HARBOUR OF VAVAU
CHAPTER II
| “The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs.” From an old Tahitian proverb. |
We entered the land-locked harbour of Vavau in all the glory of a moon scarcely past the full. And what a contrast to the islands from which we had just parted! On every side of us towered mountains, broken, rugged, height upon height, peak above peak. In every crevice of the mountain the forest harboured, and everywhere flourished the feathery palm, that Giraffe of Vegetables, as Stevenson so humorously describes it, nestling, crowding, climbing to the summit.
It was midnight before we anchored alongside the jetty. The morning light showed us all the varied beauty of the port of Neiaufu. In place of the level shores, rising only a few feet above high-water mark, bold and rugged headlands jutted seawards, and every islet in the Archipelago was clear and definite. Let Stevenson, however, here speak in person, for though he is not dealing with this particular island, yet his description might have been written for it. “The land heaved up in peaks and rising vales; it fell in cliffs and buttresses; its colour ran through fifty modulations in a scale of pearl, rose and olive; and it was crowned above by opalescent clouds. The suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; the shadows of clouds were confounded with the articulations of the mountain, and the isle and its unsubstantial canopy rose and shimmered before us like a single mass.”
Wooded hills, which spring from the water’s edge, surround what seems to be a beautiful lagoon, some four miles long and two wide. At the eastern end there is a very narrow boat-passage. Our entrance was effected by the western passage, which is also narrow but has deep water at the point. On either side were white signal beacons, such as I have seen at the mouth of the Brisbane. The great wharf to which we were moored was approached by a road of coral, white to the point of dazzlement in the tropic sunshine. The foreshore was being reclaimed by prison labour; the prisoners, men as well as women, looked sleek and well favoured, they chanted songs as they worked, and showed no signs about them whatever of ill-usage or over-strain.
There is no beach at Vavau. On the sloping banks, which are green to the water’s edge, thatched houses peep through the orange-trees; indeed the whole island seems one delightful orange grove, the sward was everywhere littered with the freshly fallen fruit, the air was fragrant with the subtle essence of blossom and fruit combined. With the exception of the coral road leading to the jetty, all the paths at Nieaufu (as at Nukualofa) are simply long stretches of green sward, overspread with orange-trees. We climbed a steep hill, and while we rested on the top, feasted our eyes upon a sight which was one to dream of. Everywhere little cone-shaped islands outlined with big-fronded palms, everywhere that wonderful violet sea, and between the golden gleam of the oranges we saw the deep blue of the sky. It was an ecstasy in colour, a vision rather than a prospect. From henceforth my standard of the beautiful was lifted to a higher plane, and the words “The eye hath not seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive,” had, for me, acquired a deeper and intenser significance.