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Name (Cartographic)
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Nasilai Reef
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Indigenous Language Group
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Fijian
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Languages Spoken
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English
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Fijian (iTaukei)
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Standard Hindi (Hindustani)
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and Fiji Hindi
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Quote
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When the first boats reached the scene, the majority of the Indians were in the water on the reef, making as far towards the land as they could, but a considerable number were still in the wrecked vessel, chiefly women and children. The ship lay on her port side. The masts were all broken into fragments, and spars, sails, ropes, and debris of all kinds were mixed up and thrown about in the breakers in wild confusion. The scene was simply indescribable, and pictures of it haunt me still like a horrid dream. People falling, fainting, drowning all around one; the cries for instant help, uttered in an unknown tongue, but emphasised by looks of agony and the horror of impending death, depicted on dark faces rendered ashy grey by terror; then again the thundering, irresistible wave breaking on the riven ship, still containing human beings, some crushed to death in the debris, and others wounded and imprisoned therein; and all to be saved then or never; […] (Some sacrificed their lives to save others; some, such as the strong lascar crew thought only of themselves) and rushed into the boats surrounded by dying women and children. One of these lascar seamen I took out of the wreck paralysed with terror; afterwards by brute force I threw him twice out of a boat to make room for drowning children […] inspite of everything that could be done the loss of life was fearful. At 2pm I was almost faint with despair, and I did not then think that a hundred or so could be saved.
Letter.
William MacGregor, qtd in. R. B. Joyce, Sir William MacGregor, Melbourne, 1971, pp. 72-3.
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with this the ghost was gone
like lightning
illuminating-building,
all at once, and forever…
then the rain came and cried:
another old man had just died.
o my father's fathers
what forgiveness is there for me?
o my children's children
listen to the voices from Syria
drowning the silence of the sea!
Poem.
Satendra Nandan. "The Ghost." In Girmit: A Centenary Anthology 1879-1979. Ministry of Information, 1979, p. 3.
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identifier
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GEO-NLR