In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories

In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories
Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang

In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories

DEDICATION

DEAR RIDER HAGGARD,

I have asked you to let me put your name here, that I might have the opportunity of saying how much pleasure I owe to your romances. They make one a boy again while one is reading them; and the student of “The Witch’s Head” and of “King Solomon’s Mines” is as young, in heart, as when he hunted long ago with Chingachgook and Uncas. You, who know the noble barbarian in his African retreats, appear to retain more than most men of his fresh natural imagination. We are all savages under our white skins; but you alone recall to us the delights and terrors of the world’s nonage. We are hunters again, trappers, adventurers bold, while we study you, and the blithe barbarian wakens even in the weary person of letters. He forgets proof-sheets and papers, and the “young lion” seeks his food from God, in the fearless ancient way, with bow or rifle. Of all modern heroes of romance, the dearest to me is your faithful Zulu, and I own I cried when he bade farewell to his English master, in “The Witch’s Head.”

In the following tales the natural man takes a hand, but he is seen through civilized spectacles, not, as in your delightful books, with the eyes of the sympathetic sportsman. If Why-Why and Mr. Gowles amuse you a little, let this be my Diomedean exchange of bronze for gold – of the new Phæacia for Kukuana land, or for that haunted city of Kôr, in which your fair Ayesha dwells undying, as yet unknown to the future lovers of She.

Very sincerely yours,

A. LANG.

CROMER, August 29, 1886.

PREFACE

The writer of these apologues hopes that the Rev. Mr. Gowles will not be regarded as his idea of a typical missionary. The countrymen of Codrington and Callaway, of Patteson and Livingstone, know better what missionaries may be, and often are. But the wrong sort as well as the right sort exists everywhere, and Mr. Gowles is not a very gross caricature of the ignorant teacher of heathendom. I am convinced that he would have seen nothing but a set of darkened savages in the ancient Greeks. The religious eccentricities of the Hellenes are not exaggerated in “The End of Phæacia;” nay, Mr. Gowles might have seen odder things in Attica than he discovered, or chose to record, in Boothland.

To avoid the charge of plagiarism, perhaps it should be mentioned that “The Romance of the First Radical” was written long before I read Tanner’s “Narrative of a Captivity among the Indians.” Tanner, like Why-Why, had trouble with the chief medicine-man of his community.

If my dear kinsman and companion of old days, J. J. A., reads “My Friend the Beach-comber,” he will recognize many of his own yarns, but the portrait of the narrator is wholly fanciful.

“In Castle Perilous” and “A Cheap Nigger” are reprinted from the Cornhill Magazine; “My Friend the Beach-comber,” from Longman’s; “The Great Gladstone Myth,” from Macmillan’s; “In the Wrong Paradise,” from the Fortnightly Review; “A Duchess’s Secret,” from the Overland Mail; “The Romance of the First Radical,” from Fraser’s Magazine; and “The End of Phæacia,” from Time, by the courteous permission of the editors and proprietors of those periodicals.

THE END OF PHÆACIA

I. INTRODUCTORY. [1 - From Wandering Sheep, the Bungletonian Missionary Record.]

The Rev. Thomas Gowles, well known in Colonial circles where the Truth is valued, as “the Boanerges of the Pacific,” departed this life at Hackney Wick, on the 6th of March, 1885. The Laodiceans in our midst have ventured to affirm that the world at large has been a more restful place since Mr. Gowles was taken from his corner of the vineyard. The Boanerges of the Pacific was, indeed, one of those rarely-gifted souls, souls like a Luther or a Knox, who can tolerate no contradiction, and will palter with no compromise, where the Truth is concerned. Papists, Puseyites, Presbyterians, and Pagans alike, found in Mr. Gowles an opponent whose convictions were firm as a rock, and whose method of proclaiming the Truth was as the sound of a trumpet. Examples of his singular courage and daring in the work of the ministry abound in the following narrative. Born and brought up in the Bungletonian communion, himself collaterally connected, by a sister’s marriage, with Jedediah Bungleton, the revered founder of the Very Particular People, Gowles was inaccessible to the scepticism of the age.

His youth, it is true, had been stormy, like that of many a brand afterwards promoted to being a vessel. His worldly education was of the most elementary and indeed eleemosynary description, consequently he despised secular learning, and science “falsely so called.” It is recorded of him that he had almost a distaste for those difficult chapters of the Epistles in which St. Paul mentions by name his Greek friends and converts. In a controversy with an Oxford scholar, conducted in the open air, under the Martyrs’ Memorial in that centre of careless professors, Gowles had spoken of “Nicodĕmus,” “Eubŭlus,” and “Stephānas.” His unmannerly antagonist jeering at these slips of pronunciation, Gowles uttered his celebrated and crushing retort, “Did Paul know Greek?” The young man, his opponent, went away, silenced if not convinced.

Such a man was the Rev. Thomas Gowles in his home ministry. Circumstances called him to that wider field of usefulness, the Pacific, in which so many millions of our dusky brethren either worship owls, butterflies, sharks, and lizards, or are led away captive by the seductive pomps of the Scarlet Woman, or lapse languidly into the lap of a bloated and Erastian establishment, ignorant of the Truth as possessed by our community. Against all these forms of soul-destroying error the Rev. Thomas Gowles thundered nobly, “passing,” as an admirer said, “like an evangelical cyclone, from the New Hebrides to the Aleutian Islands.” It was during one of his missionary voyages, in a labour vessel, the Blackbird, that the following singular events occurred, events which Mr. Gowles faithfully recorded, as will be seen, in his missionary narrative. We omit, as of purely secular interest, the description of the storm which wrecked the Blackbird, the account of the destruction of the steamer with all hands (not, let us try to hope, with all souls) on board, and everything that transpired till Mr. Gowles found himself alone, the sole survivor, and bestriding the mast in the midst of a tempestuous sea. What follows is from the record kept on pieces of skin, shards of pottery, plates of metal, papyrus leaves, and other strange substitutes for paper, used by Mr. Gowles during his captivity.

II. NARRATIVE OF MR. GOWLES. [2 - 1884. Date unknown. Month probably June.]

“I must now, though in sore straits for writing materials, and having entirely lost count of time, post up my diary, or rather commence my narrative. So far as I can learn from the jargon of the strange and lost people among whom Providence has cast me, this is, in their speech, the last of the month, Thargeelyun, as near as I can imitate the sound in English. Being in doubt as to the true time, I am resolved to regard to-morrow, and every seventh day in succession, as the Sabbath. The very natives, I have observed with great interest, keep one day at fixed intervals sacred to the Sun-god, whom they call Apollon, perhaps the same word as Apollyon. On this day they do no manner of work, but that is hardly an exception to their usual habits. A less industrious people (slaves and all) I never met, even in the Pacific. As to being more than common idle on one day out of seven, whether they have been taught so much of what is essential by some earlier missionary, or whether they may be the corrupted descendants of the Lost Tribes (whom they do not, however, at all resemble outwardly, being, I must admit, of prepossessing appearance), I can only conjecture. This Apollon of theirs, in his graven images (of which there are many), carries a bow and arrows, fiery darts of the wicked, another point in common between him and Apollyon, in the Pilgrim’s Progress. May I, like Christian, turn aside and quench his artillery!

To return to my narrative. When I recovered consciousness, after the sinking of the Blackbird, I found myself alone, clinging to the mast. Now was I tossed on the crest of the wave, now the waters opened beneath me, and I sank down in the valleys of the sea. Cold, numbed, and all but lifeless, I had given up hope of earthly existence, and was nearly insensible, when I began to revive beneath the rays of the sun.

The sea, though still moved by a swell, was now much smoother, and, but for a strange vision, I might have believed that I was recovering my strength. I must, however, have been delirious or dreaming, for it appeared to me that a foreign female, of prepossessing exterior, though somewhat indelicately dressed, arose out of the waters close by my side, as lightly as if she had been a sea-gull on the wing. About her head there was wreathed a kind of muslin scarf, which she unwound and offered to me, indicating that I was to tie it about my waist, and it would preserve me from harm. So weak and exhausted was I that, without thinking, I did her bidding, and then lost sight of the female. Presently, as it seemed (but I was so drowsy that the time may have been longer than I fancied), I caught sight of land from the crest of a wave. Steep blue cliffs arose far away out of a white cloud of surf, and, though a strong swimmer, I had little hope of reaching the shore in safety.

Fortunately, or rather, I should say, providentially, the current and tide-rip carried me to the mouth of a river, and, with a great effort, I got into the shoal-water, and finally staggered out on shore. There was a wood hard by, and thither I dragged myself. The sun was in mid heavens and very warm, and I managed to dry my clothes. I am always most particular to wear the dress of my calling, observing that it has a peculiar and gratifying effect on the minds of the natives. I soon dried my tall hat, which, during the storm, I had attached to my button-hole by a string, and, though it was a good deal battered, I was not without hopes of partially restoring its gloss and air of British respectability. As will be seen, this precaution was, curiously enough, the human means of preserving my life. My hat, my black clothes, my white neck-tie, and the hymn-book I carry would, I was convinced, secure for me a favourable reception among the natives (if of the gentle brown Polynesian type), whom I expected to find on the island.

Exhausted by my sufferings, I now fell asleep, but was soon wakened by loud cries of anguish uttered at no great distance. I started to my feet, and beheld an extraordinary spectacle, which at once assured me that I had fallen among natives of the worst and lowest type. The dark places of the earth are, indeed, full of horrid cruelty.

The first cries which had roused me must have been comparatively distant, though piercing, and even now they reached me confused in the notes of a melancholy chant or hymn. But the shrieks grew more shrill, and I thought I could distinguish the screams of a woman in pain or dread from the groans drawn with more difficulty from a man. I leaped up, and, climbing a high part of the river bank, I beheld, within a couple of hundred yards, an extraordinary procession coming from the inner country towards the mouth of the stream.

At first I had only a confused view of bright stuffs – white, blue, and red – and the shining of metal objects, in the midst of a crowd partly concealed by the dust they raised on their way. Very much to my surprise I found that they were advancing along a wide road, paved in a peculiar manner, for I had never seen anything of this kind among the heathen tribes of the Pacific. Their dresses, too, though for the most part mere wraps, as it were, of coloured stuff, thrown round them, pinned with brooches, and often clinging in a very improper way to the figure, did not remind me of the costume (what there is of it) of Samoans, Fijians, or other natives among whom I have been privileged to labour.

But these observations give a more minute impression of what I saw than, for the moment, I had time to take in. The foremost part of the procession consisted of boys, many of them almost naked. Their hands were full of branches, wreathed in a curious manner with strips of white or coloured wools. They were all singing, and were led by a woman carrying in her arms a mis-shapen wooden idol, not much unlike those which are too frequent spectacles all over the Pacific. Behind the boys I could now distinctly behold a man and woman of the Polynesian type, naked to the waist, and staggering with bent backs beneath showers of blows. The people behind them, who were almost as light in colour as ourselves, were cruelly flogging them with cutting branches of trees. Round the necks of the unfortunate victims – criminals I presumed – were hung chains of white and black figs, and in their hands they held certain herbs, figs, and cheese, for what purpose I was, and remain, unable to conjecture. Whenever their cries were still for a moment, the woman who carried the idol turned round, and lifted it in her arms with words which I was unable to understand, urging on the tormentors to ply their switches with more severity.

Naturally I was alarmed by the strangeness and ferocity of the natives, so I concealed myself hastily in some brushwood behind a large tree. Much to my horror I found that the screams, groans, and singing only drew nearer and nearer. The procession then passed me so close that I could see blood on the backs of the victims, and on their faces an awful dread and apprehension. Finally, the crowd reached the mouth of the river, at the very place where I had escaped from the sea. By aid of a small pocket-glass I could make out that the men were piling great faggots of green wood, which I had noticed that some of them carried, on a spot beneath the wash of high tide. When the pile had reached a considerable height, the two victims were placed in the middle. Then, by some means, which I was too far off to detect, fire was produced, and applied to the wild wood in which the unhappy man and woman were enveloped. Soon, fortunately, a thick turbid smoke, in which but little flame appeared, swept all over the beach. I endeavoured to stop my ears, and turned my head away that I might neither see nor hear more of this spectacle, which I now perceived to be a human sacrifice more cruel than is customary even among the Fijians.

When I next ventured to look up, the last trails of smoke were vanishing away across the sea; the sun gazed down on the bright, many-coloured throng, who were now singing another of their hymns, while some of the number were gathering up ashes (human ashes!) from a blackened spot on the sand, and were throwing them into the salt water. The wind tossed back a soft grey dust in their faces, mixed with the surf and spray. It was dark before the crowd swept by me again, now chanting in what appeared to be a mirthful manner, and with faces so smiling and happy that I could scarcely believe they had just taken part in such abominable cruelty. On the other hand, a weight seemed to have been removed from their consciences. So deceitful are the wiles of Satan, who deludes the heathen most in their very religion! Tired and almost starved as I was, these reflections forced themselves upon me, even while I was pondering on the dreadful position in which I found myself. Way of escape from the island (obviously a very large one) there was none. But, if I remained all night in the wood, I must almost perish of cold and hunger. I had therefore no choice but to approach the barbarous people, though, from my acquaintance with natives, I knew well that they were likely either to kill and eat me, or to worship me as a god. Either event was too dreadful to bear reflection. I was certain, however, that, owing to the dress of my sacred calling, I could not be mistaken for a mere beach-comber or labour-hunter, and I considered that I might easily destroy the impression (natural among savages on first seeing a European) that I was a god. I therefore followed the throng from a distance, taking advantage for concealment of turns in the way, and of trees and underwood beside the road. Some four miles’ walking, for which I was very unfit, brought us across a neck of land, and from high ground in the middle I again beheld the sea. Very much to my surprise the cape on which I looked down, safe in the rear of the descending multitude, was occupied by a kind of city.

The houses were not the mere huts of South Sea Islanders, but, though built for the most part of carved and painted wood, had white stone foundations, and were of considerable height. On a rock in the centre of the bay were some stone edifices which I took to be temples or public buildings. The crowd gradually broke up, turning into their own dwellings on the shore, where, by the way, some large masted vessels were drawn up in little docks. But, while the general public, if I may say so, slowly withdrew, the woman with the idol in her arms, accompanied by some elderly men of serious aspect, climbed the road up to the central public buildings.

Moved by some impulse which I could hardly explain, I stealthily followed them, and at last found myself on a rocky platform, a kind of public square, open on one side to the sea, and shut in on either hand, and at the back, by large houses with smooth round pillars, and decorated with odd coloured carvings. There was in the open centre of the square an object which I recognized as an altar, with a fire burning on it. Some men came out of the chief building, dragging a sheep, with chains of flowers round its neck. Another man threw something on the fire, which burned with a curious smell. At once I recognized the savour of incense, against which (as employed illegally by the Puseyites) I had often firmly protested in old days at home. The spirit of a soldier of the Truth entered into me; weary as I was, I rushed from the dusky corner where I had been hidden in the twilight, ran to the altar, and held up my hand with my hymn-book as I began to repeat an address that had often silenced the papistic mummers in England. Before I had uttered half a dozen words, the men who were dragging the sheep flew at me, and tried to seize me, while one of them offered a strange-looking knife at my throat. I thought my last hour had come, and the old Adam awakening in me, I delivered such a blow with my right on the eye of the man with the knife, that he reeled and fell heavily against the altar. Then assuming an attitude of self-defence (such as was, alas! too familiar to me in my unregenerate days), I awaited my assailants.

They were coming on in a body when the veil of the large edifice in front was lifted, and a flash of light streamed out on the dusky square, as an old man dressed in red hurried to the scene of struggle. He wore a long white beard, had green leaves twisted in his hair, and carried in his hand a gilded staff curiously wreathed with wool. When they saw him approaching, my assailants fell back, each of them kissing his own hand and bowing slightly in the direction of the temple, as I rightly supposed it to be. The old man, who was followed by attendants carrying torches burning, was now close to us, and on beholding me, he exhibited unusual emotions.

My appearance, no doubt, was at that moment peculiar, and little creditable, as I have since thought, to a minister, however humble. My hat was thrust on the back of my head, my coat was torn, my shirt open, my neck-tie twisted round under my ear, and my whole attitude was not one generally associated with the peaceful delivery of the message. Still, I had never conceived that any spectacle, however strange and unbecoming, could have produced such an effect on the native mind, especially in a person who was manifestly a chief, or high-priest of some heathen god. Seeing him pause, and turn pale, I dropped my hands, and rearranged my dress as best I might. The old Tohunga, as my New Zealand flock used to call their priest, now lifted his eyes to heaven with an air of devotion, and remained for some moments like one absorbed in prayer or meditation. He then rapidly uttered some words, which, of course, I could not understand, whereon his attendants approached me gently, with signs of respect and friendship. Not to appear lacking in courtesy, or inferior in politeness to savages, I turned and raised my hat, which seemed still more to alarm the old priest. He spoke to one of his attendants, who instantly ran across the square, and entered the courtyard of a large house, surrounded by a garden, of which the tall trees looked over the wall, and wooden palisade. The old man then withdrew into the temple, and I distinctly saw him scatter, with the leafy bough of a tree, some water round him as he entered, from a vessel beside the door. This convinced me that some of the emissaries of the Scarlet Woman had already been busy among the benighted people, a conjecture, however, which proved to be erroneous.

I was now left standing by the altar, the attendants observing me with respect which I feared might at any moment take the blasphemous form of worship. Nor could I see how I was to check their adoration, and turn it into the proper channel, if, as happened to Captain Cook, and has frequently occurred since, these darkened idolaters mistook me for one of their own deities. I might spurn them, indeed; but when Nicholson adopted that course, and beat the Fakirs who worshipped him during the Indian Mutiny, his conduct, as I have read, only redoubled their enthusiasm. However, as events proved, they never at any time were inclined to substitute me for their heathen divinities; very far from it indeed, though their peculiar conduct was calculated to foster in my breast this melancholy delusion.

I had not been left long to my own thoughts when I marked lights wandering in the garden or courtyard whither the messenger had been sent by the old priest. Presently there came forth from the court a man of remarkable stature, and with an air of seriousness and responsibility. In his hand he carried a short staff, or baton, with gold knobs, and he wore a thin golden circlet in his hair. As he drew near, the veil of the temple was again lifted, and the aged priest came forward, bearing in his arms a singular casket of wood, ornamented with alternate bands of gold and ivory, carved with outlandish figures. The torch-bearers crowded about us in the darkness, and it was a strange spectacle to behold the smoky, fiery light shining on the men’s faces and the rich coloured dresses, or lighting up the white idol of Apollon, which stood among the laurel trees at the entrance of the temple.

III. THE PROPHECY

The priest and the man with the gold circlet, whom I took to be a chief, now met, and, fixing their eyes on me, held a conversation of which, naturally, I understood nothing. I maintained an unmoved demeanour, and, by way of showing my indifference, and also of impressing the natives with the superiority of our civilization, I took out and wound up my watch, which, I was glad to find, had not been utterly ruined by the salt water. Meanwhile the priest was fumbling in his casket, whence he produced a bundle of very ragged and smoky old bits of parchment and scraps of potsherds. These he placed in the hands of his attendants, who received them kneeling. From the very bottom of the casket he extracted some thin plates of a greyish metal, lead, I believe, all mouldy, stained, and ragged. Over these he pored and puzzled for some time, trying, as I guessed, to make out something inscribed on this curious substitute for writing-paper. I had now recovered my presence of mind, and, thinking at once to astonish and propitiate, I drew from my pocket, wiped, and presented to him my spectacles, indicating, by example, the manner of their employment. No sooner did he behold these common articles of every-day use, than the priest’s knees began to knock together, and his old hands trembled so that he could scarcely fix the spectacles on his nose. When he had managed this it was plain that he found much less difficulty with his documents. He now turned them rapidly over, and presently discovered one thin sheet of lead, from which he began to read, or rather chant, in a slow measured tone, every now and then pausing and pointing to me, to my hat, and to the spectacles which he himself wore at the moment. The chief listened to him gravely, and with an expression of melancholy that grew deeper and sadder till the end. It was a strange scene.

I afterwards heard the matter of the prophecy, as it proved to be, which was thus delivered. I have written it down in the language of the natives, spelling it as best I might, and I give the translation which I made when I became more or less acquainted with their very difficult dialect. [3 - The original text of this prophecy is printed at the close of Mr. Gowles’s narrative.] It will be seen that the prophecy, whatever its origin, was strangely fulfilled. Perhaps the gods of this people were not mere idols, but evil spirits, permitted, for some wise purpose, to delude their unhappy worshippers. [4 - It has been suggested to me that some travelled priest or conjurer of this strange race may have met Europeans, seen hats, spectacles, steamers, and so forth, and may have written the prophecy as a warning of the dangers of our civilization. In that case the forgery was very cunningly managed, as the document had every appearance of great age, and the alarm of the priest was too natural to have been feigned.] This, doubtless, they might best do by occasionally telling the truth, as in my instance. But this theory – namely, that the gods of the heathen are perhaps evil and wandering spirits – is, for reasons which will afterwards appear, very painful to me, personally reminding me that I may have sinned as few have done since the days of the early Christians. But I trust this will not be made a reproach to me in our Connection, especially as I have been the humble instrument of so blessed a change in the land of the heathen, there being no more of them left. But, to return to the prophecy, it is given roughly here in English. It ran thus: – “But when a man, having a chimney pot on his head, and four eyes, appears, and when a sail-less ship also comes, sailing without wind and breathing smoke, then will destruction fall upon the Scherian island.” Perhaps, from this and other expressions to be offered in a later chapter, the learned will be able to determine whether the speech is of the Polynesian or the Papuan family, or whether, as I sometimes suspect, it is of neither, but of a character quite isolated and peculiar.

The effect produced on the mind of the chief by the prophecy amazed me, as he looked, for a native, quite a superior and intelligent person. None of them, however, as I found, escaped the influence of their baneful superstitions. Approaching me, he closely examined myself, my dress, and the spectacles which the old priest now held in his hands. The two men then had a hurried discussion, and I have afterwards seen reason to suppose that the chief was pointing out the absence of certain important elements in the fulfilment of the prophecy. Here was I, doubtless, “a man bearing a chimney on his head” (for in this light they regarded my hat), and having “four eyes,” that is, including my spectacles, a convenience with which they had hitherto been unacquainted. It was undeniable that a prophecy written by a person not accustomed to the resources of civilization, could not more accurately have described me and my appearance. But the “ship without sails” was still lacking to the completion of what had been foretold, as the chief seemed to indicate by waving his hand towards the sea. For the present, therefore, they might hope that the worst would not come to the worst. Probably this conclusion brought a ray of hope into the melancholy face of the chief, and the old priest himself left off trembling. They even smiled, and, in their conversation, which assumed a lighter tone, I caught and recorded in pencil on my shirt-cuff, for future explanation, words which sounded like aiskistos aneer, farmakos, catharma, and Thargeelyah. [5 - How terribly these words were afterwards to be interpreted, the reader will learn in due time.] Finally the aged priest hobbled back into his temple, and the chief, beckoning me to follow, passed within the courtyard of his house.

IV. AT THE CHIEF’S HOUSE

The chief leading the way, I followed through the open entrance of the courtyard. The yard was very spacious, and under the dark shade of the trees I could see a light here and there in the windows of small huts along the walls, where, as I found later, the slaves and the young men of the family slept. In the middle of the space there was another altar, I am sorry to say; indeed, there were altars everywhere. I never heard of a people so religious, in their own darkened way, as these islanders. At the further end of the court was a really large and even stately house, with no windows but a clerestory, indicated by the line of light from within, flickering between the top of the wall and the beginning of the high-pitched roof. Light was also streaming through the wide doorway, from which came the sound of many voices. The house was obviously full of people, and, just before we reached the deep verandah, a roofed space open to the air in front, they began to come out, some of them singing. They had flowers in their hair, and torches in their hands. The chief, giving me a sign to be silent, drew me apart within the shadow of a plane tree, and we waited there till the crowd dispersed, and went, I presume, to their own houses. There were no women among them, and the men carried no spears nor other weapons. When the court was empty, we walked up the broad stone steps and stood within the doorway. I was certainly much surprised at what I saw. There was a rude magnificence about this house such as I had never expected to find in the South Sea Islands. Nay, though I am not unacquainted with the abodes of opulence at home, and have been a favoured guest of some of our merchant princes (including Messrs. Bunton, the eminent haberdashers, whose light is so generously bestowed on our Connection), I admit that I had never looked on a more spacious reception-room, furnished, of course, in a somewhat savage manner, but, obviously, regardless of expense. The very threshold between the court and the reception-room, to which you descended by steps, was made of some dark metal, inlaid curiously with figures of beasts and birds, also in metal (gold, as I afterwards learned), of various shades of colour and brightness.

At first I had some difficulty in making out the details of the vast apartment which lay beyond. I was almost dizzy with hunger and fatigue, and my view was further obscured by a fragrant blue smoke, which rose in soft clouds from an open fireplace in the middle of the room. Singular to say, there was no chimney, merely a hole in the lofty roof, through which most of the smoke escaped. The ceiling itself, which was supported by carved rafters, was in places quite black with the vapour of many years. The smoke, however, was thin, and as the fuel on the fire, and on the braziers, was of dry cedar and sandal-wood, the perfume, though heavy, was not unpleasant. The room was partly illuminated by the fire itself, partly by braziers full of blazing branches of trees; but, what was most remarkable, there were rows of metal images of young men (naked, I am sorry to say), with burning torches in their hands, ranged all along the side walls.

A good deal of taste, in one sense, had been expended in making these images, and money had clearly been no object. I might have been somewhat dazzled by the general effect, had I not reflected that, in my own country, gas is within reach of the poorest purse, while the electric light itself may be enjoyed by the very beggar in the street. Here, on the contrary, the dripping of the wax from the torches, the black smoke on the roof, the noisy crackling of the sandal-wood in the braziers, all combined to prove that these natives, though ingenious enough in their way, were far indeed below the level of modern civilization. The abominable ceremony of the afternoon would have proved as much, and now the absence of true comfort, even in the dwelling of a chief, made me think once more of the hardships of a missionary’s career.

But I must endeavour to complete the picture of domestic life in the island, which I now witnessed for the first time, and which will never be seen again by Europeans. The walls themselves were of some dark but glittering metal, on which designs in lighter metal were inlaid. There were views of the chief going to the chase, his bow in his hand; of the chief sacrificing to idols; of men and young women engaged in the soul-destroying practice of promiscuous dancing; there were wild beasts, lions among others; rivers, with fish in them; mountains, trees, the sun and moon, and stars, all not by any means ill designed, for the work of natives. The pictures, indeed, reminded me a good deal of the ugly Assyrian curiosities in the British Museum, as I have seen them when conducting the children of the Bungletonian Band of Hope through the rooms devoted to the remains of Bible peoples, such as the Egyptians, Hittites, and others.

Red or blue curtains, strangely embroidered, hung over the doors, and trophies of swords, shields, and spears, not of steel, but of some darker metal, were fixed on the tall pillars that helped to prop the roof. At the top of the wall, just beneath the open unglazed spaces, which admitted light and air in the daytime, and wind and rain in bad weather, was a kind of frieze, or coping, of some deep blue material. [6 - I afterwards found it was blue smalt.] All along the sides of the hall ran carved seats, covered with pretty light embroidered cloths, not very different from modern Oriental fabrics. The carpets and rugs were precisely like those of India and Persia, and I supposed that they must have been obtained through commerce. But I afterwards learned that they were, beyond doubt, of native manufacture.

At the further end of the room was a kind of platform, or daïs, on which tables were set with fruit and wine. But much more curious than the furniture of the hall was the group of women sitting by the fire in the centre. There sat in two rows some twenty girls, all busily weaving, and throwing the shuttle from hand to hand, laughing and chattering in low voices. In the midst of them, on a high chair of cedar-wood, decorated with ivory, and with an ivory footstool, sat a person whom, in a civilized country, one must have looked on with respect as a lady of high rank. She, like her husband the chief, had a golden circlet twisted in her hair, which was still brown and copious, and she wore an appearance of command.

At her feet, on a stool, reclined a girl who was, I must confess, of singular beauty. Doto had long fair hair, a feature most unusual among these natives. She had blue eyes, and an appearance of singular innocence and frankness. She was, at the moment, embroidering a piece of work intended, as I afterwards learned with deep pain, for the covering of one of their idols, to whose service the benighted young woman was devoted. Often in after days, I saw Doto stooping above her embroidery and deftly interweaving the green and golden threads into the patterns of beasts and flowers. Often my heart went out to this poor child of pagan tribe, and I even pleased myself with the hope that some day, a reclaimed and enlightened character, she might employ her skill in embroidering slippers and braces for a humble vessel. I seemed to see her, a helpmate meet for me, holding Mothers’ Meetings, playing hymn-tunes on the lyre, or the double pipes, the native instruments, and, above all, winning the islanders from their cruel and abominable custom of exposing their infant children on the mountains. How differently have all things been arranged.

But I am wandering from my story. When we reached the group by the fireside, who had at first been unaware of our entrance, the chief’s wife gave a slight start, alarmed doubtless by my appearance. She could never have seen, nor even dreamed of, such a spectacle as I must have presented, haggard, ragged, faint with hunger, and worn with fatigue as I was. The chief motioned to me that I should kneel at his wife’s feet, and kiss her hand, but I merely bowed, not considering this a fit moment to protest otherwise against such sacrilegious mummeries. But the woman – her name I learned later was Ocyale – did not take my attitude in bad part. The startled expression of her face changed to a look of pity, and, with a movement of her hand, she directed Doto to bring a large golden cup from the table at the upper end of the room. Into this cup she ladled some dark liquid from a bowl which was placed on a small three-legged stand, or dumb waiter, close to her side. Next she spilt a little of the wine on the polished floor, with an appearance of gravity which I did not understand. It appears that this spilling of wine is a drink offering to their idols. She then offered me the cup, which I was about to taste, when I perceived that the liquor was indubitably alcoholic!