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Sanitary conditions there were most disheartening, as at least half of the inhabitants were leprous, and most of them suffered from tuberculosis or elephantiasis. I saw hardly any children, so that the village will shortly disappear, like so many others. Native customs along the coast are much the same as at Port Olry, but less primitive, and the houses are better built.
I left most of my luggage behind, and the schooner of the French survey party was to bring it to Port Olry later on. After a passage considerably prolonged by contrary winds, we arrived at Vao, a small island north-east of Malekula. When one has sailed along the lifeless, greyish-green shores of Malekula, Vao is like a sunbeam breaking through the mist.
A heavy sea broke the rudder, and altogether it was high time to land when we entered Port Olry in the late afternoon. A few days later I started for Hog Harbour, for the plantation of the Messrs. Th., near which I meant to attend a great feast, or "sing-sing." This meant a march of several hours through the bush.
We anchored at a headland near a small river, and were cordially welcomed by the missionary's dogs, cats, pigs and native teacher. There was also a young girl whom the father had once dug out of her grave, where a hard-hearted mother had buried her. I had an extremely interesting time at Port Olry.
To-day these long, dark, deserted houses are too dismal for the few remaining men, so that they generally build a small gamal beside the big one. To have killed a man, no matter in what way, is a great honour, and gives the right to wear a special plume of white and black feathers. Such plumes are not rare in Port Olry.
Port Olry is the only place in the New Hebrides where the women carry loads on their heads. Everywhere else they carry them on their backs in baskets of cocoa-nut leaves. In consequence the women here are remarkable for their erect and supple carriage.
One man had received the forearm and hand, and while he was chewing the muscles and pulling away at the inflectors of the fingers, the hand closed and scratched his cheek, "all same he alive," whereupon the horrified guest threw his morsel away and fled into the forest. On my return to Port Olry I found that the Father had gone to visit a colleague, as his duties did not take up much of his time.
While I killed and skinned a big snake, a large crowd always surrounded me, ever ready for flight, and later my boys chased them with the empty skin, a performance which always ended in great laughing and dancing. I had been in Port Olry for three weeks, waiting anxiously every day for the Marie-Henry, which was to bring the luggage I had left behind at the Segond Channel.
His post at Port Olry was rather a forlorn hope, as the natives showed no inclination to become converts, especially not in connection with the poor Roman Catholic mission, which could not offer them any external advantages, like the rich and powerful Presbyterian mission. All the priests lived in the greatest poverty, in old houses, with very few servants.
I went to Port Olry to my old priest's house, and a few days later Mr. Th. came in his cutter to take me to Tassimaloun in Big Bay; so I bade a hearty farewell to the good Father, whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting again. There are hardly any natives left in the south of the Bay of St. Philip and St. James, generally called Big Bay.
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