The Roku Kandavu Levu, a most attractive young man whom I saw more of later in Suva, left on a journey up the Rewa on the evening of my arrival, but not, however, before telling the Mbuli or headman to give me the "freedom of the city" and turning me over to a couple of young British madcaps, who had been his guests for a fortnight, with instructions to "keep the ball rolling." I could not have fallen into better hands. The Honourable Bertie W——, whom I have since learned has only one invalid brother between himself and the succession to a baronetcy, had been sent to the Antipodes by his noble father because he had allowed the charms of a young lady of the Gaiety chorus to interfere with his pursuit of knowledge at Cambridge. A month of good behaviour in Sydney was being rewarded by a tour of Fiji, on which was officiating as cicerone young Mr. Tom B——, the son of a prominent attorney of Suva, and a lad after the Honourable Bertie's own heart.
These two spirited youngsters—both were under twenty—had started out from Suva to "study native life at first hand" in the wilds of the interior of Vita Levu, but the Roku Kandavu Levu, who could not let himself miss the chance for practice with two crack cricketers go by—he had been the best bat on the University of Sydney eleven a few years previously—contrived to make his capital so pleasant for them that they had lost interest in the savages of the mountain country and settled down to pursue their investigations at Mbau. Everybody, it appeared, had been pleased with the arrangement but the missionary, who, because a large part of his congregation had stayed away from service to watch the Honourable Bertie illustrating the principles of Ranjitsinji's famous "leg glance" for the benefit of the Roku on the village green, had closed up the church and posted a notice in Fijian upon the door that it would not be opened until the Sabbath-breakers had left the island. The Roku who, from his Australian education, is a fairly open minded cynic himself, still hardly felt it desirable politically, as the ranking chief in Fiji, to stir up trouble with the all-powerful missionaries. Accordingly, torn between the exigencies of hospitality and his duty as the chief of a Christianized people, the Roku, dodging responsibility in flight, had departed on an "urgent" mission up the river, telling his guests to continue their "studies" as long as they desired and leaving word for the villagers not to let their love of sport interfere with their devotions. It was at the beginning of this "interregnum" that I arrived.
The natives of Mbau, probably as a result of the example set by their distinguished chief, are very fond of all kinds of outdoor sports, which fact inspired my young friends with the idea of holding a field day in which the white race should compete against the brown. The honour of the Caucasian was to be upheld by Bertie, Tom and myself, while that of the Polynesian would be maintained by a selection from all of the Fijians on the island. Most of the first day was spent arranging the program. The natives wanted a tug-of-war, but our captain, Bertie, realizing that we lacked the "beef" for such a contest, agreed to its inclusion only in the event that the missionary—with whom South Sea life had agreed so well that he weighed in the vicinity of 250 pounds—could be induced to pull with us for the honour of his race. Needless to say the event was not scheduled. We did the sporting thing, however, by offering to oppose an eleven made up of the island's best cricketers with a "team" composed of Bertie, Tom and myself. The other events decided upon were two swimming races, two sprints, one canoe race, shot-put, throwing the cricket ball, broad and high jumps, a "modified Marathon" and three boxing contests.
The second day we spent in practice and "elimination trials" to decide in which particular events each of us was best fitted to compete, as, except for the cricket, the finals were to be strictly "man-to-man" affairs. Luckily, our respective abilities dove-tailed perfectly. Tom was an adept at swimming and no novice in handling the outrigger canoe, while his splendid endurance made him a natural if inexperienced distance runner; Bertie had given promise of developing into one of the fastest amateur sprinters in England before the Gaiety girl supervened, and had recently bested some of the speediest men in Australia at the "hundred" and "two-twenty"; my old varsity events, the shot-put and broad jump, and the remnants of a fair throwing arm, made me our logical representative in the remaining contests we had scheduled. Each of us was slated to box in his respective class—Bertie in the light-weight, Tom in middle-weight, and I—because I weighed a "good fourteen stone and looked jolly fit"—in the heavy-weight.
The elimination trials of the Fijians were not so simple a matter. They fought and wrangled from morn till dewy eve and on into the moonlight in an earnest endeavour to pick the likeliest representatives to uphold the honour of their race. The final list was not handed to Bertie till near midnight, and even then, as became apparent next day, was not quite complete.
Every soul on the island except the immediate members of the missionary's household was on the beach in the morning when the canoe race was started, and, what with beaten war drums and coal oil cans, gave an exhibition that would have made a varsity rooting section look like a Quaker meeting when their man paddled across the line an easy winner. Tom made a good fight but his opponent had too many generations of training behind him. Bertie evened up things by sprinting the length of the village green a house-length ahead of his dusky opponent, and my victory in the broad jump gave us a temporary lead. In the high jump we were weak, and Bertie, who had never essayed the event before, was no match for a slender Fijian youth who had been to school in Auckland.
Tom, who was really a marvel at the Australian "crawl," had his revenge in the swimming race for his defeat in the outrigger contest, beating his man almost two to one in a dash of about a hundred yards across a bight in the sea-wall. The vanquished Fijian, who had also been picked to swim in the race of half a mile or more to the mainland and back, was so crushed by the completeness of his defeat that he refused to compete again, the event being called off.
In the shot-putting contest we used an old rust-eaten twenty-pound cannon ball which had been thrown into the village away back in the 40's by a British gunboat on a punitive mission against the natives for killing and eating a family of missionaries. My opponent made up in strength what he lacked in "form," and by dint of following the shot out of the "ring" put up a mark which I was able to beat only by resorting to the same unorthodox expedient. Bertie added to our score by romping to another easy victory in the sprint around an approximate 220-yard circle which had been marked with coconuts along the outside of the village green.
The last event of the forenoon was the "modified Marathon," to be run over a course once around the island, across the causeway to the mainland and back, and then around the island again to a finish in front of the council house, a distance of about three miles. We had counted on Tom to win this event handily, but the Fijians sprung a "ringer" on us by entering one Lal Singh, a lanky East Indian coolie who was employed by the Roku to carry messages back and forth between Mbau and Rewa. This human greyhound sprang away at the report of the pistol as though running a quarter, and had loped around the island and half way to the mainland before poor Tom, winded already, staggered out upon the leeward beach. Here Bertie and I headed him off and took him out of the race to save his strength for the trials of the afternoon. The natives, appearing to figure the importance of a race in direct proportion to its length, beat their hollow-log drums and sang chesty, sonorous war chants all through the rest hour in celebration of this victory.
While Bertie was winning the cricket ball-throwing contest—a competition in which he substituted for me who had originally qualified for it—I essayed to give the Fijians an exhibition of hammer-throwing, an event with which they were still unfamiliar. In the absence of a regulation hammer, a network of fibre was woven around the twenty-pound cannon ball, and into this mesh the end of a three-foot strand of coco-husk rope was fixed. This contrivance looked decidedly flimsy and, as presently transpired, did not belie its appearance. It held together for a couple of tentative tosses and even through the preliminary swings of a real throw; but when I whirled into the first circle of what was to have been a triple turn the fibrous mesh gave way and, while I did a double back somersault, the ponderous old missile went hurtling through the air and banged against the side of the great council house. The stout wall was not breached, but a muffled crash told of havoc among the tribal relics which adorned the interior. A few minutes later the Mbuli, who with several of the elders had hurried to investigate, emerged with a baleful look on his face to announce that the great yanggona bowl, out of the sacred depths of which kava had been served even to the great Thakambau himself, was split across the middle from a fall to the floor.