A South Seas

Reverie

By “Amel”

SIGHING over the mountains, loitering in the valleys, hastening over rivers and skimming down to the sea, a warm breeze is bringing its fragrance to temper the heat of a tropical summer’s day.

I recline at ease in the shade of a dense-foliaged mango tree, whose branches are burdened with clusters of ripening fruit. My dog. Lassie, snores gently beside me. No. that is not cor rect . . . Lassie never snores. Being a lady through and through, she just breathes heavily. She seems to sense that I am writing about her, for she has opened one melting brown eye, winked a roguish wink, and gone to sleep again. . .

The tide is dead low. and, out on the broad expanse of the bay, the sinister shapes of many coral reefs are plainly visible. They lie beneath the shining sea like somnolent monsters, in places so close to the surface that they are a trap for unwary mariners. But they are also a treasure trove for shell and coral seek ers, and a never-failing source of food for the native fisher-folk.

A string of islands, like pieces of a jade-green necklace, sprawl out from the mainland. Ascending lazily from the largest of them, a pale wisp of smoke marks the spot where a narty of fisher women are baking their taro, their vam, or their brightly-coloured fish, fresh from the sea.

I can picture them squatting beside the fire, waiting eagerly for their food to cook, with their tongues wagging inces santly and their skimpy ragged sulus twisted carelessly around copper-brown

waists. When their meal is finished, and the tide has started to turn, they will wend their way homeward to the villages that nestle behind those distant hills.

At each swoop of the wind, the coco nut palms along the beach dip and sway gracefully. Their faint rustling comes up the hill to me. The sound has a soothing effect. In the daytime, it takes the edge off that loneliness which sometimes assails dwellers in quiet places; at night, like the waves murmuring on the shore, or rain drumming on the roof, it lulls one to sleep.

How rich is the verdure of this tropic land! Even the humble mangrove is vividly green. The cushiony smoothness of it sweeps back from the sea-shore and merges into the darker-green foothills.

But the colour is lost again in the loftv, shadow-dappled mountains, which fill the northern skyline like piles of crumpled blue velvet.

A vast expanse of sea, unbroken and empty, save for one dim island, stretches far south. Over my shoulder, the sun is dying in the west, and its glow is seep ing up the valley.

Lassie yawns in utter boredom, and glances suggestively down at the home stead. But I am not ready to go yet. I want to watch the matchless beauty of the tropical sunset, until the sun dis appears amid a host of crimson banners.

And I want to say a prayer of thankful ness that so much unchanging loveliness still exists in a world of change, ugli ness and strife.

The shadows are lengthening and the soft wind goes whisoering past, as Las sie and I walk slowly down the hill.

Rev. Samuel J. Gibson, who died in Sydney on December 2 aged 81 years, spent six years in Fiji as a member of the Methodist Mission, from 1884 to 1890.