In the first stanza Bulitaundúa is represented as talking to himself. Coming out of his house, and looking round, he finds that the usual “trade” breeze is blowing, and hopes it may prove just the breeze to help him over to the fair lady’s land. In the second stanza he is in his canoe, paddling away down the river, and singing, as he glides along, a song in which are mentioned the most prominent points of land as they come in sight ahead. In the third stanza he reaches the ocean, where, as we are led to infer, finding the wind too strong, he causes a great calm, and then, dashing bravely out, he pulls away for the “Great Land,” where lives the object of all his hopes. The difficulties and dangers of ocean passed, the undaunted hero joyfully prepares to land. As he poles his canoe towards the beach, over what in that part of Fiji is a shore-reef, and draws nearer and nearer to the home of the illustrious goddess, he descries in the hills that form the immediate background of the picture before him, a silvery waterfall, the dancing glories of which greatly gladden his heart, especially as the thought impresses itself strongly in his mind that such a fall can be no other than the bathing-place of the “World’s Attraction.” In the fourth stanza, the princess, hearing that a canoe has arrived, sends her maid in great haste to see who the stranger can be. The girl, in wild astonishment at the truly princely bearing of Bulitaundúa, bites her fingers and claps her hands, which is one of the ways in which Fijian young ladies let people know that they are exceedingly filled with wonder! On being addressed by this maiden as “Lord-o’-the-Lands,” the princely sailor-god, enquires naturally enough, and with a proper eye to business, if what she says is true, “how would it be for him to be crowned in that land also?” Whereupon the maiden’s surprise rushes suddenly to a climax, and away she runs to her mistress to report the stranger’s most astounding proposal. Now, the goddess goes to the beach and interviews the newly-arrived hero, who, presently discovering that he has given the inquisitive lady satisfactory answers to her queries, “pops” the all-important question without further delay. The battle is fought and won. It was a “bloodless victory.” And the poet deemed it as fit a subject for the efforts of his genius as those victories which, if he knew the way to write at all, he would have had to write with blood. The goddess being now the hero’s own, he tells her to take her place, where the lady’s place always is when rowing with her lord, namely, “forward.” The short oars, or more correctly, paddles, in general use in Cannibal-land, are in shape like flattened hearts, with small, round smooth handles, about 4 feet in length. The wood of which they are made is a very valuable one, known among the natives by the name of “vesi,” and said to resemble the “green-heart” of India. It was a paddle of this sort, the poet tells us, which the goddess used on the morning of her elopement. The loving pair having been placed by the bard fairly on their way home, the song concludes.
From other compositions which refer to this conquest, I subsequently learned that a large family of gods and goddesses arose out of the happy union. The names of some of these personages are worth recording for their poetic character. They are:—“Parrakeet-Lord,” “Eight-Eyes,” “Grass-flower-skirt,” i.e. the goddess whose skirt was made of the flowers of grass;—and, last and most wonderful of all—“Spirit-skirt,” or the goddess whose skirt was composed of spirits!
The Song.
“The easterly breeze is blowing fair,”—
Said Bulitaundúa[[12]] with gladsome air,
“My breeze, mayhap, for the Land o’ the fair!”
“Pull away from side to side,
Rolling below is the river-tide.
Hung out ahead is Screw-pine strand;
Pull away with a steady hand.