98



Sydney Porter—Notes on Birds of Fiji



to Kandavu was more like a chapter from a tale of the South Seas of

a century ago than anything belonging to the present day. The

schooner, a - vessel of about 80 tons, had been built—well, I never found

out the date, but it must have been far back in the dim and distant

past. It would never do to sail anything but an old derelict in those

waters for owing to every island being encircled by coral reefs, the

mortality amongst the ships is very high and I doubt if any company

would ensure them, if indeed the natives have heard of insurance, except

from the missionaries, who charge a pretty high premium for the

insurance of their souls ! In a few years’ time nearly all the boats come

to the same end : they get their backs broken on some uncharted

coral reef.


We (the dusky captain, the agents, myself, etc.) occupied what

was ironically called “ Stateroom No. 0 ”, and what a stateroom it was !

It was also the pantry, general store, and incidentally the home of

hundreds of huge cockroaches about three inches long and an inch

wide across the back, which travelled at an incredible speed all over

everything, ourselves included. Sometimes there was a general panic

amongst them, or it may just have been an extra exuberance of spirit,

for they would simultaneously all rush out of their hiding places and

career all over the cabin. At night they were most active and fed upon

our hair, eyebrows, and the skin on the soles of our feet ! When we

retired to rest, or at least got into our bunks, one could see them

poking their wicked looking heads over the sides and waving their

long antennse to see if one was asleep. No one seemed to mind these

creatures very much and in time I got quite used to them.


The menu was not very varied, it consisted of stale bread, at least

what the cockroaches left, tinned bully beef, and boiled green bananas.

I chose the latter. On the way over the small auxiliary engine broke

down, there was no wind, and we just drifted at the mercy of the

currents. My heart sank into my shoes when the captain, a hefty

Tongan Islander, told me that he had never been in these waters

before and knew nothing about the positions of the reefs which abounded

on every hand.


A wind sprang up at last and we decided to return to Suva to have

the engine repaired ; so, apparently, vanished my hopes of seeing this



