(p. 231)

LIVRO V

 

 

(p. 232)

‘My purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset and the baths

Of all the western stars –

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.’

 

                                                                       TENNYSON’S ‘Ulysses.’

 

 

(p. 233)

CHAPTER I

 

SOUTHWARDS HO!

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            AWAY from the land of vain labour and baffled hope. Away from the land where the elements of human society yet seethe and boil up in reckless violence and unmitigated self-seeking‘. Away, still farther away from the home of my youth. Ten thousand miles away, yet onward still! A new and, perchance, a better world beckons me towards it, – the new World of the South Seas. There, among my own countrymen, will I renew my quest; there seek the means of returning once more to see the inmates of the old home. Wherefore this perpetual clinging to home? Is it thus with all men, even when provided with wife and children and interests to absorb them? Home must be ever the place of the dearest ties; and I have no new ties: therefore am I lonely, and cling to the old memories. It seems as if one must have concrete personal attachments. I want rest, for I am very weary. This voyage will renew my strength. A new world, without one face I have ever seen before, needs some fulness of hope and energy to confront it. Ah me l would heaven be heaven without some of the old faces to cluster round, and smile a welcome on one’s arrival? There can be no heaven while still full of regrets for those left behind, and none to greet us there.

 

(p. 234)

*          *          *          *

 

            Beneath the soft trade winds we are gliding over smooth seas rarely divided by a keel, in a capital yacht-like little craft, whose three owners – an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Frenchman, are all on board. It is laden with a cargo of varieties, with which they intend to trade with some of the islands for such articles as palm oil, tortoiseshell, sandal-wood, and beche-le-mer, the latter being a sort of sea-slug, which, when manufactured into soup, is esteemed a huge delicacy by Chinese Mandarins. All these things find a ready market in Sydney; and to that capital of the southern ocean are we bound, when the Island cruise and its purpose are accomplished. My companions are agreeable, especially the Frenchman, who is a lively little fellow, with a good deal of enthusiasm. Time goes as in a dream. There is just enough of consciousness to feel the work of renovation going on. I have one book with me, purchased in San Francisco, which is to me a new Apocalypse. It is Bailey’s poem of ‘Festus.’ Over this I ponder with a degree of delight almost equal to that with which I first read Carlyle’s ‘Hero Worship’ in the Bay of Biscay. It seems to me that all my greatest pleasures have been derived from books. The first work of imagination beyond the ordinary reading of children that I remember, was Southey’s ‘Thalaba.’ It was to me superhuman. No mere mortal, I thought, could possess such a faculty of imagining. The next work, after a long interval, that intensely attracted me was ‘Jane Eyre.’ in it I learned to appreciate the sanctity of the affections, and their superiority over mere conventionality. Then the ‘Hero Worship,’ suggesting the possibility of the divine in the human

(p. 235)

idea. Bulwer’s ‘Caxtons’ next strangely affected me. It has been the tenant of my saddle-bags in many a long ride, and for months I cared to read nothing else. The two noble brothers, so simple, and high, and pure; the beauty of the relation between the father and the son; and the wondrous delicacy of the scene where the former details his own most painful experiences for his boy’s benefit, touched me so that even now I am unable to read the book aloud. Would that all fathers established the same relations with their children. And now ‘Festus’ is my bible; no other book ever ‘found’ me, to use Coleridge’s phrase, in so many parts of my nature. And this is the only proof we have of the truth, whether in a book or in anything else, – the finding oneself in it. No revelation could be inspired for ns unless it coincided with our nature and wants; and if it does thus coincide with humanity, why should it not be a human product? to this list I must add Emerson’s Essays, which have been for me a never-failing spring of refreshing, and fountain of wisdom.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            The sensation of indolent contentment fostered by this kind of life in these latitudes is very pleasant. I find it singularly antagonistic to all ideas of duty or ambition. Under its prolonged influence I can fancy my-self becoming an oyster, – another proof of the identity of perfection and negation. Yet I am not without much to think about; nor are my companions undeserving of a niche in my note-book.

 

            The English owner is also our captain; a good-natured fellow in act, though of the most dogged contradictory disposition in words. Nothing can be said in

(p. 236)

a simple conversation that does not excite his combativeness. At last, guessing the secret of his universal opposition, I asked him, during one of its exhibitions, if, supposing he were clearly shown to his own satisfaction to be wrong, he would own it; – ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I’d die first.’

 

            The Frenchman is a curious compound, (though not curious perhaps for a Frenchman,) of volatility and earnestness. He is as thoroughly free from any prepossession in favour of Christianity, as if he had been born in a Turkish Hareem.

 

            He has carried his acquaintance with the ancient mythologies to a remarkable extent, and has come to regard Christianity as but a refined Pagan eclecticism. He admires the prudence of the Romish Church in keeping the original records of their faith out of sight, on the ground that people will not be long content to read the Bible without investigating the history of its composition, ‘and when once they do that, adieu to Christianism.’

 

            For Protestantism he has a vast contempt, as ‘the product of an unnatural alliance between faith and knowledge; a hybrid compounded of equal parts of darkness and light, having no vital principle of its own, and only possible as a transition to one or the other extreme.’

 

            In his view, ‘Priestism’ is stronger in modern Europe than ever it was in old times, for ‘the priests have thrown away the keys, and have come to believe their own lie: – at least many of them do.’ The only religion he professes is that of ‘Solidarité,’ or community of interest, which he confidently expects, sooner

(p. 237)

or later, to take the place of all other principles of action. His imperfect English and lively manner are very piquant.

 

            ‘When any person tries to Christianise me, I say to them. “Beware! you are a Novice, and I am one of the Initiated. Will you, who are only allowed to enter the outer court, teach a high priest who has been behind the veil, and seen all the holy mysteries? “And when they contend that they are indeed true believers, I do beam on them and cry out “Ah, you have a good heart.” But I do not tell them what I know, for it is good for them to think true what they teach; and if I convert them they would lose their good heart (i. e. act dis-honestly), or they would starve; and it is pain to me when people starve or have a bad heart.’

 

            His theory is that every religion was originally a worship of the sun, and that Christianity is the product of a union between certain astronomical and philosophical conclusions. In support thereof he enumerates some curious parallelisms.

 

            Hercules, Apollo, Bacchus, Æsculapius, and other classical divinities, the Hindoo Chrishna, the Egyptian Osiris, Pythagoras, and the Jewish Christ, he regards as being all mere personifications of the Sun; and won’t hear of any of the details which their histories have in common, being derived from the Gospels. Quoting the prophecy of Æsculapius in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, he exhibits the identity of its details with what afterwards was believed by Christians. He adduces also Justin Martyr’s acknowledgment that the Christians claimed little more for their Jesus than the Pagans for their Æsculapius: and states that to him also were applied the epithets of

(p. 238)

‘God the Saviour,’ the ‘healer of men,’ and ‘conqueror of death.’ He makes a great point of the coincidence between the creed and the course of the Sun; how that it passes through the constellation Virgo; descends below the earth; rises again and ascends into heaven; revealing the kingdom of heaven, or summer; and after passing through Aries, as the lamb of God takes away the sun of the world, that is, repairs the ravages of winter. The twelve apostles through which his light is spread, are the twelve months; Judas being February, which ‘transgresses,’ or passes over a day, and so falls into his proper place, as stated in Acts I. 25.

 

            More curious still is the astrological function he assigns to John the Baptist, the patron or ‘genie’ of June 24^th. He considers him as regarding from one pole of the year the infant Jesus, the ‘genie’ of December 25^th, at the other pole. The saying of John, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease,’ having reference to the fact that the days begin to lengthen from Christmas day, and to shorten from June 24^th. To the shortest day, December 21^st, is assigned the doubting apostle Thomas as patron: for then the year, having reached the lowest depths of its darkness, may be supposed to fear lest its Lord, the Sun, can never rise again.

 

            Besides Voltaire, whom he styles ‘the greatest of Biblical critics,’ there is an English book, he tells me, in which I can find all this and a vast deal more concerning; the origin of Christianity well worked out. The author was a ‘Marteer,’ whose name he thinks was Taylor. But the great text-book is Dupuis.’

 

            According to his theory, the calendar should be reversed in the southern hemisphere.

 

(p. 239)

            It is very certain that the subject of Christian Evidences has not been dealt fairly with. The selection of any one period of history, however remote, and the collation of all that is known or believed about it, must necessarily cause the period and the events ascribed to it to stand out distinctly and separately from the surrounding time and circumstances, and to assume a prominence by no means properly belonging to them. So that what is in reality a single link in a great chain of transitions, may thus be made to outweigh and eclipse the whole series of facts to which it belongs.

 

            What we require is a history of philosophy and religion at the time immediately prior to the origin of Christianity.

 

            In short, I want to see the human history of the world dealt with as geologists are dealing with the Earth’s physical history.

 

            Theologians seem to think that Catastrophe is the only possible evidence of divine handiwork, and that if all things went on smoothly and without jerks, the Universe would afford no proof of God’s existence. But it is probably only because we have knowledge of the results merely of different eras, and not of the details of the periods of transition that connect them, that the notion has grown up that history has jumped from one summit, as it were, to another, and that each complete period has been the product of a separate miraculous action, instead of having grown naturally out of the periods which have preceded it. The progress of Geology is certainly tending towards this conclusion in respect to the earth, and I am strongly inclined to think that if we only could get at the real history of the period between

(p. 240)

the Old and New Testaments, and especially that of the condition of Judæa and its relation to Egypt and to Egyptian schools of thought at the time of Christ’s birth, we should find that Me was as much a natural product of his age and country as any other representative man.

 

            The vicious habit of restricting history to kings and wars, may account for the scantiness of our knowledge on this head, but it is not unlikely that the founders of the Ecclesiastical System destroyed, or at least willingly suffered to perish, very many documents that would have thrown light on this subject, and that it is to the design of those founders rather than to the facts themselves, that Christianity owes its apparent preternatural isolation and independence. As they held that the Earth leaped into being from the void, so they represent Christianity as having suddenly started into existence out of a complete blank; like the tremendous winter of Northern America out of the dreamy hush of the ‘Indian Summer’ that precedes it.

 

            Very curious is the effect of this Frenchman’s conversation on these subjects. Listening to his enumeration of one coincidence after another between the fables of Pagan Mythology and the traditions of the Church, the character of Jesus comes to appear so shadowy and legendary that there would be little difficulty in disbelieving any such person to have existed at all, were it not for the impossibility of otherwise accounting for the ascription of these relations to one of his era and nation.

 

            I agree with him that these questions must all be re-opened in order to be settled one way or the other.

(p. 241)

They have never really been settled, but only ignored, and inquiry denounced. He says there is evidence enough to convince any unbiased mind, notwithstanding that the successful majority in the early ages of the Church always destroyed as much as they could of the evidences brought against them.

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

THE HAPPY ISLES

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            WE glide on as in a pleasant dream. Such days, such nights of beauty. We have passed the sun, and our noon-day shadows point to the south. Higher and higher in the nightly sky rides the Southern Cross; soon will the Southern Isles appear. An end to dreaming now, for much caution is necessary to thread with safety the coral labyrinths of these seas. Some-times in a moment the deep blue of fathomless ocean gives place to an almost milky white, and at a short distance appears a cluster of little circles of coral, presenting their rims just above the water, and looking like so many white fairy rings endosing lagoons of stillest water. This when the sea is calm; but in boisterous weather the waves dash madly over them, and woe to the ship that is cast upon their teeth. Rings, then indeed, they prove, to wed the unhappy mariner to his death. One, two islands are passed, mere knolls of

(p. 242)

palm trees, apparently growing out of the ocean. At last higher land appears in sight. A few hours more and we glide along a reef-bound shore, catching glimpses of lovely valleys in among hills covered with unfading green. Soon we descry a movement on the land, and a canoe comes off, paddled by half a dozen natives, and steered by a white man. This is a pilot, who has lived half a life in these seas. He guides us through an opening in the reef, between the long lines of surf, to a safe anchorage in still water. It is so clear, that gazing many a fathom down we can see the branching coral of white and red, and gaily coloured fishes darting about, or pausing among the boughs as birds in a tree.

 

            Now we are surrounded by canoes laden with tropical fruits and poultry, and are deafened by the clamour of the natives, rich copper-coloured fellows, girt with cinctures of sea-weed. A noble-looking race, with handsome. Grecian features, and pleasant, gentle manners. I get into a canoe and am paddled ashore, with the little Frenchman. It is a beautiful little bay, edged with a narrow strip of white beach which slopes down to waters ever smooth and clear; for the encircling reef keeps afar off the roar and tumult of ocean. The shore is lined with groves of orange and citron, bananas, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit trees. Under the shade of these are ranged the huts of the natives, spacious and well-built. Walking down to meet us on our landing, comes a fair girl of some fifteen summers, or rather of one summer fifteen years long, and beautiful as a dream, with soft dark eyes, and long glossy black ringlets hanging down her glowing shoulders, and revealing a bust and figure of most perfect form. Her smooth shining skin

(p. 243)

is of lighter hue than the other natives. She is clad with the prevailing cincture of weeds from the waist nearly to the knees, and is now in the full perfection of fresh womanhood and beauty. Serene and dignified as an empress, and yet purely artless and unconscious, she advances towards us. I think of ‘vera incessu patuit Dea;’ and the little Frenchman throws up his arms and exclaims –

 

            ‘This is an Arabian Night.’

 

            There are missionaries and other white men on the island, so she may have learnt a little English.

 

            ‘What is your name?’

 

            ‘Maleia,” is the response, in soft Samoan accents; for we are upon the island of Opolo, one of the Navigator’s or Samoa group. Beautiful Maleia thus understanding me, we soon become friends, and I decorate her fair neck with some trinkets I had been careful to bring with me. Directed by her, the little Frenchman seeks the abodes of the white men; and she leads me in search of fruit to the adjoining banana grove. Evidently a kind and gentle-hearted damsel, though very sparing of her words: comprehending pretty well what I say, but averse to answering except in her native Samoan; a singularly soft language, in which it is difficult to detect any consonants. Here Maleia selects for me the finest bananas, and when I have enough of these, shakes down a green cocoa-nut, and opening it carefully, gives me a draught of milk, sweet, refreshing, and delicious. The, white kernel is soft as thick cream, very different from the hard indigestible stuff so dear to British schoolboys. Here, reclining under the great banana leaves, the moist and balmy air, laden with fragrance and indescribable

(p. 244)

richness, throws a mantle of oblivion over all the past, shrouding all its cherished schemes in. far indistinctness and inducing a longing to dream away the remainder of life undisturbed alike by regret and desire. Here one learns to sympathise with Adam in his garden of delights, and to feel that he would have been a heartless wretch, what Yankees call’ a mean man,’ had he refused the apple at Eve’s hand. He would have shown a fussy moral activity inconsistent with any largeness of nature, and with the serene influence of the place; and a ready consciousness of evil that ill harmonised with real innocence.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            Maleia has told me her history. She is proud to claim kindred with white men, for her father is one. When quite a baby he left her to the care of her native mother and the missionaries. She must move home-ward now for the day is nearly done. Even as we thread our way through the grove, the sun is gone, and as we pace along the smooth white beach the heavens burst into stars. The very sea does the same, for the clear reef-bound waters, free from all motion, reflect each orb in lustre unbroken and undiminished. O Poet, I have realised thy dream! and until sleep comes that night, do the luscious stanzas of ‘Locksley Hall’ ring in my ears, making; sweetest harmony with the time and the place. Yes, I too have

 

‘Burst all links of habit, and have wandered far away,

On from island unto island, at the gateways of the day.

 

‘Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,

Breadth of tropic shade, and palms in cluster, knots of paradise.

 

(p. 245)

‘Droops the heavy blossomed bower, hangs the heavy fruited tree,

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

 

‘Here the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and breathing-space;

I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.’

 

            And perchance this glorious dusky damsel, more beautiful than ever poet dreamed, will not refuse to fulfil her part in the destiny!

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

CHRISTIAN AND CANNIBAL

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            NEXT morning I wander on shore again, and while the owners busy themselves in traffic, I find out some of the missionaries and chat with them. Pleasant, easy-going men, sent out by the great London Society; living in comfortable European-fashioned houses, with wives and pale-looking children, wishing for nothing but a little more society. Instantly noticeable is the utter absence of the chronic excitement which pervades all missionary reports. One does not talk long with them without perceiving that they have settled down, and that some-what listlessly, to their work, with minds little occupied by expectation of ever making anything of the islanders; who, they say, readily acknowledge the superiority of the white man, and learn to imitate his habits even to the details of church ceremony.

 

(p. 246)

            Looking into the chapel on Sunday, I see this for myself. Everything is done in the decorous English meeting-house fashion. The service is in the native tongue. Some two hundred are present, – but a small portion of the population, – dressed in what they consider their Sunday best. Generally huge rolls of tappa, a white native cloth, looking Roman and graceful enough, were it not for the addition of English incongruities – a tawdry bonnet or coloured shirt. As with all savages, as well as with some who do not profess to be in the least savages, their weak side is dress. Of course, in order to acquire influence over them the missionaries must act upon such motives as they find to exist. And going to the mission chapel is a duty paramount over all the harmony and beauty in the world. Their imitativeness is shown in the service. There is the average amount of apparent attention; the usual absence of all enthusiasm or eagerness; tolerable singing of hymns, and an orderly departure when all is over; and even the same appearance of relief as from a task performed.

 

            Even to the abstinence of the chapel-goers from other appearance in public on Sunday, is everywhere notable the aim to patch with cold northern formalism the garb of unconscious simplicity hitherto by nature deemed sufficient for these islanders. Beholding this wherever the missionary influence extends, I feel annoyed. Why always this trying to prevent people from being themselves, and to make them some one else quite different?

 

            Close by the mission chapel is the grave of the first missionary to these islands, John Williams, who after many years of successful adventure against idol-worship,

(p. 247)

met his death in ‘tempting Providence* by rashly venturing alone among a tribe fiercer than any he had before visited. Interesting stories the missionaries tell me of the conversion of these Samoans. It seems that they were always a race of gentle manners, and though not unwarlike generally eschew human flesh. One of the islands, Manono, though by no means the largest, claims a sort of political superiority over the whole group. Enclosed within the same reef, it is so easy of access from Opolo that the inhabitants have often been surprised and driven from their island.

 

            On these occasions they betake themselves to a natural fortress that at a short distance from their shores rises abruptly from the sea. This is a rock, steep, rugged, and barren: a hopeless-looking spot as one approaches it, and sails round and round without seeing any opening whereby the interior can be gained. A passage, however, there is, narrow and overhung by precipices. But on entering this the scene changes as by magic. The rock is a hollow basin, of which the whole inside at once appears, sloping regularly and gently from the centre up to the edge of the encircling hill, and all covered with most glorious verdure of food-yielding trees, with here and there clusters of native dwellings resting under their shades. It is evidently the crater of an extinct volcano, and is aptly termed by the Samoans, Aborima, – the hollow of the hand, Accessible only by the narrow and easily-defended aperture in the lip of the volcano, and bountifully supplied with food and water, Aborima is proof against the attacks both of man and of the elements. The hurricane sweeps in vain round its rugged sides, while the low and sheltered centre

(p. 248)

rests undisturbed. In a motionless atmosphere, with a vertical sun, the heat would here be intolerable were it not that the whole climate of these islands is deliciously tempered by the constant trade-winds. The interest of Manono for the missionary is due to the circumstance that it was mainly instrumental in bringing I about the abandonment of the old religion by the Samoans. Its old chief, Malietoa, after listening to the accounts given by the missionaries of the superiority of ‘Jehovah’ to the gods of the islanders, and seeing the many conveniences possessed by his followers, determined to put the matter to a test that to him appeared conclusive. Calling his people together, he told them that in order to try whose gods were the strongest, he intended to worship ‘Jehovah’ for six weeks. And if at the end of that time no calamity had befallen him, they should all become Christians. This was agreed to. And during the period of probation the excitement is said to have been intense; bulletins being constantly despatched to all parts of the islands, announcing the progress of the contest between the rival deities. Before the time had half expired, the people, who were already well disposed towards the whites, were tired of waiting, and the pro-posed change was made at once. The missionaries themselves, who had not objected to the test, coolly accepted the safety of Malietoa as proof of their God’s interference and omnipotence. They admit that n anything had happened to him, their own lives would have been sacrificed. It is little wonder that a religion thus rested on a certain supernatural action, should be endangered when other supposed supernatural action less favourable in its character occurred.

 

(p. 249)

            A subsequent series of calamities, sickness, fire, and hurricane, was of course interpreted by the natives as proofs of the displeasure of their old gods at being forsaken. Many relapsed into heathenism, and it required all the wit of the missionaries to counteract the hostile feeling. In doing this they were much aided by the presents they were able to make out of their stores of a variety of European tools, axes, saws, &c., articles of which all savages have an intense appreciation.

 

            At first sight it would seem as if the missionaries practised a wilful deceit upon the natives, in representing all the advantages and conveniences of civilisation as boons bestowed upon them by ‘Jehovah’ in return for their preference of Him to other gods, when, by a truer statement, it would appear that the same acuteness of intellect that led them to have higher ideas of God, or, which is nearly the same thing, ideas of a higher God, would also enable them to invent superior appliances of physical comfort. But the belief in special providences is so interwoven with their whole system of thought, that they appear quite unconscious of the misapprehensions concerning the connection between the operations of the elements and their own religious belief which they foster in the native mind. I do not, however, interrupt their narratives or disturb their complacency with any such reflections of my own.

 

            The various English societies, they tell me, have agreed not to interfere with each other’s fields of operation, and, no doubt, they are wise in this, for the native mind will quite soon enough discern difficulties and inconsistencies in the doctrines of their teachers, without their being paraded before them by a diversity of sects.

(p. 250)

In Opolo however, are a couple of French priests, who have been for some time trying to gain sway over the natives, though as yet with but little success. Even more incongruous than the formalism of the English missionaries appear these men, in their long black serge habits. One of them is styled bishop, and the chapel he is building of hewn blocks of white coral is called cathedral. They seem to care more to convert Protestants into Romanists, than cannibals into Christians; perhaps because it is the more difficult task.

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

LOTOS EATING

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            PLEASANT is it to get away from all these signs of ‘civilisation,’ and mix with the yet unsophisticated natives. Not that they are without strange, and even absurd, customs of their own. The men, for instance, hold their hair in high reverence, and it is a profanation to touch it. They delight to make each hair stand straight out from the head, like that of an electric doll when excited. They put lime upon it, which turns it of a reddish hue. Just after on r arrival, I found the Irish owner declaiming against the impertinence of some natives, who were greatly attracted by his flaming locks, and begged to know his recipe for making it that beautiful

(p. 251)

colour. He thought they were making fun of him. Near the village, filtering through the beach into the sea, is a beautiful little stream of purest water, in which the whole population bathes two or three times a day. A little way back it becomes a considerable pool, over-shadowed by large trees. This is a scene of huge merriment and delight, when, crawling along the overhanging limbs, men and boys come dropping clown in swarms, and diving away to marvellous distances. Every one swims. Mothers take their babies in with them, and the little things paddle away long before they can walk. No troublesome toilette for any of us after bathing. The slight amount of clothing required by the climate is no inconvenience to either man or woman in swimming. A shirt, duck-trousers, and shoes I find both ample and picturesque. Maleia and I are great friends. Somehow, she is rarely far off. She is by no means demonstrative, but does not conceal her partiality for the light brown curls that are somewhat profusely scattered over my head. The missionaries are all straight-haired men. She comes early from her home, in one of the mission-houses, to be my companion and guide in the intricate ways through the banana groves to the neighbouring villages. I find tobacco everywhere the welcomest present, and therefore carry some with me. Every family possesses its own plot of ground, containing the staple food of life, – bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees. The former is a most beautiful tree, in largeness of leaf and depth of colour resembling, but exceeding, the fig. It is to the islanders what the cow is to the European; all parts of it serving some necessary end. The natives generally place their huts close to one or more of them; and in their shade

(p. 252)

we rest on arriving at any village, and I dispense my tobacco, and we all smoke a friendly pipe, Maleia herself not disdaining the delicate paper cigarita. Sometimes, in a light canoe, we paddle at evening along the inner side of the reef to see the fishing by torch-light. The topmost edge of the reef, is level with the water, and a perpetual surf breaks upon it. A strange effect is ‘produced by the dark figures of the natives, with spear in one hand and a blazing torch of reeds in the other, treading the white lines of foam, which gleam and flash brightly in the moving lights, as, with many a shout and splashing into deep water, they alternately attract and scare the fish into becoming an easy prey.

 

            Maleia herself swims like a mermaid, so that, when wandering on shore, the rivers do not impede us; for, hand in hand, we tread the depths, and merrily pass to the other side. And when I have been away with my trading companions, cruising among the islands that skirt the horizon, I am always sure of a bright look from her on my return.

 

            Between two of the islands there is war. From the schooner-decks I witness a hostile invasion. Paddling over in immense canoes, the enemy attempt to land. A combat ensues, partly on shore, partly on the water and in the water. With spears, and darts, and clubs, the attempt is repulsed; and, laden with the ‘casualties,’ the canoes paddle back in. mournful procession to whence they came. There will be much lamentation on their return, for a great chief is slain. None of the old horrors are now enacted with the prisoners; so far has twenty years’ contact with white men mitigated their cruelty. In fighting and dancing they find their chief

(p. 253)

excitements. The missionaries have done their best to discourage both; but where the physical energies have so long been alone exercised, it is not easy to arouse the mental, or to make intellectual pursuits successful rivals of the animal, even if the missionaries were the right men for the task.

 

*          *          *          *

            How absurd to judge these children of the sun by the ascetic Standard of the cold north! No necessity for effort is here to sharpen their wits. Friction denied, how can they make progress? No harsh climate impels to the accumulation of comforts. Their food springs spontaneously from the earth, and all they have to do is to enjoy its bounties and continue their race. I find myself looking back with wonder to the old world, and its life of anxious wear and tear; its hastening to be rich, its emulation between man and man, and its vast interval between the extremes of life. If heaven be conscious rest, surely I have it here, – so delightful from its contrast with the weary past! Why should I ever leave it? Where shall I find a simpler solution of the problem of life than among these careless islanders? Are they so ‘low in the scale’? Surely it is envy that has so placed them. They stretch forth their hands for fruit, and are filled. They drink at the stream, and are satisfied. They know no cold, and if heat assail them they have but to lie still in the thick shade of their trees. They love, and have children; and sickness makes little havoc in their dwellings. They can avenge injuries, be grateful for kindness, and give thanks for their blessings according to their knowledge; for their religious rites, uncouth and childish though they may seem to strangers,

(p. 254)

do certainly not spring from ingratitude. What conditions, then, are wanting to make the traditionary Eden? The most innocent children playing in a garden will occasionally squabble, and enact unconsciously many antics that, to the self-regarding, deliberate man, seem horrible distortions. Alas, that their guilelessness is doomed, and that European serpents should come so far to convince them of sin!

 

            Surely I have reached the Happy Isles.

 

            ‘How weary seems the sea, – the wandering fields of barren foam. I will return no more. My island home is far beyond the sea. No longer will I roam.’

 

            Why should I? The soft influences of the place are lulling to sleep all intellectual energy. My physical being is renewed by every breath I inhale. All impulses are becoming sensuous. I toss up my cap and cry, ‘Vive la bête!’

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

A FAREWELL

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            ‘SO soon! how the weeks have flown.’ ‘Yes, there is no more cargo to be got in the Navigator’s, so tomorrow we sail, and after touching at the Feejees, make straight course for Port Jackson, and white English faces again.’

 

            The delight of my comrades at the prospect startles

(p. 255)

me as from a dream. Thoughts of the long-cherished plans of busy life, ambition, and the return home some day, crowd upon me. Is the old Adam still so strong in me drawing me towards my kindred?

 

            Shall I go or stay? Maleia has taught me what it is I want to fulfil the complement of my nature. To remain and live with her – how great a happiness – and she b willing. How selfish I shall appear to her! It never occurred to me that she was old enough to have feelings also. How inexplicable to her wild simple nature must be the feelings that call me away! Will it be for the happiness of either if I remain? Will the

future be in accordance with the present? Can she ever respond to aught but the simple pleasures known to her race, or sympathise with the higher and more complex

emotions of which I feel capable? Ah me, I fear me it is too plain. This would not be the perfect marriage of which I have dreamt; in which all parts of my nature, moral intellectual, as well as physical, can meet perfect sympathy and accord. I must not linger here. It is not the highest thing I can do. This is but the gateway of the day. The dawn has come, discovering to me my want. But the day does not stand still. I must press on to the full fruition and accomplishment of my higher nature.

 

            So far with regard to myself: – but Maleia. True and natural as she is, she will not conceal her sorrow. Young and light-hearted, probably no feeling can be very deep seated. I will tell her that it would be for the happiness of neither of us for me to remain. She would soon discover that there is little really in common between us, and feel a longing for the companion ship of

(p. 256)

one of her own race: and I should feel that I was neglecting duties elsewhere, and be unhappy in the thought.

 

*          *          *          *

            I have told her this. With a quiet thoughtful air she listened as if not fully comprehending me, and then said, first proudly,

 

            ‘Maleia got white blood too. Maleia no Samoan;’ then sadly and reproachfully,

 

            Why go when you fond of Maleia? Go when you tired of her.’

 

            And this is all she said until I reached the end of my explanations, when she replied ‘Maleia no understand, but Maleia sorry.’

 

            I wonder if I am a brute. I am sure I die not mean to be one. I am another proof that

 

‘Evil is wrought by want of thought,

As well as by want of heart.’

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

COOLING REFLECTIONS

 

            IN the interval before reaching the Feejees, Hebert solaces himself with his note-book. The islands and the missionaries afford much to be reflected upon. The following seems to consist as much of his after-thoughs as of actual conversations: –

 

            ‘The English are a greater and a better people than

(p. 257)

you Samoans. By doing as the English do, you too will become greater and better.’

 

            ‘Very doubtful to me is this first assertion of yours, as I think of our reeking manufacturing dens of great English cities, and contrast them with this paradise of ease and simplicity. And as for your second, ah, friend missionary, is this all you know of nature and her many types? Would you feed with oats and put saddle on yonder fat pigs of yours, because a horse is “greater and better” than a pig? Believe me, the pig has his place and his uses in it. Would you turn all the wild roses into vegetables? Even with individual men, each man should be himself, not the copy of another, however admirable in his line that other may be. And so with races of men. I know you say every one ought to try to be like Christ. No doubt, but not as you mean. Rathe in being his own best; in acting up to the best that he finds in him, even as Christ did. Truly you cannot find a better example. As he acted out his own character, so ought we to act out ours; to be true and natun.1 and not ape others. For the perfection of nature consits in infinite variety of patterns, and in their harmony with the conditions surrounding them. She loves not to see frogs striving to become oxen. Say you, if one b right all others must be wrong? In the Absolute, concerning which we can know nothing, it may be so. But in man, and his circumstances, I see it not. Would you exhort the reed to follow the example of the oak to be strong and unyielding and a tree? Would you have quaker-like rainbows, all one colour, which is no colour? Why not? if red be a right colour, blue is a wrong one. And if Nature delights in a rainbow of

(p. 258)

human varieties, would you charge her with bad taste, and spoil her handiwork by abolishing the variety?’

 

            ‘Place and fitness?’

 

            ‘Truly we begin to be agreed; but you ask what would you have us do. How make Christians of these savages? How make them believe in the one Name given under heaven whereby they can be saved? Can you not do all this, make them Christian or Christ like without bonnets and breeches? How have you gore to work? as I have read in your publications (for be it known to you that I too come of evangelical stock and was fearfully bored with your Reports in my youth) – by denunciation of everything you found, themselves, and their habits, and their religion, and their laws. Nothing good, no not one. And so your whole experience is one of difficulty and discouragement. Methinks, if I had been a missionary, it would have been my satisfaction to recount how that when I had gone among tribes who had never seen a white man, I told them that in the farthest part of the round earth I had heard that hey knew and believed things different from what I knew and believed; and that if they would teach them to me I would teach them in turn what they did not know so that the exchange might be for the benefit of both. How that on seeing their idol-worship I told them that my people also resembled them in this, distant and unlike as they were in many things. For that we too had a consciousness of a powerful Being whom we could not see, to whom we gave such offerings as we believed to be pleasant to him. And, on thus discovering that they already possessed a religious faculty, and could comprehend my meaning, I was careful not to abuse but to

(p. 259)

use this faculty, and endeavoured to cultivate it, and so lead them up gradually to a higher ideal of faith and worship, not by the assertion of things strange and in-comprehensible to them, but by the development of that which they already had. And when I saw them fighting, killing, and eating each other, I took the opportunity to tell them that where I came from there were creatures called wild beasts, which their beautiful islands were quite free from, and that we left these brutes to do all such barbarous things, and were ashamed to imitate them. That the white men aimed at being happy, and making others so, and to that end laboured to discover all the secrets of the world, to turn them to good account. That instead of attributing any misfortune that befalls them to a malignant deity, they should regard it rather as a consequence of their own mistakes, or as a necessary part of a scheme which, on the whole, works for their good; like that last terrible hurricane, which, though it destroyed their habitations and cocoa-nut trees, yet cleared away the disease which was killing their children, the disease itself being the natural consequence of their own neglect or ignorance. That natural phenomena are not the capricious acts of their deities, but are consequences necessarily connected together, affording them fitting exercise for their faculties in extracting the good, or avoiding the mischief they bring. That instead of fierce, ugly demons, we worshipped one more like what we ourselves wished to be; a powerful and benevolent Being, believing that every quality we esteem best belongs to him in the highest degree. That long ago our fathers had made and worshipped images just as they did now, but had learnt that none

(p. 260)

could be made like God, who was better understood by the things that he had himself made; by the sun and stars, the earth and all the beautiful and grand things upon it, by human souls and bodies, and the great powers of nature; but that the best likeness was the best man, and so we reverenced that the most of all things, and worshipped none but God himself as we saw him in our own highest thought; while each one of us tried to be the best man according to our disposition and ability. And I doubt not that I should have to finish my story by telling how that these savages listened, and thought it would be better, instead of destroying each other and practising cruel ceremonies, to help in securing their crops, and to have their wives and children safe, and to live in harmony together with joyous festivals and dances; never fighting but when they were attacked, and then showing their enemies that they only wished

to be left in quiet.

 

            ‘Do you, friend missionary, say that your zeal for God would prevent your treating idol-worship with such soft words? Methinks you would more effectually destroy it than by the means you have employed. The only way to destroy an error is to show that it is an error, and how it is an error; and to make its holders understand how something else is better. So far as I can see, you have not done this. You have not shown them in what the Christian doctrine is better suited to their needs than their own. You have simply taken advantage of your prestige as white men to declare that your talisman is better than their talisman, that your fetich is Christ, and is stronger than their fetich. Of the inherent excellence of your system you have taught

(p. 261)

them nothing. But what, after all, is this same idol-worship for which you have such wholesome horror and indignation, but a misdirection of the religious faculty; misdirection through ignorance? Can you be sure that the sacrifice of these poor heathen is not accepted even as the widow’s mite, in that they do their best, and act up to the light that is in them? Do you say that they seem rather to do their worst? I fear me ye be but blind leaders of the blind. Are not all men inevitably attracted by that which seems best to them? You think to make them Christians without cultivating their intelligence. All you wish to do is to get them to substitute your dogmas for their own. Beware lest when you have taken away their gods, and taught them to pay reverence to a name, they continue to worship under the new name the very same idea that they worshipped in the old image. Without a real accession of intelligence, a development of the idea of excellence, the image is but transferred from the bodily sight to the mind’s eye. So that if idolaters before, they are idolaters still, even when worshipping in your mission chapel. What but children are they, with fair capacity and full of rude force? You would not treat a child’s intellectual blunders with harsh denouncement. You would strive by gentle degrees to enlarge his understanding and teach him better. If religion be what some have defined it, “man bringing to his Maker the homage of his heart,” least of all would a father reprobate his child for showing its reverence to him in some foolish, childish mode, so long as it did it out of reverence. It might be different if the child did not reverence its parent; – if the savage was not even an idolater. Though in the former

(p. 262)

case we should blame the parent either for having concealed himself from his child, or for having treated it so as to forfeit its regard. And in the latter how much you would think gained if the savage became an idolater: just as you would regard it as a vast step in the scale of intelligence on the part of any animal, were it to show its consciousness of a superior being by laying its homage and offerings before an image of it. And after all, this horror of yours towards images is only a dogmatic sentiment. It is adopted and not real. When you want to make an idea clear to a child, if words fail, you try pictures; and where the intellectual perceptions are so dim as to be unable to comprehend pictures, you must have recourse to images. What else is the whole theory of the doll? So that the grosser sense of feeling may, as with a blind man, be the blessed medium between God and the soul. The spiritual world is not so very far removed from the physical. Mental blindness requires as tender treatment as bodily blindness.

 

“Who would rush at a benighted man,

And give him two black eyes for being blind?”

 

asks one who has yet to be recognised as one of the wisest of modern philosophers,. And not without reason does poor Hood put the question. For instead of consulting your own natural feelings in your treatment of these heathen, you have rather adopted the temper and imitated the conduct of the Jews of old, as told in their sacred books. Proud of the lofty refinement of your own perceptions of Deity, and unable to imagine yourselves so low down in the scale of intelligence as to think like savages, you denounce the in as wilful dishonourers of

(p. 263)

God, and would destroy, or if you will, “improve them” off” the face of the earth, when all the time they may be acting up more nearly to their light than yourselves, or even than the ferocious old Jews whom you so delight to honour.’

 

            ‘But these worship not God, but devils, and hideous images of devils. They think that the kind being who sends them the gentle breeze and showers, and makes the fruit to grow and the fish to swarm, and causes all their happiness and prosperity, does not exact costly offerings from them. These they reserve for the cruel beings who send the hurricane and the famine, in order to avert their wrath, and purchase their forbearance. What is this but devil-worship?’

 

            ‘What indeed! Well, well. Among Christians too I have heard something of a doctrine of propitiation. Among Christians I have heard something of a powerful being who brought all the evil and misery into the world. Of course people will pay most attention to that which they think most powerful to do them good or harm. I have known even Christian children inquire why, if God was the strongest, he did not kill the devil, and Christian mothers were unable to answer the question to their satisfaction. So that it is little wonder that these poor people seem to pay most homage where they think they have most reason to fear.

 

            ‘ “Cannibalism”? A most uncomfortable practice for us even to think of, and one that shows how men crave for animal food. The. craving exists. No teaching or denunciation can get rid of that, or of any other propensity. It must be recognised and controlled, and its proper satisfaction provided for. Men’s lusts, as you

(p. 264)

technically term those natural desires, the abuse of which produces the greatest personal demoralisation and social inconvenience, are not bad things in themselves. They only require proper means of gratification. Give cannibals good wholesome meat, and they will soon cease to care to eat each other.

 

            ‘Polygamy one of your greatest difficulties? I can readily believe that this jump from patriarchal habits is too great to be made at once. By insisting on the repudiation of all wives but one, may you not, in addition to inflicting a cruel injustice on the poor women themselves, be also confounding European customs with

Christian essentials?

 

            ‘I do not wonder at your feeling discouraged, but it is somewhat remark able how you have contrived to keep your reports published at home free from betraying thus feeling. You admit that the reality falls far short of the exorbitant ideas there. You say that you are expected to do more in a single generation for these savages than Christianity has done in eighteen centuries for the Europeans. But have you been careful not to excite and, foster this unreasonable expectation?’

 

            ‘Fault of human nature! people must be worked up into giving their money! Besides, what is here but a simple statement about a strange race, may there appear exciting from its very novelty; and it is difficult to make it otherwise.’

 

            ‘Perhaps. But notwithstanding your theory that earth is but a nursery for heaven, and that your business is only to produce conditions favourable to the saving of souls, it is plain that you suffer the despondency consequent on your conviction that you are striving to elevate

(p. 265)

a vanishing race. You mark the gradual decline of the population. Why it is, you know not. In these islands at least there is no apparent cause, no disease or fatal habit introduced to account for it. Wherever the white man sets his foot, the aborigine disappears. Like will beasts disturbed in their lairs, they go away, they cease to breed. The natives are instinctively aware of this. They await their extinction as a thing that sooner or later must happen. And thus they lack the most powerful inducement a people can have to elevate itself, – that of bequeathing a glorious nationality to posterity.’

 

            Such on various occasions was the upshot of many chats with the missionaries, when joining them in their repast of fruit and cocoa-nut milk, a jug of which, fresh and cool, is always on the table at meals; or in accompanying them either on foot over the hills, or by water in a canoe to some remote station.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            Our missionaries object to the Romish ones that they merely substitute one set of idols for another, and so give the natives a religion not essentially differing from their own. I think it may be equally objected to our missionaries that they offer to the worship of the savages no other deity than they already recognise. but maintain the heathen conception of a God who requires to be propitiated and appeased by sacrifice and blood. They thus propagate the Jewish and Pagan idea of atonements, and confirm their disciples in their belief in a God who requires the blood of the guiltless to enable him to pardon the guilty. It is possible that Christianity, or the abolition of the belief in propitiatory sacrifice, if such be its proper definition, has still all its way to make.

(p. 266)

That the Church itself is not yet Christian, but Jewish: the Law still in force, and the Gospel a dead letter. If so, the contest will come some day, and will be a severe one when it comes. The vast majority holding to the old idea will fight hard, and the new reformation will doubtless have its martyrs. I don’t see how it can take place within the Church of England. There must be another Exodus.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            If the above idea be correct, in recommending the religion of Christ to the Jews, the Apostles, and especially St Paul, must have gone too far in accommodating it to Jewish prepossessions by representing his death as a substitute for their sacrifices. St Paul’s language, distinct as it seems to us, may really have only meant, ‘If you must have a sacrifice and a victim, accept this as one. You cannot find a nobler and more unblemished.’ He may have said this to win them over, without meaning that Christ’s death really had such a signification. And if he did mean it, it is not necessarily a truth for all time.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            Probably the best effect of our missionaries is the example they afford of domesticity. Content with one wife who lives on terms of equality with her husband, and finding happiness in the culture of their children, they far transcend their Romish rivals, whose lonely lives seem intended to teach that obedience to the laws of our being is incompatible with true holiness. The celibate missionary may make the best proselytes, but the married one will make the best men and women.

 

            Our missionaries have also done the islanders a great

(p. 267)

service in reducing their language to writing, and so laying the foundations of a native literature. The language, however, is necessarily limited to the number of objects with which the natives are conversant. The missionaries, therefore, found no words in which to express things strange to them. In translating the New Testament the difficulty was constantly experienced in rendering into Samoan not only the various terms relating to spiritual matters, but the names of animals, and other names familiar elsewhere. Thus, for many years, the only quadrupeds known on the islands were the pigs left the re by the first navigators. ‘Pig,’ therefore, became the generic term for all animals with four legs. The cow is the ‘large lowing milk pig.’ The horse is the ‘great fast-running pig.’ The sheep is the ‘hairy pig’ – a phrase that proved particularly awkward, when, in translating the Testament, it became necessary to find a Samoan equivalent for ‘Lamb of God.’ I wonder how many theological dogmas owe their origin to a similar poverty of language.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            It would be a curious study to trace, the variety in language to differences of climate. AH warm countries have soft dialects. That of the islands is almost devoid of consonants, witness the names of the Sandwich Islands, Oahoo, Honolulu, Owhyhee; as well as all those of the South Seas. The consonants inserted by the missionaries in writing are hardly detectable in the speech of a native.

 

            They surpass the Italians in their horror of mutes, and barely indicate even the liquid sounds. The guttural tones of the North would seem to have originated in

(p. 268)

throats rough and voices thick from perpetual coins, when all the north of Europe was marsh and damn forest. What a contrast are the labial languages of the South. Compare Italian with German!

 

*          *          *          *

 

            It is probable that a little investigation would discover a meaning and a truth under the rites and symbols even of the rudest savages. The hideous Hindoo goddess Kali, all mouths and weapons, girt with human heads and revelling in blood, is, like the Greek Kronos, who devoured his own children, only a poetic personification of Time –‘edax rerum.’ How much easier would be the task of the missionary were he to try to learn before beginning to teach. To learn the nature of man before dogmatising about that of God.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            Methinks there are worse idolaters than these poor savages ever were, even those who cling to their conventional symbols long after they have perceived how utterly they fail to represent the infinite for them.

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

A NEW PASSENGER

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            ONE glimpse of the Feejees and we are off again on our course for Sydney. No cargo to be got here, as the natives are busy fighting. They are splendid-looking fellows, darker and fiercer than the Samoans, and

(p. 269)

inveterate cannibals. The practice of man-eating must cause them to regard human nature from a point of view altogether unknown to us. Probably the sight of a stranger excites in them much the same critical feeling that the sight of a bullock does in the cattle farmer. We have gained a passenger, a Roman Catholic missionary. He turns out to be an Irishman, though speaking French by preference and habit, – a genial kind of man, and apparently sincere. But this last it is hard to predicate of any one with whom profession has long been a vocation.

 

            The captain, who is shrewd enough, has already established a bantering relationship with the priest.

 

            ‘Better fun out here than among; the bogtrotters at home, aye?’ an observation to which the priest, who is contemplating the receding islands, deems a reply unnecessary.

 

            ‘I suppose,’ continues the captain, ‘there is as much love of adventure beneath a black coat as any other. And that’s the secret of a good many of you missionaries coming to the islands.’

 

            Priest hopes that they have better motives than that, though such an impulse may be used as an instrument of good.

 

            Captain ‘hopes no offence, but doesn’t see what good it ca n do to make the savages worship a bit of bread instead of a bit of wood.’

 

            ‘Perhaps you have never tried to see it,’ is the mild response.

 

            ‘My glass hasn’t got a lens strong enough,’ rejoins the captain.

 

            ‘Then as you admit you do not understand these

(p. 270)

matters, you will do me a great favour by not speaking irreverently of them.’

 

            ‘However, I think I can see as far as most men with the naked eye, though I haven’t got a patent magnifier,’ persisted the Captain. ‘But I should like to know more about the bit of bread. I can understand a man believing that everything is only part of God, for I have heard the Brahmins in the East indies argue with our missionaries that, though a drop of water can’t float a ship, yet the ocean is made up of drops, and that in the same way all things together make up God. But what puzzles me is why you Catholics should pick out bread as being God, and leave out other things in which man

has no hand.’

 

            ‘You are a sailor, and should know what “obeying orders “means.’

 

            ‘To be sure, when a man hears them given by his captain.’

 

            ‘Or when they come from the captain through any superior officer.’

 

            ‘I see what you are driving at, but it’s not quite such plain sailing; when you come to matters of priestcraft.’

 

            ‘Have you ever heard of such a thing as faith?’

 

            ‘‘Many a time, but I prefer experience.’

 

            ’Nay, have you ever been in these seas before?’

 

            ‘Never.’

 

            ‘Then what guide have you to keep you clear of reefs?’

 

            ‘I’ve got the best Admiralty charts, and my own eyes into the bargain.’

 

            ‘You have had no experience of these latitudes or of the charts describing them, and yet you venture your very life upon them. What is this but faith?’

 

(p. 271)

            ‘Let me ask a question too? You know nothing about the seaworthiness of this craft, or the ability of her master. Why, you might have come aboard a regular pirate for any thing you know. When I come to think of it I quite wonder at your rashness.’

 

‘Oh, with regard to that,’ said the priest laughing, ‘I saw you had got safe so far, and so must be a pretty good sailor. And I have seen too many vessels not to know when they are all right.’

 

            ‘There now,’ exclaimed the captain, in a tone of mock disappointment, ‘I was going to give you credit for faith, and I find it’s only experience after all.’

 

            The priest bit his lip on seeing the trap he had fallen into, but asked quietly, ‘Do you make any account of other men’s experience, or use your own only?’

 

            ‘Oh, I use all I can get that seems dependable.’

 

            ‘But what enables you to decide what is dependable? Things may have happened to other people quite different from any thing you have seen.’

 

            ‘I judge if they are dependable in other respects, and if what they say is natural and likely, and whether they have any interest in deceiving me.’

 

            ‘And you regard as false all testimony to events which pass ordinary comprehension?’

 

            ‘l only say that I judge by experience.’’ But the events to which I allude, though they contradict your experience, did not contradict that of others.’

 

            ‘Those who saw them have a right to believe them. But that is just what you want people not to do, when you say a bit of bread is changed into God; when all

(p. 272)

the time neither in or anybody else can see a particle of difference in it.’

 

            Baffled a second time, the priest took advantage of some interruption to allow the discussion to drop, and it occurred to me that no amount of reasoning will do any good in opening the popular mind, until the true history of Christianity is written, exhibiting the utter absence of anything like real evidence to justify the popular belief. Even then, until far enough advanced to recognise the Divine in the grand harmony and invariable order of nature, people will only believe that those particular interruptions did not take place; not that all interruption is impossible.

 

            I don’t want to get engaged in these controversies. The priest has a good deal of interesting information on other subjects connected with these seas. Anybody who wants to know about the islands should read this book of Melville’s, ‘Typee,’ which the captain has just lent me. How vivid are his descriptions. His ‘Fayaway’ must have been something like my poor Maleia. It completely carries me back to the island.

 

            I suspect that if the truth were known of the conduct of white sailors in the Pacific islands, we should not wonder so much at the barbarous massacres that sometimes take place. The natives must have come to look upon white men as fiends. One story of a whaler I must make a note of. The priest says he got it from one of the men concerned, and is firmly convinced of its truth: –

 

            ‘In the year 1827, there were three men named Brag, and three named Bully, all masters of vessels trading in the South Seas, and all insufferable tyrants.

 

(p. 273)

            ‘One of the Brags once took it into his head that the ship’s cook had the scurvy, or the sulks, and buried h I in up to his neck in the ship’s ballast. While there, he flung a crowbar at his head and killed him. He then gave out a supply of rum to the crew, and when all hands were drunk made them sign a certificate that the cook had died a natural death, and put the paper care-fully by. On reaching home the men gave information of the mu rd e r, and the master was tried for it. His counsel asserted that the accusation was the result of a conspiracy on the part of the crew against their captain, and produced the paper with their own signatures in proof. whereupon he was acquitted. The end of this man was a fitting one. When offended with his crew on one occasion, he swore that as soon as he reached New Zealand he would have them roasted and eaten. Such was his disposition and his influence with the chiefs, that they were terrified at the threat, and determined to get rid of him. So, one morning when the vessel was slowly drawing through the water, the crew agreed to throw him overboard. The majority were mending sails forward, and the captain sat by the taffrail, also sewing. The cook’s going to the cabin to take away breakfast was the signal. Some of the men gathered as if unconcernedly about the captain. Others pinioned the mate, and the captain was in a moment thrown overboard. He swam after the ship, entreating to be taken in. Sometimes he could just touch the rudder, and then he would be a few yards astern again; and so he was for many minutes, begging to be taken on board. They only replied by throwing to him an empty cask, which turned over and over as he

(p. 274)

attempted to get upon it, and served merely to prolong his efforts, until he was at last drowned.’

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

NOTCHES

 

From Herbert Ainslie’s Journal

 

            CONTRARY to my wish I have had a brief passage at arms with the priest. A general conversation about the islands led him to remark that the belief in the divine origin of sacrifice received confirmation even among cannibals, for it illustrated the Church’s maxim, ‘Quod semper, ubique, et ab omnibus.’

 

            I replied that not only was the maxim incapable of verification, but that even if any belief could be shown to have been universal among primitive tribes, it would prove nothing. That as for the doctrine of sacrifice, it was gradually losing its hold upon the human mind, the whole Protestant world regarding it as having been accomplished once for all; while there are indications that the most thinking minds of our own age are abandoning the idea altogether as a human figment. And that if universal consent could prove anything, it would prove that the sun goes round the earth.

 

            Hereupon the captain rubbed his hands, and declared he should hand his Reverence over to me for the rest of the voyage.

 

            Without noticing this speech, the priest replied gently that he had little sympathy with the modern

(p. 275)

tendency to shift religious faith from its eternal foundations to square with any scientific theory that happened to be uppermost. Faith should be the same yesterday, today, and for ever, quite regardless of the changes in human opinions about things.

 

            I observed that for my part I could not recognise the necessity of any antagonism between Faith and Fact. That where my choice lay between what other men told me to believe, and my own perceptions, I preferred the latter.

 

            He said that if by the phrase ‘other men’ I meant the Church, he denied that it was a fair equivalent.

 

            And then I changed the subject, not wishing, though I hardly know why, to establish an habitual controversy with him. It seems to me scarcely fair to argue about what is not an open question for my opponent. All questions are open for me. I am free to follow truth wherever it may lead me, without fear o r loss. But it is not so with him. As the little Frenchman said once, he gets his bread by teaching the opinions of his sect. If I convert him, he will either starve, or continue to teach what he has ceased to believe. And I do not wish to be responsible for his doing either. I believe, however, that my reluctance arises from a doubt of his sincerity. With any one who is really anxious to find the truth I should be most delighted to talk; but not with those who desire merely to maintain a foregone conclusion.

 

            I have been greatly amused by hearing the Frenchman defending the priest against the captain, and at the same time covertly attacking the side he had himself espoused. It is the first time he has taken any part in

(p. 276)

these sparring matches which the Captain so delights to commence. We were all on the poop. I was reading, the Frenchman was fixing a bait for a shark that was following the vessel as she slowly drew through the smooth water, and the other two were talking about I know not what; but the captain was in his usual bantering humour, when the Frenchman exclaimed,

 

            ‘And pray how do you know it is not true?’

 

            Why,’ said the Captain, ‘because it directly contradicts what I do know to be true.’

 

            ‘Is that a reason? Do you see that monster? Is not he true? Am not I true? And do we agree together? No! no! When I see a shark, or a tiger, or a snake, or a mosquito, I say to them, “You are divine, for you are made by the same Being that made me, and everything. We are all of us manifestations of a divine idea; but we do not agree. I will either kill you, or I will get out of your way.” And so I say to the dogma of the priests: “I do not deny that you are divine and true, but I and my opinion are so also; and as we do not agree, I will have nothing to say to you, but will leave you alone. You may be good friends with the other monsters, but if you come troubling me I will try to destroy you.” Aha! aha! he does bite, now monsieur shark, you are one true shark, and you will find dat is one true hook, and I am one true Frenchman, but we shall not agree very well with you, I do think.’

 

            And so the materials for my note terminate in the excitement. of the capture.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            The very existence of such horrid brutes certainly

(p. 277)

makes it very hard to believe in any doctrine of final causes. If sharks, why not devils?

 

Frenchman says,

 

‘Ah, why not? it is only a question of evidence.’ Poor brutes,’ he added, ‘give a man as little to eat in proportion to his appetite, and you will make a devil or a shark of him.’

 

*          *          *          *

 

            Of a future life he says, ‘It may be, but there are immense difficulties in the way.’

 

*          *          *          *

 

            I suspect the little Frenchman is a better philosopher than I am. His mind is purely inductive. He does not even assume a theory to enable him to classify his facts. whereas I am for ever deducing a theory from a rapid survey of facts, and then analysing them to see how far they verify my theory. Yet to have no theory is to be rather empirical than inductive. Probably the particular question just referred to is one of definition rather than of theory. What is meant by a ‘devil’? A being entirely at variance with the laws of its Creator. But those laws impose the conditions of its being. In utter violation of those conditions it cannot continue to exist. Unmitigated evil, it has been said, must destroy itself. A devil, then, is that which by our very definition of it cannot exist. If it exists it must be some other kind of being, namely, one that does not altogether oppose God’s laws. Then it is no devil, and my instinctive disbelief in such a creature is founded in truth. Perhaps this verdict was intended as a compromise between impossibility and orthodoxy – ‘the devil is not so black as he is painted.’

 

(p. 278)

*          *          *          *        

 

            The belief in the necessity of sacrificing to the Deity seems to be the earliest for in taken by that fear of the Unknown which we call superstition. It is probably founded both on the difficulty man finds in forgiving or foregoing his own revenge without some compensation or equivalent, and on his own aptness for being propitiated by gifts.

 

            ‘The popular theory of Christianity is singularly illogical. If mercy and forgiveness be virtues, it entirely deprives the Deity of the merit of possessing them. If the debt be paid there is no room for forgiveness. So long as the creditor gets his money it is nothing to him where it comes from.’

 

            ‘But in this consists the mercy of God. He himself pays the penalty for our transgression.’

 

            ‘That is, it is not paid at all. It is only as if I transferred my money from one of my pockets to another.’

 

            ‘It is profane to reason concerning a mystery which faith alone can comprehend.’

 

            ‘Yet you hold it up to my admiration! No, no, I must first exercise my reason upon it in order to ascertain that it is a matter which requires to be referred to the category of faith.’ Theologians always appeal to faith when reason fails them. They do not, however, fail to employ reason so long as it is on their own side. I wonder what state of things I shall find in Australia. The priest’s account agrees with what the other missionaries told me, that religious faction ran high before the gold discovery.

 

*          *          *          *

 

(p. 279)

            Yonder curious outlines, one peak and two hum-mocks, bearing north-west about twenty miles off are Ball’s pyramid and Lord Howes’ Island. How it has blown for the last ten days! Most of the time we have been lying to, with heavy seas breaking over the ship, making it impossible to cook anything.

 

            There is something about the priest that I like much. He has stuck to his rubber with the rest of us through the whole of the hurricane. Certainly whist is a capital pastime at sea, requiring no additional excitement of gambling.

 

            What an odd spectacle for a landsman filled with the traditional terrors of the sea, would be this fragile wooden vessel, banged furiously about by the huge waves, lying now on one side, now on the other, now plunging head foremost into the trough of the sea as if on the point of being irrevocably overwhelmed, and now actually submerged beneath the broken waters which rush in a torrent over the decks, and in a little compartment, four men quietly engaged in a game at cards, dealing with one hand and holding on with the other, quite regardless of the dreadful pother of the elements without.]

 

            – A spectacle not unyielding of a moral. Horace’s ode ‘Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,’ may be rendered in sailor phraseology, ‘Make all snug within, and let the gale blow itself out.’

 

*          *          *          *

 

            It is curious to see how void of all conception of what we English call ‘duty,’ the little Frenchman is. I was talking with him about the opposition and enmity incurred by those who, having perceived new truths

(p. 280)

endeavour to perform their duty in promulgating them, He observed that he could recognise no such obligation. People who discover a truth may be led by a generous impulse to publish it, in the hope of doing away with some evil caused by a falsehood; but their benevolence will generally meet within gratitude on the part of those whom they would benefit. He believes that ultimately the publication of truth will do good, that is, make mankind happier. But its first and immediate effect is to create confusion and dismay. The benevolent theorist finds his reward in contemplating the future. If men are honestly impelled to submit to martyrdom, they doubtless find their compensation in their satisfaction at having obeyed the true impulses of their nature.

 

            As for disturbing the popular faith of a country, he thinks it quite impossible to say that it ought or ought not to be done. When the man appears who is capable and eager to make a revolution, he will do so, and quite as grave a responsibility rests upon those who resist the innovation, as upon him who makes it. They indeed may resist, and generally do resist, from mere indolent habit but he comes with what may be new light from the eternal source, for he has not got it from them. Until proved wrong he is a prophet, and the bitterest antagonist of the prophet is the priest.

 

            ‘You know of course,’ I said, laughing, ‘where our orthodox folks would say he and his light came from?’’ Ah, no, there is only one source for everything.’

 

            ‘You forget the devil ––’

 

            ‘Ah, I do beg his pardon. I forgot the Christian’s bad god. Satan is his name, I remember, now.’

 

            He added this caution, –

 

(p. 281)

            ‘You are eager to open people’s eyes and to show them what you have seen yourself. Mark me, people’ do not want to have their eyes opened, not in Australia, nor in Europe. They are accustomed to a certain light, and they have come to like it. If you go against their priests, you who tell me you belong to a clergyman’s family, they will attack you as a traitor to their order, who, after being initiated into their secrets, turns round upon them and exposes them. Think how enrages would be the priests of any religion, if one of their number published to the world that their sacred books, which they had taught men to believe to come from the gods and be infallible, were written by men and full of mistakes and contradictions! If you are so benevolent that you must speak out, try to wait till you are in a safe position where nobody can make you starve. Besides, they will be more likely to believe a man when he has five thousand pounds rente. You do not belong to a free country where a man can speak out a strange opinion and not stiller. Your English people are great bigots. They are ignorant of all things outside of themselves, and ignorant people are always bigots, for they do not know how little they know, but think that little is everything. You may have to go to Paris for a wife, unless you pay great respects to English prejudices.’

 

            Serious threats these, starvation and a French wife! The first I have tried and did not like at all. The second would equally disagree with me, if my idea of French women be correct.

 

*          *          *          *

 

            The Frenchman says, ‘God has given us infallibility in nothing except mathematics.’ Can it be said that

(p. 282)

we have it there, when feeling is the only basis of demonstration?

 

            He says, he ‘does not see why we should expect perfection in the world. It may be one of the earliest attempts at creation, and only practice can make perfect.’

 

            He gives a new reason for the celibacy of the clergy. ‘The Church must sooner or later fall when the priests have families who k now as much about the system as the priests themselves know, and have not the same interest in maintaining it.’ But he believes that celibacy was originally instituted in order to free priests from the moral restraints of regular ties.

 

            Talking of the Americans, he said that France is freest socially, England politically, and America religiously. England and France have much to learn from each other, and some day will learn it. But he does not believe in the Americans. ‘Their civilisation is not real, springing from the character of the people themselves; it is merely remembered, or imitative. They have no notion of discipline, and he wouldn’t be surprised at anything that may happen to them. whenever a serious crisis or convulsion comes, the lawyers will have it all their own way; and woe betide a people governed by lawyers, for they have no sense of right and justice in the abstract, but only in relation to the statute book. A thing is made right and proper for them by being enacted by authority. So that when they do get the upper hand they will enact anything to suit their own purposes; and it will take soldiers to put d own the lawyers. So attorney-like is the nation’s mind that the people themselves generally hold that a good lie, well stuck to, is better than the truth. A man

(p. 283)

by telling the truth exposes his game and puts himself at a disadvantage.’

 

            I remarked that I had certainly heard it said that truth is too sacred a thing to be used except on emergencies, but that of course was in joke. But with reference to slavery it seemed clear to me that the negroes had a. terrible revenge for their oppression, for that whatever of national degeneration the Americans were suffering, they owed it to the influences of slavery.

 

            Frenchman said he was not quite so sure of that. He knows the States well, and the only gentlemen are the planters. The Northerners are all politically cowards, as all traders are, afraid to have any opinions of their own, or to express them if they’ have. A Frenchman or Englishman does net care if he stands alone in his opinion, he will utter it in defiance of the whole world. But a Yankee depends on the public opinion of his party. He does not believe he is right unless recognised by newspapers.

 

            I said I had heard more than one Southerner express admiration of Louis Napoleon, and wish for a despotic government in America; but I thought that a slave-owner, though he might like to be absolute over his slaves, would scarcely like a despot over himself.

 

            ‘Quite the contrary,’ said the Frenchman; ‘a strong government would be a new sensation for many Americans, and they would delight in it, especially if it released them from the popular tyranny they have now. The respectable classes would then be in a better position.’

 

            But this strikes me as a peculiarly shrewd remark;

(p. 284)

‘that with a mixed race a republic is an impossibility unless one be dominant. The blacks, if free, must have their share in the government. The whites cannot suffer this. Wherefore, the total abolition of slavery and of political inequality will lead to the destruction of the republic and the substitution of a despotism. For a single race a representative government is best; for a mixed population it is impossible. Autocracy, or slavery.’

 

Índice Geral das Seções   Índice da Seção Atual   Índice da Obra Atual   Anterior: Livro IV   Seguinte: Livro VI