VI.
The Political Uses of a State Church.

Thebolotu, or night-service, is a growth of Tongan soil. As Christians the Tongans may no longer enjoy the mild excitement of taking kava to the shrine of a god, and see the priestess shiver and foam at the mouth in an ague fit, or hear her scream the favourable oracle in high falsetto. The missionaries have stopped all that. True, they may take to preaching, but they cannot all preach—there must be some to form the congregation. They have the histrionic instinct, and no outlet for it in private theatricals or drawing-room recitations; therefore they wisely make the mission supply the place of that which it has taken away, and to do them justice, they have produced an exhibition far more picturesque than the religious orgies of the Salvation Army.

The little thatched church blazed with kerosene-lamps that threw broad streaks of light from the windows upon the palm-leaves wet with the rain, lighting the gay valas and brown legs of several mysterious groups who had formed at a distance. We found the inside of the build-page 74ing nearly empty, but there was a look of eager expectancy on the faces of the few old people who lined the walls. Then from without came the sound of singing in quartette, in perfect tune, swelling in volume as the choir reached the door. They filed in, forming fours as they passed the

The first choir.

doorway, men and women alternately, holding one another's hands. At the end of each phrase they took a step forward, and when they reached the reed pulpit their song merged into another in the far distance. It was the second choir: as their voices soared upward the first band became silent and scattered to their places along the page 75walls, amid the plaudits of the audience. So a second choir filed in, and a third and fourth, until the church was filled to overflowing. It was in reality a choral competition between the different divisions of the town, the outcome of three weeks of practice under the direction of the composer. The native parson meanwhile took his stand in the pulpit, and gave out a text, which was sung with fine effect by the combined choirs to a tune of native composition. An inspiriting address followed, often interrupted by cries of applause. They were working up their enthusiasm for the real business of the evening.

After the sermon there was a long pause, during which the people looked furtively at one another. At last an old woman stood up, and the shouts of "Fakafetai" became deafening. "She is going to tell about her soul," whispered my neighbour. Upon this interesting subject she had a great deal to say in a monotonous flow of verbiage, drowned at times by the cries of "Malo!" I noticed, indeed, throughout the evening that the women had a far greater command of language than the men. Before she had finished, two middle-aged men and a very villanous-looking policeman were on their feet. The first to rise caught the parson's eye, and gave us a very long and weary diagnosis of his spiritual symptoms. The second elder was jaunty, and gently chaffed his soul, exciting bursts of merriment by screwing up his eyes at the laughing places. Three or four others had now risen, and remained standing in penitent attitudes until their turn came. The criminal-looking policeman had his say first. With forced page 76calm he told us what a sinner he had been, and at each disgraceful confession the audience shouted their applause. Then with bated breath he told of his awakening; with suppressed emotion he described his inward tumult: words failed him; he caught his breath, he flung up his arms passionately, and after a silent struggle his voice rent the air in a hideous yell, "The Lord has got my soul!" He raved; he tore open his shirt as if he would pluck the heart out of him; and then, still raving, he flung himself on the ground in a frenzy of simulated sobs, and another took up the tale. It was a disgusting exhibition, but it was the success of the evening.

"The Lord has got my soul!"

The performance of the next penitent—a greyhaired and respectable man—was original, but it had been eclipsed. He said nothing: he simply stood and was shaken by sobs, while real tears ran through his fingers. After some minutes of this repentance in dumb-show he made a gesture of despair, and sat down amid loud acclamations.

There were some tame imitations of the three principal performers: then Tukuaho rose, and a hush fell upon the excited crowd. Religion was to give place to politics. He told them that he had come to the church that evening to find comfort for his wounded spirit. He had

"He tore open his shirt."

landed on their shore with joy, thinking that he had come among old friends, but his joy had been turned into sorrow. They were his friends no longer — why? He knew not, unless it was because a distasteful office had been forced upon him. Did they think that he had sought office? No! he was Premier by Tubou's command, not by his own choice. Out of his love for his king he had undertaken work for which he was unfitted, and with God's help he would carry it through. Many foolish things had been said (was not Tonga the land of lying reports?). It had even been asserted that the independence of their country would be lost. Lost? Well, he could tell them that there was one man who would fight if the independence of the country was endangered. That man was himself. But was there a man present who would not fight? (Hitherto page 78only the women had been impressed, but now the men's set faces relaxed, and there was a chorus of "Malo!") But that was not all. There were some perhaps who loved the man who was gone. Well-he was not there to speak ill of the absent, but he would say this, that the accounts were now being audited, and that some very strange things were coming to light. Did they think that any Tongan could thread the dark passages of such cunning? No. The king knew that when he asked for a white man to be sent to audit the accounts, and to make the dark ways plain. He was present, sitting at his side. (I tried to look unconscious.) In six short months he would leave them: it would be useless for them to ask him to stay longer-he could not. But he (Tukuaho) was there to-night to speak of his soul, and not of politics. What had politics to do with a church in which before God all men were equal? It was true that his soul was pained, but he had at least the comfort of knowing that he was doing his duty.

Before the applause had subsided Fatafehi was on his feet.

"I hear that you are all angry with me. Very well: that's your affair. But what is it about?" He laughed-not his hereditary laugh, but a less pleasant sound. "I will tell you why you are angry," he went on, and lashed the mischief-makers with great vehemence, not even deigning to end his speech with a devotional peroration.

"There will be less foolish talk to-morrow," said Tukuaho as we came away. "It was a good bolotu, only I am sorry that Fatafehi's words were so hot."

As soon as we reached home the spies were set in page 79motion to feel the pulse of the people after their dose of tonic.

Besides a pleasurable excitement the bolotu supplies the place of the confessional, though, owing to its publicity, the sins confessed are generally the more venial slips of omission rather than of commission. But not always. Tradition has it that the unregenerate Mary Butako, when

"When Mary 'told her soul.'"

past her first youth, showed leanings towards repentance, and there was dire consternation among the men of Sawana. They took heart, however, when it was found that though she attended every bolotu, yet she never was moved to "tell her soul." A night came at last when the enthusiasm passed the bounds. The acclamations were mingled with the sobs of the penitents overwhelmed with a sense of their sin, and in the midst Mary was seen page 80standing, weeping aloud. The dreadful day had come, and one after another the men of the place slunk out to spread the dire news among their comrades in distress. Plaudits and tears were alike suppressed: this was too serious a matter for ordinary demonstrations. A terrible and damning history fell from the lips of this penitent Phryne of the South Seas. When she had finished there was scarcely a man in the church, but the women sat and drank it all in, and many a household in Sawana dates its domestic troubles from that terrible bolotu when Mary "told her soul."

We began next day to reap the fruit of the seed scattered at the bolotu overnight. We were haunted by visitors. Our political opponents came in, each carrying in his hand the inevitable root of kava—for a Tongan making a visit of any ceremony would as soon forget his kava as an English lady her card-case under similar circumstances. They sat rubbing shoulders with the spies from whom we knew exactly how much their new-born friendship was worth. There was, moreover, a nervous hilarity about them that showed their sense of the awkwardness of their sudden change of front.

At mid-day we summoned a meeting of the Government officials in the wooden court-house. There were the judge, the police magistrate, and the pound-keeper, all malcontents; a dozen policemen and jail — warders, believed to be the same; the Treasury clerk, said to be loyal; and greater than all — the head jailer, Kaho, a dark horse whom it was important to win over. He proved to be the white-haired, bright-eyed matabule, who had been my neighbour in the king's faikava, where he sat page 81in virtue of his local rank. His office, however, seemed to place him next to the Governor in importance, for he alone can have the ordering of other men's labour without paying for it—a distinction that carries weight in every community. Tukuaho told them how much he regretted that an empty Treasury had tied his hands, so that he could not yet pay them the nine months' salary due to them on Mr Baker's departure; but he announced that from that day forward their salaries would be punctually remitted to them, and that the payment of the amount owing to them by his predecessor (he was not going to speak ill of the absent) would depend upon their own loyalty. The sooner they could induce their friends to pay their taxes, the sooner would they receive the arrears due to them.

Next day the mail-steamer from New Zealand put in, after touching at Nukualofa. From the former place she brought Mr Baker's son—formerly his private secretary—carrying, for distribution among the natives, a bundle of lithographs of his father, subscribed "The Premier appointed by Tubou"; and from the latter Mr Watkin, the chief minister of the Free Church, and the staunch ally of the late Premier, ostensibly to make church collections, but also, as it afterwards proved, to further unsettle the minds of his flock.

At mid-day we set sail for Nukualofa. A chain of volcanoes traverses the Tongan group from north to south, and one or other of the craters is generally in a state of sufficient activity to be employed by one of the contending Church parties against the other. In August 1886, the sudden eruption in Niuafoou was pointed to by the page 82persecuted Wesleyans as a sign of the wrath of heaven against the Free Church; but the tables were turned, and the dull glare of Tofua, which we had seen every night from Haapai, was now seized upon by the Free Church ministers as a warning of the peril of the State from British machinations. But an eruption is public property, and I was told that Tofua was used by our own supporters to awe the opponents of "the just-dealing Government" into complacency.

With the view of seeing the crater more closely we steered direct for Tofua, and were becalmed within two miles of the volcano long after sunset. The night was very dark, but every few minutes the dull glare of the crater was illuminated with a burst of flame, and masses of red-hot rock were projected into the air with deep reverberations. The crater was not more than 200 feet above the sea-level, and was close to the north shore of the island. I therefore tried to persuade the crew to take us into the deep strait that separates the island from the sugar-loaf cone of Kao. But they were frightened at the explosions, and flatly refused, urging that we should be becalmed on the lee side, and become a target for the missiles from the crater. It was useless to urge that the stones would not fall into the sea: they were obdurate, and we had reluctantly to steer southwards.

It was within sight of this island that, on the morning of May 1789, the crew of H.M.S. Bounty mutinied and set their commander, Lieutenant Bligh, adrift in the launch. On landing at Tofua he was treacherously attacked by the natives, and John Norton, his quartermaster, was struck down as he was casting off the stern-page 83fast. The sequel is thus told by the natives. They dragged the body inland to a malae¹ (the island being the property of the Tui Tonga, there are many there), and after exposing it for three days, they buried it. But the whole of the track made by the body as it was dragged along has ever since remained bare of grass, as well as the spot where the corpse lay exposed.

Tofua in eruption.

Mariner, who visited the place in 1808, saw this track, and says that it had not the appearance of a beaten path. At the end was a bare place, at right angles to the path, about the length and breadth of a man's body.

Daylight found us within sight of the "new island." Early in 1886 a submerged reef broke out into sub-page 84aqueous eruption. It suddenly rose, and formed an island 160 feet above the sea, composed of smoking scoria. A question arose in Nukualofa as to the nationality of this new land, and an enterprising expedition was despatched to settle the matter by planting the Tongan ensign on the summit. We found that the sea was making great havoc of this, the latest addition to King George's dominions. With every storm great masses of the soft pumice were dislodged, so that in a few years the island will be reduced to its old form of a reef awash at low tide.