| Show written for this paper TRAVELS LETTER NO wednesday august I 1 started out from my lodgings in suva fiji tor for a morning walk along the bay and the day being cool and peasant piea sant I 1 continued on past the colonial prison and the suva graveyard the latter being situated about two miles north of the center of suva near the point where the tarn tam abua river puts into the bay the stream looking so clear and beautiful I 1 yielded to the temptation oi of taking a bath but found the water rather cold which is no wonder as this is fijian winter the tamavua river is quite wide at its mouth but is not very long from that stream the suva water works obtains its S supply ly j of water the courtesy of henry millen esq the superintendent of alt all the government overn ment prisons of the fijian group government was shown through the entire prison premises by the jailor mr fred the ground covers several acres and there are at prest nt male ano 9 female offenders jers incarcerated of the male convicts three are whites and one is a half cast the rest are fijians and coolies natives ot of Hond Honc lostan and the east indies indies only eight are imprisoned for life most ot of the others are in for short terms and about half ot of them are sexual offenders people who have been convicted of adultery and forni fornication against which of fences there are very stringent laws formerly when a man seduced his neighbors wile ofle or daughter the husband or lather of the woman thus wronged would watch for an opportunity to club the be offender to death this being the custom of the country but since the english fairly got control of the government this custom has been abolished by law and imprisonment varying in length from one to twelve months substituted in lieu thereof unfortunately this law is inoperative so far as the whites concerned are mr was waa of the opinion that white offenders of which there undoubtedly are many had succeeded so far in clearing themselves by paying cert certain i n amounts of atad money as none ot of them nad as yet been convicted or sent to jail for sexual crimes the officers of the prison there are at present a large number of native sub officers two of whom are women sometimes have to resort to stringent measures in order to preserve peace in the household thus I 1 was shown a regular flogging post to which offenders occasionally are bound while their backs are being lashed with a forked prison thong the number of lashes inflicted i vary all the way from two to twenty and are administered by a powerful matve guard while the victim is securely tied to the post by the wrists and ankles his body leaning forward at an angle of about forty five degrees I 1 only saw one prisoner in chains he was a desperate indian or coolie who triad to escape from the jail a short time ago the great majority of the prisoners sleep in a roomy and well ventilated bunkhouse bunk house whilo while the worst criminals are locked up at nights in separate cells which are prepared in a small adjacent concrete building the women prison ers occupy ft t small house by themselves and the europeans also occupy separate quart rs all able bodied prisoners nave i 10 0 work on the outside about eight hours a day they are mostly employed in making roads and around working in the government buildings and in the harbor while strolling along in the neighborhood of the graveyard I 1 suddenly came upon a small party of natives armed with long sharp bladed knives for a moment all the horrors of cannibalism rushed to my mind but as they simply smiled and shook their heads as I 1 ad dressed them in english and made no move toward seizing me I 1 soon breathed more freely and also aino discovered that their long knives were intended for cutting grass instead of human beings As they could understand neither english or danish neither my very limited stock of hawaiian words and their sounds failing to make me either wiser or better we parted with smiles all around and after walking a short distance I 1 sat down by the road side and read the following from Stan fords compendium of geography and travel the manners and morals of the fijians are in in many respects those of a civilized people yet perhaps nowhere in the woi id has human life been so recklessly destroyed or cannibalism been reduced to such a system as here human flesh was he F fians greatest luxury and not only enemies or slaves but sometimes even wives children and friends were sacrificed to gratify it at great feasts it was not uncommon to see twenty human bodies cooked at a time and on the demand of a chief for long pig which is their euphemism for a human body his attendants would rush out and kill the he first person they met rather than fail to gratify him no less horrible were the human sacrifices which attended most of their ceremonies when a chief died a whole hecatomb becanon b of wives and slaves had to be buried alive with him when a chiefs house was built the hole for each post must have a slave to hold it up and be buried with it when a great war canoe was to be launched or to be brought home it must be dragged to or from the water over living human beings tied between two p andain stems ito to serve as rollers stranger still and altogether incredible were it not noc vouched couched for by independent testimony of the most satisfactory char acter these people scrupled not to themselves to a horrible death to satisfy the cle demands manes of custom or to avoid ahoi t the he ge finger of scorn so firm was their belief lief in a future state in which the actual condition of the dying person was perpetuated petua ted that on the first symptoms sym of uld old age and weakness parents with their own tree iree consent were buried by their children A missionary was actually invited by a young man to attend the funeral ol of his mother who herself walk ed cheerfully cheer lully to the grave and was there buried while a young man who was unwell and not able to eat was voluntarily buried alive because as he himself said if he could not eat he be should get thin and weak and the girls would call him a skeleton and laugh at him he wis was buried by his bis own lather father and when he asked tobe strangled firsth ewas scold ed and told to be quiet and be buried like other people and give them no nore more trouble and he was buried accordingly thursday august fth I 1 took a long walk along the beach and around the peninsula on which suva is situa situated situates tec visiting on my way the large and commodious native government building erected for the accommodation of those fijians who are in the employ of the government there are quite a number of these buildings bui dings and nearly all the male occupants have the title buta chief prefixed to their names some of them being members of the royal family As most of them could speak english I 1 had no trouble to introduce myself to some of nt the leading men who in turn introduced me to others thus I 1 became acquainted with kadadu levu a grandson of pronounced the former king of fiji and his two lady cousins also grandchildren of the late king who were there on a visit the oldest of these girls whose name is letio lydia ranks as one of the prettiest women among the fijians Fiji ans she is nineteen years old and about to be married to a young chief at bawa her sister Vui kaba seventeen years old is also a handsome woman lor for a fijian both rank as princesses through the courtesy of kadadu levu the doctor and other leading natives I 1 was taken into several houses and introduced to a number ot of families who all seemed very comfortable and everything about their dwellings tidy and clean some of the houses are 40 feet long by 35 25 feet wide and very strongly built the interior is all one room but often as many as halt half a dozen doors opens to the outside the floors are all covered with mats and that part which constitutes the bed is generally raise raised d a foot or so above the rest of the floor in my walk I 1 passed a large gang of prisoners working on the road for which some were quarrying rock and others were packing these rocks on their heads from the quarry or end of tramway to such parts of the road as needed them it was a strange sight to see this long string of almost naked men walking in single file with their heavy burdens and it reminded me very much of the pictures I 1 have seen representing the children ot of israel in bondage in egypt most of afi the prisoners were indians but there were also quite a number of fijians Fiji ans further on I 1 came to an indian village c containing on t i a bout about two hundred families who live in small inconvenient and dirty huts buts they are people who were brought in to the country as contract or indentured laborers and who alter serving their five years as such are trying to raise rice or do something for a t living till another five years have passed when ehdy are entitled to a free passage back to india I 1 was told that mo mot most t of them avail themselves of this opportunity not being pleased enough with fiji to make it their permanent home finding a young fellow who could talk a little En english glisn I 1 was piloted by him into several bouses where I 1 had an opportunity of studying for the interior arrangements of the houses of these unfortunate people in going through the village I 1 seemed to arouse considerable curiosity as people were peeping out irom from almost every door but I 1 was not molested by anyone I 1 heard considerable boisterous language used in differ ent nt places and my guide informed me that a general quarrel was taking place and that it was an almost every day occurrence the indians being a very quarrelsome race one little man who came running through the village at full speed seemed to be at war with all the rest as he jawed right and left and shook his fist eminently at some women who seemed to make sport of him the indians are a very verv small race of people being in this respect opposite to the fijians who are area a tall and strongly built specimen oi of humanity the indian women are great hands lor for ornamenting their persons they decorate their ears noses necks arms wais s fingers ankles toes etc with all sorts of bracelets chains and rings these thebe are sometimes made of gold and silver and in other instances of brass and other cheap materials one woman whose curiosity led her to come up close to me when I 1 had sat down to rest on the beach was almost covered with english silver money through which holes had been bored and then tied to cords of various lengths to suit different parts ot of the limbs and the neck after visiting the indian village which is situa ed on the op sit side of the peninsula from suva t I 1 walked across the intervening hills to the latter place a distance ol of about two and a halt miles being quite tired after my days ramble though I 1 had only walked about eight miles out the day was hot and sultry and a man cant walk in a tropical country the same as he can in a colder climate ANDREW JENSON SUVA Viti levu fiji august ath 1895 |
