I found my friend, Mr. D., in a sad state with fever, cold and loneliness; wrapped up in woollen caps, blankets and heavy clothes, he looked more like an Arctic explorer than a dweller near the Equator. He spoke of leaving the islands, and, indeed, did so some months later.
On my way to Aoba I had to spend a few days off Pentecoste, in such rainy weather that I went ashore but once in all that time. The day was fine, and I shall never forget the beauty of that woodland scene. A lovely creek winds through reeds, reflecting the bright sand and the bushes on its banks. Dark iron-woods rise in stiff, broken lines, and their greyish needles quiver like a light plume against the blue sky, where white clouds float serenely. Inland the forest swells in a green wall, and farther off it lies in rounded cupolas and domes of soft green, fading into a light around the distant hills. Under overhanging branches I lie, sheltered from the sun; at my feet the ripples caress the bank; delicate lianas hang from the branches and trail lazily in the water. Swallows dart across the stream, and sometimes the low call of a wood-dove sounds from far away. A cricket shrieks, and stops suddenly, as if shocked at the discordant sound of its own voice. Far off in the hills I can hear the rushing of the wind, like a deep chord that unites in a sacred symphony with the golden sun and the glittering water to voice the infinite joy of living that penetrates all creation to-day.
Down-stream I can see the heavy coast banks, with a narrow strip of brilliant blue sea shining above them, and now and then a glint of snowy foam. Two pandanuses frame the view, their long leaves waving softly in the breeze that comes floating down the valley. Half asleep, I know the delights of the lotus-eaters' blessed isle.
Next day I landed in Aoba, at "Albert's." He was an American negro, who, after having been a stoker and sailor, had settled here as a coprah trader. His language was of the strangest, a mixture of biche la mar, negro French and English, and was very hard to understand. With the help of two native women he kept his house in good order, and he was decidedly one of the most decent colonists of the group, and tried to behave like a gentleman, which is more than can be said of some whites. He seemed to confirm the theory that the African is superior to the Melanesian. Albert sheltered me to the best of his ability, although I had to sleep in the open, under a straw roof, and his bill of fare included items which neither my teeth nor my stomach could manage, such as an octopus. There were several other negroes in Aoba; one was Marmaduke, an enormous Senegalese, who had grown somewhat simple, and lived like the natives, joining the Suque and dancing at their festivals. He occasionally came to dinner at Albert's; this was always amusing, as Albert thought himself far superior to Marmaduke, and corrected his mistakes with still more comical impossibilities. Both were most polite and perfectly sober. The talk, as a rule, turned on stories of ghosts, in which both of them firmly believed, and by which both were much troubled. Marmaduke was strangled every few nights by old women, while a goblin had sat on Albert's chest every night until he had cleared the bush round his house and emptied his Winchester three times into the darkness. This had driven the ghosts away,--a pretty case of auto-suggestion. I was interested in hearing these stories, though I should hardly have thought a sensible man like Albert could have believed such things.