He Explained That He
Never Liked Being Beaten, Even If He Drowned Us All, And *All This
Was Because I Had Bet Him One Shilling (By His Own Desire) That He
Would Not Get A Fish.
I mention this to show what foolhardy things
he was capable of doing, never thinking of the consequences.
I could
mention many such cases. We at length came to some shallows between
a lot of small and most picturesque islands, and as it was low tide,
and we could not pass, we, viz., Ratu Lala, myself, and the other
chiefs, got out to walk, leaving the boat and crew to come on when
they could (they arrived at 4 a.m. the next morning). I was glad to
get an opportunity to dry myself, and we started off at a good rate
for our destination, but unfortunately we came to a spot where grew
a small weed that the Fijians consider a great luxury when cooked,
and Ratu Lala and his people stayed here fully two hours, till they
had picked all the weed in sight, in spite of the heavy rain. It
was amusing to see all these high-caste Fijians and old Stivani, the
jester, running to and fro with yells of delight like so many children,
all on account of a weed which I myself afterwards failed to enjoy.
On the way I shot three duck, and later, when it was too dark to shoot,
we could see the beach between the mangroves and the sea was almost
black with them. On the other side of us there was a regular chorus of
wild chickens crowing and pigeons "howling" in the woods. After four
hours' hard walking we arrived at our destination, Qelani, long after
dark, dead tired, and soaked to the skin. We put up at the "Buli's"
hut; he was a cousin of Ratu Lala, and was a hideous and sulky-looking
fellow, but his hut was one of the finest and neatest I had seen in
Fiji. As I literally had not had a mouthful of food since the previous
evening, I was glad when about a dozen women entered bearing banana
leaves covered with yams, fish, octopus, chickens, etc. We stayed here
some days, but we had miserable, wet weather. There was excellent
fishing in the stream here, and Ratu Lala especially had very good
sport. Many of the fish averaged one-and-a-half pounds and more, but
he told me that they often run to five pounds. There were three kinds,
and all excellent eating. The commonest was a beautiful silvery fish,
and another was of a golden colour with bright red stripes. During the
latter part of my stay in Qelani I suffered from a slight attack of
dysentery, and it was dull lying ill on the floor of a native hut with
no one to talk to, as Ratu Lala always tried to avoid speaking English
whenever possible, and would often only reply in monosyllables.
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