Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [39]
After several minutes of silent contemplation, I surprised both the rev. and myself with a candid reply. I first answered that of course I wished the mission to be a success, and that the light of the Lord illuminate the shadows of my darkened land. The rev. had time enough to utter an ‘Amen’ before I continued – perhaps where I should have stopped. I told the rev. that I prayed daily for the deliverance of my people from the soulless ways of the white man who lives with God in his head but not in his heart, he who is a slave to the ticking clock, he who chases metal and paper, he who makes a life collecting more things for his home than could be found in a whole village, he who would have his brother sleep on the street while his house had empty rooms.
I could have talked until the day was out, but I looked in the eyes of the Rev. Stevens and saw his gentle and mild face now anxious and perplexed. Then he turned away from the cabin to the porthole, to the azure sea blazing. After several minutes of silence, just the slap of waves against the hull, the incessant creak of a thousand caulked and fastened planks, the rev. turned back to the room. ‘My dear Nelson,’ he said softly. ‘I could not agree more. We love to talk about progress, industry and civilisation, but so often these words come at a cost to the soul, an affront to He who created us. But Fiji …’ The rev. paused and clasped his hands, as though I were the entire kingdom of islands right there before him. ‘Fiji is a chance to start from the beginning, a land not yet poisoned by the vices of the modern world, of money and greed. We are returning to Eden, to a man and woman in their utter nakedness, lost of body and spirit, no God to instruct what is night and day but us, you and I, blessed to speak with His voice. Yes, we step on to the shores of your darkened land with the burden of a great responsibility, as the sole bringers of light, the knowledge to create a new world. But fear not, in my, sorry, our hands, it is a righteous power.’
With this final word he actually glowed, his face danced upon by the sunlight reflecting from the sea. He rocked back and forth upon his stool like an excited child. Only when the sound of splashing disturbed the reverie did I feel excused to move. I stood at one porthole and the rev. the other. We watched a shoal of flying fish leap and skitter across the waves, scattering from a flock of diving gulls that hovered, swooped, and pierced the ocean like arrows. Not once did they fail to surface without a silver prize glittering in their beaks.
12 January 1835
Nearly two weeks since my confession to the Rev. Stevens, and I have not once sat with my journal.
Why this is so, I am uncertain. Though much of my thinking has been forward rather than backward, away from the land that has put the pen in my hand, their words in my mouth. And while expressing my fears to the rev. seems to have left him energised, more studious than ever with his Fijian lessons, I wake with a shadow of apprehension at my side. I am once again fearful of what tomorrow may bring, that this very ship will be anchored in my bay, that a man as meek and good-natured as the Rev. Stevens relishes himself as ‘a bringer of light’, and speaks about the future Fiji as though he himself were its creator.
18 January 1835
Despite my affection for the dolphin and its joyful dance above the waves, I am not so in love to refuse a slice of its delicious meat, and was most pleased this afternoon when the midshipman stuck several with a harpoon and handed them to the cook. But, it was with a degree of disgust from our fellow diners that the Rev. Thomas and I tucked into a fine steak this evening. To add insult to those who had lost their appetite, the Rev. Thomas thence called upon me to support his opinion that if we eat but