Last night three piglings were stolen from one of our pig-
pens. The great Lafaele appeared to my wife uneasy, so she
engaged him in conversation on the subject, and played upon
him the following engaging trick. You advance your two
forefingers towards the sitter's eyes; he closes them,
whereupon you substitute (on his eyelids) the fore and middle
fingers of the left hand; and with your right (which he
supposes engaged) you tap him on the head and back. When you
let him open his eyes, he sees you withdrawing the two
forefingers. 'What that?' asked Lafaele. 'My devil,' says
Fanny. 'I wake um, my devil. All right now. He go catch
the man that catch my pig.' About an hour afterwards,
Lafaele came for further particulars. 'O, all right,' my
wife says. 'By and by, that man he sleep, devil go sleep
same place. By and by, that man plenty sick. I no care.
What for he take my pig?' Lafaele cares plenty; I don't
think he is the man, though he may be; but he knows him, and
most likely will eat some of that pig to-night. He will not
eat with relish.
SATURDAY 27TH.
It cleared up suddenly after dinner, and my wife and I
saddled up and off to Apia, whence we did not return till
yesterday morning. Christmas Day I wish you could have seen
our party at table. H. J. Moors at one end with my wife, I
at the other with Mrs. M., between us two native women,
Carruthers the lawyer, Moors's two shop-boys - Walters and A.
M. the quadroon - and the guests of the evening, Shirley
Baker, the defamed and much-accused man of Tonga, and his
son, with the artificial joint to his arm - where the
assassins shot him in shooting at his father. Baker's
appearance is not unlike John Bull on a cartoon; he is highly
interesting to speak to, as I had expected; I found he and I
had many common interests, and were engaged in puzzling over
many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was quite
pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased
and prettily behaved. In the morning I should say I had been
to lunch at the German consulate, where I had as usual a very
pleasant time. I shall miss Dr. Stuebel much when he leaves,
and when Adams and Lafarge go also, it will be a great blow.
I am getting spoiled with all this good society.
On Friday morning, I had to be at my house affairs before
seven; and they kept me in Apia till past ten, disputing, and
consulting about brick and stone and native and hydraulic
lime, and cement and sand, and all sorts of otiose details
about the chimney - just what I fled from in my father's
office twenty years ago; I should have made a languid
engineer. Rode up with the carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack!
on Christmas Eve, as I was taking the saddle bag off, he
kicked at me, and fetched me too, right on the shin. On
Friday, being annoyed at the carpenter's horse having a
longer trot, he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite him!
Alas, alas, these are like old days; my dear Jack is a Bogue,
but I cannot strangle Jack into submission.
I have given up the big house for just now; we go ahead right
away with a small one, which should be ready in two months,
and I suppose will suffice for just now.
O I know I haven't told you about our AITU, have I? It is a
lady, AITU FAFINE: she lives on the mountain-side; her
presence is heralded by the sound of a gust of wind; a sound
very common in the high woods; when she catches you, I do not
know what happens; but in practice she is avoided, so I
suppose she does more than pass the time of day. The great
AITU SAUMAI-AFE was once a living woman; and became an AITU,
no one understands how; she lives in a stream at the well-
head, her hair is red, she appears as a lovely young lady,
her bust particularly admired, to handsome young men; these
die, her love being fatal; - as a handsome youth she has been
known to court damsels with the like result, but this is very
rare; as an old crone she goes about and asks for water, and
woe to them who are uncivil! SAUMAI-AFE means literally,
'Come here a thousand!' A good name for a lady of her
manners. My AITU FAFINE does not seem to be in the same line
of business. It is unsafe to be a handsome youth in Samoa; a
young man died from her favours last month - so we said on
this side of the island; on the other, where he died, it was
not so certain. I, for one, blame it on Madam SAUMAI-AFE
without hesitation.
Example of the farmer's sorrows. I slipped out on the
balcony a moment ago. It is a lovely morning, cloudless,
smoking hot, the breeze not yet arisen. Looking west, in
front of our new house, I saw, two heads of Indian corn
wagging, and the rest and all nature stock still. As I
looked, one of the stalks subsided and disappeared. I dashed
out to the rescue; two small pigs were deep in the grass -
quite hid till within a few yards - gently but swiftly
demolishing my harvest. Never be a farmer.
12.30 P.M.
I while away the moments of digestion by drawing you a
faithful picture of my morning. When I had done writing as
above it was time to clean our house. When I am working, it
falls on my wife alone, but to-day we had it between us; she
did the bedroom, I the sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes
of really most unpalatable labour. Then I changed every
stitch, for I was wet through, and sat down and played on my
pipe till dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a mildly
habitable spot once more. The house had been neglected for
near a week, and was a hideous spot; my wife's ear and our
visit to Apia being the causes: our Paul we prefer not to see
upon that theatre, and God knows he has plenty to do
elsewhere.
I am glad to look out of my back door and see the boys
smoothing the foundations of the new house; this is all very
jolly, but six months of it has satisfied me; we have too
many things for such close quarters; to work in the midst of
all the myriad misfortunes of the planter's life, seated in a
Dyonisius' (can't spell him) ear, whence I catch every
complaint, mishap and contention, is besides the devil; and
the hope of a cave of my own inspires me with lust. O to be
able to shut my own door and make my own confusion! O to
have the brown paper and the matches and 'make a hell of my
own' once more!
I do not bother you with all my troubles in these
outpourings; the troubles of the farmer are inspiriting -
they are like difficulties out hunting - a fellow rages at
the time and rejoices to recall and to commemorate them. My
troubles have been financial. It is hard to arrange wisely
interests so distributed. America, England, Samoa, Sydney,
everywhere I have an end of liability hanging out and some
shelf of credit hard by; and to juggle all these and build a
dwelling-place here, and check expense - a thing I am ill
fitted for - you can conceive what a nightmare it is at
times. Then God knows I have not been idle. But since THE
MASTER nothing has come to raise any coins. I believe the
springs are dry at home, and now I am worked out, and can no
more at all. A holiday is required.
DEC. 28TH. I have got unexpectedly to work again, and feel
quite dandy. Good-bye.
R. L. S.
CHAPTER IV
S. S. LUBECK, BETWEEN APIA AND SYDNEY,
JAN. 17TH, 1891.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to
speak your low language, has arrived. I had ridden down with
Henry and Lafaele; the sun was down, the night was close at
hand, so we rode fast; just as I came to the corner of the
road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there was a
great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a
chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu
coming in his boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing the
Faamasino Sili sure enough. It was lucky he was no longer;
the natives would not have waited many weeks. But think of
it, as I sat in the saddle at the outside of the crowd
(looking, the English consul said, as if I were commanding
the manoeuvres), I was nearly knocked down by a stampede of
the three consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the
Matafele end, and some wretched intrigue among the whites had
brought him to Apia, and the consuls had to run all the
length of the town and come too late.
The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of G. the
banker to Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and bridesmaids
were all in the old high dress; the ladies were all native;
the men, with the exception of Seumanu, all white.
It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing, we
had a bird's-eye view of the public reception of the Chief
Justice. The best part of it were some natives in war array;
with blacked faces, turbans, tapa kilts, and guns, they
looked very manly and purposelike. No, the best part was
poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman, who seemed to
think himself specially charged with the reception, and ended
by falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end
of the pier and in full view of the whole town and bay. The
natives pelted him with rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice
took it I was too far off to see; but it was highly absurd.
I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen of the
Faamasino Sili in the following canine verses, which, if you
at all guess how to read them, are very pretty in movement,
and (unless he be a mighty good man) too true in sense.
We're quarrelling, the villages, we've beaten the wooden
drum's,
Sa femisai o nu'u, sa taia o pate,
Is expounded there by the justice,
Ua Atuatuvale a le faamasino e,
The chief justice, the terrified justice,
Le faamasino sili, le faamasino se,
Is on the point of running away the justice,
O le a solasola le faamasino e,
The justice denied any influence, the terrified justice,
O le faamasino le ai a, le faamasino se,
O le a solasola le faamasino e.
Well, after this excursion into tongues that have never been
alive - though I assure you we have one capital book in the
language, a book of fables by an old missionary of the
unpromising name of Pratt, which is simply the best and the
most literary version of the fables known to me. I suppose I
should except La Fontaine, but L. F. takes a long time; these
are brief as the books of our childhood, and full of wit and
literary colour; and O, Colvin, what a tongue it would be to
write, if one only knew it - and there were only readers.
Its curse in common use is an incredible left-handed
wordiness; but in the hands of a man like Pratt it is
succinct as Latin, compact of long rolling polysyllables and
little and often pithy particles, and for beauty of sound a
dream. Listen, I quote from Pratt - this is good Samoan, not
canine -
O le afa,
1 2 3
ua taalili ai
4
le ulu vao,
1
ua pa mai
le faititili.
1 almost WA, 2 the two A'S just distinguished, 3 the AI is
practically suffixed to the verb, 4 almost VOW. The
excursion has prolonged itself.
I started by the LUBECK to meet Lloyd and my mother; there
were many reasons for and against; the main reason against
was the leaving of Fanny alone in her blessed cabin, which
has been somewhat remedied by my carter, Mr. -, putting up in
the stable and messing with her; but perhaps desire of change
decided me not well, though I do think I ought to see an
oculist, being very blind indeed, and sometimes unable to
read. Anyway I left, the only cabin passenger, four and a
kid in the second cabin, and a dear voyage it had like to
have proved. Close to Fiji (choose a worse place on the map)
we broke our shaft early one morning; and when or where we
might expect to fetch land or meet with any ship, I would
like you to tell me. The Pacific is absolutely desert. I
have sailed there now some years; and scarce ever seen a ship
except in port or close by; I think twice. It was the
hurricane season besides, and hurricane waters. Well, our
chief engineer got the shaft - it was the middle crank shaft
- mended; thrice it was mended, and twice broke down; but now
keeps up - only we dare not stop, for it is almost impossible
to start again. The captain in the meanwhile crowded her
with sail; fifteen sails in all, every stay being gratified
with a stay-sail, a boat-boom sent aloft for a maintop-
gallant yard, and the derrick of a crane brought in service
as bowsprit. All the time we have had a fine, fair wind and
a smooth sea; to-day at noon our run was 203 miles (if you
please!), and we are within some 360 miles of Sydney.
Probably there has never been a more gallant success; and I
can say honestly it was well worked for. No flurry, no high
words, no long faces; only hard work and honest thought; a
pleasant, manly business to be present at. All the chances
were we might have been six weeks - ay, or three months at
sea - or never turned up at all, and now it looks as though
we should reach our destination some five days too late.
CHAPTER V
[ON BOARD SHIP BETWEEN SYDNEY AND APIA, FEB. 1891.]
MY DEAR COLVIN, - The JANET NICOLL stuff was rather worse
than I had looked for; you have picked out all that is fit to
stand, bar two others (which I don't dislike) - the Port of
Entry and the House of Temoana; that is for a present
opinion; I may condemn these also ere I have done. By this
time you should have another Marquesan letter, the worst of
the lot, I think; and seven Paumotu letters, which are not
far out of the vein, as I wish it; I am in hopes the Hawaiian
stuff is better yet: time will show, and time will make
perfect. Is something of this sort practicable for the
dedication?
TERRA MARIQUE
PER PERICULA PER ARDUA
AMICAE COMITI
D.D.
AMANS VIATOR
'Tis a first shot concocted this morning in my berth: I had
always before been trying it in English, which insisted on
being either insignificant or fulsome: I cannot think of a
better word than COMES, there being not the shadow of a Latin
book on board; yet sure there is some other. Then VIATOR
(though it SOUNDS all right) is doubtful; it has too much,
perhaps, the sense of wayfarer? Last, will it mark
sufficiently that I mean my wife? And first, how about
blunders? I scarce wish it longer.
Have had a swingeing sharp attack in Sydney; beating the
fields for two nights, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday was
brought on board, TEL QUEL, a wonderful wreck; and now,
Wednesday week, am a good deal picked up, but yet not quite a
Samson, being still groggy afoot and vague in the head. My
chess, for instance, which is usually a pretty strong game,
and defies all rivalry aboard, is vacillating, devoid of
resource and observation, and hitherto not covered with
customary laurels. As for work, it is impossible. We shall
be in the saddle before long, no doubt, and the pen once more
couched. You must not expect a letter under these
circumstances, but be very thankful for a note. Once at
Samoa, I shall try to resume my late excellent habits, and
delight you with journals, you unaccustomed, I unaccustomed;
but it is never too late to mend.
It is vastly annoying that I cannot go even to Sydney without
an attack; and heaven knows my life was anodyne. I only once
dined with anybody; at the club with Wise; worked all morning
- a terrible dead pull; a month only produced the imperfect
embryos of two chapters; lunched in the boarding-house,
played on my pipe; went out and did some of my messages;
dined at a French restaurant, and returned to play draughts,
whist, or Van John with my family. This makes a cheery life
after Samoa; but it isn't what you call burning the candle at
both ends, is it? (It appears to me not one word of this
letter will be legible by the time I am done with it, this
dreadful ink rubs off.) I have a strange kind of novel under
construction; it begins about 1660 and ends 1830, or perhaps
I may continue it to 1875 or so, with another life. One,
two, three, four, five, six generations, perhaps seven,
figure therein; two of my old stories, 'Delafield' and
'Shovel,' are incorporated; it is to be told in the third
person, with some of the brevity of history, some of the
detail of romance. THE SHOVELS OF NEWTON FRENCH will be the
name. The idea is an old one; it was brought to birth by an
accident; a friend in the islands who picked up F. Jenkin,
read a part, and said: 'Do you know, that's a strange book?
I like it; I don't believe the public will; but I like it.'
He thought it was a novel! 'Very well,' said I, 'we'll see
whether the public will like it or not; they shall have the
chance.'
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
CHAPTER VI
FRIDAY, MARCH 19TH.
MY DEAR S. C., - You probably expect that now I am back at
Vailima I shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A
good deal is changed. We are more; solitude does not attend
me as before; the night is passed playing Van John for
shells; and, what is not less important, I have just
recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired.
I will give you to-day. I sleep now in one of the lower
rooms of the new house, where my wife has recently joined me.
We have two beds, an empty case for a table, a chair, a tin
basin, a bucket and a jug; next door in the dining-room, the
carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered with their
mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul
brings me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs; and by about six
I am at work. I work in bed - my bed is of mats, no
mattress, sheets, or filth - mats, a pillow, and a blanket -
and put in some three hours. It was 9.5 this morning when I
set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I toiled,
manuring the ground with the best enricher, human sweat, till
the conch-shell was blown from our verandah at 10.30. At
eleven we dine; about half-past twelve I tried (by exception)
to work again, could make nothing on't, and by one was on my
way to the weeding, where I wrought till three. Half-past
five is our next meal, and I read Flaubert's Letters till the
hour came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold, and I
being tired, came over to my den in the unfinished house,
where I now write to you, to the tune of the carpenters'
voices, and by the light - I crave your pardon - by the
twilight of three vile candles filtered through the medium of
my mosquito bar. Bad ink being of the party, I write quite
blindfold, and can only hope you may be granted to read that
which I am unable to see while writing.
I said I was tired; it is a mild phrase; my back aches like
toothache; when I shut my eyes to sleep, I know I shall see
before them - a phenomenon to which both Fanny and I are
quite accustomed - endless vivid deeps of grass and weed,
each plant particular and distinct, so that I shall lie inert
in body, and transact for hours the mental part of my day
business, choosing the noxious from the useful. And in my
dreams I shall be hauling on recalcitrants, and suffering
stings from nettles, stabs from citron thorns, fiery bites
from ants, sickening resistances of mud and slime, evasions
of slimy roots, dead weight of heat, sudden puffs of air,
sudden starts from bird-calls in the contiguous forest - some
mimicking my name, some laughter, some the signal of a
whistle, and living over again at large the business of my
day.
Though I write so little, I pass all my hours of field-work
in continual converse and imaginary correspondence. I scarce
pull up a weed, but I invent a sentence on the matter to
yourself; it does not get written; AUTANT EN EMPORTENT LES
VENTS; but the intent is there, and for me (in some sort) the
companionship. To-day, for instance, we had a great talk. I
was toiling, the sweat dripping from my nose, in the hot fit
after a squall of rain: methought you asked me - frankly, was
I happy. Happy (said I); I was only happy once; that was at
Hyeres; it came to an end from a variety of reasons, decline
of health, change of place, increase of money, age with his
stealing steps; since then, as before then, I know not what
it means. But I know pleasure still; pleasure with a
thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues all
broken, a thousand hands, and all of them with scratching
nails. High among these I place this delight of weeding out
here alone by the garrulous water, under the silence of the
high wood, broken by incongruous sounds of birds. And take
my life all through, look at it fore and back, and upside
down, - though I would very fain change myself - I would not
change my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here.
And yet God knows perhaps this intercourse of writing serves
as well; and I wonder, were you here indeed, would I commune
so continually with the thought of you. I say 'I wonder' for
a form; I know, and I know I should not.
So far, and much further, the conversation went, while I
groped in slime after viscous roots, nursing and sparing
little spears of grass, and retreating (even with outcry)
from the prod of the wild lime. I wonder if any one had ever
the same attitude to Nature as I hold, and have held for so
long? This business fascinates me like a tune or a passion;
yet all the while I thrill with a strong distaste. The
horror of the thing, objective and subjective, is always
present to my mind; the horror of creeping things, a
superstitious horror of the void and the powers about me, the
horror of my own devastation and continual murders. The life
of the plants comes through my fingertips, their struggles go
to my heart like supplications. I feel myself blood-
boltered; then I look back on my cleared grass, and count
myself an ally in a fair quarrel, and make stout my heart.
It is but a little while since I lay sick in Sydney, beating
the fields about the navy and Dean Swift and Dryden's Latin
hymns; judge if I love this reinvigorating climate, where I
can already toil till my head swims and every string in the
poor jumping Jack (as he now lies in bed) aches with a kind
of yearning strain, difficult to suffer in quiescence.
As for my damned literature, God knows what a business it is,
grinding along without a scrap of inspiration or a note of
style. But it has to be ground, and the mill grinds
exceeding slowly though not particularly small. The last two
chapters have taken me considerably over a month, and they
are still beneath pity. This I cannot continue, time not
sufficing; and the next will just have to be worse. All the
good I can express is just this; some day, when style
revisits me, they will be excellent matter to rewrite. Of
course, my old cure of a change of work would probably
answer, but I cannot take it now. The treadmill turns; and,
with a kind of desperate cheerfulness, I mount the idle
stair. I haven't the least anxiety about the book; unless I
die, I shall find the time to make it good; but the Lord
deliver me from the thought of the Letters! However, the
Lord has other things on hand; and about six to-morrow, I
shall resume the consideration practically, and face (as best
I may) the fact of my incompetence and disaffection to the
task. Toil I do not spare; but fortune refuses me success.
We can do more, Whatever-his-name-was, we can deserve it.
But my misdesert began long since, by the acceptation of a
bargain quite unsuitable to all my methods.
To-day I have had a queer experience. My carter has from the
first been using my horses for his own ends; when I left for
Sydney, I put him on his honour to cease, and my back was
scarce turned ere he was forfeit. I have only been waiting
to discharge him; and to-day an occasion arose. I am so much
THE OLD MAN VIRULENT, so readily stumble into anger, that I
gave a deal of consideration to my bearing, and decided at
last to imitate that of the late -. Whatever he might have
to say, this eminently effective controversialist maintained
a frozen demeanour and a jeering smile. The frozen demeanour
is beyond my reach; but I could try the jeering smile; did
so, perceived its efficacy, kept in consequence my temper,
and got rid of my friend, myself composed and smiling still,
he white and shaking like an aspen. He could explain
everything; I said it did not interest me. He said he had
enemies; I said nothing was more likely. He said he was
calumniated; with all my heart, said I, but there are so many
liars, that I find it safer to believe them. He said, in
justice to himself, he must explain: God forbid I should
interfere with you, said I, with the same factitious grin,
but it can change nothing. So I kept my temper, rid myself
of an unfaithful servant, found a method of conducting
similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own liking.
One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead -;
he too had learned - perhaps had invented - the trick of this
manner; God knows what weakness, what instability of feeling,
lay beneath. CE QUE C'EST QUE DE NOUS! poor human nature;
that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the
first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort
of maintaining an external smile should confuse and embitter
a man's soul.
To-day I have not weeded; I have written instead from six
till eleven, from twelve till two; with the interruption of
the interview aforesaid; a damned letter is written for the
third time; I dread to read it, for I dare not give it a
fourth chance - unless it be very bad indeed. Now I write
you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes
and hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day
of heavenly brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye,
through the open door, commanding green meads, two or three
forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest-
clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a
nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak
March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors wide open
in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure
of mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few
torn clouds - not white, the sun has tinged them a warm pink
- swim in heaven. In which blessed and fair day, I have to
make faces and speak bitter words to a man - who has deceived
me, it is true - but who is poor, and older than I, and a
kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre
of weeds.
SUNDAY.
When I had done talking to you yesterday, I played on my pipe
till the conch sounded, then went over to the old house for
dinner, and had scarce risen from table ere I was submerged
with visitors. The first of these despatched, I spent the
rest of the evening going over the Samoan translation of my
BOTTLE IMP with Claxton the missionary; then to bed, but
being upset, I suppose, by these interruptions, and having
gone all day without my weeding, not to sleep. For hours I
lay awake and heard the rain fall, and saw faint, far-away
lightning over the sea, and wrote you long letters which I
scorn to reproduce. This morning Paul was unusually early;
the dawn had scarce begun when he appeared with the tray and
lit my candle; and I had breakfasted and read (with
indescribable sinkings) the whole of yesterday's work before
the sun had risen. Then I sat and thought, and sat and
better thought. It was not good enough, nor good; it was as
slack as journalism, but not so inspired; it was excellent
stuff misused, and the defects stood gross on it like humps
upon a camel. But could I, in my present disposition, do
much more with it? in my present pressure for time, were I
not better employed doing another one about as ill, than
making this some thousandth fraction better? Yes, I thought;
and tried the new one, and behold, I could do nothing: my
head swims, words do not come to me, nor phrases, and I
accepted defeat, packed up my traps, and turned to
communicate the failure to my esteemed correspondent. I
think it possible I overworked yesterday. Well, we'll see
to-morrow - perhaps try again later. It is indeed the hope
of trying later that keeps me writing to you. If I take to
my pipe, I know myself - all is over for the morning.
Hurray, I'll correct proofs!
PAGO-PAGO, WEDNESDAY.
After I finished on Sunday I passed a miserable day; went out
weeding, but could not find peace. I do not like to steal my
dinner, unless I have given myself a holiday in a canonical
manner; and weeding after all is only fun, the amount of its
utility small, and the thing capable of being done faster and
nearly as well by a hired boy. In the evening Sewall came up
(American consul) and proposed to take me on a malaga, which
I accepted. Monday I rode down to Apia, was nearly all day
fighting about drafts and money; the silver problem does not
touch you, but it is (in a strange and I hope passing phase)
making my situation difficult in Apia. About eleven, the
flags were all half-masted; it was old Captain Hamilton
(Samesoni the natives called him) who had passed away. In
the evening I walked round to the U.S. Consulate; it was a
lovely night with a full moon; and as I got round to the hot
corner of Matautu I heard hymns in front. The balcony of the
dead man's house was full of women singing; Mary (the widow,
a native) sat on a chair by the doorstep, and I was set
beside her on a bench, and next to Paul the carpenter; as I
sat down I had a glimpse of the old captain, who lay in a
sheet on his own table. After the hymn was over, a native
pastor made a speech which lasted a long while; the light
poured out of the door and windows; the girls were sitting
clustered at my feet; it was choking hot. After the speech
was ended, Mary carried me within; the captain's hands were
folded on his bosom, his face and head were composed; he
looked as if he might speak at any moment; I have never seen
this kind of waxwork so express or more venerable; and when I
went away, I was conscious of a certain envy for the man who
was out of the battle. All night it ran in my head, and the
next day when we sighted Tutuila, and ran into this beautiful
land-locked loch of Pago Pago (whence I write), Captain
Hamilton's folded hands and quiet face said a great deal more
to me than the scenery.
I am living here in a trader's house; we have a good table,
Sewall doing things in style; and I hope to benefit by the
change, and possibly get more stuff for Letters. In the
meanwhile, I am seized quite MAL-A-PROPOS with desire to
write a story, THE BLOODY WEDDING, founded on fact - very
possibly true, being an attempt to read a murder case - not
yet months old, in this very place and house where I now
write. The indiscretion is what stops me; but if I keep on
feeling as I feel just now it will have to be written. Three
Star Nettison, Kit Nettison, Field the Sailor, these are the
main characters: old Nettison, and the captain of the man of
war, the secondary. Possible scenario. Chapter I....
CHAPTER VII
SATURDAY, APRIL 18TH.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I got back on Monday night, after twenty-
three hours in an open boat; the keys were lost; the Consul
(who had promised us a bottle of Burgundy) nobly broke open
his store-room, and we got to bed about midnight. Next
morning the blessed Consul promised us horses for the
daybreak; forgot all about it, worthy man; set us off at last
in the heat of the day, and by a short cut which caused
infinite trouble, and we were not home till dinner. I was
extenuated, and have had a high fever since, or should have
been writing before. To-day for the first time, I risk it.
Tuesday I was pretty bad; Wednesday had a fever to kill a
horse; Thursday I was better, but still out of ability to do
aught but read awful trash. This is the time one misses
civilisation; I wished to send out for some police novels;
Montepin would have about suited my frozen brain. It is a
bother when all one's thought turns on one's work in some
sense or other; could not even think yesterday; I took to
inventing dishes by way of entertainment. Yesterday, while I
lay asleep in the afternoon, a very lucky thing happened; the
Chief Justice came to call; met one of our employes on the
road; and was shown what I had done to the road.
'Is this the road across the island?' he asked.
'The only one,' said Innes.
'And has one man done all this?'
'Three times,' said the trusty Innes. 'It has had to be made
three times, and when Mr. Stevenson came, it was a track like
what you see beyond.'
'This must be put right,' said the Chief Justice.
SUNDAY.
The truth is, I broke down yesterday almost as soon as I
began, and have been surreptitiously finishing the entry to-
day. For all that I was much better, ate all the time, and
had no fever. The day was otherwise uneventful. I am
reminded; I had another visitor on Friday; and Fanny and
Lloyd, as they returned from a forest raid, met in our
desert, untrodden road, first Father Didier, Keeper of the
conscience of Mataafa, the rising star; and next the Chief
justice, sole stay of Laupepa, the present and unsteady star,
and remember, a few days before we were close to the sick bed
and entertained by the amateur physician of Tamasese, the
late and sunken star. 'That is the fun of this place,'
observed Lloyd; 'everybody you meet is so important.'
Everybody is also so gloomy. It will come to war again, is
the opinion of all the well informed - and before that to
many bankruptcies; and after that, as usual, to famine.
Here, under the microscope, we can see history at work.
WEDNESDAY.
I have been very neglectful. A return to work, perhaps
premature, but necessary, has used up all my possible
energies and made me acquainted with the living headache. I
just jot down some of the past notabilia. Yesterday B., a
carpenter, and K., my (unsuccessful) white man, were absent
all morning from their work; I was working myself, where I
hear every sound with morbid certainty, and I can testify
that not a hammer fell. Upon inquiry I found they had passed
the morning making ice with our ice machine and taking the
horizon with a spirit level! I had no sooner heard this than
- a violent headache set in; I am a real employer of labour
now, and have much of the ship captain when aroused; and if I
had a headache, I believe both these gentlemen had aching
hearts. I promise you, the late - was to the front; and K.,
who was the most guilty, yet (in a sense) the least
blameable, having the brains and character of a canary-bird,
fared none the better for B.'s repartees. I hear them hard
at work this morning, so the menace may be blessed. It was
just after my dinner, just before theirs, that I administered
my redoubtable tongue - it is really redoubtable - to these
skulkers (Paul used to triumph over Mr. J. for weeks. 'I am
very sorry for you,' he would say; 'you're going to have a
talk with Mr. Stevenson when he comes home: you don't know
what that is!') In fact, none of them do, till they get it.
I have known K., for instance, for months; he has never heard
me complain, or take notice, unless it were to praise; I have
used him always as my guest, and there seems to be something
in my appearance which suggests endless, ovine long-
suffering! We sat in the upper verandah all evening, and
discussed the price of iron roofing, and the state of the
draught-horses, with Innes, a new man we have taken, and who
seems to promise well.
One thing embarrasses me. No one ever seems to understand my
attitude about that book; the stuff sent was never meant for
other than a first state; I never meant it to appear as a
book. Knowing well that I have never had one hour of
inspiration since it was begun, and have only beaten out my
metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some day
to get a 'spate of style' and burnish it - fine mixed
metaphor. I am now so sick that I intend, when the Letters
are done and some more written that will be wanted, simply to
make a book of it by the pruning-knife.
I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having done worse
than I hoped, worse than I feared; all I can do now is to do
the best I can for the future, and clear the book, like a
piece of bush, with axe and cutlass. Even to produce the MS.
of this will occupy me, at the most favourable opinion, till
the middle of next year; really five years were wanting, when
I could have made a book; but I have a family, and - perhaps
I could not make the book after all.
CHAPTER VIII
APRIL 29TH, '91.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I begin again. I was awake this morning
about half-past four. It was still night, but I made my
fire, which is always a delightful employment, and read
Lockhart's 'Scott' until the day began to peep. It was a
beautiful and sober dawn, a dove-coloured dawn, insensibly
brightening to gold. I was looking at it some while over the
down-hill profile of our eastern road, when I chanced to
glance northward, and saw with extraordinary pleasure the sea
lying outspread. It seemed as smooth as glass, and yet I
knew the surf was roaring all along the reef, and indeed, if
I had listened, I could have heard it - and saw the white
sweep of it outside Matautu.
I am out of condition still, and can do nothing, and toil to
be at my pen, and see some ink behind me. I have taken up
again THE HIGH WOODS OF ULUFANUA. I still think the fable
too fantastic and far-fetched. But, on a re-reading, fell in
love with my first chapter, and for good or evil I must
finish it. It is really good, well fed with facts, true to
the manners, and (for once in my works) rendered pleasing by
the presence of a heroine who is pretty. Miss Uma is pretty;
a fact. All my other women have been as ugly as sin, and
like Falconet's horse (I have just been reading the anecdote
in Lockhart), MORTES forbye.
News: Our old house is now half demolished; it is to be
rebuilt on a new site; now we look down upon and through the
open posts of it like a bird-cage, to the woods beyond. My
poor Paulo has lost his father and succeeded to thirty
thousand thalers (I think); he had to go down to the
Consulate yesterday to send a legal paper; got drunk, of
course, and is still this morning in so bemused a condition
that our breakfasts all went wrong. Lafaele is absent at the
deathbed of his fair spouse; fair she was, but not in deed,
acting as harlot to the wreckers at work on the warships, to
which society she probably owes her end, having fallen off a
cliff, or been thrust off it -INTER POCULA. Henry is the
same, our stand-by. In this transition stage he has been
living in Apia; but the other night he stayed up, and sat
with us about the chimney in my room. It was the first time
he had seen a fire in a hearth; he could not look at it
without smiles, and was always anxious to put on another
stick. We entertained him with the fairy tales of
civilisation - theatres, London, blocks in the street,
Universities, the Underground, newspapers, etc., and
projected once more his visit to Sydney. If we can manage,
it will be next Christmas. (I see it will be impossible for
me to afford a further journey THIS winter.) We have spent
since we have been here about 2500 pounds, which is not much
if you consider we have built on that three houses, one of
them of some size, and a considerable stable, made two miles
of road some three times, cleared many acres of bush, made
some miles of path, planted quantities of food, and enclosed
a horse paddock and some acres of pig run; but 'tis a good
deal of money regarded simply as money. K. is bosh; I have
no use for him; but we must do what we can with the fellow
meanwhile; he is good-humoured and honest, but inefficient,
idle himself, the cause of idleness in others, grumbling, a
self-excuser - all the faults in a bundle. He owes us thirty
weeks' service - the wretched Paul about half as much. Henry
is almost the only one of our employes who has a credit.
MAY 17TH.
Well, am I ashamed of myself? I do not think so. I have
been hammering Letters ever since, and got three ready and a
fourth about half through; all four will go by the mail,
which is what I wish, for so I keep at least my start. Days
and days of unprofitable stubbing and digging, and the result
still poor as literature, left-handed, heavy, unillumined,
but I believe readable and interesting as matter. It has
been no joke of a hard time, and when my task was done, I had
little taste for anything but blowing on the pipe. A few
necessary letters filled the bowl to overflowing.
My mother has arrived, young, well, and in good spirits. By
desperate exertions, which have wholly floored Fanny, her
room was ready for her, and the dining-room fit to eat in.
It was a famous victory. Lloyd never told me of your
portrait till a few days ago; fortunately, I had no pictures
hung yet; and the space over my chimney waits your
counterfeit presentment. I have not often heard anything
that pleased me more; your severe head shall frown upon me
and keep me to the mark. But why has it not come? Have you
been as forgetful as Lloyd?
18TH.
Miserable comforters are ye all! I read your esteemed pages
this morning by lamplight and the glimmer of the dawn, and as
soon as breakfast was over, I must turn to and tackle these
despised labours! Some courage was necessary, but not
wanting. There is one thing at least by which I can avenge
myself for my drubbing, for on one point you seem
impenetrably stupid. Can I find no form of words which will
at last convey to your intelligence the fact that THESE
LETTERS WERE NEVER MEANT, AND ARE NOT NOW MEANT, TO BE OTHER
THAN A QUARRY OF MATERIALS FROM WHICH THE BOOK MAY BE DRAWN?
There seems something incommunicable in this (to me) simple
idea; I know Lloyd failed to comprehend it, I doubt if he has
grasped it now; and I despair, after all these efforts, that
you should ever be enlightened. Still, oblige me by reading
that form of words once more, and see if a light does not
break. You may be sure, after the friendly freedoms of your
criticism (necessary I am sure, and wholesome I know, but
untimely to the poor labourer in his landslip) that mighty
little of it will stand.
Our Paul has come into a fortune, and wishes to go home to
the Hie Germanie. This is a tile on our head, and if a
shower, which is now falling, lets up, I must go down to
Apia, and see if I can find a substitute of any kind. This
is, from any point of view, disgusting; above all, from that
of work; for, whatever the result, the mill has to be kept
turning; apparently dust, and not flour, is the proceed.
Well, there is gold in the dust, which is a fine consolation,
since - well, I can't help it; night or morning, I do my
darndest, and if I cannot charge for merit, I must e'en
charge for toil, of which I have plenty and plenty more ahead
before this cup is drained; sweat and hyssop are the
ingredients.
We are clearing from Carruthers' Road to the pig fence,
twenty-eight powerful natives with Catholic medals about
their necks, all swiping in like Trojans; long may the sport
continue!
The invoice to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your
expressive, but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O
culler of offensive expressions - 'and a' - to be a posy to
your ain dear May!' - Fanny seems a little revived again
after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly
draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and
disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard
before he had packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and
boards - a thing to make a bibliomaniac shed tears - are
fished out of odd corners. But I am no bibliomaniac, praise
Heaven, and I bear up, and rejoice when I find anything safe.
19TH.
However, I worked five hours on the brute, and finished my
Letter all the same, and couldn't sleep last night by
consequence. Haven't had a bad night since I don't know
when; dreamed a large, handsome man (a New Orleans planter)
had insulted my wife, and, do what I pleased, I could not
make him fight me; and woke to find it was the eleventh
anniversary of my marriage. A letter usually takes me from a
week to three days; but I'm sometimes two days on a page - I
was once three - and then my friends kick me. C'EST-Y-BETE!
I wish letters of that charming quality could be so timed as
to arrive when a fellow wasn't working at the truck in
question; but, of course, that can't be. Did not go down
last night. It showered all afternoon, and poured heavy and
loud all night.
You should have seen our twenty-five popes (the Samoan phrase
for a Catholic, lay or cleric) squatting when the day's work
was done on the ground outside the verandah, and pouring in
the rays of forty-eight eyes through the back and the front
door of the dining-room, while Henry and I and the boss pope
signed the contract. The second boss (an old man) wore a
kilt (as usual) and a Balmoral bonnet with a little tartan
edging and the tails pulled off. I told him that hat belong
to my country - Sekotia; and he said, yes, that was the place
that he belonged to right enough. And then all the Papists
laughed till the woods rang; he was slashing away with a
cutlass as he spoke.
The pictures have decidedly not come; they may probably
arrive Sunday.
CHAPTER IX
JUNE, 1891.
SIR, - To you, under your portrait, which is, in expression,
your true, breathing self, and up to now saddens me; in time,
and soon, I shall be glad to have it there; it is still only
a reminder of your absence. Fanny wept when we unpacked it,
and you know how little she is given to that mood; I was
scarce Roman myself, but that does not count - I lift up my
voice so readily. These are good compliments to the artist.
I write in the midst of a wreck of books, which have just
come up, and have for once defied my labours to get straight.
The whole floor is filled with them, and (what's worse) most
of the shelves forbye; and where they are to go to, and what
is to become of the librarian, God knows. It is hot to-
night, and has been airless all day, and I am out of sorts,
and my work sticks, the devil fly away with it and me. We
had an alarm of war since last I wrote my screeds to you, and
it blew over, and is to blow on again, and the rumour goes
they are to begin by killing all the whites. I have no
belief in this, and should be infinitely sorry if it came to
pass - I do not mean for US, that were otiose - but for the
poor, deluded schoolboys, who should hope to gain by such a
step.
[LETTER RESUMED.]
JUNE 20TH.
No diary this time. Why? you ask. I have only sent out four
Letters, and two chapters of the WRECKER. Yes, but to get
these I have written 132 pp., 66,000 words in thirty days;
2200 words a day; the labours of an elephant. God knows what
it's like, and don't ask me, but nobody shall say I have
spared pains. I thought for some time it wouldn't come at
all. I was days and days over the first letter of the lot -
days and days writing and deleting and making no headway
whatever, till I thought I should have gone bust; but it came
at last after a fashion, and the rest went a thought more
easily, though I am not so fond as to fancy any better.
Your opinion as to the letters as a whole is so damnatory
that I put them by. But there is a 'hell of a want of' money
this year. And these Gilbert Island papers, being the most
interesting in matter, and forming a compact whole, and being
well illustrated, I did think of as a possible resource.
It would be called
SIX MONTHS IN MELANESIA,
TWO ISLAND KINGS,
- MONARCHIES,
GILBERT ISLAND KINGS,
- MONARCHIES,
and I daresay I'll think of a better yet - and would divide
thus:-
BUTARITATI.
I. A Town asleep.
II. The Three Brothers.
III. Around our House.
IV. A Tale of a Tapu.
V. The Five Day's Festival.
VI. Domestic Life - (which might be omitted, but not well,
better be recast).
THE KING OF APEMAMA.
VII. The Royal Traders.
VIII. Foundation of Equator Town.
IX. The Palace of Mary Warren.
X. Equator Town and the Palace.
XI. King and Commons.
XII. The Devil Work Box.
XIII. The Three Corslets.
XIV. Tail piece; the Court upon a Journey.
I wish you to watch these closely, judging them as a whole,
and treating them as I have asked you, and favour me with
your damnatory advice. I look up at your portrait, and it
frowns upon me. You seem to view me with reproach. The
expression is excellent; Fanny wept when she saw it, and you
know she is not given to the melting mood. She seems really
better; I have a touch of fever again, I fancy overwork, and
to-day, when I have overtaken my letters, I shall blow on my
pipe. Tell Mrs. S. I have been playing LE CHANT D'AMOUR
lately, and have arranged it, after awful trouble, rather
prettily for two pipes; and it brought her before me with an
effect scarce short of hallucination. I could hear her voice
in every note; yet I had forgot the air entirely, and began
to pipe it from notes as something new, when I was brought up
with a round turn by this reminiscence. We are now very much
installed; the dining-room is done, and looks lovely. Soon
we shall begin to photograph and send you our circumstances.
My room is still a howling wilderness. I sleep on a platform
in a window, and strike my mosquito bar and roll up my
bedclothes every morning, so that the bed becomes by day a
divan. A great part of the floor is knee-deep in books, yet
nearly all the shelves are filled, alas! It is a place to
make a pig recoil, yet here are my interminable labours begun
daily by lamp-light, and sometimes not yet done when the lamp
has once more to be lighted. The effect of pictures in this
place is surprising. They give great pleasure.
