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The crowd did not seem pleased at my coming, and criticized me in undertones. A terrible smell of decomposed meat filled the air; evidently they had all partaken of a half-rotten pig, and the odour did not seem to trouble them at all. The chief was a tall man, bald-headed, wearing the nambas, of larger size than those of the others, and with both arms covered with pigs' tusks to show his rank.
He lived there as a widower, devoting all his strength, time and thought to the spiritual and physical welfare of the natives. Malekula has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous islands in the group. The natives in the north, the Big Nambas, are certainly not very gentle, and the others, too, are high-spirited and will not submit to ill-treatment from the settlers.
But this district is just where the best workmen come from, and the population is densest, and that is why the recruiters have tried again and again of late years to get hold of Big Nambas, but with little success, for so far only few men have enlisted. One of them was on our cutter, and had to serve as interpreter. The other four of the five boys were from Malekula, a little farther south.
We had no reason to be vain of our success; but such trips are part of the game, and we planned a second visit to Big Nambas to reconcile the chief. We were glad to greet the cloud-hung coast of Santo, and soon entered the Segond Channel.
They watch the women and prevent child-murder and such things, and although their reign is one of terror, their influence, as a whole, on the race is not bad, because they suppress many vices that break out as soon as they slacken their severity. The chiefs in Big Nambas seem to have felt this, and systematically opposed the intercourse with whites.
In the late afternoon we approached the north point of Malekula, and followed the west coast southward, towards the country of the "Big Nambas" our destination. Contrasting with other islands of the archipelago, Malekula does not seem densely covered with vegetation at this point.
On the water we were in perfect safety, for the villages lie far inland, and the Big Nambas are no sailors, hate the sea and possess no canoes. They only come to the beach occasionally, to get a few crabs and shell-fish, yet each tribe has its own place on the shore, where no stranger is admitted.
The district of the Big Nambas, to whose shores we had come, takes its name from the size of a certain article of dress, the "Nambas," which partly replaces our trousers, and is worn in different forms over the greater part of the archipelago, but nowhere of such size as here. It is such an odd object that it may well give its name to the country.
We were not in the brightest of humours ourselves, as this event had considerably lessened our chances of recruiting at Big Nambas; the chief made us responsible for Bourbaki's death, and asked an indemnity which we could hardly pay, except with the tusked pigs we demanded here.
Big Nambas is still the least known part of the islands, and hardly any white has ever set foot in the interior. Unlike those of other districts, the natives here have preserved their old habits and strict organization, and this is evidently the reason why they have not degenerated and decayed.
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