“Allow it? the mothers do it! It seems to me that there’s nothing too fiendish or diabolical for these people to do. Why, in some of the islands they have an institution called the Areoi, and the persons connected with that body are ready for any wickedness that mortal man can devise. In fact they stick at nothing; and one o’ their customs is to murder their infants the moment they are born. The mothers agree to it, and the fathers do it. And the mildest ways they have of murdering them is by sticking them through the body with sharp splinters of bamboo, strangling them with their thumbs, or burying them alive and stamping them to death while under the sod.”
I felt sick at heart while my companion recited these horrors.
“But it’s a curious fact,” he continued, after a pause, during which we walked in silence towards the spot where we had left our comrades—“it’s a curious fact, that wherever the missionaries get a footin’ all these things come to an end at once, an’ the savages take to doin’ each other good, and singin’ psalms, just like Methodists.”
“God bless the missionaries!” said I, while a feeling of enthusiasm filled my heart, so that I could speak with difficulty. “God bless and prosper the missionaries till they get a footing in every island of the sea!”
“I would say Amen to that prayer, Ralph, if I could,” said Bill, in a deep, sad voice; “but it would be a mere mockery for a man to ask a blessing for others who dare not ask one for himself. But, Ralph,” he continued, “I’ve not told you half o’ the abominations I have seen durin’ my life in these seas. If we pull long together, lad, I’ll tell you more; and if times have not changed very much since I was here last, it’s like that you’ll have a chance o’ seeing a little for yourself before long.”
XXV
The Sandalwood party—Native children’s games, somewhat surprising—Desperate amusements suddenly and fatally brought to a close—An old friend recognised—News—Romata’s mad conduct.
Next day the wood-cutting party went ashore again, and I accompanied them as before. During the dinner hour I wandered into the woods alone, being disinclined for food that day. I had not rambled far when I found myself unexpectedly on the seashore, having crossed a narrow neck of land which separated the native village from a large bay. Here I found a party of the islanders busy with one of their war-canoes, which was almost ready for launching. I stood for a long time watching this party with great interest, and observed that they fastened the timbers and planks to each other very much in the same way in which I had seen Jack fasten those of our little boat. But what surprised me most was its immense length, which I measured very carefully, and found to be a hundred feet long; and it was so capacious that it could have held three hundred men. It had the unwieldy outrigger and enormously high sternposts which I had remarked on the canoe that came to us while I was on the Coral Island. Observing some boys playing at games a short way along the beach, I resolved to go and watch them; but as I turned from the natives who were engaged so busily and cheerfully at their work, I little thought of the terrible event that hung on the completion of that war-canoe.
Advancing towards the children, who were so numerous that I began to think this must be the general playground of the village, I sat down on a grassy bank under the shade of a plantain-tree, to watch them. And a happier or more noisy crew I have never seen. There were at least two hundred of them, both boys and girls, all of whom were clad in no other garments than their own glossy little black skins, except the maro, or strip of cloth round the loins of the boys, and a very short petticoat or kilt on the girls. They did not all play at the same game, but amused themselves in different groups.
One band was busily engaged in a game exactly similar to our blind-man’s-buff. Another set were walking on stilts, which raised the children three feet from the ground. They were very expert at this amusement and seldom tumbled. In another place I observed a group of girls standing together, and apparently enjoying themselves very much; so I went up to see what they were doing, and found that they were opening their eyelids with their fingers till their eyes appeared of an enormous size, and then thrusting pieces of straw between the upper and lower lids, across the eyeball, to keep them in that position! This seemed to me, I must confess, a very foolish as well as dangerous amusement. Nevertheless the children seemed to be greatly delighted with the hideous faces they made. I pondered this subject a good deal, and thought that if little children knew how silly they seem to grown-up people when they make faces, they would not be so fond of doing it. In another place were a number of boys engaged in flying kites, and I could not help wondering that some of the games of those little savages should be so like to our own, although they had never seen us at play. But the kites were different from ours in many respects, being of every variety of shape. They were made of very thin cloth, and the boys raised them to a wonderful height in the air by means of twine made from the coconut husk. Other games there were, some of which showed the natural depravity of the hearts of these poor savages, and made me wish fervently that missionaries might be sent out to them. But the
