Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land: A story of old Fiji

by Henry Britton

On the banks of the rivulets were groves of Tahitian chestnuts, with their grooved trunks and knobby roots, affording a refreshing shade. After the monotonous grass and isolated screw-pines of the open plain the eye was often refreshed by the variegated leaves of the deciduous tavola, which, preparatory to falling off, assumes a variety of tints, in which brown, red, yellow, and scarlet are the most prominent. The balsamic odours of fragrant shrubs accompanied us on our way, and our road was tapestried with ferns and flowers, the graceful form of the wild plantain giving dignity to the landscape. The forest silence was broken only by the rustling of the leaves and the chattering of the cicadæ, and we saw no living object save that indicated by the occasional flash of a bright-winged parrakeet as it flew from tree to tree, startled by our approach. Gaining an eminence, the sedgy hollows below seemed covered with a veil of vapoury tissue.

Late in the afternoon we rested in a clump of sago palms on the verge of a pretty waterfall descending like a rainbow flash in a wildly romantic mountain gorge, above which towered a conical rock of great height. The approach was through tangled masses of diverse greenery which almost shut out the sunlight from this fairy dell. The water fell some 20ft. in a triple cascade down into a transparent pool formed in a rocky bed, and the three little jets there uniting made two more similar leaps to add their small volume to a pebbly brook which flowed on to the coast. As we sat in the shade of over-arching boughs, munching bananas and sugar-cane, and listening to the music of the waterfall, we were startled for a moment by a sudden splash, which resounded in the solemn stillness of the place. It was only a large shaddock, grown too heavy for its stem to bear, dropping into the stream.

Of all the flowers that gemmed the mead there were none more fair than Lolóma. Her rounded limbs, unmarked by vein or muscle, the small hand, and well-kept nails of her tapering fingers, bore testimony to the life of ease she led. Her complexion, the tender peach colour which lingers in the western sky for awhile after the disappearance of the great luminary, was in itself a proof that she had been carefully guarded from the sun. Her short but pliant neck, gently swelling shoulders, and moderately slender waist, her well-shaped feet with slightly-spreading toes, and her frank laughing eyes which knew no doubt, made her a fit subject for an artist. How piquantly she poised as she lingered on some grassy knoll, her small head resting on the neck buoyant as a flower on its stem! Replace her chaplet of dewy blooms by a crescent diadem, her simple liku by a light classical tunic, and there is the chaste huntress of ancient fable, of a darker hue, lacking only the thinness of the nose, the longer neck, the fuller eyes, and the compressed toes of the Grecian ideal. Vigorous in youthful blooming beauty, the unadorned charm of her flowing figure was a lovelier vesture than that of the lilies of the field. Full of passionate and impulsive affections, the soft smile of the south now played on her sun-kissed face, partly disclosing twin rows of fairy pearl.

We rioted in the mere physical enjoyment of life. We were happy with the happiness of the child who neither questions the wisdom of the moment, nor its hereafter. Her easy, unstudied abandonment, gave to Lolóma the grace of a fawn. It was enough for me in those idle moments to watch the shadows play on her soft wanton limbs, or to listen to her merry rippling laugh, showing her teeth white as the core of the fresh bread fruit, as she told some romantic or humourous story learnt in the village.

Sometimes the forest seemed an enchanted garden, in which we were en-canopied by a chaos of creepers which threw their garlands of gay flowers over all, adorning the scene with the varying enchantments of color. The primeval orchard was hung with luminous fruits like those stolen from Aladdin’s garden, and a curious dreamy golden hue rested on leaf and bough. From elevated spots we could see valley opening into valley in oft repeated succession; and beyond, the ocean, studded with islands, whose outlying reefs carded the waters into foam, while in the sky was reflected the soft blue of the sea.

We went on through dell and dingle, where intercepting boughs made sunny chequers on the green sward; on through mountain passes, where miniature cascades shook their loosened silver in the sun; on through thickets of flags and bamboos; and on through wide-reaching seas of verdure, till at last we sighted, from easy walking distance, the heaving ocean, flecked with constantly changing cloud-shadows, and glistening with the reflected radiance of the westering sun.

Casting her eye along the coast-line, Lolóma declared that she saw the chief town of the tribe to which she was vasu, though I could discern nothing but tree-tops. The name of the town, she said, was Ramáka, which means, “shining from a distance,” and its chief was the great Waikatakata whom she had visited three years previously.

I remembered the name Waikatakata. It was Hot-Water, whose people wished to make a hash of me, and from whom I had escaped in so marvellous a way, leaving my two companions, as I believed, to a terrible death. I knew, however, that on introducing myself as the husband of Lolóma, we should both be received with the honours due to vasus, and that the past would be entirely forgotten.

We made the shore line some two miles from the town. The sand was still luminous with the ebbed tide, and strewn with shells in glittering profusion. In one place these spoils of the ocean, were collected in a huge bank. When stirred with a stick, the shells ran down in rainbow streams. Lolóma gathered enough of vari-colored pieces for a new necklace, and I secured a magnificent orange cowrie, as a present for Waikatakata. As we threw ourselves down among the sea-born treasures of scarlet and gold, and yellow and saffron, which made a gorgeous mosaic pavement on the white sand, Lolóma’s shapely hands idly played with the brilliant shells, and a shade of sadness stole over her at the thought that we should soon be among strangers.

Towards evening we reached the outskirts of the town and intercepted a young slave, who told us that two white men were living with the chief, but he either could not or would not give us any particulars in regard to them. Could it be that an English ship had called there since the wreck of the Molly Asthore, and that I had missed the opportunity of returning to civilisation? Even if it were so, I felt at the moment that I hardly regretted it.