XI.

VAVAU.

MANY pens have written of Vavau. Missionaries have extolled it for its sensational conversion to Christianity; journalists have described it as a future health-resort; a naval officer has enlarged upon the natural defences of its harbour; Byron, mixing up the two books on the Pacific of his day, Mariner's 'Tonga' and the 'Mutiny of the Bounty,' describes it in the "Island" with more rhyme than geographical accuracy; and lastly, Mr St Johnstone, a sentimental young gentleman into whose soul the smell of cocoa-nut-oil had entered, raved of the beauty of its scenery and its women. In short, for its size and its distance from the civilised world, Vavau has had its full share of paper and printing-ink.

But it deserves it all. The harbour may be a little less safe, the girls on nearer inspection a little greasier and less virtuous than they are painted, but the scenery, and the indescribable romance that clings about the miniature precipices of the wild Liku, cannot be exaggerated.

The king had come and gone. By his great fono he had sown a seed that would certainly have borne fruit if he

L

had stayed to water it, but this he would not consent to do. His church was still a-building in Vavau, and, unless he were there, the people would be wasting their time in selling oranges and copra. For a while he must do the work of God, after which he would return to his worldly duties. I was fain to acquiesce, hoping that

as the king now knew more about the difficulties with which his Ministers had to contend, he would fight their bat

tles for them in Vavau, the head centre of opposition.

But ere he had been gone a fortnight disquieting rumours reached us. He had

held a fono, and had,
as he promised, urged
the payment of
taxes; but in

defiance of our

orders the Gov

ernor, Manase,

had accepted these

taxes in money.

This was a breach of implied contract with the firm who had tendered for the tax-copra, and although they had taken advantage of Tukuaho's inexperience to obtain the contract, and had therefore little claim upon our consideration, I felt that we were morally bound by Tukuaho's word to refuse to accept money for taxes until after Dec

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ember. The Free Church had taken this opportunity for holding their annual collections in Vavau, and the people, having sold all their available copra to get money for the church, had none left from which we could draw for the benefit of the contractor. With this news came stories of persecution in the Niuas. The Wesleyans were again. being persecuted, and it was rumoured that the people had formed a league to pay no taxes. We held a Cabinet meeting, and resolved that the four principal members of the Cabinet, Tukuaho, Fatafehi, Kubu, and myself, should make a tour through the islands as far as Niua. The mail-steamer was to drop us at Niua on her way to the north, and a schooner was to be sent from Vavau to bring us back. But at Vavau the state of affairs was so unsatisfactory that it was decided to leave me behind to settle matters with the copra-contractor.

At the moment of entering the landlocked channel to the harbour one passes into a different atmosphere. The mood of the people of Tongatabu and Haapai matches their flat shores. They cover their restlessness with a crust of reserve even as the honeycomb of water-caves is hidden by plains and palm-groves: but in this land of orange-trees and wild precipices lives a different race. There is an unquiet activity about them, a vivacity of manner, a use of gesture to illustrate speech never seen among their cousins of the southern islands. The air, heavy with the scent of orange-blossom, is yet full of impulse. The men stride down to the wharf to meet the steamer, not ashamed to show that they have curiosity: the girls assemble in groups on the grassy road to chaff new-comers with an easy familiarity more respect

able than the mission primness of the Tongatabu maidens, whose discreet deportment invites suspicion.

From the wharf one climbs a grassy slope, and straightway one is in the orange-groves. The whole town is an orange-garden. Beneath the dark shiny foliage lie piles of rotting fruit, half-concealed by the rank couch-grass. Some of the trees are bent with their green load, others are white with blossom, for the crops succeed each other with little intermission. Behind the long rows of trees nestle the brown thatched houses, set down, as it were, upon the grass like the toy cottages of a child.

There is no beach here. The shores of the inlet are steep to, and the main road runs along the edge of the cliff. On this road stands the "Palace," a barn-like decaying structure of wood, from which the paint has long ago been washed by successive rainy seasons. Poor Laifone maintained the place with magnificence, that is to say, there were marble mantelpieces (never paid for), cut-glass decanters, china, plate, whips, walking - sticks, boot - trees, ornaments, and saddles scattered in heaps over the furniture and floors, very dirty and in indescribable confusion; while the royal master of all this luxury slept on the floor, ate his meals with his fingers, and drank his liquor simply from the black bottle without the intermediary of a cutglass decanter. But now even those glories have departed, and the house is empty except when the king pays a flying visit to Vavau. Beyond the "Palace" were the stores, built on the seaward side of the road for greater facility in shipping copra, which comes next to oranges as the chief product of Vavau. These stores, kept by rival traders struggling for the custom of the passing Tongans, breed by

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their juxtaposition an inextinguishable hate in the breasts of their proprietors. Flung together in this outer corner of the world, the Europeans did not scruple to slander one another to the natives, a fact that would alone suffice to account for the low estimation in which Europeans are held in Tonga. A wicked slander has it that no fresh meat can be eaten in Vavau because a sheep is too much for one family, and no man is on good enough terms with his neighbour to ask him to share with him. These men are nearly all substantial traders. Living harder lives, and dealing with a more energetic class of natives, than their compatriots in Tongatabu, more than one of the Germans could, if he sold out, realise £20,000, made in a few years from a wretched little store built and furnished without capital. The Englishmen, here as elsewhere in the Pacific, were behind the Germans in wealth, as they were in industry and frugality, and as they were before them in the faculty of meddling in the local politics.

I found that for once there was something resembling unanimity among the traders of Vavau, who were generally too busy to care about politics, and paid their taxes without grumbling. The "Chamber of Commerce," revived in Tongatabu for the joint object of worrying the new Government and of helping the insolvent publican by holding their thirst-provoking meetings at his hostelry, had lately sent a delegate to their brothers of Vavau to invite. their co-operation. The unwonted excitement of a public meeting and a real live political agitation was so new, that for the moment personal enmities were laid aside. There were even suggestions by some wild enthusiast that a