New Hebrides

“ Then there will fall to be recorded my call from the Islands in recent years to revisit all the Colonial Presbyterian Congregations once again, telling them the story of the Conversion of Aniwa—the sinking of the well, and other incidents, which turned an entire people from idols and from cannibalism to the service of the living and true God—whereby the 363Churches, and especially the children, were led more and more to make the New Hebrides their own very harvest field in the Heathen world. ”

“ That part of the story will show the fruits of the education and perils and experiences of a lifetime, in the marvellous impression produced by the simple and unadorned recital of the story of Tanna and Aniwa, amongst the Christian people of Scotland, Ireland, and England. Multitudes were blessed in almost every town where a meeting was granted me. Three Missionaries devoted themselves to the New Hebrides, and are already labouring there; while others consecrated themselves to several of the great seats of Foreign Mission enterprise in Africa and Asia. ”

“ Let me here give my testimony on a matter of some importance—that among these Islands, if anywhere, men might be found destitute of the faculty of worship, men absolutely without idols, if such men exist under the face of the sky. Everything seemed to favour such a discovery; but the New Hebrides, on the contrary, are full of gods. The Natives, destitute of the knowledge of the true God, are ceaselessly groping after Him, if perchance they may find Him. Not finding Him, and not being able to live without some sort of god, they have made idols of almost everything ”

“ The first native pastor in the New Hebrides
97It is easy to raise the shallow cry that the New Hebrides Mission is overmanned, as compared with India, China and Africa, as some, and very specially the same men who most keenly oppose the Dayspring, are persistently doing. We might answer by retort,—Your own Towns and Villages are overmanned; why not resign your charges, and go to the millions of Heathendom? ”

“ There is a remarkable difference between the natives of the New Hebrides group and any of the inhabitants of the adjoining islands. In character, disposition, mode of living and religion, they are in many respects far ahead of their neighbours, and, strange to say, so are the islands. The soil is better and the climate is more to the liking of the European, and, owing to the proximity of the islands to Sydney, they are better served and more up-to-date. Port Vila in Sandwich Island, the chief centre, is only five days’ sail from that city. ”

“ But even in India and in China and in Africa, with their countless millions, learn a lesson from the work on the New Hebrides. Plant down your forces in the heart of one Tribe or Race, where the same Language is spoken. Work solidly from that centre, building up with patient teaching and lifelong care a Church that will endure. Rest not till every People and Language and Nation has such a Christ-centre throbbing in its midst, with the pulses of the New Life at full play. Rush not from Land to Land, from People to People, 99in a breathless and fruitless Mission. ”

“ The present work is not concerned at all with one of the four groups above mentioned, that of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, nor with the larger southern members of the New Hebrides group; its view is confined, except for occasional illustration, to the Solomon Islands, Ysabel, Florida, Savo, Guadalcanar, Malanta, San Cristoval, Ulawa, to the Santa Cruz group, the Banks' and Torres Islands, and three of the northern New Hebrides, Aurora, Pentecost and Lepers' Islands. ”

“ Much the same state of things prevailed on some of the New Hebrides, where the isle of Aneiteum was the most hopeful centre of operations, its population of upwards of 3000 persons having all professedly become Christians, and 300 being actually church members. Fifty-six different villages had built schools for their own use, and eleven had chapels. Sixty of the more advanced natives ranked as teachers, and several had gone to work on the hostile isles around. ”

“ The French have recently been sending Roman Catholic priests to the New Hebrides, apparently as political agents. A few months ago the heathen natives of one of our islands eagerly desired a Protestant missionary to settle among them, and give them the teaching of Jesus and His salvation, and when they were selling our missionaries a site for the station, two priests gave them much abuse, and told them of all the fearful calamities which would befall them if they allowed the Protestant missionaries to land on their island. ”

“ They are feelings which have ever actuated the inhabitants of the Highlands and the Hebrides. The plant of loyalty is there in full vigour, and the Brunswick graft now flourishes like a native shoot. To that spirited race of people I may with propriety apply the elegant lines of a modern poet, on the 'facile temper of the beauteous sex':
Like birds new-caught, who flutter for a time. ”

“ One very memorable occasion was at Pittsburg, where J. I. Buchanan, Esq., gave a great dinner, to which he invited the Owners and Editors of all the local Newspapers, to meet the New Hebrides Missionary. After I had addressed them, they tackled me with questions regarding the Islanders, and on all conceivable aspects of work for Christ amongst Cannibals. Most of them got deeply interested; and, next day, the whole Press of the City was full of the Mission, and of the reasons for our seeking 50the Prohibition of Fire-Arms and Intoxicants as articles of trade amongst the Natives. ”

“ The usual custom of natives to build near a fresh-water stream is not carried out in the New Hebrides; they seem to object to fresh water and seldom, if ever, drink it.
Occasionally they bathe in the sea; but here again they show a marked difference to the other islanders, for they seldom swim except when necessity compels them to do so, and so averse are they to water that they will actually walk an extra half-mile to avoid having to wade or swim through a creek. ”

“ With a Mission Ship of our own, for the New Hebrides, as for every other Mission in these Pacific seas, we can visit our Stations, as the interests of God’s work may require; we can visit and cheer the Native Teachers at their lonely outposts amongst Heathen Villages; we can deliberately visit and open up Pioneer Stations, where Heathenism still reigns, and plant there our young Missionaries 72and their Helpers; we can dissociate our Ship and her crew from the drunkenness, profligacy, and profanity of the ordinary crews of Trading Vessels ”

“ The natives, when carefully and patiently trained, work quite as well as low-class whites, and have proved themselves capable of more than plantation work.
MAN FROM NITENDI, SHOOTING.
It was a bright morning when we entered the lovely Graciosa Bay on Nitendi. The island had a much more tropical aspect than those of the New Hebrides, and the vegetation seemed more varied and gayer in colour. Natives in canoes approached from every side, and all along the beach lay populous villages, a sight such as the now deserted shores of the New Hebrides must have afforded in days gone by. ”

“ As I have said before, providing sufficient labour is one of the most important problems to the planter in the New Hebrides. Formerly there were professional recruiters who went slave-hunting as they would have followed any other occupation, and sold the natives to the planters at a fair profit. In their schooners they hung about the shore, filled the natives with liquor and kidnapped them, or simply drove them on board wholesale, with the help of armed Loyalty boys. ”

“ And so on all round the Group, Island after Island being brought by patient, devoted, and rational expenditure of time, and affection, and all Gospel influences, to the knowledge of the Christian life, and thereby to Civilization. There are still four or five great Centres of Heathenism untouched. When God sends us Missionaries for these, it will then only be a question of time coupled with pains and prayer, till all the New Hebrides in all their Babel tongues, shall be heard singing the praises of Redeeming Love. ”

“ In fact, in these islands, in particular, there are resources which will repay the labour and capital of any enterprising men, and, according to those who are most fitted to judge and advise, the New Hebrides is a veritable Eldorado. But, until the natives are more civilised and certain taxes are altered, men prefer to give them a wide berth and seek their fortunes in lands less dangerous. ”

“ The blessing of Jehovah God be ever upon that place, and upon all who there seek to win their fellows to the love and service of Jesus Christ!
When I left Glasgow, many of the young men and women of my classes would, if it had been possible, have gone with me, to live and die among the Heathen. Though chiefly working girls and lads in trades and mills, their deep interest led them to unite their pence and sixpences and to buy web after web of calico, print, and woollen stuffs, which they themselves shaped and sewed into dresses for the women, and kilts and pants for men, on the New Hebrides. ”

“ We were now able to get the names of persons and things, and so our ears got familiarized with the distinctive sounds of their language; and being always keenly on the alert, we made extraordinary progress in attempting bits of conversation and in reducing their speech for the first time to a written form—for the New Hebrideans had no literature, and not even the rudiments of an alphabet. I used to hire some of the more intelligent lads and men to sit and talk with us, and answer our questions about names and sounds ”

“ Notwithstanding this campaign of slander, groups of would-be settlers came straggling along from various places to the port of rendezvous, Stornoway, the capital of the {39} Hebrides. When all had gathered, these people who had answered the call to a new heritage beyond the seas proved to be a motley throng. Some were stalwart men in the prime of life, men who looked forward to homes of their own on a distant shore; others, with youth on their side, were eager for the trail of the flying moose or the sight of a painted redskin ”

“ As they came close to us, I heard my name called,{69} and found myself shaking hands with Captain Martin of the schooner “Idaho” from Noumea. I met him years ago when he was in charge of the “John S. Lane,” Captain McCleod owner, and he very kindly then towed me across from Opa to Pentecost Island. He seemed very glad to see me, and invited me on board. He now belongs to the “Nouvelles Hebrides” Company, and was recruiting labour for “Port Sandwich” in Mallicollo. The Company had bought land here at “Beitarara,” and he just dropped in to see the people. ”

“ The Hebrides are but the shattered relics of an old land that had its mountain-peaks and its glens, its streams and lakes, and may have nursed in its solitude the red-deer and the eagle, but was never trodden by the foot of man. ”

“ Such intelligence the Hebridians probably receive from their transmarine correspondents. But with equal temptations of interest, and perhaps with no greater niceness of veracity, the owners of the Islands spread stories of American hardships to keep their people content at home.
Some method to stop this epidemick desire of wandering, which spreads its contagion from valley to valley, deserves to be sought with great diligence. In more fruitful countries, the removal of one only makes room for the succession of another: but in the Hebrides, the loss of an inhabitant leaves a lasting vacuity ”

“ Hebrides, or Western Islands, a general name for the islands on the west coast of Scotland (save the islands of the Firth of Clyde) , about 500 in number, of which 100 are inhabited; they belong to the counties of Ross, Inverness, and Argyll, and are divided by the Little Minch and the Minch into the Outer Hebrides, of which the chief are Lewis, Harris, North and South Uist, Benbecula, &c.; and the Inner Hebrides, including Skye, Rum, Mull, Iona, Staffa, &c.; they have wild and rocky coasts, but are picturesque and verdurous, and are much frequented by tourists; the climate is mild and moist ”

“ The rich stranger encloses these poor islands for his deer, narrowing and debasing the hard life of the people. Here and there snug inns invite anglers to sport such as Izaak Walton never dreamt of. Some parts, as Harris, show oases of real Highland scenery. But more often the Outer Hebrides present a bleak and monotonous aspect of rock, water, sand, and bog, where “the sea is all islands, and the land is all lakes.” ”

“ Mountains divide us and a waste of seas,
Yet still the blood is warm, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.”
Round the foot of the mountains winds a track, which, if it were not for the rabbit-holes, might be thought a fairly good one in these parts. As it is, it is extremely perilous; and the fresh green of the flat is also full of bog-holes, and beyond the grass is the stony river-bed with its bright blue streams hurrying along, breaking into foam at the rapids and shallows. ”

“ The sea was calm, a blue haze softened the outline of the neighbouring hills, but let the mountains in the farther Hebrides be but faintly seen. The little isle lay before us with no signs on it of human habitation. ”

“ The outer Hebrides may have existed as the inner skeleton of some ancient country, contemporary with the main land, and that bore on its upper soils the productions of perished creations, at a time when by much the larger portion of the inner Hebrides,—Skye, and Mull, and the Small Isles,—existed as part of the bottom of a wide sound, inhabited by the Cephalopoda and Enaliosaurians of the Lias and the Oölite. Judging from its components, the Long Island, like the Lammermoors and the Grampians, may have been smiling to the sun when the Alps and the Himalaya Mountains lay buried in the abyss ”