Part 21 (1/2)
My constant custom was, in order to prevent war, to run right in between the contending parties. My faith enabled me to grasp and realize the promise, ”Lo, I am with you always.” In Jesus I felt invulnerable and immortal, so long as I was doing His work. And I can truly say that these were the moments when I felt my Saviour to be most truly and sensibly present, inspiring and empowering me.
Another scheme had an excellent educative and religious influence. I tried to interest all the villages, and to treat all the Chiefs equally.
In our early days, after getting into my two-roomed house, I engaged the Chief, or representative man of each district, to put up one or other at the many outhouses required at the Station. One, along with his people, built the cookhouse; another, the store; another, the banana and yam-house; another, the was.h.i.+ng-house; another, the boys and girls'
house; the houses for servants and teachers, the Schoolhouse, and the large shed, a kind of shelter where Natives sat and talked when not at work about the premises. Of course these all were at first only Native huts, of larger or smaller dimensions. But they were all built by contract for articles which they highly valued, such as axes, knives, yards of prints and calico, strings of beads, blankets, etc. They served our purpose for the time, and when another party, by contract also, had fenced around our premises, the Mission Station was really a beautiful, little, lively, and orderly village, and in itself no bad emblem of Christian and civilized life. The payments, made to all irrespectively, but only for work duly done and according to reasonable bargain, distributed property and gifts amongst them on wholesome principles, and encouraged a well-conditioned rivalry which had many happy effects.
Heathenism made many desperate and some strange efforts to stamp out our Cause on Aniwa, but the Lord held the helm. One old Chief, formerly friendly, turned against us. He ostentatiously set himself to make a canoe, working at it very openly and defiantly on Sabbaths. He, becoming sick and dying, his brother started, on a Sabbath morning and in contempt of the Wors.h.i.+p, with an armed company to provoke our people to war. They refused to fight; and one man, whom he struck with his club, said, ”I will leave my revenge to Jehovah.”
A few days thereafter, this brother also fell sick and suddenly died.
The Heathen party made much of these incidents, and some clamored for our death in revenge, but most feared to murder us; so they withdrew and lived apart from our friends, as far away as they could get. By and by, however, they set fire to a large district belonging to our supporters burning cocoanut and breadfruit trees and plantations. Still our people refused to fight, and kept near to protect us. Then all the leading men a.s.sembled to talk it over. Most were for peace, but some insisted upon burning our house and driving us away or killing us, that they might be left to live as they had hitherto done. At last a Sacred Man, a Chief who had been on Tanna when the Curacoa punished the murderers and robbers, but protected the villages of the friendly Natives there, stood up and spoke in our defense, and warned them what might happen; and other three, who had been under my instruction on Tanna, declared themselves to be the friends of Jehovah and of His Missionary. Finally, the Sacred Man rose again, and showed them rows of beautiful white sh.e.l.ls strung round his left arm, saying--
”Nowar, the great Chief at Port Resolution on Tanna, when he saw that Missi and his wife could not be kept there, took me to his heart, and pledged me by these, the sh.e.l.ls of his office as Chief, taken from his own arm and bound on mine, to protect them from all harm. He told me to declare to the men of Aniwa that if the Missi be injured or slain, he and his warriors will come from Tanna and take the full revenge in blood.” This turned the scale. The meeting closed in our favor.
Close on the heels of this, another and a rather perplexing incident befell us. A party of Heathens a.s.sembled and made a great display of fis.h.i.+ng on the Lord's Day, in contempt of the practice of the men on Jehovah's side, threatening also to waylay the Teachers and myself in our village circuits. A meeting was held by the Christian party, at the close of the Sabbath Services. All who wished to serve Jehovah were to come to my house next morning, unarmed, and accompany me on a visit to our enemies, that we might talk and reason together with them. By daybreak, the Chiefs and nearly eighty men a.s.sembled at the Mission House, declaring that they were on Jehovah's side, and wished to go with me. But, alas! they refused to lay down their arms, or leave them behind; nor would they either refrain from going or suffer me to go alone. Pledging them to peace, I was reluctantly placed at their head, and we marched off to the village of the unfriendly party.
The villagers were greatly alarmed. The Chief's two sons came forth with every available man to meet us. That whole day was consumed in talking and speechifying, sometimes chanting their replies--the Natives are all inveterate talkers! To me the day was utterly wearisome; but it had one redeeming feature,--their rage found vent in hours of palaver, instead of blows and blood. It ended in peace. The Heathen were amazed at the number of Jehovah's friends; and they pledged themselves henceforth to leave the Wors.h.i.+p alone, and that every one who pleased might come to it unmolested. For this, worn out and weary, we returned, praising the Lord.
CHAPTER LXVI.
THE SINKING OF THE WELL.
BUT I must here record the story of the Sinking of the Well, which broke the back of Heathenism on Aniwa. Being a flat coral island, with no hills to attract the clouds, rain is scarce there as compared with the adjoining mountainous islands; and even when it does fall heavily, with tropical profusion, it disappears, as said before, through the light soil and porous rock, and drains itself directly into the sea. The rainy season is from December to April, and then the disease most characteristic of all these regions is apt to prevail, viz., fever and ague.
At certain seasons, the Natives drink very unwholesome water; and, indeed, the best water they had at any time for drinking purposes was from the precious cocoanut, a kind of Apple of Paradise for all these Southern Isles! They also cultivate the sugar-cane very extensively, and in great variety; and they chew it, when we would fly to water for thirst; so it is to them both food and drink. The black fellow carries with him to the field, when he goes off for a day's work, four or five sticks of sugar-cane, and puts in his time comfortably enough on these.
Besides, the sea being their universal bathing-place, in which they swattle like fish, and little water, almost none, being required for cooking purposes, and none whatever for was.h.i.+ng clothes, the lack of fresh-springing water was not the dreadful trial to them that it would be to us. Yet they appreciate and rejoice in it immensely too; though the water of the green cocoanut is refres.h.i.+ng, and in appearance, taste, and color not unlike lemonade--one nut filling a tumbler; and though when mothers die they feed the babies on it and on the soft white pith, and they flourish on the same, yet the Natives themselves show their delight in preferring, when they can get it, the water from the well.
Aniwa, having therefore no permanent supply of fresh water, in spring or stream or lake, and my own household also suffering sadly for lack of the same, I resolved by the help of G.o.d to sink a well near the Mission Premises, hoping that a wisdom higher than my own would guide me to the source of some blessed spring. Of the scientific conditions of such an experiment I was comparatively ignorant; but I counted on having to dig through earth and coral above thirty feet, and my constant fear was, that owing to our environment, the water, if water I found, could only be salt water after all my toils! Still I resolved to sink that shaft in hope, and in faith that the Son of G.o.d would be glorified thereby.
One morning I said to the old Chief and his fellow-Chief, both now earnestly inquiring about the religion of Jehovah and of Jesus, ”I am going to sink a deep well down into the earth, to see if our G.o.d will send us fresh water up from below.”
They looked at me with astonishment, and said in a tone of sympathy approaching to pity, ”O Missi! Wait till the rain comes down, and we will save all we possibly can for you.”
I replied, ”We may all die for lack of water. If no fresh water can be got, we may be forced to leave you.”
The old Chief looked imploringly, and said ”O Missi! you must not leave us for that. Rain comes only from above. How could you expect our Island to send up showers of rain from below?”
I told him, ”Fresh water does come up springing from the earth in my Land at home, and I hope to see it here also.”
The old Chief grew more tender in his tones, and cried, ”O Missi, your head is going wrong; you are losing something, or you would not talk wild like that! Don't let our people hear you talking about going down into the earth for rain, or they will never listen to your word or believe you again.”
But I started upon my hazardous job, selecting a spot near the Mission Station and close to the public path, that my prospective well might be useful to all. I began to dig, with pick and spade and bucket at hand, an American axe for a hammer and crowbar, and a ladder for service by and bye. The good old Chief now told off his men in relays to watch me, lest I should attempt to take my own life, or do anything outrageous, saying, ”Poor Missi! That's the way with all who go mad. There's no driving of a notion out of their heads. We must just watch him now. He will find it harder to work with pick and spade than with his pen, and when he's tired we'll persuade him to give it up.”
I did get exhausted sooner than I expected, toiling under that tropical sun; but we never own before the Natives that we are beaten; so I went into the house and filled my vest pocket with large, beautiful English-made fish-hooks. These are very tempting to the young men as compared with their own,--skilfully made though they be out of sh.e.l.l, and serving their purposes wonderfully. Holding up a large hook, I cried, ”One of these to every man who fills and turns over three buckets out of this hole!”
A rush was made to get the first turn, and back again for another and another. I kept those on one side who had got a turn, till all the rest in order had a chance, and bucket after bucket was filled and emptied rapidly. Still the shaft seemed to lower very slowly, while my fish-hooks were disappearing very quickly. I was constantly there, and took the heavy share of everything, and was thankful one evening to find that we had cleared more than twelve feet deep,--when lo! next morning, one side had rushed in, and our work was all undone.
The old Chief and his best men now came around me more earnestly than ever. He remonstrated with me very gravely. He a.s.sured me for the fiftieth time that rain would never be seen coming up through the earth on Aniwa!
”Now,” said he, ”had you been in that hole last night, you would have been buried, and a Man-of-war would have come from Queen 'Toria to ask for the Missi that lived here. We would have to say, 'He is down in that hole.' The Captain would ask, 'Who killed him and put him down there?'
We would have to say, 'He went down there himself!' The Captain would answer, 'Nonsense! Who ever heard of a white man going down into the earth to bury himself? You killed him, you put him there; don't hide your bad conduct with lies!' Then he would bring out his big guns and shoot us, and destroy our Island in revenge. You are making your own grave, Missi, and you will make ours too. Give up this mad freak, for no rain will be found by going downwards on Aniwa. Besides, all your fish-hooks cannot tempt my men again to enter that hole; they don't want to be buried with you. Will you not give it up now?”
I said all that I could to quiet his fears, explained to them that this falling in had happened by my neglect of precautions, and finally made known that by the help of my G.o.d, even without all other help, I meant to persevere.