SAVAGE ISLAND
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

South Sea Yarns
The Diversions of a Prime Minister
A Court Intrigue
The Indiscretions of Lady Asenath
SAVAGE ISLAND

AN ACCOUNT OF A SOJOURN
IN NIUÉ AND TONGA
By BASIL C. THOMSON
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1902

PREFACE
NIUÉ, more commonly known as SavageIsland, lies 1,000 miles N.N.E. of New Zealand,and 300 miles S.S.E. of Samoa, in the loneliestspot in that part of the Pacific. Its iron-boundcoasts tempt no vessels to call for supplies. Atrare intervals great four-masted timber-shipspass in the offing; more rarely still schoonerscall to replenish the stock of the traders andto carry away their copra.
I went to the Niuéans in the name of theQueen and Empress whom the world is stilllamenting, and I do not like to think of whatour loss means to the people in these remoteoutposts of her Empire. The oldest native in theSouth Seas remembers no sovereign's name buthers. She was a real person to them all; a ladywho had made them her especial care, had sentthe gospel to them, and had bade them lay asidetheir clubs, and live in peace, order, and equity.Vika, as they called her affectionately—Vika,after whom they named their girl-children—wasthe benign, all-powerful chief, whose house wasbuilt upon the coral strand of Lonitoni (London),opposite the landing-place, where her men-o'-warwere moored stem and stern in rows before herdoor. She read their letters with her own eyes,and had her captains to sit before her on thefloor-mats while she gave them messages forthe brown folk in far islands. And now Vika,the well-beloved, has left them, mourned by theempire of which they were but the tiniest part.It was hers, and she never saw it; but we, whohave seen it—who have, in the humblestway, helped in the making of it—think withheavy hearts of how much hangs upon a name,and of how hard it will be to reassure them,when, as they say of their own dead kings, "kuohala 'ae langi"—"the heaven has fallen."
Northampton, 1901
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
The Island and its People 
1
CHAPTER II
Affairs of State 
23
CHAPTER III
The King of all Niué 
34
CHAPTER IV
A Trip through the Island 
49
CHA                        
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