After landing in a mangrove swamp, and wading through deep mud, he found that the Mahaga people had removed from their old site, and had built a strong fortification near the sea; and close above, so as to be reached by ladders resting on the wall, were six large tree- houses.
It had been raining heavily for a day or two, and the paths were so deep in mud that the bed of a water-course was found preferable to them. The bush had been cleared for some distance before the steep rocky mound where the village stood, surrounded by a high wall of stones, in which one narrow entrance was left, approached by a fallen trunk of a tree lying over a hollow. The huts were made of bamboo canes, and the floors, raised above the ground, were nearly covered with mats and a kind of basket work.
The tree-houses, six in number, were upon the tops of trees of great height, 50 feet round at the base, and all branches cleared off till near the summit, where two or three grew out at right angles, something after the manner of an Italian stone pine:-
'From the top of the wall the ladder that led to one of these houses was 60 feet long, but it was not quite upright, and the tree was growing at some little distance from the bottom of the rock, and the distance by a plumb line from the floor of the verandah to the ground on the lower side of the tree was 94 feet. The floor of the house, which is made first, was 23 feet long and about 11 broad; a narrow verandah is left at each end, and the inside length of the house is 18 feet, the breadth 10 feet, the height to the ridge pole 6 feet. The floor was of bamboo matted, the roof and sides of palm-leaf thatch. The ladders were remarkable contrivances: a pole in the centre, from 4 to 6 inches in diameter, to which were lashed by vines cross pieces of wood, about two feet long. To steady these and hold on by were double shrouds of supple-jacks. The rungs of the ladder were at unequal distances, 42 upon the 50 feet ladder.'
The Bishop and Pasvorang, who had gone ashore together, beheld men, women, and children running up and down these ladders, and walking about the bare branches, trusting entirely to their feet and not touching with their hands. The Bishop, in his wet slippery shoes, did not think it right to run the risk of an accident: and though Pasvorang, who was as much at home as a sailor among the ropes of the 'Southern Cross,' made the ascent, he came down saying, 'I was so afraid, my legs shook. Don't you go, going aloft is nothing to it;' but the people could not understand any dread; and when the Bishop said, 'I can't go up there. I am neither bird nor bat, and I have no wings if I fall,' they thought him joking. At the same time he saw a woman with a load on her back, quietly walking up a ladder to another tree, not indeed so lofty as that Pasvorang had tried, but as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and without attempting to catch hold with her hands.
'At night,' says the Bishop, 'as I lay ignominiously on the ground in a hut, I heard the songs of the women aloft as voices from the clouds, while the loud croaking of the frogs, the shrill noise of countless cicadas, the scream of cockatoos and parrots, the cries of birds of many kinds, and the not unreasonable fear of scorpions, all combined to keep me awake. Solemn thoughts pass through the mind at such times, and from time to time I spoke to the people who were sleeping in the hut with me. It rained heavily in the night, and I was not sorry to find myself at 7 A.M. on board the schooner.'
The next day was spent in doing the honours of the ship, a crowd on board all day; and on July 2 the Bishop landed again with Mr. Atkin, and mounted up to this wonderful nest, where all these measurements were made. It proved much more agreeable to look at from below than to inhabit 'the low steaming bamboo huts-the crowds, the dirt, the squalling of babies-you can't sit or stand, or touch anything that is not grimy and sooty and muddy. It is silly to let these things really affect one, only that it now seems rather to knock me up. After such a day and night I am very tired, come back to our little ship as to a palace, wash, and sit down on a clean, if not a soft stool, and am free for a little while from continual noise and the necessity of making talk in an imperfectly known language.
'It is really curious to see how in some way our civilised mode of life unfits one for living among these races. It is not to be denied that the want of such occupations as we are employed in is a large cause of their troubles. What are they to do during the long hours of night, and on wet, pouring days? They can't read, they can't see in their huts to do any work, making baskets, They must lie about, talking scandal and acquiring listless indolent habits. Then comes a wild reaction. The younger people like excitement as much as our young men like hunting, fishing, shooting, How can they get this? Why, they must quarrel and fight, and so they pass their time. It does seem almost impossible to do much for people so circumstanced; yet it was much the same in Mota and elsewhere, where things are altered for the better.'
It was bad and trying weather, and it was well to have only two old Banks Islanders on board, besides three Ysabel lads. The Bishop had plenty of time for writing; and for the first time in his life 'pronounced himself forward with that Report which was always on his mind.' He goes on: 'I read a good deal, but I don't say that my mind is very active all the time, and I have some schooling. Yet it is not easy to do very much mental work. I think that I feel the heat more than I used to do, but that may be only my fancy.
'You meantime are, I hope, enjoying fine summer weather. Certainly it must be a charming place that you have, close to that grand Church and grand scenery. I think my idea of a cosy home is rather that of a cottage in the Isle of Wight, or, better still, a house near such a Cathedral as Wells, in one of the cottages close to the clear streams that wind through and about the Cathedral precincts. But I can form no real notions about such things. Only I am pretty sure that there is little happiness without real hard work. I do long sometimes for a glorious Cathedral service, for the old chants, anthems, not for "functions" and "processions," I have read Freeman's pamphlet on "Ritual " with interest; he really knows what he writes about, and has one great object and a worthy one, the restoration of the universal practice of weekly communion as the special Sunday service. That all our preachifying is a wide departure from the very idea of worship is self-evident, when it is made more than a necessary part of the religious observance of the Lord's Day, and catechising is worth far more than preaching (in the technical sense of the word).'
A first visit was paid to Savo; where numerous canoes came out to meet them, one a kind of state galley, with the stem and stern twelve feet high, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and ornamented with white shells (most likely the ovum or poached egg), and containing the chief men of the island. The people spoke the Ysabel language, and the place seemed promising.
Some little time was spent in beating up to Bauro; where the Bishop again landed at Taroniara's village, and slept in his hut, which was as disagreeable as all such places were:-'Such a night always disturbs me for a time, throws everything out of regular working order; but it always pays, the people like it, and it shows a confidence in them which helps us on.
'I was disappointed though in the morning, when Taroniara declined to come with me to this place.
'My people say, "Why do you go away?"-the old stupid way of getting out of an engagement.' However, two others came to 'this place,' which was a hut in the village of Wango, which the Bishop had hired for ten days for the rent of a hatchet.
'A very sufficient rent too, you would say, if you could see the place. I can only stand upright under the ridge pole, the whole of the oblong is made of bamboo, with a good roof that kept out a heavy shower last night. There is a fresh stream of water within fifteen yards, where I bathed at 9 P.M. yesterday; and as I managed to get rid of strangers by 8.30, it was not so difficult to manage a shift into a clean and dry sleeping shirt, and then, lying down on Aunt William's cork-bed (my old travelling companion), I slept very fairly.