page 1

Chapter I
mitchellian manuscripts

One of the most entertaining, instructive and widely-read writers on the manners, customs, institutions and beliefs of the Fijians is Sir Basil Thomson. He had a gift for literary expression, and a first-hand knowledge of the people. Except for a few short intervals he was in Fiji for ten years, first as Stipendiary Magistrate, then Commissioner of the Native Land Court and finally as acting-head of the Native Department. He could claim, therefore, to write with authority about the natives of Fiji, and his claim is strengthened by the fact that he was sincerely attached to them: sympathy is one of the golden keys that unbar the gate of truth. But he had his prejudices too, and one of the strongest of them was against the Missionary Society and most of the people who were officially connected with it. It was not a wholly unreasonable prejudice; but it frequently mastered him, and betrayed him into charges and denunciations that cannot possibly be sustained in the light of evidence that is now available. The major portion of one important manuscript which he thought was lost has been found. It is in the Mitchell Library in Sydney; and in the knowledge of its contents all Sir Basil's fulminations against Mr George Stringer Rowe are sound and fury signifying nothing but error. But besides that there is a mass of correspondence official and private written by men who lived in Fiji quite as long as he did, and, what is very important, at a much earlier period when the natives were but slightly influenced by European page 2civilization. These men loved the natives quite as sincerely as Basil Thomson did, and they strove quite as earnestly in their own way for what they regarded as the welfare of the native race. Of all this evidence Sir Basil, I am persuaded, knew little when he made his attacks on the missionaries, the Missionary Society and Mr George Stringer Rowe. That was unfortunate, for though it must be read critically, it is, in the general estimate, the most complete evidence available for a study of the manners, customs and beliefs of the natives of Fiji in the thirties and forties of last century. One of these men, none other than the missionary Thomas Williams whose Journal is now being published for the first time, wrote a book—the first volume of Fiji and the Fijians issued in 1858—in which he gave an account of his researches. That book Basil Thomson had read, and what he thought of it we shall see directly; but David Cargill, William Cross, Thomas Jaggar, John Hunt, James Calvert, Richard Burdsall Lyth had all written at length on the same subjects, and they were at work in Fiji before the arrival of Thomas Williams in July 1840. Of the others who came later David Hazlewood, John Watsford, John Malvern and William Moore deserve careful consideration. These men were not visitors, they were residents in Fiji for periods ranging between five and fifteen years. All of them were powerfully swayed by religious prepossessions, and in reading their accounts allowance must always be made for that. But most of them lived long enough among the people to correct some at least of their first erroneous impressions, and after all reservations have been made, it is they who furnish us with the most authoritative and complete accounts of the Fijians before the old order changed, yielding place to the new which constant contact with European civilization rendered inevitable. Sir Basil Thomson pays a sincere and well-deserved compliment to Thomas Williams, recognizing in page 3him the best authority for the life and customs of the Fijians of his time; but I am yet to be convinced that Sir Basil had any knowledge of the journals, reports and letters both private and official of Thomas Williams's predecessors, or the correspondence that issued from the Missionary Society in Bishopsgate Street, London, chiefly from the pen of the judicious and judicial John Beecham. Had he examined this evidence, or even reviewed it in the most cursory manner it is scarcely possible, that notwithstanding his anti-missionary bias, he could have proceeded to such fierce and unwarranted denunciations as those which immediately follow upon his unstinted praise of Thomas Williams. Unworthy motives are attributed to the Missionary Society, and Rowe, the editor of the manuscript of Thomas Williams, is assailed in the language of bitter contempt. These strictures must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

In this last sentence Sir Basil betrays a fault not infrequently met with in his books—a tendency to formulate conclusions on inconclusive evidence. If, as he says, Mr Williams's manuscript was lost, on what grounds could he make a comparison of the editorial indiscretions of Mr Rowe and those of Lady Burton? It reads like a rhetorical flourish merely to heighten the literary effect. But so far as the reputation of Mr Rowe is concerned the consequences have been serious.

The whole extract is an example of Sir Basil's trenchant writing at its best and worst: it contains a penetrating and discriminating appreciation of the work of Thomas Williams, and an uncharitable and utterly baseless charge against the painstaking and capable editor of Williams's manuscript, Mr George Stringer Rowe.

The manuscript of Fiji and the Fijians is not lost; the major portion of it is in the Mitchell Library at Sydney, and it contains nearly everything that Thomas Williams sent to London for publication on delicate, indelicate, horrible, revolting and unsavoury subjects. It not only enables us, so far as it goes, to know exactly what was Williams and what was Rowe, but it also furnishes proof that all the important reservations acknowledged in the page 5book were made by Thomas Williams himself in his manuscript. As to the marriage laws of the Fijians to which Sir Basil specially refers Mr Rowe omitted nothing of any importance to anthropologists or any other scientific students from the manuscript sent home by Williams.²

It is true that Mr Rowe did rewrite much (not "most") of what was supplied to him; but for reasons quite different from those given by Sir Basil. Notwithstanding his gift for observation and his rugged power of artistic expression Williams had no systematic training in literary technique: there are grave defects in his spelling, punctuation, grammar, use of words and construction of sentences; some of his figures of speech are strained to a degree that excites humour. There is not wanting a wild picturesque quality in some of his descriptions, and, where appropriate, a rugged grandeur too. He can describe men and things with force and precision, as he frequently does in his Journal. He is richly endowed by nature in this as in other ways; but his training at school in composition was obviously imperfect. This is one of the reasons why Mr George Stringer Rowe had to edit the manuscript "with vigilance."

There was another. In order to give a complete view of his subject Williams felt obliged to write some account of the history and geology of the Fijian Archipelago. He knew very little of either; and in both subjects the manuscript abounds in errors which Mr Rowe had to delete or correct. Already in the middle of last century scientists were at work on the geology of the Pacific islands, and some of their published opinions were at variance with the teaching of the Old Testament. Williams makes sport of these page 6unscriptural theories in so far as they refer to Fiji. He quotes the opinions of native chiefs resident in the archipelago to discredit the experts, and concludes by affirming that he sees no reason for believing that Fiji in 1850 was different from what the subsiding waters of the biblical flood had left it! None of these trivialities appear in the printed book; corrections were freely made, whole passages scored out and the text thereby much improved—thanks to the good sense and knowledge of Mr George Stringer Rowe.

Mr Rowe has been held up to opprobrium for a quarter of a century by scientific writers and some of their readers for his supposed concessions to prudery, and his disservice to Science. The Mitchell Library is fortunate in the possession of a document which can furnish proof not only that he was innocent of these charges; but also that instead of compromising the value of the manuscript in any way he rendered valuable and necessary assistance to the author by placing before the world an improved original treatise in an attractive literary form. A hundred passages might be quoted to show that Mr Rowe did his work well, and that he deserved praise instead of condemnation for his painstaking and discriminating efforts.

But although Sir Basil made an unfortunate mistake in abusing Mr Rowe for a crime which he did not commit he was right in assuming that Williams did prepare a more candid account of some of the manners and customs of the Fijians than appeared in Fiji and the Fijians. That also is in the Mitchell Library in Sydney under the title—The Journal of the Rev. Thomas Williams, which this volume is intended to introduce to the reader. It consists of two folios containing about 250,000 words. The most important subjects elucidated in the text are—the manners, customs and beliefs of the natives; the war between Heathenism and Christianity as it was waged in Mr Williams's last circuit at page 7Mbua Bay, and the romance as well as the gruesome realities of a missionary's life in Fiji in the middle of last century. No useful purpose can be served by printing some of the most formal entries; but nothing shall be omitted which throws light on any of these three subjects, and no concessions shall be made to over-sensitive or prudish minds. In the interests of anthropological and historical students, and in justice to the missionaries who worked in Fiji at this critical and dangerous period the whole truth, so far as it is revealed in this Journal, shall be printed. Thomas Williams lived and worked among the Fijians at Lakemba, Somosomo and Mbua Bay from July 1840 to July 1853, The pressure of European public opinion had made the natives conscious of the enormity of some of their practices long before he left Fiji, but had not yet effected any great change in their habits at Somosomo and Mbua Bay. His opportunities for original investigation were not quite as good as those of William Cross, David Cargill, John Hunt or Dr Lyth, but they were good enough to enable him to learn from experience what the old life really was. With the instinct of a born anthropologist he set to work to give an accurate account of what he saw.

But the character of his work must not be misunderstood. He was not a trained anthropologist, he was simply an observer, an eye-witness. His business was to supply the material on which trained anthropologists could work at a later time; and for this kind of investigation he had rich natural endowment. As though by instinct he seizes upon the most illuminating characteristics of objects, persons and events; and his anxiety to attain to accuracy of detail may be tested by referring to his descriptions in the Journal of the damaged musket; the ceremony of welcome to the Mbau chiefs on their arrival at Somosomo; the native procedure on the occasion of the death of the great chief Tuithakau and page 8the portrait of Lewenilovo of Bouma. Thomas Williams was essentially an observer: "My observant colleague who is always all-eye and all-ear"—that is how Dr Lyth described him when they were working together at Somosomo. The fact should be carefully noted.

This was precisely the type of man needed in Fiji at the time when the old order was passing, and from this the Journal derives its greatest value. His volume on Fiji and the Fijians has won for him the distinction that Sir Basil Thomson has placed on record; but it is a worked-up treatise. The Journal is a record of what he saw at or near the time of writing. It is more original than the book, and on some subjects provides a greater wealth of detail. It is also more candid. Some of the horrors and unsavoury practices of which he was an eye-witness were in his own judgment unsuitable for publication in the middle of last century; but they are recorded here in the Journal. The method which he generally adopted was to jot down in a day-book the events of the day, and then after the lapse of a week, a month or even longer to use the information in writing up his Journal. This had one advantage: it gave him an opportunity of concentrating on the more important subjects, and elaborating them after minute examination. On some days there are no entries at all; on others two or three lines; but here and there the discussion of a single subject extends over half a dozen pages or more. These are the passages that interest him—and the reader too. They have a living interest that could not be imparted to a worked-up treatise based upon information collected over a period of thirteen years. In the latter so much thought was given to classification and logical arrangement that the living interest had to be sacrificed to some extent. In the Journal the descriptions are given while the author is in the presence of his subject, or at least while the impressions are vividly upon him. They page 9are his experiences instinct with life and thought. Thus the Journal bears some resemblance to a moving picture in which the scenes pass across the screen in chronological order.

There is much in the Journal that will shock people of refined or tender feeling; some scenes described that cleansouled people will abhor; but that is not sufficient reason for depriving anthropologists or historical students of a single fact that is likely to be of service in their search after truth. Those who cannot bear to read or think about the horrors have a remedy: they can pass over them rapidly or skip them altogether. But in doing so let them not forget that they are unable to endure the mere thought of horrors which these early missionaries and their wives—many of them cultivated and refined people—had to live face to face with, month after month and year after year.

Here, indeed, is the second reason why nothing of importance in the Journal should be suppressed.

In the passage which I have already quoted from Sir Basil there appear to be two irreconcilable statements. He says that in the missionary publications of those days "any customs that did not suit the English middle class notions of propriety were either passed over as heathen wickedness too deplorable for description, or set forth (with a rich commentary of invective) in an obvious spirit of exaggeration to show the subscribers at home how perilous were the lives of the missionaries and how worthy the labourer of his hire." I have pondered carefully over these words, and have to confess that they are beyond my comprehension. In one breath Sir Basil says that improper customs were passed over; in the next that they were exaggerated from unworthy motives! It is not easy to deal with such statements, but I must do my best. I have already pointed out how very much mistaken Sir Basil was in his denunciations of Mr Rowe for his supposed omissions and alterations of Williams's manu-page 10script. It is now my duty to point out that of all these early missionaries in Fiji from 1835 to 1856 Methodist and Roman Catholic alike I know of one only who exaggerated from motives of personal glory, and none at all who did so from a desire to prove that he was worthy of his hire. If the Missionary Society so misused the information as to exaggerate with that intent they were much to blame; but I have no reason for believing that they did.

It is true that in their correspondence the missionaries did paint a picture of the Fijians darker than can be justified by a study of the evidence. But that is easily explained on quite different grounds. It was natural, almost inevitable, that men coming from a civilized country should be most deeply impressed—especially at first—with the enormities practised by the natives. They were not alone in that. All the British and American naval commanders were affected in the same way. The description of Fijian characteristics given by Charles Wilkes in his Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition is darker than that given by any of the missionaries who were there in 1840 with the possible exception of Thomas Jaggar. But apart from that the missionaries certainly did exaggerate the wickedness of some of the more innocent customs and practices of the Fijians; not, however, from any sordid motive, but because they were betrayed into intolerance by their own strict conceptions of morality and religion, and did not realize the far-reaching effects of their iconoclasm.

When I reflect on the dangers through which these early missionaries passed, the laborious lives they lived, the sufferings they endured, the services which they rendered in so many ways apart from religion, chiefly educational and medical; and when I remember that they and their families lived through it all on £120 to £150 a year, and even suffered a reduction in that after 1844, I cannot help feeling that the page 11criticisms which Sir Basil has here introduced are beneath the dignity of the situation. In making their appeals for support the Missionary Society would, of course, mention the dangers to which their missionaries were exposed; but the basis of their appeal was quite different. Strange as it may seem to some of us now these men and the people who supported them by their subscriptions believed that the souls of all who knew not Christ and his Gospel were eternally damned, and that the only effective way of saving them, rescuing them from their barbarous customs and leading them along the ways of civilization was by means of the Gospel and their plan of salvation. These obsessions were common to Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, and they were the basis of their appeals for assistance. "Lord, save poor Feejee"—that was the prayer of the missionaries, the Missionary Society, and supporters of missions. That the missionaries were living in the midst of perils, and were worthy of their hire was too well known to need any elaboration. It may be that when Sir Basil was in Fiji he met some missionaries who were or were not worthy of their hire. I do not know. But in this book we are dealing with men of a different stamp: men who lived and worked under their great Taskmaster's eye, and knew no rest for their souls except when they were engaged on what they conceived to be His service. In his Journal for August 1850⁴ Dr Lyth makes an entry which is well worth quoting in this context, for it lifts the whole subject to its proper level in a few lines. "I rose at daylight," he says, "and so lost the sweet hour of the morning star; and the consequence was a worldly and dissipated state of mind. I went through my accustomed duties; but not with that sanctifying sense of the presence of God which I sometimes carry about with me." The longer the reader ponders these words the more likely is he to catch page 12something of the true spirit of the missionaries who worked in Fiji from 1835 to 1856.

Many people who criticize missions and missionaries nowadays generalize about them without any due discrimination of time, place or persons. I have found this even in Fiji. The missionaries who lived and worked there in the old cannibal days are judged by the same standards as those who came after the triumph of Christianity and the establishment of British sovereignty. That is very unfair. There is only one way of judging the early missionaries justly, and that is in relation to the prevailing beliefs of their own age, and the circumstances under which they had to carry on their work. In other words it is necessary to make use of what is called the historic sense in appraising the merits and demerits of their work.

For those who have not been trained to use this historic sense there is another way which will lead them towards just judgment. In the Mitchell Library, the British Museum, the Record Office in London or any other important library it is possible to consult the opinions of the more responsible and reliable men and women who visited Fiji about the middle of last century, and knew something of the missionaries and their work. Among these I would recommend the captains of British men-of-war—Drinkwater Bethune, H. Worth of the Calypso, J. E. Erskine, Sir Everard Home and Sir Mangles Denham. They were all men of wide experience, accustomed to write under a sense of responsibility, and every one of them expresses admiration for the conduct and work of the missionaries in Fiji. Even Sir Edward Belcher who had a quarrel with two of them has no hesitation in recommending their work to the favourable consideration of the native chiefs. If the reader should suspect these commanders of patriotic bias let him turn to the Narrative of Captain Wilkes, U.S.N., or the published Journal of page 13Mrs Wallis, wife of Captain Wallis of the Zotoff, an American trader in bêche-de-mer. He will find in their accounts even more glowing appreciations than those furnished by British naval officers. Captain Wilkes spent four months in Fiji, and Mrs Wallis five years. Both of them knew the missionaries well. Against the weight of all this evidence supplied by men who knew the missionaries and the conditions under which they lived and worked, the judgment of later critics who fail to make use of their historic sense cannot and should not prevail.

As for my own impressions and convictions the reader will find them recorded at intervals in the pages of this volume. It will suffice to say here that I have read enough and seen enough in my travels across and among the islands of the archipelago to know that where these men struggled on hopefully I should have faltered and failed, not only for want of courage, but also from lack of the inspiring faith by which they were sustained. Criticisms of their narrow-mindedness and iconoclastic methods in dealing with the institutions and religious convictions of the natives will occupy a large part of this volume; but let not the reader be misled into any erroneous assumption that I am wanting in appreciation for much of the work done by these early missionaries, and more especially for the sterling qualities of their characters. I know how easy it is to criticize a hundred years after the event, and how hard it must have been to find and keep to the true way in the dust and smoke of battle against ruthless, horrid customs; nor have I forgotten Portia's admonition that it is easier to teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching—especially in tropical, cannibal Fiji. At the conclusion of my researches I take my leave of these early missionaries with a feeling of profound respect for the courage, tenacity, faith and single-minded devotion they page 14displayed in the performance of a task which they believed to be the highest open to human achievement. "To convert souls to God is the noblest work in which men can be employed on earth."⁵ So wrote Dr Lyth in his Scrap-book in 1843; so he and every one of his brethren in their hearts believed.

Three-quarters of a century have passed since those words were written, and there has been a deal of thinking on anthropological, psychological and religious subjects. Some of us may still believe that the most important work on which men can be engaged is the salvation and development of a human soul; but it is likely that our opinions as to the manner in which this is to be achieved will differ widely from those of the old missionaries; just as the opinions of men a hundred years hence will differ from ours. As we hope that our descendants will judge us in relation to the thought, ideals and conditions of our age, so we must try to judge the old missionaries in relation to theirs. No criticism of them and their work can possibly be fair unless it makes due allowance for the extraordinary difficulties and dangers which they encountered in Fiji, as well as for the strength of the conviction which Dr Lyth expressed in the words just quoted.

page break