“The Prospector was chartered by the Government of Fiji to return 476 of these people to their homes, in completion of contracts made with them a few years before, after performing a term of labour on the cotton and maize or cocoa-nut plantations of that group of islands, which, in 1874, became a British Crown colony. I was in charge of these returning emigrants, both medically and as representing the Government.
“We passed from Malikolo to ‘Santo’, and worked up under the lee of its western side to Pusei and Tasimate, landing and recruiting emigrants as we went, and bartering for yams, and taro, and pigs by way of provisions. We rounded Cape Cumberland (the extreme N.W. point of the island), and worked into the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, making one long board to the E.N.E or N.E. by E. first, and then a long leg to the S.S.W., or thereabouts, which brought us close in with the land on the W. side of the bay. The land there was high and steep, and we had deep water until quite close into the beach. We then went about and made short tacks towards the fundus of the bay, where we had to lay the barque quite close in to the shore before getting anchorage. The water was blue and clear, and I do not recollect seeing any reefs or patches. The anchorage we made for was known to our recruiting agents, who called it the ‘river Jordan.’ I have a recollection of hearing that we got 9 fathoms with the lead just before letting go. The water was quite smooth, protected by the land at the head of the bay from the prevailing trade-wind; and the barque lay at a few boats’ lengths from the beach—about 300 yards W. from the embouchure of the river.
“Our objects in calling there were (i) to land certain natives of the place whom we had on board, with their earnings; (ii) to recruit others if any suitable ones offered; and (iii) to obtain wood and fill water.
“The beach, if my memory does not mislead me, was of black sand, which is not an uncommon thing in islands of volcanic origin, such as the New Hebrides: the distance from low water-mark to the edge of the timber and undergrowth which fringed it just above high-water mark, was only a few yards—perhaps 18 or 25—except near the mouth of the river, where it was more shelving, and extended out into a sandy foreshore or bank corresponding to the bar, the dry land being flat and of alluvial formation.
“The river was about as large as the Thames at Isleworth, and flowed into the bay through a wide and far-reaching valley from S. to N. Its banks were low, and overgrown with reeds and scrub, and more than usually free from the customary mangrove trees and bushes. We did not explore it for far, because the friendly attitude of the natives could not be depended on to last, if they should get us into a ‘corner;’ but I pulled into the river in one of the recruiting boats for a short distance, and selected a place at which we filled our beakers and water-casks with water of good and fresh quality. This was perhaps less than half a mile from the mouth: the water was clear, and we could see the bottom in mid-stream; but the tide was at the last of the ebb, as we had chosen that time for the sake of getting the freshest water.
“The natives brought us some dead logs to the beach, and others on bamboos to the vessel’s side, much of which the sailors and officers bartered for in the belief that it was sandal wood. It was in reality, I believe, the wood known in Fijian as Sevna or Cevna, a kind of Pittosporum, which grows near the sea and has a strong sandal-wood odour. We also obtained the natives’ consent to our cutting some firewood, which was mostly wild dawa (Nephilium pinnatum), and mulomulo (Hiliuscus populnea), a littoral tree often used in Fiji to cut boats’ knees from.
“We recruited four men to go with us to Fiji for three years. They were all adults of about 20 to 24 years, tall, black, and athletic young men, much above the average stature of New Hebrideans anywhere north of Eromango; and the other people of the locality appeared to me equally well-built, and some 5 ft. 10 in. or 5 ft. 11 in. in height. I cannot say whether they were the true inhabitants of the place, as we saw no village nor huts: they may have been mountaineers from the interior on an excursion to the coast, the mountaineers in these islands being as a rule blacker, and I think taller (with exceptions), than the coast people.
“They had no canoes—at least I saw none—except two small catamarans; and the timber they took alongside the ship was floated off by means of bamboos.
“It is doubtful whether mountaineers would have possession of catamarans on the coast, or trust themselves to bamboo rafts.
“The west shore of this bay rises steeply from the water throughout most of its extent: but there are narrow strips of low-lying flat land between the beach and the mountain side at intervals, continuous with the small valleys, where creeks or torrents, of which there are several, have deposited silt and boulders, and rocky débris from the higher slopes. But, in so far as I remember, they are all insignificant in extent, as the mountain ridge which forms this large promontory and ends abruptly in Cape Cumberland, rises, as already mentioned, steeply from the sea, which is deep all along and around it, with only here and there even a fringing shore reef. There is no barrier reef whatever, and consequently no lagoon.