in Fiji

Further Recollections of a Decade in Fiji

By Na Matanivanua.

Part 11.

SUVA always had its complement of hard cases —those whose escapades at various times provided the little tit-bits for “beach” gossip. Looking back, it is interesting to reflect how different sections of the younger community at various times held the stage in this respect. , , . For a period, a crowd of junior Con stabulary officers set the pace, in the days when some of them “bached” in the old Vicarage and earned for their residence the title of the “Liquorage.”

There was also the case of a sub inspector who was called out one night to quell a brawl between two ladies of the town. On arrival at the battlefield he found that the combatants were his ex-girl-friend and his present girl friend. History has it that he quietly faded out and left his posse of constables to make the arrests.

Yet another young man of the Con stabulary staff, in an exalted frame of mind, rode a borrowed bicycle through a football crqwd one Saturday afternoon; and, after cutting some pretty figures, to the delight of the crowd, ran down the Inspector-General of Constabulary.

Time has passed on; some of the hard cases of those days have become staid senior officers, some have solved the great mystery and others have faded from the Fiji scene.

CADETS of the administrative service also had their days of providing gossip for beach and bridge-table.

Some were reputed to swing a wicked hip at “tralalas,” and there was one who kept a wondrous gaudy dressing-gown for wear on such occasions. There was another who could quite successfully drop his administrative dignity and be the life and soul of any wild party. He it was who, when incarcerated in hospital for some minor complaint, cleared out one night with some clothes over his pyjamas and attended a dance in town.

The least of his worries was the fact that it was a full-dress affair.

At another period, the bank boys held sway in the ranks of the ungodly. Prob ably their best effort was one Christmas Day when an Indian dhobie arrived at the hotel where some of them stayed, to deliver laundry. The temptation was too much and, commandeering the dhobie’s van, they drove off, and spent a happy hour or so gaily delivering laundry bundles wherever the spirit moved them, quite irrespective of ownership, while a frantic dhobie screamed blue murder and chased his clients’ clothes all over Snya.

I think it was the same two lads who, during the festive season, decided that as the day was hot, a dip would be all to the good. One of them was happily disporting himself, fully clad, in the horse-trough outside the old Bank of NSW, when his manager drove past.

The bank manager was not amused.

ONE of Suva’s happiest and most democratic institutions was the Suva Yacht Club, formed and kept going by a band of enthusiastic young sea lovers of both sexes. Suva Harbour was at its, prettiest with the Yacht Club’s fleet out in a harbour race. And then there were those very bright yachting week ends at Nukulau Island, when few got any sleep, but a good time was had by all in the manner of yachtsmen the world over.

Mention of the Yacht Club brings to mind one member who owned a largish craft and decided one Christmas to give

a party on board the ship, anchored out in the harbour. It was a bright turnout, but one guest was evidently in something of a quandary as to correct dress for the occasion, so he compromised by arriving in the bathing shorts of the true small boat man, topped with father’s tail coat and a bow tie in deference to the social nature of the function. As late in the evening he took an involuntary dip in the tide, it would be interesting to know what father had to say about a salt water-soaked tail-coat.

SPORT has always played a big part in the life of Fiji, and there were some notable sporting events during the last decade. An Australian ladies’ hockey team visited Suva and showed the local girls a thing or two; and, later, a local ladies’ team went to New Zealand and was virtually massacred by the New Zea land lasses.

New Zealand University cricket and hockey teams also visited, but undoubt edly the most notable sporting event was the visit of the Maori Rugby team. For the first time in their lives, the Fijians were put on the field in boots. Twenty minutes after the game started most of the boots were on the side-lines, and the Kai Viti then showed the Maoris something in speed. In the Test series, Fiji and New Zealand broke even—one game each and one draw. That visit led to the Fijian visit to New Zealand, when the island team put up a record as the only team to tour New Zealand and not

lose a match. They won every match but one, which was drawn* SOMETHING which has disappeared from Fiji for ever, and which no one regrets, is the Rewa pontoon.

Now a fine reinforced concrete bridge spans the fiver from Davuilevu to Nausori, and gone are the days when traffic was hauled across on the lumbering pontoon worked by its puffing billy.

Those were the days when every fresh in the river caused a suspension of the pontoon service, and motor-launch own ers reaped a harvest from profane Nau sori residents who had to get to the other side, and on to Suva.

ONE Suva institution, which no one who lived in Suva will forget, is Jimmy Muir’s yaqona saloon.

There, every morning, the town’s kava drinkers assembled for their morning bowl, and to swap the latest gossip from the Beach. Some there were who had their own private bilos (coconut cups), embellished with a silver nameplate, and there was many a gathering of distin guished, ahd not so distinguished, citi zens in the little back-room behind the bookseller’s shop.

The yaqona habit was one that most residents formed. At one time, there was a bowl of kava in practically every Gov ernment office, and one magistrate, in the middle of listening to some dispute between a couple of Indians as to the ownership of a fowl, or the boring details of how some dusky taxi-driver failed to keep to the left, used to adjourn Court during the morning and retire to the back verandah for a bowl. .

There was a period of prohibition in Government circles, during the reign of a certain Colonial Secretary, who decided that yaqona was a pernicious habit, and banned it from the buildings. There were one or two diehards who kept their bowls hidden away in the strong-room.

Even in the exalted circles of the Legis lative Council there was a bowl on the verandah at adjournment time, when the Colony’s legislators forgot their differ ences and quaffed the refreshing and harmless beverage. . .

Described as the corner-stone of Fijian ceremonial, the preparation and serving of yaqona plays a tremendous part in Fijian affairs. Every new Governor has to quaff a bowl when he is first greeted by the chiefs. Even Royalty is not exempt. The ceremony is an adjunct of the reception of a chief, and no mat ter how unpalatable the newcomer may find yaqona at first taste, he in cour tesy bound to quaff it, and spin the bilo back toward the bowl.

AMID all the foibles, amusing little incidents, functions and institutions of Fiji that crowd to one’s memory in retrospect, there is one memory that can never fade —one of Fiji’s greatest claims to fame —the island of Makogai.

It is a beautiful gem among the islands of the South Pacific, this home of pain and suffering; but also it is the home of happiness and of devoted self-sacrific ing work by one of the world’s most gal lant bands of women, the Sisters of Mary, who tend the lepers of the South Seas in what one distinguished visitor called the finest leper hospital in the world.

Once one has seen them, one can never forget those cheerful-looking patients, their dread disease robbed of many of its terrors by skill and devotion. No longer need the leper resign himself to a living death. Makogai gives new hope —a hope often fulfilled, for if the disease is treated early, the sufferer can look for ward to a return to the world and his or her friends in due time.

To remember Makogai is to remember

that grand lady who had devoted her life to the relief of suffering, the Rev. Mother Mary Agnes. She has been over a quarter of a century on Makogai, and many years before that, on other mission work in Fiji. Years ago she left her loved Brittany, in France, and since then, although never seeking the limelight, she has, by her devotion to her self-imposed task, won world renown, and recognition froni the King of England, who bestowed on her honorary membership of the Order of the British Empire.

Recognition of her work was at the same time recognition of the devoted work of the band of Sisters she has around her to help in the great task. No word of Makogai would be complete without mention also of the man in charge,

Dr. C. J. Austin, and his distinguished predecessor, the late Dr. E. A. Neff. They, too, have played their part in making Makogai the model institution of its kind, piVIL servants in Fiji come and go— V' some are remembered for their work, but more for their idiosyn cracies.

One in the latter category was a cer tain assistant auditor, whose claim to fame was his absent-mindedness. It was quite a frequent occurrence for him to park his car, walk off to an auditing job, finish it and walk off along the street, leaving his car. Later he would recollect that he had parked his car somewhere, look where he thought it was, and then tele phone the police and tell them his car

had been stolen. Of course, it would be found where he left it.

One night he took a young lady to the cinema. He walked out for a smoke at half-time, leaving her in her seat, and absent-mindedly got into his car and drove home. Hours later, he telephoned to inquire if she had got home safely.

An infuriated father’s reply was: “Yes, no thanks to you!” The strange thing about the gentleman was that he was remarkably efficient at his job, IN the days of peace the opening of the Legislative Council used to be quite a gala occasion. There was a guard of honour, the Fiji Defence Force troops and the band, resplendent in scarlet and white, the Governor in full dress and plumed hat, official members of the Coun cil in Colonial Service uniform, complete with decorations; and, generally, a fairly full public gallery to hear the Governor’s

opening address or to see decorations and honours conferred in the last Birthday or New Year fists.

A huge Fijian soldier bore the mace, Cakobau’s old war club, now silver mounted with a crown and the dove of peace, and when he set it down in front of the Governor’s dais, Council was in session. Since the war, the gala uniforms have been packed away, and these days the opening of the session has been shorn of its glory.

Another gala occasion used to be the opening of the Supreme Court criminal sessions, when the Chief Justice, in scar let robes and full bottomed wig, was received by a police guard-of-honour, and a fanfare of trumpets.

In fact, in the old days, it seemed that every opportunity was taken for dressing-up. I have already mentioned the King’s Birthday. Armistice Day was another full-dress affair; and then there were such special occasions as when Sir Arthur Richards laid the foundation stone of the new Government buildings, on Coronation Day, and when Sir Harry Luke declared the buildings open on their completion. rE war ended all these ceremonies.

The troops went into khaki battle dress, and the First Battalion sailed for the Solomons. There was no dress ing-up on that occasion—but the day is one that will i never be forgotten in Suva.

Fiji was prcffid of its young manhood when those troops marched through the town to their troopship—and well was her pride justified. Gone were the cere monial trappings of peacetime parades.

Battle bowlers replaced peacetime head gear and the men carried full battle equipment.

The whole effect was more impressive and meant more to the people who waved farewell than all the dress-up parades of the years of peace. Those men—Euro

peans, Euronesians, Fijians, and Ton gans—looked businesslike, and they meant business. Their record against the Japs has borne out that impression. rERE is much that could be written about Fiji under war conditions, but that is something that will have to wait until after the war. Some funny and exasperating things were done in the Colony, but despite all the mistakes which were made, Fiji will to look back on her contribution to the war, both in men and money, with pride. She has her representatives in the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the R.A.A.F. and R.N.Z.A.F., the New Zealand and Austra lian military forces, the British forces and, of course, the men of the First Bat talion and the guerilla unit fighting with the First in the Pacific.

Fiji’s military honour is in safe keep ing. The Empire’s furthest-flung out post is doing her part in the war for freedom.

On this note I close these recollections, grave and gay. Fiji must occupy an important place in the future of the Pacific, and the events of the last decade have been leading up to that place. The Colony has progressed, and it will con tinue to progress. • There was a Fiji reunion in Mackay, Queensland, last month, when Mr. and Mrs. W. Cowie spent a happy evening with Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Macpherson.

“Bill” Cowie now is connected with the radio side of civil aviation. He was a radio man in Fiji for a while; and was the special representative of the British Government on some of the Line Islands, when those sandy sun-blisters became internationally important, in the ’thirties.

Mrs. Cowie was Miss Phyllis Thomas, of Fiji. Mr. Macpherson was a reporter on the “Fiji Times,” Suva, for several years.