We appealed to him to regard this as a debt of honour, and to cease haggling over the price, as he well knew how we had been wronged in the matter.
Finally we left him declaring, “I am building similar boats just now at £25 apiece; I will send you one of them, and you may either take that or want!”
We left, glad to get away on any terms from such a character; and, though next year he did send one of his promised boats for me to Aneityum, yet the conduct of his degraded servants engaged in the sandal-wood trade had a great share in the guilt of breaking up and ruining our Mission. Thousands upon thousands were made by it yearly, so long as it lasted; but it was a trade steeped in human blood and indescribable vice, nor could God’s blessing rest on them and their ill-gotten gains. Oh, how often did we pray at that time to be delivered from the hands of unreasonable and wicked men! Sandal-wood traders murdered many of the Islanders when robbing them of their wood, and the Islanders murdered many of them and their servants in revenge. White men, engaged in the trade, also shot dead and murdered each other in vicious and drunken quarrels, and not a few put end to their own lives. I have scarcely known one of them who did not come to ruin and poverty; the money that came even to the shipowners was a conspicuous curse. Fools there made a mock at sin, thinking that no one cared for these poor savages, but their sin did find them out, and God made good in their experience His own irrepealable law, “The wages of sin is death.”
Ships, highly insured, were said to be sent into our Island trade to be deliberately wrecked. One Sabbath evening, towards dark, the notorious Captain H——, in command of a large ship, allowed her to drift ashore and be wrecked without any apparent effort to save her. Next morning, the whole company were wading about in the water and pretending to have lost everything! The Captain, put in prison when he returned to Sydney for running away with another man’s wife and property, imposed on Mr. Copeland and myself, getting all the biscuits, flour, and blankets we could spare for his destitute and shipwrecked company. We discovered afterwards that she was lying on a beautiful bank of sand, only a few yards from the shore, and that everything contained in her could be easily rescued without danger to life or limb! What we parted with was almost necessary for our life and health; of course he gave us an order on Captain T—— for everything, but not one farthing was ever repaid. At first he made a pretence of paying the Natives for food received; but afterwards, an armed band went inland night by night and robbed and plundered whatever came to hand. The Natives, seeing the food of their children ruthlessly stolen, were shot down without mercy when they dared to interfere; and the life of every white man was marked for speedy revenge. Glad were we when a vessel called, and carried away these white heathen Savages.
The same Captain T—— also began the shocking Kanaka labour-traffic to the Colonies, after the sandal-wood trade was exhausted, which has since destroyed so many thousands of the Natives in what was nothing less than Colonial slavery, and has largely depopulated the Islands either directly or indirectly. And yet he wrote, and published in Sydney, a pamphlet declaring that he and his sandal-wooders and Kanaka labour collectors had done more to civilize the Islanders than all our Mission efforts combined. Civilize them, indeed! By spreading disease and vice, misery and death amongst them, even at the best; at the worst, slaving many of them till they perished at their toils, shooting down others under one or other guilty pretence, and positively sweeping thousands into an untimely grave. A common cry on their lips was,—
“Let them perish and let the white men occupy these Isles.”
It was such conduct as this, that made the Islanders suspect all foreigners and hate the white man and seek revenge in robbery and murder. One Trader, for instance, a sandal-wooder and collector of Kanakas, living at Port Resolution, abominably ill-used a party of Natives. They determined in revenge to plunder his store. The cellar was underneath his house, and he himself slept above the trap-door by which alone it could be entered. Night and day he was guarded by armed men, Natives of adjoining islands, and all approaches to his premises were watched by savage dogs that gave timely warning. He felt himself secure. But the Tannese actually constructed a tunnel underground from the bush, through which they rolled away tobacco, ammunition, etc., and nearly emptied his cellar! My heart bled to see men so capable and clever thus brutally abused and demoralized and swept away. By the Gospel, and the civilization which it brings, they were capable of learning anything and being trained to a useful and even noble manhood. But all influence that ever I witnessed from these Traders was degrading, and dead against the work of our Missions.
The Chief, Nowar Noukamara, usually known as Nowar, was my best and most-to-be-trusted friend He was one of the nine or ten who were most favourable to the Mission work, attending the Worship pretty regularly, conducting it also in their own houses and villages, and making generally a somewhat unstable profession of Christianity. One or more of them often accompanied me on Sabbath, when going to conduct the Worship at inland villages, and sometimes they protected me from personal injury. This Nowar influenced the Harbour Chiefs and their people for eight or ten miles around to get up a great feast in favour of the Worship of Jehovah. All were personally and specially invited, and it was the largest Assembly of any kind that I ever witnessed on the Islands.
When all was ready, Nowar sent a party of Chiefs to escort me and my Aneityumese Teachers to the feast. Fourteen Chiefs, in turn, made speeches to the assembled multitude; the drift of all being, that war and fighting be given up on Tanna,—that no more people be killed by nahak, for witchcraft and sorcery were lies,—that Sacred Men no longer profess to make wind and rain, famine and plenty, disease and death,—that the dark heathen talk of Tanna should cease, that all here present should adopt the Worship of Jehovah as taught to them by the Missionary and the Aneityumese,—and that all the banished Tribes should be invited to their own lands to live in peace! These strange speeches did not draw forth a single opposing voice. Doubtless these men were in earnest, and had there been one master mind to rule and mould them, their regeneration had dawned. Though for the moment a feeling of friendliness prevailed, the Tannese were unstable as water and easily swayed one way or the other. They are born talkers, and can and will speechify on all occasions, but most of it means nothing, bears no fruit.
After these speeches, a scene followed which gradually assumed shape as an idolatrous ceremonial and greatly horrified me. It was in connection with the immense quantity of food that had been prepared for the feast, especially pigs and fowls. A great heap had been piled up for each Tribe represented, and a handsome portion also set apart for the Missionary and his Teachers. The ceremony was this, as nearly as I could follow it. One hundred or so of the leading men marched into the large cleared space in the centre of the assembled multitudes, and stood there facing each other in equal lines, with a man at either end closing up the passage between. At the middle they stood eight or ten feet apart, gradually nearing till they almost met at either end. Amid tremendous silence for a few moments all stood hushed; then every man kneeled on his right knee, extended his right hand, and bent forward till his face nearly touched the ground. Thereon the man at the one end began muttering something, his voice rising ever louder as he rose to his feet, when it ended in a fearful yell as he stood erect. Next the two long lines of men, all in a body, went through the same ceremonial, rising gradually to their feet, with mutterings deepening into a howl, and heightening into a yell as they stood erect. Finally, the man at the other end went through the same hideous forms. All this was thrice deliberately repeated, each time with growing frenzy. And then, all standing on their feet, they united as with one voice in what sounded like music running mad up and down the scale, closing with a long, deep-toned, hollow howl as of souls in pain. With smiles of joy, the men then all shook hands with each other. Nowar and another Chief briefly spoke, and the food was then divided and exchanged, a principal man of each Tribe standing by to receive and watch his portion.