Book Review

The House On The Hill: This

happy little book is by Helen D. Cato, wife of the Rev. A. C. Cato, of the large Methodist Mission educational establish ment at Richmond, Kadavu group, Fiji.

The story does not aim to be an ac count of missionary enterprise; such in sights into missionary work among the Fijians as there are, are incidental to the tale of a young wife coping with hurricanes and isolation and the language difficulty in a very strange country.

Mrs. Cato arrived at Richmond as a young wife. She, her husband and their infant daughter had come from Suva in a catainless cutter, accompanied by 40 cases containing their worldly goods, a milking cow and a medium grand piano.

There is no jetty at Richmond, so the piano (and presumably the cow) pre sented some pretty problems in landing The Catos soon settled in to the House on the Hill, which was at that time, empty. It stood on a hill with views over the sea and coastline and was not merely the home of the superintendent missionary, but was as well a post-office, a dispensary, a store, the setting for native weddings and the meetings of various organisations and the rendezvous of nearly 7,000 parishioners.

Apart from her usual household chores, the author was expected to assist in the store, or post office, or act as a leader of the Girl Guide troop. She thus had little time for boredom and this is reflected in her book which has few passages which do not end in humour. Life among the Fijians was far from dull, but what was polite usage with Europeans was not always so with them.

Writing of the Quarterly Meeting which brings the native ministers and lay rep resentatives from the various districts to Richmond, Mrs. Cato says that even the apparently simple business of providing afternoon tea had its pitfalls, due to the Fijians’ idea of hospitality in comparison with our own.

“Quite a number of representatives had never before been entertained in a Euro pean house,” she writes, “and while out wardly composed, they clung desparately to the ideal of lavish hospitality which is Fijian. Thus it happened that when large dinner plates heaped with buttered scones or generous ‘ploughman’s’ sand wiches were proffered, one Fijian accepted a plateful gracefully and cleaned it as as if by magic.

“A more knowledgeable companion sug gested that he was meant to deal with one small piece at a time. Disbelief flickered across his face, to be superseded at once by courteous acquiescence—but, truly, the mean ways of the white strangers were past finding out!”

It might be mentioned that the Catos had first encountered Fijian hospitality from the crew of the cutter that brought them to Richmond—huge mugs of tea, heavily laden with sweetened condensed rflilk, plates heaped with twelve-to-six teen-ounce pieces of boiled dalo, and slabs of canned corned beef. In the mistaken belief that the 25/- fare from Suva in cluded meals, they had been left with the remains of a packet of dry biscuits for their breakfast.

Our copy from The Book Depot, 288 Little Collins St., Melbourne, Cl. Price 8/6).

Mr. and Mrs. F. Cooley left Brisbane for Thursday Island by the “Wandana” on February 7. Mr. Cooley is on the teaching staff of the TI School.