AMONGST THE ISLANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7824, 18 December 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

AMONGST THE ISLANDS.

SOME OF THE GROUPS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC. 3UNDAY ISLAND, IN THE KERMADKO GROUP— TONGATABtT AND VAVAO,IK THE TONGAN, OR FRIENDLY, —OPOLU, IN THE SAMOAN, OR NAVIGATOR'S, ÜBOCP—TAHITI, IN THE SOCIETY GROUP — RAROTOXGA, IS THE HARVEY, OK COOK GROUP. No. XIV. [from cub travelling correspondent.] en ROUTE TO mataiea. Again our active little nags, heedless of the 15 miles which they had already covered, trotted out and along as if fresh from the stable and insensible to fatigue. Bat soon the road became rougher, the shadows began to lengthen, and the nocturnal chorus of tho insect tribe told us that daylight was on the wane. Hurrying on, we came to a river deeper than usual; the last freshet had swept away the bridge. We made a dotour along a rough and broken track to cross at a ford further up the stream. After crawling along for some time, slowly and painfully, we reached the spot ; ugly, forbidding, banks uneven and steep, waters dark and ru siring, with boulders cropping out in formidable array). Bappily our faithful equine friends neither plunged nor jibbed nor kicked. In ."harmony with their driver, and obedient to his wall-known voice, they

did lie bidding, and after much bumping, »>nd thumping, and joltiDg, we regained tho highway without hurt, damage, or mis hap, with a sense of unfeigned thankfulness. Well for os that it was so, for the sun was now mealing the western horizon, and after sunset darkness quickly settles down like a pall, xn the tropics, twilight there is little or none, and the new moon was too young to light us on onr way. To add to our trouble, we had discovered soon after leaving the roadside house of our friend, that we had ten additional miles to travel er9 we could come up with the Janet Nicoll, and repose for the night. Rounding a point close to the beach we had seen the Janet Nicoll heading in for the narrow opening in the reef, through which vessels pass into the still waters of the little harbour of Papara. It was there that she was to load more than the half of the oranges. Coming to another opening in the foliage I seaward, we had Been with astonishment : that she was steaming out to aea, and had manifestly given up the attempt to Inter the passage, as dangerous, from the heavy awejl rolling through it at the time. She wae evidently making for the more distant, but more commodious harbour of Mataiea, and thither we had to follow her if we would have food and rest from fatigue. Arrived at Papara a little after sunset, we pulled up, changed one of the horees, ate oome bread and meat, sucked an orange or two, and then prepared to start; afresh. Darkness was now upon us, the buggy had no lamps, but a round, small ship's signal lantern, which, held by your correspondent over the right side of the buggy, served to keep us in the middle of the road, aad to show us the streams and bridges as we caaae up with them, and thus, with careful driving, the dim light, and our tractable ateede, by the good providence of God, we escaped a Binash or a spill. Upon reaching our destination we found the Jantt Nicoll anugly moored, broadside on, close in shore. WE BO3E EARLY the next morning to survey the situation; took a walk, and bathed in a pool of one of the limpid mountain streamlets. It was a bright still morn, the native dwellings and garden grounds were yet in deep shade, for the sun was only just rising from his eastern bed on the other aide of the mountain ranges. Here and there a native might be seen standing in front of hie homestead, ae if meditating how he should employ the day. With every breath we inhaled the fragrance of tropical flowers, in the freshness of the early dew. The distant ocean swell undulated languidly landward, to tumble (sluggishly, without dash, or roar or rage, upon the obstructing reef. Once and again a bird would flit past, as if to take a harried look at the intruding white-faoed stranger. The sense of satiafiedness, of repose, the silent harmony of Nature, the absence of the hurry and drive of civilised life, amid the teeming hsmnts of men, inspired the sentiment, " Here let me rest and meditate, pondering the open page of Nature's unread book, rising higher and higher into fellowship with Him, by whom all things became, and without whom nothing became that had beoome; who said, Let light be, and light was I"

LOADING OBANGES. Wakening from our reverie, we hastened back to the landing place, where all Wae bustle and drive. The long trunks of two cocoanut trees, the two ends resting upon the shore, the other two slung at the Bteamer : s side, with sections of the hatches laid orossways, formed a secure and solid gangway, up which the stalwart Tahitians could carry the weighty crates of oranges. Soon all was alive with aotivity, ehouting, laughing, toiling. Strange 1 tho coloured races, whether negroes, Kanakas, or Caffres, cannot work without noise ! The more they jabber, the more loudly they shout, the more hilarious their laugh,tho harder do they work, and the more rapidly do they get through it. The contrast of the white-skinned sons of toil! The crates were made of stout rods of a very light native wood, not heavier than bamboo. They may be five feet long, perhaps two to two and a-half broad, and sufficiently deep to take five layers of oranges. The weight of each crate ia probably not less than three hundred pounds. Originally they were smaller, taking only three layers of oranges, but the purchasing merchants, for economic reasons, insisted upon their being deepened to take five, instead of throe layers. # But it failed in its object, and loes, instead of gain, resulted. The smaller size were only threefifths of the weight of the larger, consequently they wore more easily handled, and the superincumbent pressure upon the first 1 and second layers was proportionately lese. Hence in the shipment, in the rolling of the ship at sea, and in discharging at the port of destination, there would bo less knocking about, less decay, and fewer oranges rendered unsaleable. But then the natives were ae wide awake as the merchants. They detected this economic , design, and objected to furnish the larger crates for the same prioe as the smaller, and stood out for an equivalent advance, and obtained it. The oranges, thousands upon thousands, lay in heaps upon the ground, beneath a long thatched roof, resting upon coooanut posts. Native women and young people were busily occupied tying them, three in a bundle, with strips of the inner, soft, thin bark of the hibiscus tree. The men were binding the rods together with tho same material to form the crates : whilst others, the strongest, in equads of four, tackled the full crates, lifting them up to their shoulders just as undocr takers' men do coffins ; then holding on each to his fellow, laughing and vociferating, they quickened their steps, aud bore them triumphantly up the broad gangway to the vessel's side, from which the steam winch soon hoisted and lowered them into the hold. This tumult of labour, with the cooking, eating, drinking, smoking, and the clamour of ehouting, singing, and laughing, continued the livelong day without intermission. The hours flew swiftly past, but at sundown there remained yet much to be done.

A RAMBCS ASHORE. Wβ did not, however, spend the day in contemplating the busy scene jusfe described. True, it was novel, of deep interest, and opened to us another phase in the atudy of humau nature. Wβ stepped ashore, and sauntered on along the road. In quiet, listieas faehion, having walked at least half aniile, we turned off from the highway, and followed a track through the' buah and tho Borub. The further we penetrated, the more novel and interesting did everything become. The bulky forest trees, with their unaccustomed foliage, the clearings here and there for native plantations, stocked with orange and lime trees, exhibiting at once and together, amid their dark green leaves, delicate white bloesoms, the immature young fruit, and the fully ripe and golden, pendent in profusion from every bough, as in the mythic gardens of the Heaperidee. Thou there were the light green palmy leaves of the plumed banana plants, which grows np rapidly, bears one large bunch of fruit, from thirty to fifty pounds weight, and then dies to be replaced by the strong young progeny already shooting up from its roots, and thence sapping the vitality of the parent stem. Si ated upon the decaying trunk of a tree, long since felled, and feastfag upon tho orangen which were within roach, and in abundance on every band, we mused, in the contentment of present enjoyment, upon the strangeness of our surroundings. SUGAR AND RUM. Retracing our stepa to the main road, with pockets stored with limes, we met a man driving a narrow light American spring van or wagon. Entering into conversation with him, we found that he was a Portugueeo, from Brave, one of the Cape de Verde Islands. Having visited those islands some three or four times, we were soon in " sympathetic accord," and, ae a consequence, promptly accepted his kind offer to drivo us to his own sugar cane field, and to the sugar mill and distillery of a Mr. Burns, the purchaser of his annual crops. Tho ride was very pleasant, and presently we wera in the midst of the gracoful, wavy sugar canes, now roady to be cut and borne away to the mill, there to be converted, not into sugar, but into rum. Presently we were in tho mill, where the canes are, by mechanical pressure, made to yield forth all their luscious juice. We passed on to the boiling house where it is inspissatod by the continued evaporation of its aqueous element. Then we saw the thiok, lavalooking stuff, half half molasses, granulating, ae it cooled, in large, shallow, open vats. Pasning on, we oouned the pro cess of distillation. Here tho alcohol—not inaptly described, but we forget by whom, as "liquid fire and distilled damnation,"--slowly flowed from the end of the still-worm, colourless and limpid as sprint: water, into a bucket, which, when full, wa? emptied into one of the many barrels or kilderkins waiting in turn to ba filled. In the West Indies the sugar-cane spirit is coloured with burnt sugar, and called rum. In Cuba and Brazil It ia uncoloured, and goes by the name of cana, and is largely consumed in the Itiver PlateStatee, Uruguay, and tbo Argentine provinces, especially since so many British sub. jects settled in those oountries. The marketable value of sugar is now so low that its production involves loss ; the only payable alternative is to convert tne juice of the cane into rum. But if this practice becomes universal, sugar will riec and rum will fall. Cheap labour and over production, with facilities for cheap and rapid transit, are equalising prices all over the globe. Crude, unrefined augar, is now largely imported into Auckland from Japan, Java, and the Mauritius, in addition to the cargoes arriving from the Fijis. And yet this sugar, when refined and crystallised, in sold in colonial grocers' shops for 3d or 4d the lb, and in Great Britain the same quality is retailed at 2d to 3d the lb. Our good Portuguese friend, having sup plied us with a bundle of sugar canes, drove us back to Papara, where we found the hive of natives as noisy and demonstrative as ever, as if work were as recreative as cricket or football. Having dined aboard at one p.m., we again rambled forth. Encoun tering a white face of tho Yankee typo, we scon made his acquaintance, and found that we were not mistaken in our physiognomic prognoais. He hailed from the States, intelligent, communicative, and of strong botanical proclivities. Wo became inutaally interested. He promised to send us a collection of indigenous eeeds by the next opportunity, and made us accept a couple of dozen couoanuts and a bunch of bananas.

Wa shall always regard our friend with kindly feeling?, for he kept hie promise, and we received the caso of seeds, a souvenir of oar rencontre at Papara, Tahiti, South Pacific. He had married a Tahitian, and T-rae settled at Mataiea, in charge of a highway district, and had the responsibility of keeping iu repair the many fragile bridges spanning tho frequent streamlets. When we met him he and a gang were busy at a bridge making good the damage caused by the swollen waters. Pageing ou, we came to & pleasant verandahed house, and recognised the wife of Monsieur le Pasteur Brun, to whom we had been introduced at Papeete at the close of the forenoon service on the preceding Sunday. We turned into the garden, were invited into the house, and soon found that Monsieur and Madame Brun were on a visit to M. le Paeteur de Pomeret and his wife, to whom we were introduced, we were very cordially welcomed, and constrained to aocept their PRESSING INVITATION Tc join their circle at a six o'clock dinner. Aα the Janet Nicoll was to leave at or before noon on the morrow, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to become better acquainted with our amiable French friends. In due time we sat down eight at table, four pair*, each gentleman had a lady via a-yis. The captain of the French coastal steamer having entered the port that morning, like ourselves, had wisely accepted an invitation t> join the party. Unfortunately he had brought a large dog ashore, and, iuatoait of keeping him tied up outside, as wo had seen him upon arrival, he had permitted him to intrude, into i the aalle-i-manger and take his place beside himself, Aβ the dinner progreosed with al|

due solemnity, to the evident satisfaction of out, kind hostess, and the conversation became interesting and animated, the faithful ohien de Iα maison, the Cerberus of the premises, attracted, no doubt, by theeavoury odour of the viands, found his way into the room, and was not long in discovering the alien intruder. Without interrogation or parley he flow upon him, and the fight began in good earnest. The canine combatants, lost to all Bouse of decorum, were fierce in their attempts to fix their fangs in each other's throats as they tumbled over and over, snarling and growliug and bumping against the legs of the table. An upset of the kerosene lamps, and a fUaoo of the whole affair seemed inevitable. The seats of the diners were soon vaoated. Two of the gentlemen held on to the lamps, instinctively apprehensive of fire, while the other two, the proprietors of the combatants, did their best to separate the belligerents. The ladies, happily, neither screamed, nor shrieked nor swooned. The table withstood the shook, no damage was sustained, and very soon the peaceful oourse of the meal was, resumed as if nothing had happened. But strange, the guest made no apology for the ill-behaviour of his dog, neither did he offer to tie him up. Different countries, different customs! Albeit we made a good dinner, spent a pleasant evening, and thoroughly enjoyf d ourselves in spite of the untoward dog fight. Our kind friends, Messrs. les Pasteurs de Pomeret and Brun, courteously escorted us along the dark road back to the Jaunt Niooll. The evening spent in the participation of their hospitalty and the enjoyment of their genial society will be among the brightest of the recollections of oar Tahitinu visit. All astir early the following morning, the loading was forced on, the captain being anxious to reach the narrow passage into

PAPARA during the forenoon, before the strengthening trade-wind oould render the ocean swell too heavy to attempt it with safety. By dint of '• hurrying up," wo got away in good time. The elements were propitious, and we were eoon " out on the ocean wave." About midday we ulowed, and stood cloee in for the narrow entrance. Silence reigned aboard ; the pilot was on the bridge, the captain in the foretop, the engineer on the alert, the passengers, in the vacuity of apprehensive igaoranoe, tried to look knowing and unconcerned. The Janet Niooll, obedient to her helm, ae urged on by her propeller, rising and falling to the swell, gently, yet surely, threaded the intricacies of the narrow passage, aud in a few minutes was in perfectly still water, feeling her way between the scattered reeflets up to her place of lading. Anchored at the bows, with a kedge laid out astern to keep her from swinging, soon the crates of oranges were brought off upon native canoes in pairs, with poles across them, upon which three or four crates were laid. In this slow and tedious fashion the residue of the cargo bad to be shipped. After a one o'clock dinner we went ashore, intend ing, if we could, to visit an open cave in the side of a bluff close to the road side, some three or tour miles distant, which two days before we had passed unobserved as we drove along in the buggy. Wβ walked a good way, and then came to a Chinaman's little store, besides which the usual American double-seated spring wagon stood. Wβ offered a dollar to be driven to the Cave and back, but John Chinaman thought he oould extort two, but failed. A halfmile further on we came to a native house, and there another such wagon stood. A mother was looking up at her two boys, who had climbed the two highest cocoanut trees, and were cutting the fronds for thatching purposes. We made her understand that we wanted the vehicle to go to the Gave, showed her a dollar piece, and in a little, as soon as the boys could descend and put to the nags, we were bowling along the road. When we came to the Cave, is was no Cave at all, but simply a deep open hollow in the overhanging cliff, from which the dripping water formed a pool underneath it. It was quite unworthy of the time, trouble, and expense. But we were enjoying a pleasant drive, and were adding to our stores of experience. Our ponies soon whisked us back to Fapara. As we passed the last streamlet a goodly number of dusky forms, male and female, young and old, wore luxuriating, laughing, jumping, tumbling, ducking, and swimming, in all the exuberance of childish delight, in a natural basin of fts pellucid waters. Many of these, as we shall see further on, were to be our fellow passengers to Rarofconga.