King Among Cannibals

(A brief account of Missionary James Chalmers's work in the South Sea.)

CHAPTER I

OFF TO THE SOUTH SEAS

“HELP, help! Johnnie’s drowning!”

“Quick, help him, someone.”

“Hold on, Johnnie, hold on!”

Out of the confused shouting in the glen that afternoon the news went round—little Johnnie Minto had tumbled into the River Aray on his way home from school. The river was swollen with flood water which swept Johnnie along on its strong current. His chums watched helplessly. None of them could swim. Who was going to save him?

Suddenly James Chalmers arrived at the spot. Johnnie Minto’s friends wondered what he would do. They belonged to the town gang from Inveraray, whilst James and his pals belonged to the Glenary gang. There were always plenty of fights going on between these two gangs out of school, and no one who belonged to one group could be friends with somebody in the other one.

But James did not stop to think about this sort of thing. He flung off his coat, slipped into the swirling river on the down side of a little bridge, and grabbed hold of Johnnie as he was being carried along underneath the bridge. James could hardly swim himself—he was only ten years old— but he held Johnnie tightly with one arm, and seized hold of a branch of a tree with the other. Gradually he pulled himself and Johnnie close enough to the bank for many willing hands to help them up on to dry land.

Johnnie was cold and frightened but otherwise unhurt, and as for James, he was the hero of the hour.

He was strong and active, was James Chalmers, and utterly fearless in the water. He liked to be out of doors, hated being cooped up in school, and was as pleased as punch when the day came to leave. His parents were very poor and could not afford to pay for any training for a career. Not that James bothered his head much about his future.

There had been one occasion, in Sunday school, when he thought about it, as he listened to a letter from a missionary in Fiji. All the boys in class wanted to hear more of the unusual and exciting life of a missionary in the South Seas.

Mr. Meikle, the Sunday school teacher, peered over the top of his spectacles at his class.

“I wonder if there is any boy among you who will be a missionary?” he inquired mildly.

Nobody answered him. Some of the boys grinned sheepishly at each other. James sat still and said nothing, but in his heart he muttered fiercely, “I will. I’ll become a missionary one day!”

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But that Sunday afternoon was a long time ago. Nowadays James worked as a clerk in a lawyer’s office in Inveraray. It was a dull job, but there was always the clean Scottish sea on his doorstep, the heather-clad hills at his back, plenty of fun and plenty of high-spirited friends for the hours after work.

“He’s wild, that young Chalmers,” said some disapprovingly.

“He’ll settle down. He’s got a good heart,” said others.

He proved his bravery once more by jumping into the sea to rescue a little girl from drowning. Yet no sooner was everyone praising him for this good deed than he spoiled it all by his reckless pranks.

Then one evening James did something he had not done for some time. He went to a Church meeting. Lately he had felt out of touch with God and with the services in Church, and he only went to this meeting because he was especi­ally asked by an old friend.

That evening James Chalmers’s entire life changed. He suddenly saw how silly and empty his life was. He wanted to do something worthwhile, something that would be acceptable to God. His mind went back to his Sunday school and the missionary’s letter from Fiji. He knew now what he wanted to do. He was going to be a missionary and nothing would stop him!

This was rather easier said than done. If all that was required was to be strong and healthy, able to sleep rough in the open air, used to swimming and handling boats, with a cool head in danger—then James was just the young man. But missionaries have to be teachers as well as explorers, even in the wildest parts of the world, so all the men sent out by the London Missionary Society had to have training.

James could not help chuckling, although the joke was very much against him. He had always avoided study at school: now he really did have to work. But this time there was a difference. He was determined to become a missionary, and the first step was to pass his examinations at College. Being James, he managed to get a good deal of fun out of his years at the College in the little Hertfordshire village of Cheshunt, and some of his practical jokes caused a lot of talk and a good deal of merriment. He finished the course in 1866, aged twenty-five, and soon afterwards married Jeannie Hercus, a girl who looked forward as much as he did to missionary work. He was selected to work on Rarotonga, an island in the Hervey Group in the South Seas, and he and his wife embarked at Gravesend on the missionary ship, the John Williams II.

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They sailed first to Australia, and then round into the Pacific Ocean, with its coral islands and unexpected, treacherous storms. The ship put in at the island of Niué, where the Rev. George Lawes worked. He was an experienced missionary, and gave Chalmers many useful tips. After a couple of days, the John Williams II set sail for Samoa, but she foundered on an uncharted reef in the darkness only a few hours after leaving Niué.

What a start to a new life! Lifeboats were quickly lowered from the missionary ship, and the rescue scene was brightly lit by coconut leaf torches which the Niué islanders waved above their heads as they steered their light canoes skillfully over the dangerous reef to help take off passengers, crew and goods. It was “women and children first,” in the time-honored way. Nobody was badly hurt, but the ship was a total wreck, so everybody had to stay on Niué until another ship arrived.

As usual, Chalmers made the best of it. He learned all he could of native customs, and enjoyed watching the islanders swim. The young men used to have competitions in surf swimming, that is, riding the huge breakers on a plank. It needed strength, balance and quickness of judgment, and Chalmers could not resist it. He wanted to prove to himself that a man who had learned to swim in the bracing waters of the Scottish lochs was a match for these islanders in their warm tropic seas.

Without telling anyone about it, Chalmers borrowed a surf-board and plunged into the water. He gasped breathlessly as the heavy spray beat about his legs, but away he went, full of confi­dence, enjoying the thrill and danger of it. Sud­denly he lost his balance, overturned by a breaker that was impossibly strong by Scottish standards but quite normal by Pacific ones. He was flung into the sea, swamped, and for a few minutes was tossed effortlessly about by the waves as though he were a mere straw. Luckily the Niué islanders saw his plight and swam swiftly to the rescue, bringing him safely to shore.

It was one of the few occasions in Chalmers’s life when his breath was literally taken away, and he did not even protest when his wife fussed around him, and put him firmly to bed for a couple of days! It did not cure him of swimming in the South Seas but it gave him an understanding of its dangers, and an admiration for the strength and skill of the native swimmers.

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Six weeks after the wreck of the John Williams II, a schooner owned by a Samoan trading com­pany called at Niué, and Chalmers went back in it to Samoa. It was the last lap of his journey, although he had to wait another six weeks on Samoa before Captain “Bully” Hayes was hired to take them in his brig to Rarotonga. “Bully” Hayes was known all over the Pacific Ocean as a thief and a liar; many people called him a pirate, and when he was drunk, which was very often, everyone kept carefully out of his way.

He was certainly not the sort of person you would imagine being polite to a missionary, but Chalmers always brought out the best in people, and “Bully” Hayes was won over by Chalmers’s sincerity and friendliness. When Chalmers said be wanted to hold services on board the ship, Hayes was so anxious to please that he said he would order his crew to attend!

“Only if they really want to,” said Chalmers hastily. He knew it was no good trying to force people to listen to the missionaries.

Although Chalmers and his wife were amused by the stories Hayes told them about his adven­tures, they were impatient to reach Rarotonga and start work. At last came the day when the island was in sight, and Chalmers was so eager to land that he was almost ready to swim to it!

There it was, the island which would be his home for the next ten years—a beautiful spot, as green and romantic as a storybook island, with mountains in the distance, a coral reef surrounding it like a necklace, and white sandy beaches where the waves rose twenty feet in the air before they curled over and broke into spray.

They reached Rarotonga on May 20, 1867, and you can guess that the first person ashore was Chalmers himself. “What fellow name belong you?” asked the first native he met.

“Chalmers,” he replied. The native could not pronounce such a foreign name, and the nearest he got to it was “Tamate.” * He yelled out “Tamate” to all the other natives who were crowding the beach to welcome their new missionary. “Tamate” it was ever afterwards, not only in Rarotonga, but later on in New Guinea as well.

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During his first few weeks on Rarotonga Chalmers was not very happy. He had dreamed of facing danger and hardship, of going amongst unfriendly savages, but instead he realized that the Raro­tongans had already been civilized by the mission­aries who first landed there fifty years earlier. In his bitter disappointment at work which he thought was too easy and too peaceful, Chalmers wrote back to London, begging to be transferred, but it was no use. On Rarotonga he had to stay.

Much of the work was rather dull routine duties. He taught at the mission school, organizing com­petitions between the villages to see which one got the highest total of examination marks each summer. He felt that the islanders did not know enough of what went on in the world outside, so he repaired an old printing press and published a monthly newspaper. True, it had only four pages, but the islanders loved it.

The biggest difficulty in Rarotonga was the amount of drunkenness that went on. Even when rules were made forbidding the sale of strong drink, traders would land it in casks at night, like smugglers, and many of the chiefs themselves would secretly help. The chiefs went solemnly to Church on Sundays, so that for a long time Chalmers did not know who was to blame for encouraging the drinking. Gradually however he persuaded the chiefs that it was wrong to spend time drinking when they ought to be looking after their plantations, or repairing their houses.

The traders had been making a lot of money selling drink to the natives, and so were furious with Chalmers for spoiling their business. They called him every hard name they could think of, but Chalmers did not care. He always enjoyed a good fight.

Missionaries were important people to whom the local chiefs would often go for advice on difficult questions. Of course, a missionary could not insist that his advice was taken unless it was something to do with the mission itself.

There were many young men in Rarotonga who never went to Church, and Chalmers felt that if only he could win their support, they would be of great help in making improvements on the island. These young men used to brew their own beer from the oranges which grew abundantly on the island. They would meet together at night and drink until morning. Since they obviously were not going to come to him, Chalmers decided that the sensible thing was for him to go to them.

Late one night he went unexpectedly to the sacred grove where the young men were drinking. He heard laughter and singing, and then there was dead silence as he strode into the middle of a clearing and looked around. The flickering light from a huge fire in the centre gave a lurid bright­ness to the scene. Several big casks of beer showed that the meeting would continue for many hours. Fierce and handsome, the young men sat in a circle, their brown, naked bodies glistening in the firelight. Chalmers knew how quick-tempered and warlike they were, and he wanted to win their friendship and respect, not to turn them into enemies.

First of all he asked them to empty their cups of beer on to the ground. One by one they did so, but nobody said a word to him.

“I am your friend,” he began. “I want to tell you about Jesus Christ, and because you do not come to Church, where we learn about these things, I have come out here to meet you.” He told them a little, and then went away, hoping he had done some good.

A year or two later, he heard that these young men were being drilled regularly by a man from Tahiti. At once he thought how splendid it would be if these young men would put their energy to some good use connected with the mission. Again he went out to the sacred grove, and that night he was determined to make them do some­thing more than just listen to him.

“You meet for drill,” he told them. “Why don’t you come to Church so that you can lead better lives? If you want to stay as a volunteer band you must come to Church.”

One of the tallest young men rose to his feet.

“Are you trying to stop us drilling?” he de­manded angrily.

“Certainly not,” replied Chalmers briskly. “I think it is a very good thing.”

The young men looked at each other, and some of them nodded agreement. They would go to Church next Sunday. When Chalmers saw them in Church, he spoke particularly to them in a friendly way, which pleased them very much. Soon the other young men began going to Church as well, and they became very smart indeed, drilling in public, and being much admired by everyone on the island. Chalmers held special classes for them, and soon they were taking as much pride in the Church as in their own homes. When the Church needed repairs, it was these young men who did them quickly and cheerfully.

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Chalmers had now been working on Rarotonga for ten years, and although he loved the island and its people, he still wanted to go further afield. A few years previously, the New Guinea Mission of the London Missionary Society had been started, and part of Chalmers’s job on Rarotonga was to train native teachers who would go there to work under the supervision of white mission­aries. Again and again Chalmers had begged to be sent to New Guinea, but always the answer was that he was too useful on Rarotonga.

At last, however, the long-awaited summons came. He was to go to New Guinea, that wild, almost unexplored country—the largest island in the world after Australia—where the natives were said to be bloodthirsty headhunters who killed strangers on sight. Chalmers was sorry to say good-bye to his many friends on Rarotonga, but he was tremendously excited as he sailed away towards mysterious New Guinea.

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