Читать книгу The Pacific Triangle - Sydney Greenbie - Страница 26

I seldom dream, but at the moment of waking in strange surroundings after an unusual run of events my mind rehearses as in a dream the experiences gained during consciousness. When the knuckles of the Fijian—and he has knuckles—sounded on my door at seven to announce my morning tea, I woke with a sense of heaviness, as though submerged in a world from which I could never again escape. At seven-fifteen another Fijian came for my laundry; at seven-thirty a third came for my shoes. Seeing that it was useless to remain in bed longer, I got up. I was not many minutes on the street before I realized the urgency in those several early visits. Daylight-saving is an absolute necessity in the tropics, for by eight or nine one has to endure our noonday sun, and unless something is accomplished before that time one must perforce wait till late afternoon for another opportunity. To keep an ordinary coat on an ordinary back in Suva is like trying to live in a fireless cooker while angry. Even in the shade one is grateful for white duck instead of woolens, so before long I had acquired an Irish poplin coat. Yet Fiji is one of the most healthful of the South Sea islands.

Owing to the heat, most likely—to give the white devils their due—procrastination is the order of life. "Everything here is 'malua,'" explained the manager of "The Fiji Times" to me. "No matter what you want or whom you ask for it, 'wait a bit' will be the process." And he forthwith demonstrated, quite unconsciously, that he knew whereof he spoke. I wanted to get some information about the interior which he might just as easily have given me off-hand, but he asked me to wait a bit. I did. He left his office, walked all the way up the street with me to show me a photographer's place where I should be able to get what I was after, and stood about with me waiting for the photographer to make up his mind whether he had the time to see me or not. There's no use rushing anybody. The authorities have been several years trying to get one of the off streets of Suva paved. It has been "worked on," but the task, turned to every now and then for half an hour, requires numerous rest periods.

In Fiji, every one moves adagio. The white man looks on and commands; the Indian coolie slinks about and slaves; the Fijian works on occasion but generally passes tasks by with sporty indifference. Yet there is no absence of life. Beginning with the noise and confusion at the pier, there is a steady stream of individuals on whom shadows are lost, though they have nothing on them but their skins and their sulus. The Fijian idles, allows the Indian to work, happy to be left alone, happy if he can add a shilling to his possessions,—an old vest, a torn pair of trousers of any shape, an old coat, or a stiff-bosomed shirt sans coat or vest or trousers. Tall, mighty, and picturesque, his coiffure the pride of his life, he watches with a confidence well suited to his origin and his race the changes going on about him.

Thus, while his island's fruits are being crated and carted off by the ship-load for foreign consumption, he helps in the process for the mere privilege of subsidized loafing. All the fun he gets out of trade in the tropics seems to be the opportunity of swearing at his fellows in fiji-ized versions of curses taught him by the white man. Or he stands erect on the flat punt as it comes in from regions unknown, bearing bananas green from the tree, the very picture of ease and contentment. Yet one little tug with foreign impertinence tows half a dozen punts, depriving him even of this element of romance in his life.

Still, there is nothing sullen in his make-up. A dozen mummy-apples—better than bread to him—tied together with a string, suffice to make his primitive heart glad. Primitive these people are; their instincts, never led astray very far by such frills and trappings as keep us jogging along are none the less human. Unfold your camera and suggest taking a picture of any one of them and forthwith he straightens up, transforms his features, and adjusts his loin-cloth; nor will he forget to brush his hair with his hand. What a strange thing is this instinct in human nature anywhere in the world which substitutes so much starch for a slouch the moment one sees a one-eyed box pointing in his direction! None ever hoped to see a print of himself, but all posed as though the click of that little shutter were the recipe for perpetual youth.

The motive is not always one of vanity. Generally, at the sound of the shutter, a hand shoots out in anticipation of reward. In the tropics it is no little task to bring oneself together so suddenly, and the effort should be fully compensated. The expenditure of energy involved in posing is worthy of remuneration. Nevertheless, vanity is inherent in this response. The Fijian is a handsome creature, and he knows it. He knows how to make his hair the envy of the world. "Permanent-wave" establishments would go out of business here in America if some skilled Fijian could endure our climate. He would give such permanence to blondes and brunettes as would cost only twenty-five cents and would really last. He would not plaster the hair down and cover it with a net against the least ruffle of the wind. When he got through with it it would stand straight up in the air, four to six inches long, and would serve as an insulator against the burning rays of the sun unrivaled anywhere in the world. While I squinted and slunk in the shade, the native chose the open highway. Give him a cluster of breadfruit to carry and a bank messenger with a bag of bullion could not seem more important.

The Fijians, notwithstanding the fact that they take less to the sentimental in our civilization than the Samoans, are a fine race. Their softness of nature is a surprising inversion of their former ferocity. What one sees of them in Suva helps to fortify one in this conclusion; a visit farther inland leaves not a shadow of doubt. And pretty as the harbor is, it is as nothing compared with the loveliness of river and hills in the interior.

I was making my way to the pier in search of the launch that would take me up the Rewa River, when a giant Fijian approached me. He spoke English as few foreign to the tongue can speak it. A coat, a watch, and a cane—a lordly biped—he did not hesitate to refer to his virtues proudly. He answered my unspoken question as to his inches by assuring me he was six feet three in his stocking feet (he wore no stockings) and was forty-five years old. For a few minutes we chatted amicably about Fiji and its places of interest. There was never a smug reference to anything even suggestive of the lascivious—as would have been the case with a guide in Japan, or Europe—yet he cordially offered to conduct and protect me through Fijiland. Had I had a billion dollars in gold upon me I felt that I might have put myself in his care anywhere in the world. But I was already engaged to go up the Rewa River and could not hire him. Cordially and generously, as an old friend might have done, he told me what to look for and bid me have a good time.