theory a certainty, so the body was not buried, but laid out in the hut, with all sorts of finery. Around it, in spite of the fearful odour, all the women sat for ten days, in a cloud of blow-flies. They burned strong-scented herbs to kill the smell, and dug a little trench across the floor, in order to keep the liquids from the decaying corpse from running into the other half of the house. The nose and mouth of the body were stopped up with clay and lime, probably to keep the soul from getting out, and the body was surrounded by a little hut. In the gamal close by sat all the men, sulky, revengeful, and planning war, which, in fact, broke out within a few days after my departure.
The Messrs. Th. had been kind enough to invite me to go on a recruiting trip to Maevo, the most north-easterly island of the group. Here I found a very scanty population, showing many traces of Polynesian admixture in appearance and habits. The weather was nasty and our luck at recruiting poor, so that after a fortnight we returned to Hog Harbour. I went to Port Olry to my old priest’s house, and a few days later Mr. Th. came in his cutter to take me to Tassimaloun in Big Bay; so I bade a hearty farewell to the good Father, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting again.
Chapter VII
Santo
There are hardly any natives left in the south of the Bay of St. Philip and St. James, generally called Big Bay. Only to the north of Talamacco there are a few villages, in which the remnants of a once numerous population, mostly converts of the Presbyterian mission, have collected. It is a very mixed crowd, without other organization than that which the mission has created, and that is not much. There are a few chiefs, but they have even less authority than elsewhere, and the feeling of solidarity is lacking entirely, so that I have hardly ever found a colony where there was so much intrigue, immorality and quarrelling. A few years ago the population had been kept in order by a Presbyterian missionary of the stern and cruel type; but he had been recalled, and his place was taken by a man quite unable to cope with the lawlessness of the natives, so that every vice developed freely, and murders were more frequent than in heathen districts. Matters were not improved by the antagonism between the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian missions and the traders; each worked against the others, offering the natives the best of opportunities to fish in troubled waters. The result of all this was a rapid decrease of the population and frequent artificial sterility. The primitive population has disappeared completely in some places, and is only to be found in any numbers far inland among the western mountains. The situation is a little better in the north, where we find a number of flourishing villages along the coast around Cape Cumberland.
VIEW ALONG THE SHORE OF A CORAL ISLAND.
The nearest village to Talamacco was Tapapa. Sanitary conditions there were most disheartening, as at least half of the inhabitants were leprous, and most of them suffered from tuberculosis or elephantiasis. I saw hardly any children, so that the village will shortly disappear, like so many others.