The road leads away through the forest, and being a government road is at least six feet wide. It is impossible, however, to make use of the whole six feet, for natives never walk side by side, and the beaten track worn just wide enough for their feet winds along like a great snake. Sweet-potato vines are the only thing I know harder to walk in than one of these tracks. The rain cuts it deeper and deeper, till it is a gutter not more than a foot wide, and often deeper than that. One may want to look about at the trees and the butterflies, but it must never be forgotten that you must look well where you are going, or a tumble will be the result.
We have not got as far as that part of the track which was used as the dressing-room on the night of the Nara dance, when we meet Matareu the teacher. Some one has gone ahead and told him we are on the way, and he has come to take us to the house, while the men with him go on to the creek for the baggage we have left behind. The house is built on the side of a steep hill, so we enter it at the back, and walking through to the front verandah have a view we are not likely to forget. We have the village immediately in front of us, then the green hills and valleys, and away in the distance mountains rising higher and higher till Mount Victoria is lost in the clouds. We may be tempted to linger and watch the play of light and shade over it all, but after a night in the boat the first need is food, and then a rest. All we shall want, even to the water, is in the food box, and if we cannot buy some bananas for the boys then the rice must be opened. If possible however, that is kept as a reserve. This time there is no need to touch it, for along comes Queen Koloka with a few of her grandchildren carrying bowls of cooked yarns and bananas, while she herself has hanging down her back a netted bag containing a few choice uncooked yams for roasting.
The preparation of the food does not take long, and before we have finished ours the boys are stretched in all positions, heads resting on any article of baggage they could get hold of, or on their folded arms, and sleeping as soundly as on feather beds. After a word or two with Koloka and having given her a present that will keep her occupied for some time, we too seek a rest; but the children are inquisitive, and the dogs are on the prowl for any scraps they can find, so the rest is disturbed, and before long we get up and have a talk with Matareu and hear how matters are going in his village.
At Nara it is always a feast or a fast. A feast when it rains, and a fast soon after the dry season has begun. The people are feeling the pinch now and consequently spend most of their time in the forest hunting for food. Of course they take their children with them, and the teacher is discouraged because of the small attendance at school. Knowing that we were coming most have remained in the village to-day, but they want to get away hunting, so we will have school at once. A little fellow takes a cow-bell and walks round the village ringing it all the time, and when he has made the complete circuit the big bell hanging at the end of the house is rung as the final signal, and we go to the neat little church you can see in the right of the picture, and about which I have told you in chapter vi. Between forty and fifty children are present, and at the back of the church are fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts who have come to see how the youngsters acquit themselves. The strongest points are reading and the catechism, but some can write fairly. After school small presents are given to the children, and then they are free to go and hunt in the bush for all kinds of queer things for supper.
The missionary is wanted to see a sick man at the far end of the village, and as we go we can notice that the houses differ from those at Delena. The village is built in sections. Long sheds with open fronts face the centre, and at the back of these, and at right angles to them, are the houses proper, each consisting of one room. The long shed is used by all the occupants of the houses at the back, who belong to one Iduhu or family. All the buildings look rickety, but as the wood is all very hard they last well.
The front steps at Delena may be poor, but those at Nara are poorer, and certainly of lighter build, but they do what no steps in England can. They serve to close the house and show that the owner is not at home. Really nothing more than a rough ladder, a little wider at the bottom than at the top, the owner, when he goes out detaches them and hangs them across the front of the house. Not much protection, one would think, but quite as much as a piece of vine tied across is at Delena.
Breakfast on the Beach.
