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After two days it cleared up a little; I went ashore at the west point of Gaua, where the launch was to pick me up again two days later, as I meant to visit the interior while the others went to buy coprah.
There were many palm trees, plantains, verdure, abundant water, and the land was thickly inhabited. The circumference was about 50 leagues, though some gave it much more and thought that it would support about 200,000 inhabitants. Its latitude was 14° 30'. Owing to its great beauty, it was named Virgen Maria; it is the modern Gaua, in the Banks' group.
And we must associate with this theology the cemetery theory of the soul which preceded that of the Osiris or Ra religions. For instance the words sek, to move; seg, to go; sek, to destroy; sega, to break; kauy, cow; gaua, ox; keba and geba, sky, etc.
Above this gloomy scene stretched a sky of serenest blue, and we had a glimpse of the coast, with its little islands bathing in the sapphire sea. Next day we left for Gaua.
Representations of the whole body are frequent, so are female statues; these I have only found again in Gaua, where they are probably modern inventions. Sometimes a fish or a bird is carved on the statue, probably as a survival of old totemistic ideas, and meant to represent the totem animal of the ancestor or of his clan.
In this nasty sea we were afraid she might turn turtle, as another steamer had done some months ago. The storm became such that we had to lie at anchor for five days, sheltered by the coast of Gaua. It was with real relief that I left the Southern Cross at Port Vila; sorry as I was to leave my friends on board, I did not envy them the long voyage to New Zealand.
An excursion to Gaua was a failure, owing to bad weather. After having shivered in a wet hut for four days, we returned to Port Patterson only just in time; for in the evening the barometer fell, a bad sign at that season, and the wind set in afresh. The launch was anchored in a sheltered corner of the bay, near an old yacht and a schooner belonging to Mr. W., a planter on a neighbouring islet.
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