27 February 1835
Still no word from the Rev. Jefferson about a replacement for Rev. Stevens, though he assures me that my heathen brothers are no more or less important to the Lord than any other sinners.
I do not doubt the endeavours of the missionaries. Why would men and women from a land of plenty flout their lives so precariously upon these depths unless it was the Lord Himself who had commanded them forward? Yes, the white man has visited my shores before, other sailors who too risked the wrath of the waves to see our golden sands. But the whalers and sandalwood traders, the ships of war and escaping convicts, Capt. Bligh and his loyal charges, called only for their fruit and fish, freshwater and refuge, our women. And these ships and men, if not compelled to my lands in the name of God, were led by the lure of Satan and his meretricious dreams.
A time of change is about our islands, a future uncertain. The greatest fear I have is that the Rev. Thomas will step into the shoes of Rev. Stevens, and cast his substantial shadow across my sunlit home.
3 March 1835
At last! After five months of nothing but an oceanic horizon, we have sighted land! And this time, as confirmed by Capt. Drinkwater, it is not a continent of storm clouds.
The silhouette of Mount Dromedary was a stately welcome to the east coast of New Holland, and only the loss of our dear friends the Stevens could tinge what was a most cheering sight.
7 March 1835
Rockier, craggier, and higher than any mountain on my kingdom of islands, this land, in which I am told could fit a hundred Fijis, surely rivals the most spectacular works of His creation.
Rev. Jefferson gave a lecture on the history of this vast continent, from the landing of Cook and the Endeavour, to the oddities of wildlife that roam the interior – including giant mouse-like creatures that bounce upright on their hind legs – and the miserable state of the indigenes ‘who thus far have remained indifferent to civilisation and the care of our Lord, preferring to wallow in a miserable and heathen savagedom’. At this point the rev. addressed me directly, stressing that if I should learn anything on this short stay, it be that ‘those who refuse a hand up will remain sitting down’.
As I complete this entry, a call has sung out that the Port Jackson lighthouse has been sighted. Tomorrow I set foot on terra firma.
8 March 1835
How wonderful it is to walk upon ground that does not creek, groan and roll! While the Caroline is docked and the capt. oversees her servicing, myself, the reverends and their wives will be accommodated by the most welcoming Mr and Mrs Holloway – Mr Holloway being the chief superintendent of the Port Jackson Mission. Their wide smiles and delicious spread – Rev. Thomas almost devoured an entire plum pudding – was a warming sight indeed after the grim stares of the townsfolk, many with jaws agape at a man with my skin colour dressed as well as a dapper lord.
Though we travelled through the heart of the town I did not have chance to see an aboriginal among the settlers. But tomorrow, after a reception and service from the Port Jackson Wesleyans, our party will commence a short tour of this far reach of the British Empire.
9 March 1835
Refreshed after a long sleep on a bed free of motion, I began the day with vivacity and an inquisitive mind as to the marriage of England and this distant isle, looking forward to questioning an aborigine on how, and if, the white man had improved his lot.
After a morning service in the Macquarie Street Chapel, attended by several scores of worshippers, we set about the town at a leisurely pace – now free to walk farther than a ship’s length before turning about!
A penal colony this settlement may be, populated with the most wretched felons plucked from the darkest alleys of England, it is a fair attempt they have made on this infant town, with many shops and houses replications of those found in their homeland.
While we walked from street to street, often pausing to hear the merits of a building and its construction orated by Mr Holloway, my gaze wandered in search of an aborigine.
But on this first day I saw none, just the same beggarly elements – including the soldiers and gaolers – that inhabit the drinking dens of London. Though Mr Holloway was quick to remark that this is a colony where the condemned man can earn the key to his lock.
When I asked Rev. Jefferson if Fiji were to become another English prison he assured me that King George had different plans, chuckling, ‘What punishment a bounty of fruit and fish with a sweetening breeze?’ He also added, with a little more sobriety, that he had heard rumours from Govt that the carriage of convicts was about to cease, as many of the Port Jackson population had now ascended their nefarious histories and assumed positions of considerable importance, with voice enough to deem it a cruel and inhumane treatment and demand its cessation.
Disappointed not to greet an indigene, I asked Mr Holloway why the town seemed devoid of its original landowners. He answered by confirming the lecture of Rev. Jefferson that ‘many prefer a roof of stars to one of timber or stone’.
I too wondered if I might find the light of Heaven better than a town of drunkards and thieves, murderers and their despots?
18 March 1835
It is not unfair to say that the colonists of New South Wales are the ones wallowing in the mire of iniquity, not the aborigines – they, who despite not knowing the Saviour, live more virtuously than the superficial Christians of England.
On a ride through ‘the bush’ to preach at Richmond, accompanying the Reverends Jefferson and Thomas, I observed that the natives have little desire for religion, and services have thus been thinly attended. After preaching in a cold and leaking barn to a congregation of seven, Rev. Thomas was drawn to question, ‘Does the pitiable condition of these people prove that they are barely human, and no more beyond salvation than the kangaroos? Or simply that man without the Gospel is doomed?’
I turned away from the contempt of Rev. Thomas, and sought air beyond the stifled carriage. It was not my place to debate with him before his senior, but he should know that my brothers and sisters, those who have lived for generations with only their invented deities, are not without society, its moral codes, ceremonies, songs and stories.
It seems absurd that I have passed judgement on those not aware of their crimes. Only if the indigenes of New Holland, or Fiji, know the truth of God and then turn away, can I mark them as sinners.
19 March 1835
On return to Port Jackson I was summoned to a meeting at the Macquarie Street Chapel with Reverends Jefferson, Lilywhite, Thomas, and new member of the mission, a Rev. Collins. After making formal acquaintance with Rev. Collins, I briefly met his wife and three sons, all of who will be accompanying him to Lakemba, before the business of a replacement for the late Rev. Stevens commenced.
My heart may have sank when I learned that the Rev. Thomas would be bearing the torch of God into Fiji, but my countenance was kept free of disappointment as I held out my hand to shake his in congratulation.
I pray that a man who has pledged his life to the Lord may be blessed so.
21 March 1835
Once more we board the Caroline and make the sea our home. After nearly three weeks on the edge of this tremendous island, visiting churches and towns along the Hawkesbury Valley, and stepping the streets of Sydney, from the glories of the Botanic Gardens, to the debauched nights of convicts and soldiers at the Rocks, my anxieties for the future of the aborigines now transform to apprehension for my own people.
The few indigenes I encountered seem a people lost of spirit, and of home. Though I use the word home only as an Englishman would, for the aboriginals are not dwellers of a fixed place, and seem to have been disenfranchised by this new world suddenly upon their shores.
The lessons I have learned from this colony are warnings, a prophecy of what my people could become at the hands of foreign rulers. The men who followed in the wake of Cook came with aggrandised visions of themselves, judging the husbands of these shores a lowly and pitied tribe of the human race,
lacking the intelligence to even build a house or clothe their bodies.
But if peace with the land be a measure of civilisation, a harmonic balance between man and animal, where all flourish and prosper, then it would have been the Englander deemed savage – he who has blackened the skies with soot and smoke, who crooks the backs of his children in sunless workhouses, who feeds himself fat while his brothers starve.
Virtuous and brave is the aborigine who resists the feeble vanities of his godless invaders. If only those who followed Cook had read his logbook entry on these enlightened people:
They may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans: being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary Conveniences so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life.
22 March 1835
Once more the horizon pitches and we walk on tilting ground. However, the voyage to Tonga will be a brief three weeks on the waves, and again I will be busied with the instruction of Fijian.
The Rev. Thomas, in comparison to the late Rev. Stevens, is a difficult and unruly student, contesting much of what I teach – despite his ignorance of my language – and most prickly towards any correction. I am shamed to admit that thoughts of sabotaging his progress have entered my mind, as the longer he is reliant upon me as his interpreter, the better I can temper his message. If it were him alone I were instructing, I fear the urge to filter his words would prevail, but as my class also contains the Rev. Collins, his wife, and their eldest son, I am true to the grammar and syntax of my mother tongue.
11 April 1835
I have had little time to sit with my journal this voyage, as mornings have been occupied teaching Fijian or assisting Rev. Thomas and Collins with a translation of Matthew 3:2: Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand – to be used as an introductory service.
The afternoons have been available for the brethren and their families to ask questions about the manners and customs of Fijian society – twice the children have been sent away, firstly when the discourse ventured towards cannibalism, and secondly when I began explaining the ritual strangulation of widows upon the death of their husbands.
Mrs Collins quite recoiled at this sad truth, an act of love and obedience I once considered necessary, but now realise is no more than barbaric superstition.
14 April 1835
Rougher conditions – though the ocean is a millpond compared to the great storm that beset the Caroline north of New Holland – have not slowed our progress to Tonga, but the Collins family, after two years of landlubbing in Port Jackson, have been too seasick to attend classes.
Therefore it has been the Rev. Thomas and I alone, which has offered him the lead on the subject of Fijian customs. Once again I am fielding questions about our womenfolk, war, and the occasional detail of our many false gods. Since the change of office for Rev. Thomas, I have observed he has become most energetic about mission business, ensuring our supplies and livestock are prepared and ready to be unloaded, and making considerable progress in his Fijian – despite his reluctance to have myself as his teacher.
22 April 1835
Two days among the Tongans and I am overwhelmed with a desire to see my island. The mission in Nuku’ alofa has converted many heathen to Christian, and raises my spirits to what is possible in Fiji, as the happy Tongans seem ready to serve their new god with hearty willingness.
In an audience with King Tupou, we were presented with a pig and two baskets of yams, breadfruit and bananas. His majesty is a tall and well-muscled man, shining with coconut oil and that glorious Pacific sun. In his company, after ten years in dreary climes, I felt poorly before his gleaming health! Although he was at first curious about my time in England, he soon tired of hearing tales of a land he could not see – a trait of character shared by my Fijian brothers.
Am I to be a castaway for ever from the land of my birth? Stranded in some netherworld between England and Fiji?
24 April 1835
Sabbath, and the chapel bulged with a most eager congregation, all ears on the Rev. James and his service, finely delivered in impeccable Tongan. I believe the Rev. Thomas was simultaneously pleased and disheartened to attend, as despite not understanding a single word, he understood what sway the Lord may have when delivered in the language of his eager subjects.
On return to the bay Rev. Thomas began practising what Fijian he has thus far learned, and also requested the dictionary notes I have been hastily preparing.
2 May 1835
With the wind beginning to blow our way, Capt. Drinkwater has spent the day busying his men and readying the masts and rigging of the Caroline. He is keen to leave this idyllic port, as he and his officers have had to keep a tight rein on the less than Christian members of his crew – more sailors romanced on the erotic tales of Cook in Tahiti – who have rarely been far from the Tongan maidens. ‘It has been like asking children to stand in a sweet shop with their hands in their pockets,’ he confessed.
Though I have not written for a week, I should keep this entry brief, as before sunset I have to instruct the Rev. Thomas once more, now an exemplary student who has made rapid progress since our arrival, surpassing both the Rev. Collins and his able wife as a speaker of Fijian.
3 May 1835
Next port of call, Fiji! With a favourable wind we are but two days from the southern tip of my kingdom.
A great many Tongans came to sing us off, the hymns reverberating around the bay and keeping all on-board in quiet reverence until their fading.
4 May 1835
My hand trembles like a leaf. I can barely write knowing that the next rock to jut from this glittering sea will be Lakemba, my home, the land of my mother and father.
5 May 1835
Almost ten years since I left her shores, after a voyage around the globe and back, with a new language upon my tongue, and an old God above my head, I return to Fiji.
We have anchored just beyond the reef system, as the capt. will not sail any closer until he has made certain the dangers of the waters. And of my people. Therefore it has been decided that myself, Revs Thomas and Collins, along with six crewmembers, will row ashore in the pinnace.
With his eyeglass extended, the capt. informs me that he can see hundreds running back and forth across the sands ‘naked but for their glinting muskets, bows and arrows, and masks. No, not masks. Faces, painted as red as blood or as black as tar’.
We will land, with I as foreign as my passengers, the uninvited guests. I must sing out our welcome before an arrow of fear pierces my chest.
Stolen Car
Jimmy walked into the services. He hovered between the rows of snacks. He slipped two king-size Mars Bars and a pack of Ritz biscuits into his inside pocket before going to the counter for a box of matches.
‘How much is that?’
‘Thirty pence, please.’
‘Thirty p. for matches?’ He said it like she was wrong.
The girl stared. ‘Where else you gonna buy ’em?’
Jimmy gave her a pound and thought about taking a pack of Polos off the counter. The girl quickened in her turn and he moved his hand away as though he was touching to check they were real.
His body flinched in the sharpened wind. He felt the wetness of his trainers and weighted clothes. He walked to the south exit through the truck park, passing between hulks of trailers streaked and blackened with spray and rain.
A man was already waiting at the exit with a cardboard sign that said: Bedford Please. Jimmy walked to the top of a small bank and squatted on his haunches. He took out the pack of Ritz biscuits and ate them two or three at a time, watching cars accelerate up the slip road. He then ate a Mars Bar and saved the other for later. His clenched hands were pulled inside his sleeves and p
ushed hard into his pockets. He was motionless in the wind, and waited beneath a small and leafless tree. Passengers who saw him on the bank stared. He looked too young to be standing out in the rain on the edge of the M1.
When the other hitcher got into a car he actually turned and looked around to Jimmy. He turned as though Jimmy had called out his name even though he had not.
Next, an orange, rusting Metro pulled up. A small man in his late fifties, dressed in a cord blazer beckoned Jimmy into his car as though they were part of a getaway. Jimmy hesitated, looked again at his frailty and size and opened the door.
He regretted getting in the moment the door shut. There was a faint smell of shit, and although not filthy, nothing had ever been wiped or cleaned. A film of dust on every surface.
Before a greeting the man talked himself through the manoeuvres of pulling off the exit road.
‘First, mirror, accelerate, second, third, lane clear.’
He spoke the instructions with a flourish. Jimmy watched his jerky and mouse-like movements, leaning over the wheel and too close to the windscreen. They lurched on to the inside lane and slowed the car behind. It flashed angrily.
‘Bloody lunatics,’ he said. ‘People drive much too fast these days.’ As the car overtook he shouted, ‘Do you want to go to hospital? Moron.’ The words reverberated in the little Metro. ‘Now then, where did you say you were going?’
‘London,’ Jimmy answered as he spoke over him.
‘Was it London?’
‘Yeah, to see me auntie.’
Jimmy squirmed in his seat and looked at the car. Empty except for a pack of mints where a radio should have been. The driver was still hunched over the wheel when he turned to look at Jimmy properly. He smiled as though through an injury that hurt.
‘An auntie in London, I see, no problem, although I’m from Wales I know England very well. I’m visiting my sister in Kent this week.’
He spoke quickly and fired pieces of spit like fluff. He had broken veins in his nose and cheeks. His top lip would sometimes stick to his teeth, and he had a cut from shaving that morning. Jimmy liked nothing about him. He drove and moved, checked the rear-view mirror nervously every few seconds and never stopped correcting the line of the car, even if it was centred in the lane.
Show Me The Sky Page 11