FIJI
CHAPTER IV
The Aftermath
The object of my journey was attained. Samoa, with its mist-swept mountains, its sun-lit waterfalls, its gleaming “etherial musky highlands,” lay behind me, dim as a dream, a pictured memory of the past; and yet I had not done with the Islands. At two, if not three, of the Fijian group, we were to ship copra and sugar; and report had said that the Fiji Islands were more lovely than the Samoan. So I add a valedictory chapter—an epilogue in fact—contenting myself with the very briefest of descriptions, trusting that my illustrations will supply the missing details.
We were bound for Levuka, and we passed en route the small island of Apolima, for which Stevenson conceived so great an admiration, although I fancy he never landed there, but only saw it, as I did, from the deck of a steamer. Basking in the golden radiance of the evening light, Apolima looked like the long-lost Island of Avilion,
“Where falls nor rain, nor hail, nor any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.”
In the centre of the island is an extinct crater, and this crater is all one luxuriant tangle of dense bush. Here and there among the trees peeped out the brown huts of native Chiefs, for Apolima is a sacred island, and only the high Chiefs are privileged to dwell there. Next day we sighted Levuka, which looked more like a mountain range than an island.
The coral barrier extends for a mile and a half beyond the shore of Levuka, the reef showing occasional openings, and within one of these openings was the harbour.
These openings are like so many gates into fields of calm water, and fatal indeed would be any attempt to force a passage, for on the treacherous reef itself there is always to be seen the line of churned-up foam, and always to be heard, for miles away, the thunder of the surf. Here was the piteous spectacle of many a wreck, the bare ribs of death showing above the merciless coral.