A day of less mechanical and more cultural education for a change – as we piled into water taxis and headed over to Casino Island to look at the newly opened Island Life Gallery! Although Spontoon is hardly billed as a great cultural destination in the brochures (which make much of the casino, night-clubs and beaches), at least one museum is open this time of year. To be strictly accurate, actually it opens next month, but our Tutors had arranged preview tickets.

            The Gallery is just up the hill from the South Ferry Plaza, looking out over the roof of the Coconut Shell – a handy stroll for any tourists on a Sunday afternoon. Just outside is a row of ferocious-looking Pacific sculptures, rather like the ones found on Easter Island (though more like those of Walpurgis-Night Atoll). From a poster inside the hallway we discovered that they are not actually a thousand years old, but new designs by a local sculptor, Mr. Ricky Tikitavi. Hardly a minute later, we saw the sculptor himself walk past, looking exactly like his photograph. Being dressed something like an aviator helps – he has a most Futuristic high collar looking as if it is made to seal onto a helmet.

            Jasbir Sind is always interested in the local cultures – and having spotted Mr. Tikitavi as having ancestry in her own part of the world, she made her introduction (etiquette books say the daughter of a Maharajah can properly introduce herself if no more eminent personages are around – which is the usual case on Spontoon.) It seems that he is paid by the Althing for commissions – they let him exhibit his own work around the islands, in exchange for various special projects that he undertakes for them.

            A fascinating museum! I fear that Helen looked bored to tears, her rather ruthlessly practical education having instilled little reverence for the finer arts.  Still, there were some canvases that she rather liked – an abstract skyscape from around 1920, with a pair of fighter dirigibles rising out of a billowing cloud field.  Naturally, there was nothing on Spontoon’s troubles in the Gunboat Wars – very unlike home. Even quite small towns in Barsetshire tend to have marble statues commemorating some heroic bayonet-charge or other against uncivilised Natives – of course, the Spontoonies being Natives themselves, are unlikely to have a balanced view on this.

            Hurrah! Our tutor Miss Blande managed to persuade Mr. Tikitavi to let us see his new works, some fascinating “landscape sculptures” that have appeared in the newspapers. Just as the museum exhibits many strange and enigmatic pieces of ancient artwork, by all accounts the latest public sculptures are so modernist that critics can stand around all day arguing violently about what they really mean. And the locals will no doubt be there with a refreshment wagon to make a useful business out of the whole show.

March 9th, 1935

A fine day indeed, and not only for the weather.  After a whole term, the much-coveted gramophone is back in our dorm, and our favourite “V-Gerat” records are being loudly and triumphantly played. (Especially the “Fire and Ice” album, which we have almost worn the grooves off by now. The tones from their supercharged Mark 19 model Theramins are powerful enough for the final-stage exciter coils to need water-cooled solid silver wiring.)

            For the past two months, Prudence’s dorm has won the prize – but, sad to report, they are currently ranked right at the bottom of the form, having lost more marks this week than Madelene X ever did on Gunboat Atoll. Irma Bundt began the first term in that dorm and was transferred out to join Jasbir – she had hinted to me before that she would like to meet someone like Jirry for herself – but that her ex-dorm mates would prefer to be introduced to his sisters. Indeed – our Tutors are quite even-handed about this, and knock off Quite as many points for Prudence trying unsuccessfully to smuggle her dorm’s friends from South Island into our compound, as they would if we were foolish enough to try and do the same with the Hoele’toemi brothers.

            Poor Prudence – she should have used more of the virtue she is named after, thinking she had any chance of managing such a feat at Songmark! The place has a Reputation to maintain after all – so no passes for her dorm, or trips to South Island to play netball or anything else next week. (But the ban only applies to next week – our Tutors are strict but hardly cruel, and absence makes the heart grow fonder.)

            Tomorrow, we are heading out on another Field Trip – the exploration of Main Island that we had scheduled until the chance to visit Gunboat Atoll turned up.  Miss Blande is taking us all, and we may even see Mr. Tikitavi’s new sculptures in progress. A hurried search of back issues of the “Daily ‘Elele” turned up some articles and interesting photographs – on Main Island there are some very useful combinations of utility and art, as Mr. Tikitavi is seen standing next to his water cachement bowls some twenty yards across. The article notes that in places on the island, the rock is spongy volcanic tuff, through which water drains away without filling surface streams – and with the growth of tourists resorts (all of which demand modern plumbing) the old wells are nothing like adequate in summer.

            Quite some sculptures! The first one appears to be a shallow bowl, made of very fine, marble-finished concrete, built on the headland that points towards Meeting Island.  There is a moveable statue that can “wade” anywhere in the bowl, and is illuminated at night, acting as the focal point for the whole structure.

            The second sculpture is rather like a swimming-pool, a large concrete apron on a headland looking out over the narrows between Main and Eastern Island – with a large round pool featuring a central fountain base, which looks in fact more like a hefty pivot. Tourists can enjoy a cooling dip and a splendid view at the same time – there are four more just like it around Main Island, and more being planned.  Handy pay-telescopes such as one sees on sea-fronts, are scattered around the site for air-spotters and shipping enthusiasts to use.

            Helen says it looks just like a photo of a Belgian fortress she had once seen with the turret ripped clean off by a “Big Bertha” howitzer – but then, Helen sees conspiracies everywhere. There are real turrets on the island, three of them so far (though oddly, they are not marked on any maps, and are screened from casual view by bamboo groves) and one would hardly commission an artist to build such things.

March 13th, 1935

Dear Diary – I will really have to invest in some waterproof notebooks, to take on-the spot memos of all this exploration. A busy three days away from classes – and although we have been hardly six miles from the Academy on the map, it might as well have been quite a different island.

            A fleet of five water-taxis took us from the docks, past Moon and Meeting Islands, and dropped us off near the delta of the river that drains Crater Lake. There is quite a large village there, surrounded by rice fields fed from the delta. The housing was really not what one expects on Spontoon – definitely oriental in appearance, rather than the Polynesian longhouses that South Island is famous for.

            Miss Blande took us around the village, where one of the local guides showed us the points of interest – and fibbed somewhat, gesturing up to the great main face of Mount Kiribatori towering above us, “the unclimbable peak”. True, the East and North-facing walls of it are quite sheer, jet-black volcanic rock, but from the far side it is a perfectly practicable (if exhausting) scramble, as Helen and I well know.  One suspects that Native Tourist Guides are prone to exaggeration – “Impassable swamp” and “Unassailable peaks” sound very impressive on postcards home, to be sure.

            As usual, we each carried a small knapsack with a decidedly minimal outdoor kit – my oiled silk suit passed muster, but Molly had her folding harpoon gun confiscated before leaving Songmark. A pity, as it is a jolly useful fishing device, with bungee rubber cords tensioned to about sixty pounds pull weight. (She has been eyeing more powerful ones all term – there is a compact model that is concealable under a jacket, with folding stock. It looks very handy against sharks, though confusingly the brochure boasts that it will punch through a standard steel helmet at ten paces. One supposes there is no “standard shark” target to compare the various models against.)

            Miss Blande did explain that inland of the village was a Sacred Area, with no building allowed, and decidedly no hunting permitted. Maria pulled something of a face at this, as she has been considering getting one of the very strange big-game rifles that we have seen the Militia here using despite the lack of local big game. Furthermore, no cutting wood for fires is allowed, around the lake or on the slopes of the volcanic peaks to the Northwest.

            Helen seemed quite intrigued by this, and wondered if it might be an area which we could explore in the holidays – with suitable escort, naturally. Of the two sacred areas, it is assuredly easier to reach than the round island off South Island, that we are discouraged from even flying over. But soon we were too busy to speculate, as we took a narrow footpath from the village along the riverbank, heading up into quite unbroken jungle.

            In half an hour, we were far beyond the last traces of Civilisation, having passed only a few scattered huts in garden plots nearer the delta. The valley rose up steeply, the walls quite unassailable and slick with dripping vegetation, mosses and vines hanging down on all sides. A decidedly tricky footpath, sometimes clinging to the banks just above the river. Missy K and Ada Cronstein fell in, though fortunately the water is not deep – Miss Blande used it as a demonstration of how to improvise a pulley slung between two trees, to haul them back up the exceedingly steep and slippery bank.

            Very suddenly, we came out through a veritable tunnel of trees into Crater Lake itself – quite a sight! Although we had flown over it several times, it is far more impressive from the shore than from above. Alas, it is hardly suitable as a tourist spot – there is very little beach, the cliffs all around it rising some hundreds of feet, traced with silvery waterfalls where streams pour out of the jungle. Indeed, there was hardly a pawprint to be seen, or any sign of life apart from the birds circling overhead and a veritable boiling shoal of fish in the deep waters. How deep it may be is anyone’s guess, as from what we could see the sides go almost straight down like a flooded mineshaft.

            Miss Blande led us around the Eastern side of the lake, climbing steeply up the trail near the rim – and for the next four hours, it was hard going as we circled the lake before climbing up the pass between the two volcanic hills. One discovery we made – the first actual hot springs we had seen on the island, decidedly steaming in the heat. Madelene X was loudly proclaiming that the Spontoonies should make the most of such an asset, and bulldoze a road through to build a proper thermal spa – when a large rotten branch fell to the ground right in front, narrowly missing her.

            Very odd – the branch showed signs of being partly cut through – and I could have sworn that I saw a dappled feline figure vanishing into the tree canopy. When I pointed it out to Helen, she noted she had seen a large bird accompanying the figure, whom she had just glimpsed for a second.

            At least, the event made Madelene X keep quiet for the rest of the day – whatever the Tourist books may say about avenging spirits protecting the jungle, there are some very solid guardians keeping watch over it.  Miss Blande cautioned us to be on our best behaviour, in word as well as deed while in the Sacred Area – which extended to the top of the volcanic summit that was our next objective.

            It was another hour’s climb to reach the top, on trails that looked as if only wild animals ever used them – ten steps off the path and one would be lost indeed. At the top, the jungle thinned out, and we were looking into the deep bowl of Mount Poponoha, the only obvious volcano on the islands. The view was very fine, looking across one direction back over the shadowed pit of Crater Lake with the radio towers beyond it in one direction and the great spire of Mount Kiribatori to the other. All very familiar from our flying and mapping lessons – but more impressive, to be looking up at the main summits rather than down.

            Fortunately, the volcano is extinct by all accounts – the few films that have been made here have had to rely on Special Effects in a studio. Being still in the Sacred Area, recreating real eruptions using aviation fuel or similar would bring down the wrath of the Spontoonies (and their Gods, according to the tourist brochure.) The sun was getting low as we scrambled down the trail into the volcanic bowl, finding a decidedly steaming pool some ten yards across, perfect indeed for washing our tired paws in. From what Missy K tells us, it seems that foraging and washing are “natural” enough activities that will call a minimum of wrath down upon us.

            After a much appreciated half hour break, we filed up the far side of the crater and down the Northern slopes, now officially out of the sacred area. I must say, the scenery seemed little different. Having barely an hour before dark, we all set to work on shelters and gathering firewood – at which point Molly caused our Tutor something of a dilemma. Although our equipment had been looked over and passed, Molly had brought along a sealed bottle of Nootnops Red, with the paper seal from Song Sodas still intact. In fact, she had drilled a tiny hole in the cap, drained the beverage out, replaced it with 80-octane aviation spirit and sealed it well enough to avoid detection ! Our fire was blazing away merrily, long before anyone else had coaxed more than a smouldering out of theirs.

            Miss Blande conceded that this would earn us points rather than lose them – but I doubt the same trick will work twice. Still, it was a very cosy camp, if a little damp – and we were lulled to sleep by the muted bad language of Missy K trying to get her dorm’s fire going by the fading light of her pocket torch.

            The next day was interesting – as we found one of the famous “landscape sculptures” we had heard so much about. Although barely a mile from our camp on the map, it took us a hard hour to reach the northern coast. Very impressive – the highest sea cliffs on Main Island, sweeping almost sheer down to the waves, with hardly a trace of beach. There was a ledge some hundred yards long, which had been adapted by Mr. Tikitavi and his assistants, as a strange modernist sculpture. The surrounding rock had been smoothed away, to blend in with a deep, precisely straight niche carved in the flat cliff some three yards deep and eighty yards long.

            Fascinating! There was a small notice to one side, explaining the sculpture was inspired by the famous “echoing wall” of Orpington Island, where one can hear a whisper spoken a hundred paces away in the open air. The curved face of the sculpture looked quite precisely engineered – and indeed, as we scrambled over it our comments were magnified many times over by the clever shaping. Possibly it is designed for use in strange Native ritual ceremonies, as it looks out only over the open ocean something in the direction of Vostok Island.

            Half an hour of sketching, and arguing over its artistic merits, and we headed down the hill towards Chiklooha, one of the “Amerind” villages on the Northern coast. Quite a trip this turned out to be – after seeing unfamiliar Oriental architecture the day before, we were a mile away from the village when we spotted totem poles and houses with much steeper roofs than the Polynesian style suggests, clad in wood shingles rather than palm thatch.

            Chiklooha is really quite an isolated village, with just one motor road leading in over a pass from the rest of the island. We arrived from a trail leading in between two huge totem poles, just as the heavens opened and we dashed into the shelter of a longhouse. Looking around, we saw half-built statues of varying styles looming above us in the shadows – by sheer good luck we had found Mr. Tikitavi’s workshop, despite it being half hidden in a quarry several hundred yards from the road!

            For a minute we just stood panting, watching as the rain hid the view entirely. Our arrival had not gone unnoticed though (there being twenty of us, including Miss Blande) and we were hailed by a native gentleman, who emerged from a suprisingly modern-looking assembly shed across the courtyard. He seemed surprised to see us – and although very courteous, not entirely pleased to have company. True, as we discovered, there is a sign on the track to the village reading “Private Property – keep out” (a very rare sight on Spontoon) but we had come out of the hills from the other direction, and he seemed unwilling to shoo nineteen young ladies out into the storm.

            Things became more relaxed when Miss Blande pulled out her introductory note – and he called over to the other sheds, for his foreman, a Mr. Ahana. A decidedly powerful-looking gentleman of the American badger persuasion, he was wearing the only “Euro” clothing we saw that day, a safari suit with Panama hat and Nicaragua collar.

            I noticed that while Mr. Ahana showed us around the stone-cutting workshops, two other Native workers hurried over to shut and lock the doors on the more modern building. Very odd, considering these statues are on public display when finished – and we are none of us likely to crib the latest design and run off to pirate our own ten foot tall Tiki sculptures. Certainly, the works in progress were very imposing, very stylish traditional designs that will look striking on a postcard when “found” in a jungle clearing.

            Mr. Ahana showed us a few smaller and much older carvings that were the models for his recent works. It seems that the Spontoon islands were settled once, many centuries ago, by reptilian folk, who left behind very little evidence except for their statues (and the biggest of these he showed us were a foot or so across, and of a nature hardly suitable to be photographed standing next to.) The current works started by Mr. Tikitavi are drawing on that wholly forgotten tradition, of which the nice green water-lizard statue on Meeting Island is the only large survivor.

            Quite a little history lesson, indeed. It seems that not all of the Pirate films made in the Spontoon islands are wholly the work of overexcited scriptwriters; between the original inhabitants abandoning the region and the plantation settlements of the last century, it was well-known to some of the most notorious Pirates of the region. In this part of the world, many were of the Sinbad tradition rather than the Blackbeard style – and one notorious Arab sea-raider, Ahmed J’dril, was said to have made this very valley his base. There are the usual rumours of buried treasures that have never come to light, and indeed the ledge where the new sculpture looks out over the sea-lanes is still marked on the maps as J’dril’s Bank. 

            After an hour or so, the rain had stopped and we waved farewell, having seen all around the site and quarry except for the one locked shed. Heading down towards the village, I noticed something very odd – there was a dustbin of exactly the sort we have outside our compound, where we leave worn-out engine parts and such for the Japanese scrap merchants who call once a month. I sneaked a quick look inside, as we passed – and found not broken chisels as I expected, but the remains of electrical transformers, loudspeaker coils and other exceedingly modern electrical equipment. Very odd – unless indeed some of the sculptures are wired up for public performance as talking idols and such.

            Chiklooha village turned out to be a working rather than a tourist settlement, having rather more practical buildings such as fish canneries rather than restaurants and souvenir shops. Quite a fine harbour, to judge from the size of the vessels berthed there (three large fishing boats and an old destroyer flying the Rain Island flag.) Missy K tells us that it has the only deep-water port on the entire Northern coast, the other villages being strictly for small fishing vessels. A very strange place to put one’s sculptures, where very few tourists will ever see them, staring out over the harbour approaches.

            Thankfully, the rain held off while we explored the rest of the coast, definitely hard work scrambling over the ridges on narrow trails.  It would have been quite enjoyable, but Miss Blande decided to practice our first-aid and emergency skills on the way. Declaring herself a casualty, she had the different dorms improvise a stretcher with whatever materials were at hand (driftwood and vines in our case, as we were a short scramble from the beach when our turn came.) Carrying a loaded stretcher along a road is one thing, but manhandling along a rocky trail with loose scree below and low branches above, is quite another. Still, it could have been worse – she might have given us a “worst case” exercise and have us haul Missy K around.

            (Dear Diary – one must not speak too disparagingly of one’s fellow students. Missy K is exceedingly capable, and carried her end of her dorm’s stretcher solo without complaint, a task that generally needs two people. Rather like those Japanese wrestlers one sees on the newsreels, she may be outwardly round, but has more muscle underneath than two of me put together!)

            By nightfall, we were all decidedly tired and glad to make camp on a ledge above a secluded beach. As this was hardly a mile from the next village, Miss Blande told us not to forage in the woods (the locals need all the wild foodstuffs they can get) but that we may open our “iron rations”. A cheery evening, rigging up grass-roofed shelters and sitting around driftwood fires as the moon came up over the Nimitz Sea. Despite the horror tales I have heard of it from my older cousins, the military “Maconochie” meat and vegetable stew is quite palatable, if served hot to a sufficiently hungry diner.  One hopes the tins are not actual Great War surplus, unlike our cameras and some other equipment at Songmark: I can quite imagine whole Maconochie warehouses being surplus in 1918, and finding no buyers amongst those who had lived on it for four years previously. 

Still – one can do far worse. Just to provide an alternative, Li Han was busy as night fell gathering edible seaweed for some bizarre oriental stew. Having sampled it, my definition of the word “edible” is now wider than before.

            Another day of trekking followed, as we explored the rather more settled farming region at the eastern end of Main Island, finishing up at the biggest village there, rather unimaginatively called “Main Village”. By happy coincidence, we arrived an hour before a major sporting match, which Miss Blande permitted us to stay and watch.  Although all the various “cultures” found on Spontoon seem to be represented here, there is a full-time ground laid out for Samoan Cricket, or “Kilikiti” as they call it. Quite a different game than that played on the village greens back home, this being a variant played with long, three-sided “bats” that are very slightly adapted from traditional war clubs.

            The game itself seemed extremely lively, played with about twenty a side, and something of a “hit the ball and cheer” style. There was a commentary over a loudspeaker system, but entirely in the local language, which we are only slowly learning. Still, it looked like a fine game, with far fewer casualties than Australian Rules Hockey, and none of them immediately fatal. One wonders if we might put a Songmark team together one day? Alas, it would need the whole year of us to make up a team, so even a few defaulters would put us at a severe disadvantage.

            “Soppy” Forsythe was rather loudly denouncing it as a rough and violent game, as we left (not a sensible idea when surrounded by enthusiasts carrying war clubs, to my way of thinking.) Still, her Family are dedicated Quakers, and deeply opposed to all forms of violence. She has been rather sneering on occasion when I have mentioned my family having served their country for many generations – her own family being peaceful industrial magnates, owning the biggest chlorine and dyestuffs manufactory in Lancashire, by her account.

            Molly had quite a treat, as in the crowd she spotted Mr. Nordstrom, whom she has been decidedly pining over these past few days. Although they could do little more than exchange polite greetings under Miss Blande’s watchful eye, she begged a page of my notebook, and managed to pass him a note. One supposes that Molly has had a definitely restrained upbringing in some ways, her Father being well-respected in his social circles despite modestly keeping out of the public eye – in Helen’s words, “if you know what’s healthy, don’t mess with the boss’s daughter, even if she asks.”

            A water-taxi home and a much-appreciated shower, and another memorable trip to write up!  The Polynesian cricket variant was a most fascinating end to the tour, and something I must ask Jirry about. Since arriving here, I have learned to quite appreciate non-“Euro” traditions, without looking down on them as lower-grade debasements performed by ignorant Natives. Soppy is welcome to her opinions – however much money her family makes, she is still distinctly SOPH*  herself.

*(Editor’s note – this word doesn’t seem to appear elsewhere. Amelia might be reversing the standard acronym “POSH” which originated as “Port Outward, Starboard Home” – which is the coolest and most expensive side of a ship touring from Europe to India (and Spontoon) and back. Presumably the opposite “Starboard Outward Port Home” would be a cheap-rate voyage in more ways than one, as cooking costs would be saved by having a cabin hot enough to boil an egg in without a stove.)

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