A Writer's Notebook (42 page)

The moon shone brightly, dimming the stars, and the sea was very calm except for that long, uncanny swell of the Pacific. When we entered the harbour at Apia, its coconuts dark against the sky, with the dim whiteness of the Cathedral, lights here and there on boats, it was like entering an enchantment of stillness and silence, I looked for words to describe it, but could find none. Two stray lines came into my mind, and I couldn't imagine what they were doing there: “Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder Pitched between heaven and Charing Cross.”

Suva. The bay is fine and spacious, surrounded by grey hills that stretch away mysteriously into a blue distance. You feel that in that farther country, thickly wooded, there is a strange and secret life. It suggests something aboriginal and darkly cruel. The town stretches along the borders of the harbour. Here are many frame buildings, more shops than at Apia, but there is still the air of the trading station which the place must once have been. The natives walk about in lava-lavas and
singlets or shirts, tall strapping men for the most part, as dark as Negroes, with their curly hair, often bleached with lime, cut into a curious shape. There are numbers of Hindus, walking softly, dressed in white; and the women wear nose-rings, gold chains round their necks and bangles on their arms. When you go out into the country you pass crowded villages of Hindus and everywhere you see them working in the fields. They wear nothing but a loin-cloth and their bodies are frighteningly thin. The country is subtropical, palm trees grow poorly, but there are great groves of mangoes; it has not the blitheness of Samoa, it is more sombre and the green is heavy and dark. The air is hot and oppressive, heavy too, and the rain beats down incessantly.

The Grand Pacific Hotel. It is a large, two-storeyed building, faced with stucco and surrounded by a veranda. It is cool and empty. It has a large hall, with comfortable chairs in it, and electric fans constantly turning. The servants are Hindus, silent and vaguely hostile, who go about with bare feet, in clean white suits and turbans. The food is very bad, but the rooms are pleasant, fresh and cool. Few people stay there; the agent of the company with his family, a few people waiting for ships, and some officials from the other islands brought to Suva on business or holiday.

The Blue. He came out straight from Oxford, where he got his football blue, and he has been here five years. He is now a magistrate on one of the islands and is the only white man on it. When he has a vacation he comes to Suva and drinks steadily. He drinks all day long and by noon is drunk. He is a man of under thirty, little, well made, with the appearance still of an athlete, and he has an agreeable face and a breezy, rather charming manner. His hair is cut short and is pleasantly untidy. He has blue eyes and attractive, irregular features. You
surmise a charming, good-natured fellow, with not an atom of harm in him. He is still a schoolboy.

The Schoolmaster. An Irishman who has been to the front, where he was badly wounded; and on his recovery the Government sent him to Fiji. He had read of it in his boyhood and the place had always had a romantic fascination for him. When the offer came he accepted it eagerly, and now he is bored, lonely and disillusioned. His school is about seven miles from Suva, but he drives in whenever he can; during the holidays he lives at the Grand Pacific, and he drinks, whisky and soda, all the time. He is not more than twenty-eight, short, with laughing blue eyes and a flashing smile.

The Insurance Agent. A tall elderly man, with white hair very thin but carefully brushed; he is neatly dressed and holds himself squarely and well notwithstanding an increasing obesity. He went out to Australia thirty years ago in a theatrical company, married a woman with money, and since then has followed many occupations; he has been a planter, and in the Government service, and a trader. Now he is under a cloud. He went to Apia on behalf of the insurance company he was representing and pocketed the premiums. The company made them good for its own reputation's sake, and he escaped a prosecution only because it desired to avoid scandal. He spends most of his time in the bar of the Grand Pacific and is able to drink steadily without showing signs of it. From his training as an actor he has something of the grand manner and it is amusing when you remember how narrowly he escaped a long imprisonment.

Rewa. The river is wide, with flat banks, along which are native villages and banana plantations. Beyond are the grey,
misty mountains. There are great broad reaches which I know not why are vaguely mysterious and threatening. Now and then you see a native paddling along in a dug-out. There are sugar refineries at Rewa and a bedraggled hotel, a bungalow kept by a fat Englishman and his fat wife. They have precisely the look of the proprietors of a riverside hotel on the Thames, and the woman spends most of her day in a hammock on the veranda reading novels.

The Priest. He was a little old Frenchman of seventy, very active; and he wore a short shabby cassock, black top boots and a grey topee. He was all shrivelled up, with a wrinkled clean-shaven face, long, straight grey hair and red-rimmed, watery eyes. There was something extraordinarily grotesque in his appearance. He talked a great deal, in fluent English, but with a strong accent. His hands were knotted and gnarled, with broken nails. He was a schoolmaster; he had taught for seventeen years in France, for seventeen in Australia, and now for seventeen more in Fiji. He knew many languages. He was probably an Alsatian. He talked of his nephews, most of them priests, all fighting in the French Army, and was proud of the decorations they had received. He was proud of his school in Fiji and his pupils, almost all of them natives, and carried on a correspondence still with his old pupils in Australia. It was strange in that funny little hotel to hear him talk of Shakespeare and Milton to the two men with whom he found himself sitting at table. They listened, uncomprehending, with open mouths. He was enthusiastic for all things Fijian and was a mine of information for everything about the natives. Notwithstanding his years he gave you the impression of an indefatigable energy.