'Vaka Totomi'

By Elisabeth Hennings

THE Fijian expression “vaka totomi” means the picking up of little things, here and there. It also means the picking up of news—or gossip.

The following was picked up from the business correspondence of William Hennings, who went to Fiji about the year 1858. He was engaged in the im port and export business and was, as well, interested in cotton and coconut planting. He was one of the outstanding personalities among the early settlers in Levuka.

THE boxes containing this correspond ence had been stored up under the rafters of an outhouse ever since William’s tired eyes had closed forever, just a few months before the outbreak of World War I. Perhaps they would be there still, with hens, cockroaches and little, pink, blind mice in undisputed pos session, had not a bit of a letter been scratched down a little while ago. It in dicated the disappearance of some con fidential papers, and so compelling was this glimpse into the past, that the sort ing of the papers was taken in hand forthwith.

What a fascinating picture of Fiji’s early days unfolded itself, and how vividly portrayed were those who lived then, through the medium of their hand writing.

There is the spidery hand of August Godeffroy, holding out for his firm in Samoa during a most critical period.

There is the neatly-turned and spaced script of Karl Sahl, William Henning’s agent in Melbourne, who appears to have had a finger in various of Fiji’s pies.

A marine surveyor plants his down strokes so heavily that they resemble a line of clubs, hardly connected with the upstrokes. All his communications are irascible and domineering, except the last, where he sounds rather small, and tells his creditors that he cannot meet his bills “owing to circumstances over which I have no control.”

Those “circumstances” to which our marine surveyor refers were a double-dose of post-war slump—one after the Ameri can Civil War of 1861-65; and the second after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-72.

We read that what news came was bad.

Cotton had collapsed with the reappear ance of the cheaper American product and William lost his fight for recognition in the world market of Sea Island cotton grown in Fiji. Stead Bros., Liverpool, list under “substitutes,” in their “Sea Island Circular,” 80 bales of “Mango Island Fiji” sold at lOfd. early 1880. Bottom “sub stitute” is “Common Florida” at 16d.; top quality “Sea Island” 30d. Local cotton was bought at 6fd, in 1879.

But there is already some copra com ing in from cotton plantations which had been hastily inter-planted with coconuts.

In ’Bl a planter from Cicia complains of his cotton being ruined by “insect moths,” but he had 14 tons of “cobra” in hand But the price for this was also falling— from £l5/10/- to £l3 per ton.

“I hope you weren’t caught in a Gov ernment contract” commiserates Sahl, in ’Bl. “Copra is going to the dogs—how long it will last and what the reason is, is hard to say. Shall be glad to get some cotton—it’s a long, long lane, this copra planting.”

Now, rumours crop up in various letters that the firm of Godeffroy Hamburg- Samoa is about to suspend payments.

Even the planter in Cicia hears the evil news, adding it as a postscript, in red ink and as a dead secret—two years after it happened. William, as Godeffroy’s agent in Fiji, is considerably involved, and great must have been his relief in ’79, when a cable confirms the final de cision by Bismarck to continue the firm as Deutsche Handels and Plantagen Gesellschaft.

August 4, Godeffroy writes much de pressed. He had informed Hamburg that his copra will not be ready for shipment until July; yet early in March three large barques crowd in on him. Sending the vessels to William, in the hope of getting a load in Fiji, he ends: “Cheer up and help a poor fellow who finds himself in a corner!” There are many letters from him as, apparently, he and William had become personal friends.

THE scope of William’s interests and business is amazing. Letters come to him from all over the world. There is the “Lily Nursery,” Ghent, asking his good offices to procure seeds of decorative small palms. Baron Muller, a well known botanist, wants every detail about the “upright bearing banana.” One, D. T.

Smart, inquires about a cargo of guano despatched by Godeffroy from Samoa.

“Where was it dug? I fancy some of the Line islands have deposits.”

Lieutenant Werner van Bulow arrives with letters from the German Foreign Office to William, who also is Levuka’s German Consul. Six weeks afterwards there is a SOS from the upper Rewa where von Bulow is stuck without funds and appeals fori a return passage to Samoa.

A correspondent from Melbourne com ments, in 1679, on the removal of capital to Suva, “that time could only prove the wisdom of this step”; but adding, Grandly, that “our interests being so large, we cannot feel other than pleased, even if it takes years to mature.”

John Hennings, William’s eldest brother, well-known to old residents of Mel bourne as a scenic painter, writes that the Exhibition there is to be fitted up with GAS—the first time an international exhibition was to be opened at night, “to the great detriment of theatres, shop keepers and hotels. A very bad look-out everywhere and loud murmuring among those to suffer.”

The young business community of Fiji combines to produce an exhibit of the resources of the new Colony. Sahl reports from Melbourne that it attracted con siderable interest and “should result in an influx of capital.” Sugar, coffee and cotton were particularly good.

William, who had won a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition the year before, lost with his exhibit against the one from Ceylon, but gets an award for coconut oil, the Ist and 2nd prize for sugar “brewing crystals”: and W. Hunt a 3rd for brown sugar.

MOST interesting is the variety of pro ducts in which William deals. Here are 10 tons candlenuts. £B/10/- per ton; tortoise-shell, going to Yokohama, at 10/- to 13/- per lb.; coconut fibre at £l6 per ton; pearlshell at 7/- lb., best quality. Yams, 30 tons from Natewa Bay (there is a contract between A. A.

Coubrough, of Taveuni, and the DHPG Co. in Samoa to keep his schooner

“Elizabeth,” Captain W. Wilson, running between Levuka and Samoa for six months carrying yams at £6/6/- per ton).

Paul Joske ships timber from Serua and 63 bags of coffee from Taveuni; but there’s no demand for the peanuts offered; and whole coconuts at £5/5/- per ton cannot compete with Ceylon nuts offered in the Sydney market.

Now here are a few prices: A keg of salt beef, 16/-; sailcloth is lOd. per yard; best belaying pins, 1/3: ladies’ glaced slippers, 5/-; gents’ Oxfords. 11/-; a cane chair, 14/6; Empire sofa. £6/2/6; a round table, £2/15/-; an antimacassar, 3/4; and rat traps at 4/-.

J. B. Swann, “Medical Hall,” begs to inform that he supplies plantations with drugs at the rate of 10 men at £6/10/- —“with the exception of arrowroot.”

But amazing is the multitude of vessels mentioned. One pictures Levuka’s water front crowded with steamers and stately barques. Of the first, the “Gunga,”

"Dilmoor,” “Suva” and “Southern Cross” kept up a regular service between Fiji and Australia. The barques were mostly German, to judge hy the names—big vessels up to 400 tons burden.

Charles Hennings, a younger brother in charge of the Loma Loma branch, re ports to headquarters in Levuka of six vessels in that port in one week.

The last bit of vaka totomi is best quoted in full from a letter written by Charles, then in Levuka. to William, who was away: “After the luncheon, which was at Nasova, the party developed into the most terrible spree.

“C., M., S., GR., and I left Nasova to gether. We went to C’s house and had two or three nips; called at Connelly’s, where we had five nips each, and then went to Munroe’s Hotel. C. shouted champagne and we all followed suit.

After two or three bottles had been drunk, M. and C. wanted to fight. M. had Gr.’s belltopper on and danced about all over the house. Gr. was lying under the table; at this stage I cleared out and went to sleep at the Union Hotel. I have heard since that C. rolled home at 5 a.m., on all his fours, followed all the way by a crowd of natives and dogs, with Gr.’s belltopper still on his head.”