The Fijians Part 3

Savage could not afford to jeopardize his influence with the chiefs by mixing in the quarrels of the other Europeans. With his two wives, who were women of the highest rank, he lived apart from the others, in the enjoyment of all the privileges of a native chief who was Koroi. But when not engaged in fighting, he also spent the winter months on the sandal-wood coast, working for the trading ships. Among the regular arrivals was the East Indiaman _Hunter_ (Captain Robson), which, on her third voyage to Fiji in 1813, carried Peter Dillon as mate. Dillon had spent four months in the group in 1809, and had acquired a slight knowledge of the language, besides winning the respect of the people for his magnificent physique, and his Irish good humour. He had, as he tells us, prepared a history of the islands from the date of their discovery to 1825, but the ma.n.u.script has disappeared, and is not likely now to come to light. Interesting as it may have been, its value as a history would have suffered from the lively imagination of the writer.

Captain Robson's methods of obtaining a cargo would not have commended itself to the Aborigines' Protection Society. On anchoring at Wailea, he was wont to enter into a contract with Vonasa, the chief, to aid him in his wars in return for a full cargo. The enemy's forts were carried with a two-pounder, and the bodies of the slain were then dismembered, cooked, and eaten in Robson's presence. On this occasion the same policy was pursued, but whether owing to the exhaustion of the forest or to the indolence of the natives, a full cargo was not forthcoming. At the end of four months, two hundred Mbauans, led by two of the king's brothers, arrived in their canoes to take their white men back to Mbau, and with their help Robson resolved to punish the faithlessness of the Wailea people. The landing party fell into the ambush known in Fijian tactics as _A Lawa_ (The Net), that is to say, they were drawn on by the feigned flight of a party of the enemy until they were surrounded. Dillon, with Savage and three others, gained the summit of a low hill, where they kept their a.s.sailants at bay, while the bodies of their comrades were cooked and eaten in their sight. Despairing of help from the ship, Savage went down to try his powers of persuasion on the chiefs, but he too was treacherously killed and laid in the oven before Dillon's eyes.

Their ammunition exhausted, the prospect of torture before them, the three Europeans had resolved upon suicide, when by a fortunate accident they were able to seize a heathen priest who had ventured too near, and by holding him as hostage for their lives, they made their escape. In the following year Mbau took ample vengeance for the ma.s.sacre of their chiefs.[21]

[Pageheader: THE Ma.s.sACRE OF WAILEA]

There is a story that Maraia, Savage's half-caste daughter, then a child of four,[22] remembered her father's last night at Mbau. Lying awake she saw him open his sea-chest which he always kept locked, and take from it a string of glittering objects. Startled by her childish exclamation, for he thought himself alone, he kissed her and said that he was going away for a long time, and must hide his property in a place of safety.

That night he poled himself over to the mainland, and when she awoke next morning the canoes had sailed for Mbua, from whence her father never returned. Probably the string was made of Chilian dollars from the wreck, which now lie buried somewhere on the mainland opposite Mbau.

After Savage's death Mbau continued to consolidate her power. News of her success tempted the broken tribes to flee to her for protection, and settle on the conquered lands. Thus did Namara become borderers (_mbati_) to Mbau. The story is a curious ill.u.s.tration of Fijian contempt for human life. Two brothers of Namara had stolen down to the sea sh.o.r.e for salt, and were seen by the king, Naulivou, then cruising along the sh.o.r.e in his great canoe. He presented them in sport with a shark and a sting-ray. Overwhelmed by his condescension, the brothers began to contend for the honour of giving his dead body in return for the fish. Their cousin standing by exclaimed, "Is a man's life more precious than a banana? Let the elder be clubbed." So the elder bowed his head to the club of the younger brother, who presented the body to the chief. Grieved at what they had done, Naulivou ordered the body to be buried, and said, "I wanted no return for the fish. Go, fetch your wives and children, and settle on this land, and be my _mbati_ (borderers), for I have need of true men."

The navigable ca.n.a.l called Nakelimusu, which shortens the voyage between Mbau and Rewa by connecting two of the river mouths, and is almost the only example of native engineering, was constructed in this reign shortly after the sack of Nakelo in 1810. The Queen of Rewa at that time was a Mbau princess, and when Nakelo sent her submission to Mbau, craving leave to rebuild the fortress, one of the conditions imposed was that the isthmus between the two rivers should be cut at its narrowest point, where it is about 400 yards wide. The Nakelo men dug a ditch into which the water could wash at high tide, and the rapid current did the rest.

Though Mbau did not long enjoy a monopoly of muskets she was able to purchase more ammunition than her rivals. European sailors still continued to pour into the islands, for after the exhaustion of the sandal-wood forests, whalers began to frequent the group, and there sprang up a desultory, but profitable trade in _beche-de-mer_, the sea-slug so highly prized by Chinese epicures, and in cocoanut oil. None of these attained the same influence as Savage. They were rather the chief's sycophants and handy men, who mended muskets, and beguiled his leisure by telling stories of far-off lands. A chief likes to have in his retinue some alien, unfettered by the _tabu_, whom he can make his confidant, and a chief who could not boast of having a tame white man was not much esteemed. A tame negro was a curiosity even more highly prized. The natives as a body appear to have treated the white men with tolerant contempt, as beings dest.i.tute of good manners and the deportment proper to those who consort with chiefs.

In 1828 Mbau was at the zenith of her power. She had absorbed the Lomaiviti islands, and was disputing the Lau group with the Tongan immigrants. On the northern coast of Vitilevu her influence was felt as far west as Mba, and she exercised a nominal suzerainty over Somosomo, the state then paramount over the eastern half of Vanualevu. The inland and western tribes of Vitilevu alone were entirely independent of her influence.

[Pageheader: INSURRECTION AGAINST TANOA]

That her empire was the influence of a person rather than of a state was shown in 1829, when her leader, Naulivou, better known by his posthumous t.i.tle of Ra Matenikutu (Lord Lice-Slayer) died. His younger brother, Tanoa, who succeeded him, had neither his ability nor his physique.

Among the Europeans he was known contemptuously as "Old Snuff," from his habit of daubing himself with black pigment, and he was unpopular among his own people. From the day of his accession there were rumours of conspiracy, and during his absence at Ovalau in 1832 the rebellion broke out. Tanoa fled to Koro, and would there have been put to death, had not Namosimalua of Viwa, who had been sent to arrest him, secretly connived at his flight to Somosomo, where he was safe. The rebels installed as Vunivalu one of his brothers named Tuiveikoso, chosen because he could be trusted to act as their tool, and refrained from the usual custom of putting Tanoa's adherents to death, though Namosimalua of Viwa, whose motives are not easy to understand, urged that the king's son, Seru, should be killed. But the boy was allowed to live on at Mbau, where he grew to manhood, without exciting any suspicion of the mark which he was to make upon Fijian history.

At first the Europeans took no part in these political disturbances. The more respectable of them had removed to the adjacent island of Ovalau, where they formed a settlement under the protection of Tui Levuka, plying the trades of boatbuilding and sail-making, and selling native produce to pa.s.sing vessels. Those who chose to remain at Mbau were Fijianized whites who lived upon the natives.

Tanoa was not idle. Being _vasu_ to Rewa he had no difficulty in inducing the king of that state to ally himself with Somosomo and to declare war with Mbau. By the promise of a cargo he even hired an American vessel to bombard Mbau. Having taken up a position at the anchorage she fired a broadside, but the Europeans on the islet, having trained a gun upon her, carried away her jib-boom at the second shot, and she slipped her cable and returned to Somosomo.

The leader of the rebellion was Ratu Mara, a man born before his time.

Professing to be in favour of peace, of free intercourse, and of a new era of bloodless government, he was immensely popular with the whites.

He is still remembered as the only Fijian warrior who took fortified villages by direct a.s.sault, and who was absolutely fearless in battle.

It is even said that, on hearing of the missionaries in Tonga, he declared his intention of inviting them to Fiji to displace the religion in which he no longer believed. In person he was tall and very powerful, and his acts show him to have been of great intelligence and perseverance. Friendly as they were to Mara, the Europeans so much disliked the other chiefs of the usurping government, who had advocated a ma.s.sacre of all foreigners, that they resolved to support Tanoa, and secretly sent him a contribution of arms and ammunition.

Tanoa had meanwhile been undermining the power of the usurpers by the old expedient of bribing the borderers. In obedience to an oracle at Somosomo he had removed to Rewa, and was intriguing with a party at Lasakau, the eastern end of Mbau, inhabited by fishermen. A number of villages on the mainland had also been won over. Seru meanwhile, though grown to manhood, was believed to be above suspicion. His only objects in life seemed to be its amus.e.m.e.nts. He was the leader and the idol of a band of youths of his own age, who pa.s.sed the days and nights in sports and wantonness. Suddenly, by a preconcerted arrangement a number of villages declared for Tanoa, and when the news reached Mbau one morning, it was found that the Lasakauans had built a war fence during the night, dividing their quarter of the town from that of the chiefs. Aghast at this turn of events the chiefs summoned a council of war. Namosimalua urged the immediate arrest of Seru, and his own nephew, Verani, whom he suspected of treachery, but it was then too late. The two youths had taken refuge in Lasakau. Namosimalua's musket, fired at his nephew, was the signal for civil war. But the _coup d'etat_ was complete. The Lasakauans had prepared a number of flaming darts which they threw into the thatch of the nearest houses. A strong wind swept the conflagration through the town. In half-an-hour every house was in ashes, and the inhabitants were fleeing to the mainland.

[Pageheader: THAKOMBAU'S _COUP D'eTAT_]

As soon as the news reached Rewa, the army was put in motion. Village after village was destroyed, though, contrary to the wish of Seru, its inhabitants were spared by the king of Rewa. Tanoa himself re-entered Mbau at the close of 1837, after an exile of five years. Seru received three names. His own party called him Thikinovu (the centipede), which bites without warning; the usurpers called him Na Mbi (the turtle pond), in allusion to the number of people who were killed and eaten by him, but the name by which he was generally known was Tha-ko-mbau ("destruction to Mbau," or "Mbau is undone "),[23] signifying the success of his _coup d'etat_.

The day of reckoning had come. A price was set upon the head of all the usurping chiefs, and no one dared to give them asylum. Thakombau slew many of them with his own hand, and they were cooked and eaten by the Lasakauans, whose hereditary duty it was to provide material for the cannibal ovens. Grisly stories are told of this orgy of revenge. It is said that a rebel whom Thakombau hated was brought before him, he ordered his men to cut out the man's tongue, and that he ate it raw, joking with the wretched man about the change in his fortunes. When tired of the sport he sent him out to be further tortured, and when death released him from his sufferings he was cooked and eaten.

The arch-rebels, Mara and Namosimalua, were the last to be taken.

Thakombau pursued Mara from village to village until he came to Namata, where he suffered a repulse. He then set himself to buy over the Namata chief. Early one morning Mara's faithless hosts surrounded him. His magnificent courage did not desert him. For some time he fought single-handed for his life, but numbers prevailed. Gashed by hatchets and knives, he fell at last, and his body was presented to Thakombau.

Namosimalua was allowed to return to Mbau, and Tuiveikoso, the figure-head of the rebellion, and Tanoa's elder brother, were not molested.

In 1837 the first missionaries, Mr. Cross and Mr. Cargill, of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, arrived in the group. The Lau islands, already colonized by Tongans, were the natural starting-point for their labours; but Mr. Cross visited Mbau, and had an interview with Thakombau, from whom he sought permission to settle on the islet. The moment was unfortunate, and the young chiefs answer very natural under the circ.u.mstances. "Your words are good to me, but I will not hide from you that I am now at war, and cannot myself hear your instruction nor even a.s.sure you of safety." Mr. Cross misunderstood the answer. If he had seized upon the bare permission to reside at Mbau, itself a great concession, his labours would have been greatly lightened. As it was, his departure gave great offence to Thakombau, who opposed all further overtures from the missionaries, and the offer was not renewed for fifteen years.

In September, 1837, a great meeting was held at Mbau. Having made submission to his brother, Tuiveikoso, an aged, corpulent and lame man, was pardoned by Tanoa, who described him as "a great hog, grown too fat to walk about, and able to do nothing but sleep, and wake to pick his food." The sole guilt of the rebellion was fixed upon Namosimalua. On the following day he was brought to trial, when he frankly admitted having accepted six whales' teeth to kill Tanoa. To the astonishment of everybody Tanoa gave him his life. The secret of the confession and Tanoa's clemency was that, to use a Fijian metaphor, Namosimalua had been "eating with both sides." It says much for his diplomacy that he preserved his life against the hatred of Thakombau, who had not forgotten his endeavours to persuade the rebels to kill him.

[Pageheader: PUNISHMENTS FOR PIRACY]

The rebels had made one serious mistake. During Tanoa's exile in 1833 they had urged Namosimalua to seize the French brig, _L'Aimable Josephine_ (Captain Bureau), lying at Viwa. The Viwa chief, scenting danger, declined at first to have anything to do with the project, but his scruples were overborne, and the crew was ma.s.sacred by Namosi's nephew, who was thereafter called Verani (Frenchman). The captured vessel did not prove to be of much value. Her native crew did not dare to sail her within sight of other vessels, and eventually she was cast away. In October, 1838, M. Dumont d'Urville, who touched at the group on his return voyage from the Antarctic sea, exacted reparation for this act of piracy by burning Viwa, the inhabitants being in hiding in the neighbourhood. He did not then know that Captain Bureau had to some extent provoked his fate by taking part in native wars.

In 1840 Captain Wilkes, of the United States Exploring Expedition, visited the group, and deported Veindovi, the king of Rewa's son, for having instigated the ma.s.sacre of part of the crew of an American vessel. He also severely punished the people of Malolo, an islet at the western extremity of Vitilevu, for the murder of two of his officers.

These proceedings undoubtedly had a great effect in protecting the lives and property of Europeans from chiefs whom they had offended.

In the same year war broke out between Somosomo and Vuna, two districts in the island of Taveuni. Mbau pursued her usual policy of weakening her rivals by supporting the weaker side, and, regardless of the debt owed to Somosomo by Tanoa during his exile, espoused the cause of Vuna.

Thakombau's elder brother, Wainiu, who was vasu to Somosomo, and had designs upon the succession to Tanoa, took the opportunity of betraying his intentions. He fled to Somosomo, whence he proceeded to buy over the borderers of Mbau on the mainland, within a few miles of the town. The most formidable of the tribes that joined him was Namena, which Thakombau was powerless to reduce by open attack. The stratagem which reduced Namena from a powerful tribe to its present condition of serfdom is worth narrating for the light it throws upon Fijian methods of diplomacy. Namena sent messengers to Viwa to win over Namosimalua to the cause of Wainiu. The chief received them apparently with open arms, but secretly informed Thakombau that he had a plan for effecting the ma.s.sacre of all Namena's fighting men without a campaign. The plan was simple. Mbau was to lay siege to Viwa, and the Viwans were to invite Namena to garrison the town. But only blank cartridge was to be used, and the rest was to be left to him. The Viwans, many of whom were nominally Christians, for the missionaries had settled in the island, were kept in the dark till the last moment. Mbau played their part in the comedy admirably. When the blank cartridge was fired many of the warriors feigned death, but when they reached the moat, the gates were thrown open, and the Viwans joined their mock a.s.sailants in ma.s.sacring the unfortunate Namenans. One hundred and forty warriors were slain, and forty widows were strangled to their manes, a blow from which the tribe has never recovered.

Thakombau had now virtually become regent. He had not only to direct the foreign policy of the confederation, but to keep a watchful eye upon conspirators at home. One of his brothers, Raivalita, sailed from Vuna with the intention of a.s.sa.s.sinating him. But the plot was betrayed, and as Raivalita left the house after reporting his arrival to his father, he was waylaid and clubbed. In 1845 war broke out between Mbau and Rewa, owing chiefly to a personal feud between Thakombau and Nkara, son of the king of Rewa, who had had an intrigue with one of Thakombau's wives. It was an ill.u.s.tration of the old Fijian proverb that a quarrel between brothers is the most difficult to patch. There had been almost annual skirmishes between the border villages, in which the chiefs took desultory interest, but in this war the issue lay between the chiefs themselves. Hostilities were precipitated by an act of treachery. Rewa had burned the town of Suva[24] during the absence of the fighting men, and had sent a message to Mbau saying that, as honour was satisfied, the people would be spared. But on the following day the fugitives were ambushed on the Tamanoa heights.[25] The war dragged on for six months, being for the most part little more than the burning of outlying villages, and the cutting off of stragglers, all of whom were killed and eaten. The ties of vasu between members of the royal families had much confused the issue. One of the sons of the king of Rewa, Thoka-na-uto (or Mr. Phillips, as he preferred to call himself) had joined Mbau from the first, and a number of the border villages had followed his example, and were in the field against their feudal lord. White men were fighting on both sides, in one or two cases naked and blackened like the natives.

[Pageheader: DESTRUCTION OF REWA]

The end came in June, 1845. Defections from Rewa had been frequent; indeed, in this war desertion was scarcely regarded. Early in June the Rewans had sent a chief to Mbau to treat for peace, a fatal step, for Thakombau bought over the envoy to betray his countrymen. The Mbau army was to invest the town, and while it was attacking, traitors within the walls were to set it on fire, and begin slaying their fellow-citizens.

The plot was entirely successful. As the enemy reached the bank of the river opposite Rewa, the town burst into flames. The traitors within its walls had already begun slaughtering. Meanwhile, a Mbau chief shouted to the queen to cross the river in a canoe to her own people, the Mbauans, and to bring her children and Mbau retainers with her. As they were embarking the king himself came down to the canoe. The Mbauans shouted to him to go back, but he would not. As he was crossing the river he was fired upon; he was wounded by a spear as he was disembarking. Then Thakombau ordered one of his brothers to club him, but he was afraid to strike so great a chief. The wretched king pleaded hard for life, and his wife joined her entreaties; but Thakombau reminded him of the calumnies he and his sons had spoken, and told him sternly that he must die. s.n.a.t.c.hing from an attendant a club with an axe head lashed to it, he clave his skull to the jaw, and his wife and children were splashed with his blood.

Indirectly the Rewa war had a sinister bearing upon the fortunes of the whites. In May, 1844, a European, who had fought on the Rewa side against Mbau, sailed for Lakemba with one of Tanoa's wives, who had run away from Mbau, and was now deputed by the Rewans to induce Lakemba to revolt from Thakombau's government. He was wrecked on the island of Thithia, and the Europeans of Levuka, hoping to recover some of the vessel's gear, of which they stood in need, sailed to that island.

Failing in this, they went on to Lakemba, whither the shipwrecked man had escaped. For a time they hesitated to give him a pa.s.sage to Rewa, for he was as much disliked by them as he was by the natives, and they knew the danger of displeasing Thakombau. But he offered a sum of pa.s.sage-money which overcame their scruples, and they carried him off just in time to escape the war canoe which Thakombau had sent in pursuit of him.

Thakombau not unnaturally regarded this as an act of hostility, and Tui Levuka, who was becoming alarmed at the power of the whites in his town, and at the extent of land which he had alienated to them, seized the opportunity for beseeching his suzerain to deport them from the island.

The peremptory order for their removal was a severe blow to the prosperous little settlement, which had to abandon the fruits of so many years of labour, and begin life afresh. A fine schooner, half built, had to be abandoned on the slips, and the houses left to be gutted by the natives. It speaks well for their peaceable disposition that they did not remove to Rewa, where they might have restored its waning fortunes in the struggle with Mbau, and that they chose Solevu Bay in Mbua, which was at peace with Thakombau. The new settlement was unhealthy and inconvenient for communication with ships, and long before the five years of exile was completed Tui Levuka and the Mbau chiefs had repented of their precipitancy, which had cut them off from the services of the white artisans which were so necessary to them. The request for permission to return, made early in 1849, was readily granted.

[Pageheader: THE SECOND REWA WAR]

In 1846 Thakombau led an army of 3000 men, nominally to help Somosomo against Natewa, but in reality to increase his own influence at the expense of his ally. This he did by commanding the attack in person, and contriving to spare the lives of the defenders, while receiving their submission himself. The result of this campaign, for which Somosomo paid an enormous subsidy, was to make Natewa a tributary of Mbau, and diminish the influence of Somosomo.

On September 1, 1847, Rewa was again destroyed by Thakombau. The sister whom he had promised to Tui Nakelo as a bribe for his treachery to Rewa had been given instead to Ngavindi, chief of Lasakau, and Tui Nakelo in revenge offered to join Ratu Nkara, the son of the king of Rewa, whose feud with Thakombau had provoked the last war. Between them they rebuilt Rewa, and repulsed the Mbauans sent to prevent them. But Tui Nakelo was a.s.sa.s.sinated by means of a plot devised by Thakombau, who advanced to Tokatoka, and sent thence a message to Ratu Nkara that he wished him no ill, and that if he would remove with his people to the islet of Nukulau, and allow him to burn Rewa _pro forma_, he would molest him no further. Ratu Nkara accordingly withdrew all his men, not to the islet mentioned in the message, but to a hill top whence he could watch the Mbau canoes surrounding Nukulau to capture him, "Pig's dung!" he exclaimed; "does Thakombau take me for a fool!"

In 1849 Captain Erskine visited the group in H.M.S. _Havannah_, and gave Thakombau an exhibition of the precision of marine artillery, which had an important bearing on the history of the next few years. It inflamed the king with a desire to possess a gunboat of his own, and two were ordered, one from America and one from Sydney. The almost annual visit of ships of war about this time had impressed Thakombau with the importance of doing nothing that would give any excuse for foreign intervention. But neither Captain Fanshaw, Captain Erskine, nor Sir Everard Home, who urged Thakombau in turn to abandon cannibalism and the strangling of widows, the last named so vehemently that they parted on bad terms, had much effect upon him. The fact was that, as after events proved, Thakombau did not feel himself strong enough to do so. In the fifteen years between 1835 and 1850 he had fought his way into the foremost place in Fiji, and his influence in the latter year was such that the American Consul, Mr. Miller, in a letter of remonstrance actually addressed him officially as Tui Viti (King of Fiji). But the Europeans could not see beneath the surface, and none knew, as he himself did, upon what a quicksand his power was built. His maintenance of the ancient customs, his opposition to Christianity, denounced so bitterly by the missionaries, was part of a set policy. Had he embraced Christianity when it was first pressed upon him, he would have remained the petty chief of a few square miles, a mere va.s.sal of the mission, all his days, for the missionaries discountenanced war, and it was only by war that he could hope to extend his influence. He alone of all his people foresaw that the mission would destroy, first the ancient polity, and ultimately the independence of the Fijians. His dialogues with the missionaries,[26] who for fifteen years were importuning him to let them live at Mbau, bantering as they were in tone, show how consistent was his policy, and they do not justify all the abuse that was heaped upon him by the mission historians. He respected the men; he objected to their doctrine, which, he said, might be suitable enough for Europeans, but was not adapted to the Fijians. His forbearance to the missionaries who so often thwarted him was remarkable: he allowed them to live at Viwa, within sight of Mbau, and to proselytize his subjects: he was personally kind and courteous to them, though he received nothing at their hands in return, as by Fijian usage he had a right to expect. The missionaries, so far from allowing him any personal credit for his kindliness, crowed over his courtesies as surrenders to their diplomacy.

As an absolute sovereign he had cause enough to quarrel with them.

Without preaching actual treason, they were always denouncing the customs which he practised, and denying the pretensions to divinity which were accorded to every ruling chief; the mission stations were cities of refuge to which every disaffected native fled when his treason was discovered. They themselves admit that the converted natives openly boasted that they were exempt from service in the army, and that murderers, "who were punishable even by Fijian law, fled to mission stations, and hypocritically professed an anxiety for Christian instruction."[27] The Christian natives refused to fight for their country. There was in fact a party in the state which denied their ruler's authority, and were not only apostates from the national religion, but disaffected towards the government. It was therefore remarkable, not that he made an attempt to persecute, but that he made only one.

[Pageheader: PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIAN CONVERTS]

In December, 1850, Thakombau declared war on all Christians. The heathen villages on the Tailevu coast for a distance of fifty miles rose, and laid siege to Dama and to the island of Viwa, where the missionaries lived, but Thakombau had issued orders that no injury should be done to the lives and property of the Europeans, lest there should be a pretext for foreign intervention. The missionaries appealed to a Tongan chief, who, with 300 men, was on a visit to Mbau. This chief dispatched a canoe to act as a guard for the missionaries, and some of its crew were killed by the besieging force. The Tongans were now involved in the war, and as the whites were also supporting the Mission with supplies, Thakombau very wisely called off his troops and there was peace.

In 1850 Thakombau had touched the pinnacle of his fortunes, and we are now to see upon what his authority rested. So long as he ran in the grooves of custom his power was absolute, but no sooner did he introduce innovations than it began to crumble beneath him. Late in 1851 the two gunboats of sixty tons, ordered by him abroad, were delivered, and the agents began to press for payment. He ordered a levy of _beche-de-mer_ throughout his dominions. The labour entailed by this new tax was far less than that of house-building or providing food, but the one was new, and the others sanctified by custom. Moreover, his subjects knew that the _beche-de-mer_ they were called upon to fish would find a ready sale with the Europeans. Many of the villages flatly declined to obey; some took the sacks, and let them rot in their houses; others burned the sacks before the eyes of the king's messengers. In January, 1852, Thakombau, who seldom abandoned any project in the face of opposition, took 1000 fishers with him to Mathuata, and set them an example by fishing with his own hands, but his men worked grudgingly, and the proceeds of the expedition were small. He then sent a party in the ship to New Caledonia, where sufficient _beche-de-mer_ was collected to pay for one of the vessels, and she was handed over to him. This purchase was the most unpopular act of his reign.

The long-expected death of old Tanoa occurred in 1852, and, despite the protests of the missionaries and captains of ships-of-war, Thakombau took part in the immemorial ceremony of strangling his father's widows, who, in accordance with custom, themselves contended for the honour of being strangled to prove their loyalty to the dead. The missionaries affect to trace his troubles to this act of barbarity, but they had probably the effect of delaying them, by proving to his chiefs that their king was before all things a Fijian still.

[Pageheader: REVOLT AGAINST THAKOMBAU]

On the death of Thoka-na-uto (Mr. Phillips), who as Thakombau's ally was nominally king of Rewa, Ratu Nkara came from his hiding-place in the mountains and succeeded to the chieftainship. He is the most romantic figure in Fijian history. Years of guerrilla warfare, when he was a fugitive with a price upon his head, had not broken his indomitable spirit, nor weakened his lifelong defiance of his victorious enemy, Thakombau. He had never stooped to the acts of treachery that had stained the career of his rival, and had he lived longer his courage and skill in warfare would have raised the city of his fathers from its ashes to be the capital of the first state in Fiji. Rewa was rebuilt, and Nkara set about corrupting the border villages of Mbau. He was successful beyond his hopes. In a few weeks Mbau was enclosed in a ring of revolted towns, for not only was the mainland aflame from Kamba to Namena, but Ovalau, under Tui Levuka, had declared its independence.

There can be no doubt that for this the Europeans at Levuka were partly responsible. They had never forgiven their summary expulsion from Levuka in 1844, nor Thakombau's request to Captain Macgruder to deport them all from the group. They were at this time the most orderly and law-abiding community of Europeans in the Pacific, having by hard work and trading acc.u.mulated a good deal of property. They were not in a position to take up arms openly against Thakombau, and their only overt act was to punish the natives of Malaki, an island subject to Mbau, for the destruction of an English cutter called the _Wave_. In December, 1853, Levuka was destroyed by an incendiary who was believed to be acting under the orders of Verani, Thakombau's lieutenant. The whites lost all they possessed, and on the following day Thakombau visited the town in order to express his sympathy, and avert any suspicion of connivance. During his progress through the ruined town the Europeans, many of whom knew him well, let him pa.s.s without a sign of recognition, and he left the place anxious and dispirited.

At this juncture he had sore need of friends. The unexpected revolt of his personal serfs at Kamba was a veritable disaster, for they had charge of his largest canoe, the sails and stores of his gunboat, and his princ.i.p.al magazine. A few days after his formal installation as Vunivalu on July 26, 1853, his army was beaten off by the Kambans, his faithful lieutenant Verani was a.s.sa.s.sinated in Ovalau, and the rebellion spread. He knew that he had now to reckon with traitors among his own kin. Ratu Mara,[28] who had for many months been a voluntary exile from Mbau, had returned to the delta to be the figure-head of the rebellion, and Tui Levuka, whose authority was not sufficient to control the rebels of Ovalau, persuaded the Europeans to send for him. At this moment a schooner arrived from Sydney with a consignment of arms for Thakombau, and the European consignee, Pickering, declined to deliver them.

On October 30, 1853, Thakombau yielded to the importunities of the missionaries so far as to allow the Rev. Joseph Waterhouse[29] to take up his residence at Mbau, probably in the hope that he would be a useful advocate in the event of misunderstanding with European governments. In November he received an unexpected visit from King George Tubou of Tonga, then on his way to Sydney. He turned this visit to good account by promising the king a large canoe (the celebrated Ra Marama) if he would revisit him on his return home. There now seemed to be a prospect of a favourable turn to his fortunes. Tui Levuka, doubtful of the success of his rebellion, made a secret compact with him to play the traitor to his own side, and Thakombau now prepared to crush Kamba.

His plans were impeded by the secession of his kinsman Koroi-ravulo, who secretly bribed five hundred of his army to absent themselves from the rendezvous, and in March, 1854, he set forth with barely 1500 men. He had foolishly neglected to seize the opportunity of a hurricane, which had levelled the defences of Kamba, and when the a.s.sault was made the Kamba garrison had been stiffened with a number of whites and half-castes from Levuka, who foresaw that the fall of Kamba would place Levuka in the power of the victorious army. Thakombau commanded the a.s.sault in person. Having cleared broad roads for retreat in case of a sortie 500 men advanced to the attack, but they were seized with a sudden panic, and the whole army fled in confusion to their canoes. A further defeat at Sawakasa, the stronghold of Koroi-ravulo, completed Thakombau's discomfiture.