[CHAPTER VIII.]
ATTENDING A NATIVE CHURCH.—A FEEJEEAN PREACHER.—DINNER WITH A FEEJEEAN FAMILY.—THE SEASONS IN FEEJEE.—A TROPICAL SHOWER.—A HURRICANE.—A PLANTER'S ADVENTURES.—SCENES OF DEVASTATION.—THE CLIMATE of THE FEEJEE ISLANDS.—WRECKED ON A REEF.—ESCAPING FROM THE JAWS OF CANNIBALS.—A WALKING ART GALLERY.—A TATTOOED WHITE MAN.—RETURNING TO SUVA.—THE FRIENDLY, OR TONGA, ISLANDS.—TONGATABOO.—THE KING OF THE TONGAS.—HOW HE LIVES.—A REMARKABLE CAVERN AND A LOVE STORY ABOUT IT.—FROM FEEJEE TO NEW ZEALAND.—HAURAKI GULF.—AUCKLAND.—A FINE SEAPORT AND ITS COMMERCE.—HOW NEW ZEALAND WAS COLONIZED.—THE MAORIS.—CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT A CURIOUS PEOPLE.—MISSIONARIES IN NEW ZEALAND.—HOW THE MAORIS MAKE WAR.
The second day of the stay of our friends at Levuka was Sunday, and the party attended the Episcopal church in the forenoon, where service was conducted by a clergyman who had recently arrived from London. In the afternoon they strolled to the native village outside the town, where they found some fifty or sixty Feejeeans squatted on the mat-covered floor of the neat and well-swept church listening to a preacher of their own race. They were amused to see a tall man armed with a long stick with which he occasionally touched the heads of those who were inattentive, and sometimes his touch was far from light. Frank thought the idea would not be a bad one for churches nearer home, where worshippers have been known to go to sleep during the sermon.
The preacher was a tall, fine-looking man of at least fifty years, and he spoke with an eloquence that indicated his earnestness and fervor. Of course his language was unknown to our friends, but they all agreed that the Feejeean tongue is capable of much expression. It contains many guttural sounds that do not always strike the American or English ear agreeably, and the orator seemed to speak with more rapidity than is compatible with a clear understanding on the part of his hearers. When the sermon was ended the preacher offered a prayer, and then a hymn was sung by the whole congregation. The air was a familiar Methodist one, but the words were Feejeean. Whether the meaning of the original hymn was preserved with the air no one of the listeners was able to say, and there was no interpreter present to tell them.
MISSION CHURCH IN THE FEEJEE ISLANDS.
As soon as service was over the strangers were surrounded by a group of natives, and there was an attempt at conversation; but as our friends were totally unlearned in Feejeean, and the vocabulary of the natives was principally confined to the word "shillin'," there was not much interchange of thought. Nearly every Feejeean understands "shillin'" well enough to pronounce it. He has a clear idea that it means money, and it is in this sense that it is used. Ask a native what he will sell his house for, and he will answer "shillin';" ask him the price of a cocoanut, and the reply is the same. In the former case he would of course decline the offer if actually made, and in the latter he would bring you twenty or fifty cocoanuts for the figure named.
In strolling around as the congregation dispersed Frank and Fred became separated from the rest of the party, but without any misgivings as to their safety or loss of way, as they were accompanied by several natives, one of whom invited the youths to his house. This was an invitation not to be ignored; it was accepted at once, and the man led the way along a path to where he lived. It was a hut of dried reeds lashed to a framework of poles, and stood with a dozen similar huts in the shade of a grove of cocoa-trees. The thatched roof was high and arched, while the sides were very low, and had no windows. There were two doors on opposite sides, but the door-way was so low that it was necessary to stoop almost double in order to enter. In front of the hut was a lot of bones and all manner of refuse, and a couple of pigs were lying across the door-way. They showed no inclination to move as the master of the house approached; but on catching sight, and possibly smell, of the strangers, they were up and off very quickly.