The only means of counteracting this apathy are education and the awakening of ambition through manual training and the teaching of trades. This, the head of the mission told me, was his main object. Missionary efforts, according to one man, were directed more to this purpose than to the inculcation of any special religious precepts. And there is no question that that will work. The will to live may yet spring afresh in the Fijian.
From the nucleus formed by the mission is growing a more elaborate educational system. Recently the several existing schools have been amalgamated under a new ordinance. A proposal in reference to a more efficient system of vernacular or sub-primary schools was embodied in a bill put before the legislative council. A more satisfactory method of training teachers was deliberated upon. The Fijians are, it is seen, outgrowing the kindergarten stage, but the grown-ups are largely children still.
10
A fortnight after I landed in Suva I was steaming for Levuka, the former capital of the islands, situated on a much smaller land-drop not many hours' journey away. These are the only two important ports in the group, and inter-island vessels seldom go to one without visiting the other. Levuka is a much prettier place than Suva. Its little clusters of homes and buildings seem to have dug their heels into the hillside to keep from sliding into the sea.
Along the shore to the left stood a group of Fijian huts,—a suburb of Levuka, no doubt. Only a few old women were at home, and one old man. Nothing in the wide world is more restful to one's spirit than to arrive at a village which is deserted of toilers. Nothing is more symbolic of the true nature of home, the village being more than an isolated home, but a composite of the home spirit which is not tainted by any evidence of barter and trade.
On the other side of Levuka, however, was an altogether different kind of village, that of the shipwrights. Upon dry-docks stood the skeletons of ships, fashioned with hands of love and ambition. In such vessels these ancient rovers of the sea wandered from island to island, learning, teaching, mixing, and disturbing the sweetness of nature, with which no race on earth was more blessed.
ONE OF THE MOST GIFTED OF FIJIAN CHIEFS
But who said that the wearing of hats causes baldness (?)
CACARINI (KATHERINE), THE CHIEF'S DAUGHTER
In her filet gown of Parisian simplicity