Vailima Letters Robert Louis Stevenson
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Vailima Letters
CHAPTER I
IN THE MOUNTAIN, APIA, SAMOA,
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 1890
MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is a hard and interesting and
beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep
cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea,
embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy, and which
we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoor
work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or
literature must have gone by the board. NOTHING is so
interesting as weeding, clearing, and path-making; the
oversight of labourers becomes a disease; it is quite an
effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does make you feel
so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with
sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub
down, and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet
conscience. And the strange thing that I mark is this: If I
go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and plying the
cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds me; if I sit
in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails
over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I
did not go beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work
run out, and went down for the night to Apia; put in Sunday
afternoon with our consul, 'a nice young man,' dined with my
friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to church - no less -
at the white and half-white church - I had never been before,
and was much interested; the woman I sat next LOOKED a full-
blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest
English that she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we
yarned of the islands, being both wide wanderers, till bed-
time; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse saddled; round to the
mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter; over with
him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return;
received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting
talk with him about Samoan superstitions and my land - the
scene of a great battle in his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth -
the place which we have cleared the platform of his fort -
the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies - the fight
rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the
Mission; had a bit of lunch and consulted over a queer point
of missionary policy just arisen, about our new Town Hall and
the balls there - too long to go into, but a quaint example
of the intricate questions which spring up daily in the
missionary path.
Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on
noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the
ineffable green country all round - gorgeous little birds (I
think they are humming birds, but they say not) skirmishing
in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up I met a
native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
'Talofa' - 'Talofa, alii - You see that white man? He speak
for you.' 'White man he gone up here?' - 'Ioe (Yes)' -
'Tofa, alii' - 'Tofa, soifua!' I put on Jack up the steep
path, till he is all as white as shaving stick - Brown's
euxesis, wish I had some - past Tanugamanono, a bush village
- see into the houses as I pass - they are open sheds
scattered on a green - see the brown folk sitting there,
suckling kids, sleeping on their stiff wooden pillows - then
on through the wood path - and here I find the mysterious
white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years' certificate of
good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the strikes in
the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
big hotel bill, no ship to leave in - and come up to beg
twenty dollars because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering
to leave his portmanteau in pledge. Settle this, and on
again; and here my house comes in view, and a war whoop
fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Samoan boy, on the
front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I
shall have to go down again to Apia this day week. I could,
and would, dwell here unmoved, but there are things to be
attended to.
Never say I don't give you details and news. That is a
picture of a letter.
I have been hard at work since I came; three chapters of THE
WRECKER, and since that, eight of the South Sea book, and,
along and about and in between, a hatful of verses. Some day
I'll send the verse to you, and you'll say if any of it is
any good. I have got in a better vein with the South Sea
book, as I think you will see; I think these chapters will do
for the volume without much change. Those that I did in the
JANET NICOLL, under the most ungodly circumstances, I fear
will want a lot of suppling and lightening, but I hope to
have your remarks in a month or two upon that point. It
seems a long while since I have heard from you. I do hope
you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so much work;
'tis really immense what I have done; in the South Sea book I
have fifty pages copied fair, some of which has been four
times, and all twice written, certainly fifty pages of solid
scriving inside a fortnight, but I was at it by seven a.m.
till lunch, and from two till four or five every day; between
whiles, verse and blowing on the flageolet; never outside.
If you could see this place! but I don't want any one to see
it till my clearing is done, and my house built. It will be
a home for angels.
So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some cold meat and
bananas, on arrival. Then out to see where Henry and some of
the men were clearing the garden; for it was plain there was
to be no work to-day indoors, and I must set in consequence
to farmering. I stuck a good while on the way up, for the
path there is largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot
of sprouts and saplings and stones to be removed. Then I
reached our clearing just where the streams join in one; it
had a fine autumn smell of burning, the smoke blew in the
woods, and the boys were pretty merry and busy. Now I had a
private design:-
[Map which cannot be reproduced]
The Vaita'e I had explored pretty far up; not yet the other
stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng in sing); and up
that, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here quite
dry; it went through endless woods; about as broad as a
Devonshire lane, here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge
trees overhead in the sun, dripping lianas and tufted with
orchids, tree ferns, ferns depending with air roots from the
steep banks, great arums - I had not skill enough to say if
any of them were the edible kind, one of our staples here! -
hundreds of bananas - another staple - and alas! I had skill
enough to know all of these for the bad kind that bears no
fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other day; how hard
it was that the bad banana flourished wild, and the good must
be weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him how
fortunate they were here, and how hungry were other lands by
comparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of my dry stream
filled me with delight. I could not but be reminded of old
Mayne Reid, as I have been more than once since I came to the
tropics; and I thought, if Reid had been still living, I
would have written to tell him that, for, me, IT HAD COME
TRUE; and I thought, forbye, that, if the great powers go on
as they are going, and the Chief Justice delays, it would
come truer still; and the war-conch will sound in the hills,
and my home will be inclosed in camps, before the year is
ended. And all at once - mark you, how Mayne Reid is on the
spot - a strange thing happened. I saw a liana stretch
across the bed of the brook about breast-high, swung up my
knife to sever it, and - behold, it was a wire! On either
hand it plunged into thick bush; to-morrow I shall see where
it goes and get a guess perhaps of what it means. To-day I
know no more than - there it is. A little higher the brook
began to trickle, then to fill. At last, as I meant to do
some work upon the homeward trail, it was time to turn. I
did not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long as my
endurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.
At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung as high as
the elbows by the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in a
tough liana - a rotten trunk giving way under my feet; it was
deplorable bad business. And an axe - if I dared swing one -
would have been more to the purpose than my cutlass. Of a
sudden things began to go strangely easier; I found stumps,
bushing out again; my body began to wonder, then my mind; I
raised my eyes and looked ahead; and, by George, I was no
longer pioneering, I had struck an old track overgrown, and
was restoring an old path. So I laboured till I was in such
a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs could scarce have
found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned to the
stream; made my way down that stony track to the garden,
where the smoke was still hanging and the sun was still in
the high tree-tops, and so home. Here, fondly supposing my
long day was over, I rubbed down; exquisite agony; water
spreads the poison of these weeds; I got it all over my
hands, on my chest, in my eyes, and presently, while eating
an orange, A LA Raratonga, burned my lip and eye with orange
juice. Now, all day, our three small pigs had been adrift,
to the mortal peril of our corn, lettuce, onions, etc., and
as I stood smarting on the back verandah, behold the three
piglings issuing from the wood just opposite. Instantly I
got together as many boys as I could - three, and got the
pigs penned against the rampart of the sty, till the others
joined; whereupon we formed a cordon, closed, captured the
deserters, and dropped them, squeaking amain, into their
strengthened barracks where, please God, they may now stay!
Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you are not the
head of a plantation, my juvenile friend. Politics
succeeded: Henry got adrift in his English, Bene was too
cowardly to tell me what he was after: result, I have lost
seven good labourers, and had to sit down and write to you to
keep my temper. Let me sketch my lads. - Henry - Henry has
gone down to town or I could not be writing to you - this
were the hour of his English lesson else, when he learns what
he calls 'long expessions' or 'your chief's language' for the
matter of an hour and a half - Henry is a chiefling from
Savaii; I once loathed, I now like and - pending fresh
discoveries - have a kind of respect for Henry. He does good
work for us; goes among the labourers, bossing and watching;
helps Fanny; is civil, kindly, thoughtful; O SI SIC SEMPER!
But will he be 'his sometime self throughout the year'?
Anyway, he has deserved of us, and he must disappoint me
sharply ere I give him up. - Bene - or Peni-Ben, in plain
English - is supposed to be my ganger; the Lord love him!
God made a truckling coward, there is his full history. He
cannot tell me what he wants; he dares not tell me what is
wrong; he dares not transmit my orders or translate my
censures. And with all this, honest, sober, industrious,
miserably smiling over the miserable issue of his own
unmanliness. - Paul - a German - cook and steward - a glutton
of work - a splendid fellow; drawbacks, three: (1) no cook;
(2) an inveterate bungler; a man with twenty thumbs,
continually falling in the dishes, throwing out the dinner,
preserving the garbage; (3) a dr-, well, don't let us say
that - but we daren't let him go to town, and he - poor, good
soul - is afraid to be let go. - Lafaele (Raphael), a strong,
dull, deprecatory man; splendid with an axe, if watched; the
better for a rowing, when he calls me 'Papa' in the most
wheedling tones; desperately afraid of ghosts, so that he
dare not walk alone up in the banana patch - see map. The
rest are changing labourers; and to-night, owing to the
miserable cowardice of Peni, who did not venture to tell me
what the men wanted - and which was no more than fair - all
are gone - and my weeding in the article of being finished!
Pity the sorrows of a planter.
I am, Sir, yours, and be jowned to you, The Planter,
R. L. S.
Tuesday 3rd
I begin to see the whole scheme of letter-writing; you sit
down every day and pour out an equable stream of twaddle.
This morning all my fears were fled, and all the trouble had
fallen to the lot of Peni himself, who deserved it; my field
was full of weeders; and I am again able to justify the ways
of God. All morning I worked at the South Seas, and finished
the chapter I had stuck upon on Saturday. Fanny, awfully
hove-to with rheumatics and injuries received upon the field
of sport and glory, chasing pigs, was unable to go up and
down stairs, so she sat upon the back verandah, and my work
was chequered by her cries. 'Paul, you take a spade to do
that - dig a hole first. If you do that, you'll cut your
foot off! Here, you boy, what you do there? You no get
work? You go find Simele; he give you work. Peni, you tell
this boy he go find Simele; suppose Simele no give him work,
you tell him go 'way. I no want him here. That boy no
good.' - PENI (from the distance in reassuring tones), 'All
right, sir!' - FANNY (after a long pause), 'Peni, you tell
that boy go find Simele! I no want him stand here all day.
I no pay that boy. I see him all day. He no do nothing.' -
Luncheon, beef, soda-scones, fried bananas, pine-apple in
claret, coffee. Try to write a poem; no go. Play the
flageolet. Then sneakingly off to farmering and pioneering.
Four gangs at work on our place; a lively scene; axes
crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I
rob the garden party of one without a stock, and you should
see my hand - cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up
the Vaituliga single-handed, and I want it to burst on the
public complete. Hence, with devilish ingenuity, I begin it
at different places; so that if you stumble on one section,
you may not even then suspect the fulness of my labours.
Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the wire, and
hoping to work up to it. It was perhaps lucky I had so bad a
cutlass, and my smarting hand bid me stay before I had got up
to the wire, but just in season, so that I was only the
better of my activity, not dead beat as yesterday.
A strange business it was, and infinitely solitary; away
above, the sun was in the high tree-tops; the lianas noosed
and sought to hang me; the saplings struggled, and came up
with that sob of death that one gets to know so well; great,
soft, sappy trees fell at a lick of the cutlass, little tough
switches laughed at and dared my best endeavour. Soon,
toiling down in that pit of verdure, I heard blows on the far
side, and then laughter. I confess a chill settled on my
heart.
Being so dead alone, in a place where by rights none should
be beyond me, I was aware, upon interrogation, if those blows
had drawn nearer, I should (of course quite unaffectedly)
have executed a strategic movement to the rear; and only the
other day I was lamenting my insensibility to superstition!
Am I beginning to be sucked in? Shall I become a midnight
twitterer like my neighbours? At times I thought the blows
were echoes; at times I thought the laughter was from birds.
For our birds are strangely human in their calls. Vaea
mountain about sundown sometimes rings with shrill cries,
like the hails of merry, scattered children. As a matter of
fact, I believe stealthy wood-cutters from Tanugamanono were
above me in the wood and answerable for the blows; as for the
laughter, a woman and two children had come and asked Fanny's
leave to go up shrimp-fishing in the burn; beyond doubt, it
was these I heard. Just at the right time I returned; to
wash down, change, and begin this snatch of letter before
dinner was ready, and to finish it afterwards, before Henry
has yet put in an appearance for his lesson in 'long
explessions.'
Dinner: stewed beef and potatoes, baked bananas, new loaf-
bread hot from the oven, pine-apple in claret. These are
great days; we have been low in the past; but now are we as
belly-gods, enjoying all things.
WEDNESDAY. (HIST. VAILIMA RESUMED.)
A gorgeous evening of after-glow in the great tree-tops and
behind the mountain, and full moon over the lowlands and the
sea, inaugurated a night of horrid cold. To you effete
denizens of the so-called temperate zone, it had seemed
nothing; neither of us could sleep; we were up seeking extra
coverings, I know not at what hour - it was as bright as day.
The moon right over Vaea - near due west, the birds strangely
silent, and the wood of the house tingling with cold; I
believe it must have been 60 degrees! Consequence; Fanny has
a headache and is wretched, and I could do no work. (I am
trying all round for a place to hold my pen; you will hear
why later on; this to explain penmanship.) I wrote two
pages, very bad, no movement, no life or interest; then I
wrote a business letter; then took to tootling on the
flageolet, till glory should call me farmering.
I took up at the fit time Lafaele and Mauga - Mauga, accent
on the first, is a mountain, I don't know what Mauga means -
mind what I told you of the value of g - to the garden, and
set them digging, then turned my attention to the path. I
could not go into my bush path for two reasons: 1st, sore
hands; 2nd, had on my trousers and good shoes. Lucky it was.
Right in the wild lime hedge which cuts athwart us just
homeward of the garden, I found a great bed of kuikui -
sensitive plant - our deadliest enemy. A fool brought it to
this island in a pot, and used to lecture and sentimentalise
over the tender thing. The tender thing has now taken charge
of this island, and men fight it, with torn hands, for bread
and life. A singular, insidious thing, shrinking and biting
like a weasel; clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to
a rock. As I fought him, I bettered some verses in my poem,
the WOODMAN; the only thought I gave to letters. Though the
kuikui was thick, there was but a small patch of it, and when
I was done I attacked the wild lime, and had a hand-to-hand
skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this time,
close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and
Mauga were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, 'Somebody he
sing out.' - 'Somebody he sing out? All right. I go.' And
I went and found they had been whistling and 'singing out'
for long, but the fold of the hill and the uncleared bush
shuts in the garden so that no one heard, and I was late for
dinner, and Fanny's headache was cross; and when the meal was
over, we had to cut up a pineapple which was going bad, to
make jelly of; and the next time you have a handful of broken
blood-blisters, apply pine-apple juice, and you will give me
news of it, and I request a specimen of your hand of write
five minutes after - the historic moment when I tackled this
history. My day so far.
Fanny was to have rested. Blessed Paul began making a duck-
house; she let him be; the duck-house fell down, and she had
to set her hand to it. He was then to make a drinking-place
for the pigs; she let him be again - he made a stair by which
the pigs will probably escape this evening, and she was near
weeping. Impossible to blame the indefatigable fellow;
energy is too rare and goodwill too noble a thing to
discourage; but it's trying when she wants a rest. Then she
had to cook the dinner; then, of course - like a fool and a
woman - must wait dinner for me, and make a flurry of
herself. Her day so far. CETERA ADHUC DESUNT.
FRIDAY - I THINK.
I have been too tired to add to this chronicle, which will at
any rate give you some guess of our employment. All goes
well; the kuikui - (think of this mispronunciation having
actually infected me to the extent of misspelling! tuitui is
the word by rights) - the tuitui is all out of the paddock -
a fenced park between the house and boundary; Peni's men
start to-day on the road; the garden is part burned, part
dug; and Henry, at the head of a troop of underpaid
assistants, is hard at work clearing. The part clearing you
will see from the map; from the house run down to the stream
side, up the stream nearly as high as the garden; then back
to the star which I have just added to the map.
My long, silent contests in the forest have had a strange
effect on me. The unconcealed vitality of these vegetables,
their exuberant number and strength, the attempts - I can use
no other word - of lianas to enwrap and capture the intruder,
the awful silence, the knowledge that all my efforts are only
like the performance of an actor, the thing of a moment, and
the wood will silently and swiftly heal them up with fresh
effervescence; the cunning sense of the tuitui, suffering
itself to be touched with wind-swayed grasses and not minding
- but let the grass be moved by a man, and it shuts up; the
whole silent battle, murder, and slow death of the contending
forest; weigh upon the imagination. My poem the WOODMAN
stands; but I have taken refuge in a new story, which just
shot through me like a bullet in one of my moments of awe,
alone in that tragic jungle:-
THE HIGH WOODS OF ULUFANUA.
1. A South Sea Bridal.
2. Under the Ban.
3. Savao and Faavao.
4. Cries in the High Wood.
5. Rumour full of Tongues.
6. The Hour of Peril.
7. The Day of Vengeance.
It is very strange, very extravagant, I daresay; but it's
varied, and picturesque, and has a pretty love affair, and
ends well. Ulufanua is a lovely Samoan word, ulu=grove;
fanua=land; grove-land - 'the tops of the high trees.'
Savao, 'sacred to the wood,' and Faavao, 'wood-ways,' are the
names of two of the characters, Ulufanua the name of the
supposed island.
I am very tired, and rest off to-day from all but letters.
Fanny is quite done up; she could not sleep last night,
something it seemed like asthma - I trust not. I suppose
Lloyd will be about, so you can give him the benefit of this
long scrawl. Never say that I CAN'T write a letter, say that
I don't. - Yours ever, my dearest fellow,
R. L. S.
LATER ON FRIDAY.
The guid wife had bread to bake, and she baked it in a pan,
O! But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive
in the paddock. The men have but now passed over it; I was
round in that very place to see the weeding was done
thoroughly, and already the reptile springs behind our heels.
Tuitui is a truly strange beast, and gives food for thought.
I am nearly sure - I cannot yet be quite, I mean to
experiment, when I am less on the hot chase of the beast -
that, even at the instant he shrivels up his leaves, he
strikes his prickles downward so as to catch the uprooting
finger; instinctive, say the gabies; but so is man's impulse
to strike out. One thing that takes and holds me is to see
the strange variation in the propagation of alarm among these
rooted beasts; at times it spreads to a radius (I speak by
the guess of the eye) of five or six inches; at times only
one individual plant appears frightened at a time. We tried
how long it took one to recover; 'tis a sanguine creature; it
is all abroad again before (I guess again) two minutes. It
is odd how difficult in this world it is to be armed. The
double armour of this plant betrays it. In a thick tuft,
where the leaves disappear, I thrust in my hand, and the bite
of the thorns betrays the topmost stem. In the open again,
and when I hesitate if it be clover, a touch on the leaves,
and its fine sense and retractile action betrays its identity
at once. Yet it has one gift incomparable. Rome had virtue
and knowledge; Rome perished. The sensitive plant has
indigestible seeds - so they say - and it will flourish for
ever. I give my advice thus to a young plant - have a strong
root, a weak stem, and an indigestible seed; so you will
outlast the eternal city, and your progeny will clothe
mountains, and the irascible planter will blaspheme in vain.
The weak point of tuitui is that its stem is strong.
SUPPLEMENTARY PAGE.
Here beginneth the third lesson, which is not from the
planter but from a less estimable character, the writer of
books.
I want you to understand about this South Sea Book. The job
is immense; I stagger under material. I have seen the first
big TACHE. It was necessary to see the smaller ones; the
letters were at my hand for the purpose, but I was not going
to lose this experience; and, instead of writing mere
letters, have poured out a lot of stuff for the book. How
this works and fits, time is to show. But I believe, in
time, I shall get the whole thing in form. Now, up to date,
that is all my design, and I beg to warn you till we have the
whole (or much) of the stuff together, you can hardly judge -
and I can hardly judge. Such a mass of stuff is to be
handled, if possible without repetition - so much foreign
matter to be introduced - if possible with perspicuity - and,
as much as can be, a spirit of narrative to be preserved.
You will find that come stronger as I proceed, and get the
explanations worked through. Problems of style are (as yet)
dirt under my feet; my problem is architectural, creative -
to get this stuff jointed and moving. If I can do that, I
will trouble you for style; anybody might write it, and it
would be splendid; well-engineered, the masses right, the
blooming thing travelling - twig?
This I wanted you to understand, for lots of the stuff sent
home is, I imagine, rot - and slovenly rot - and some of it
pompous rot; and I want you to understand it's a LAY-IN.
Soon, if the tide of poeshie continues, I'll send you a whole
lot to damn. You never said thank-you for the handsome
tribute addressed to you from Apemama; such is the gratitude
of the world to the God-sent poick. Well, well:- 'Vex not
thou the poick's mind, With thy coriaceous ingratitude, The
P. will be to your faults more than a little blind, And yours
is a far from handsome attitude.' Having thus dropped into
poetry in a spirit of friendship, I have the honour to
subscribe myself, Sir,
Your obedient humble servant,
SILAS WEGG.
I suppose by this you will have seen the lad - and his feet
will have been in the Monument - and his eyes beheld the face
of George. Well!
There is much eloquence in a well!
I am, Sir
Yours
The Epigrammatist
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
FINIS - EXPLICIT
CHAPTER II
VAILIMA, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25TH, 1890.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I wanted to go out bright and early to go
on with my survey. You never heard of that. The world has
turned, and much water run under bridges, since I stopped my
diary. I have written six more chapters of the book, all
good I potently believe, and given up, as a deception of the
devil's, the High Woods. I have been once down to Apia, to a
huge native feast at Seumanutafa's, the chief of Apia. There
was a vast mass of food, crowds of people, the police
charging among them with whips, the whole in high good humour
on both sides; infinite noise; and a historic event - Mr.
Clarke, the missionary, and his wife, assisted at a native
dance. On my return from this function, I found work had
stopped; no more South Seas in my belly. Well, Henry had
cleared a great deal of our bush on a contract, and it ought
to be measured. I set myself to the task with a tape-line;
it seemed a dreary business; then I borrowed a prismatic
compass, and tackled the task afresh. I have no books; I had
not touched an instrument nor given a thought to the business
since the year of grace 1871; you can imagine with what
interest I sat down yesterday afternoon to reduce my
observations; five triangles I had taken; all five came
right, to my ineffable joy. Our dinner - the lowest we have
ever been - consisted of ONE AVOCADO PEAR between Fanny and
me, a ship's biscuit for the guidman, white bread for the
Missis, and red wine for the twa. No salt horse, even, in
all Vailima! After dinner Henry came, and I began to teach
him decimals; you wouldn't think I knew them myself after so
long desuetude!
I could not but wonder how Henry stands his evenings here;
the Polynesian loves gaiety - I feed him with decimals, the
mariner's compass, derivations, grammar, and the like;
delecting myself, after the manner of my race, MOULT
TRISTEMENT. I suck my paws; I live for my dexterities and by
my accomplishments; even my clumsinesses are my joy - my
woodcuts, my stumbling on the pipe, this surveying even - and
even weeding sensitive; anything to do with the mind, with
the eye, with the hand - with a part of ME; diversion flows
in these ways for the dreary man. But gaiety is what these
children want; to sit in a crowd, tell stories and pass
jests, to hear one another laugh and scamper with the girls.
It's good fun, too, I believe, but not for R. L. S., AETAT.
40. Which I am now past forty, Custodian, and not one penny
the worse that I can see; as amusable as ever; to be on board
ship is reward enough for me; give me the wages of going on -
in a schooner! Only, if ever I were gay, which I
misremember, I am gay no more. And here is poor Henry
passing his evenings on my intellectual husks, which the
professors masticated; keeping the accounts of the estate -
all wrong I have no doubt - I keep no check, beyond a very
rough one; marching in with a cloudy brow, and the day-book
under his arm; tackling decimals, coming with cases of
conscience - how would an English chief behave in such a
case? etc.; and, I am bound to say, on any glimmer of a jest,
lapsing into native hilarity as a tree straightens itself
after the wind is by. The other night I remembered my old
friend - I believe yours also - Scholastikos, and
administered the crow and the anchor - they were quite fresh
to Samoan ears (this implies a very early severance) - and I
thought the anchor would have made away with my Simele
altogether.
Fanny's time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in
contending publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we
call her Jack Sheppard; impossible to confine her -
impossible also for her to be confined! To my sure knowledge
she has been in an interesting condition for longer than any
other sow in story; else she had long died the death; as soon
as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I
suppose that sow has cost us in days' labour from thirty to
fifty dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have
been twelve hours in chase of her. Now it is supposed that
Fanny has outwitted her; she grins behind broad planks in
what was once the cook-house. She is a wild pig; far
handsomer than any tame; and when she found the cook-house
was too much for her methods of evasion, she lay down on the
floor and refused food and drink for a whole Sunday. On
Monday morning she relapsed, and now eats and drinks like a
little man. I am reminded of an incident. Two Sundays ago,
the sad word was brought that the sow was out again; this
time she had carried another in her flight. Moors and I and
Fanny were strolling up to the garden, and there by the
waterside we saw the black sow, looking guilty. It seemed to
me beyond words; but Fanny's CRI DU COEUR was delicious: 'G-
r-r!' she cried; 'nobody loves you!'
I would I could tell you the moving story of our cart and
cart-horses; the latter are dapple-grey, about sixteen hands,
and of enormous substance; the former was a kind of red and
green shandry-dan with a driving bench; plainly unfit to
carry lumber or to face our road. (Remember that the last
third of my road, about a mile, is all made out of a bridle-
track by my boys - and my dollars.) It was supposed a white
man had been found - an ex-German artilleryman - to drive
this last; he proved incapable and drunken; the gallant
Henry, who had never driven before, and knew nothing about
horses - except the rats and weeds that flourish on the
islands - volunteered; Moors accepted, proposing to follow
and supervise: despatched his work and started after. No
cart! he hurried on up the road - no cart. Transfer the
scene to Vailima, where on a sudden to Fanny and me, the cart
appears, apparently at a hard gallop, some two hours before
it was expected; Henry radiantly ruling chaos from the bench.
It stopped: it was long before we had time to remark that the
axle was twisted like the letter L. Our first care was the
horses. There they stood, black with sweat, the sweat
raining from them - literally raining - their heads down,
their feet apart - and blood running thick from the nostrils
of the mare. We got out Fanny's under-clothes - couldn't
find anything else but our blankets - to rub them down, and
in about half an hour we had the blessed satisfaction to see
one after the other take a bite or two of grass. But it was
a toucher; a little more and these steeds would have been
foundered.
MONDAY, 31ST? NOVEMBER.
Near a week elapsed, and no journal. On Monday afternoon,
Moors rode up and I rode down with him, dined, and went over
in the evening to the American Consulate; present, Consul-
General Sewall, Lieut. Parker and Mrs. Parker, Lafarge the
American decorator, Adams an American historian; we talked
late, and it was arranged I was to write up for Fanny, and we
should both dine on the morrow.
On the Friday, I was all forenoon in the Mission House,
lunched at the German Consulate, went on board the SPERBER
(German war ship) in the afternoon, called on my lawyer on my
way out to American Consulate, and talked till dinner time
with Adams, whom I am supplying with introductions and
information for Tahiti and the Marquesas. Fanny arrived a
wreck, and had to lie down. The moon rose, one day past
full, and we dined in the verandah, a good dinner on the
whole; talk with Lafarge about art and the lovely dreams of
art students. Remark by Adams, which took me briskly home to
the Monument - 'I only liked one YOUNG woman - and that was
Mrs. Procter.' Henry James would like that. Back by
moonlight in the consulate boat - Fanny being too tired to
walk - to Moors's. Saturday, I left Fanny to rest, and was
off early to the Mission, where the politics are thrilling
just now. The native pastors (to every one's surprise) have
moved of themselves in the matter of the native dances,
desiring the restrictions to be removed, or rather to be made
dependent on the character of the dance. Clarke, who had
feared censure and all kinds of trouble, is, of course,
rejoicing greatly. A characteristic feature: the argument of
the pastors was handed in in the form of a fictitious
narrative of the voyage of one Mr. Pye, an English traveller,
and his conversation with a chief; there are touches of
satire in this educational romance. Mr. Pye, for instance,
admits that he knows nothing about the Bible. At the Mission
I was sought out by Henry in a devil of an agitation; he has
been made the victim of a forgery - a crime hitherto unknown
in Samoa. I had to go to Folau, the chief judge here, in the
matter. Folau had never heard of the offence, and begged to
know what was the punishment; there may be lively times in
forgery ahead. It seems the sort of crime to tickle a
Polynesian. After lunch - you can see what a busy three days
I am describing - we set off to ride home. My Jack was full
of the devil of corn and too much grass, and no work. I had
to ride ahead and leave Fanny behind. He is a most gallant
little rascal is my Jack, and takes the whole way as hard as
the rider pleases. Single incident: half-way up, I find my
boys upon the road and stop and talk with Henry in his
character of ganger, as long as Jack will suffer me. Fanny
drones in after; we make a show of eating - or I do - she
goes to bed about half-past six! I write some verses, read
Irving's WASHINGTON, and follow about half-past eight. O,
one thing more I did, in a prophetic spirit. I had made sure
Fanny was not fit to be left alone, and wrote before turning
in a letter to Chalmers, telling him I could not meet him in
Auckland at this time. By eleven at night, Fanny got me
wakened - she had tried twice in vain - and I found her very
bad. Thence till three, we laboured with mustard poultices,
laudanum, soda and ginger - Heavens! wasn't it cold; the land
breeze was as cold as a river; the moon was glorious in the
paddock, and the great boughs and the black shadows of our
trees were inconceivable. But it was a poor time.
Sunday morning found Fanny, of course, a complete wreck, and
myself not very brilliant. Paul had to go to Vailele RE
cocoa-nuts; it was doubtful if he could be back by dinner;
never mind, said I, I'll take dinner when you return. Off
set Paul. I did an hour's work, and then tackled the house
work. I did it beautiful: the house was a picture, it
resplended of propriety. Presently Mr. Moors' Andrew rode
up; I heard the doctor was at the Forest House and sent a
note to him; and when he came, I heard my wife telling him
she had been in bed all day, and that was why the house was
so dirty! Was it grateful? Was it politic? Was it TRUE? -
Enough! In the interval, up marched little L. S., one of my
neighbours, all in his Sunday white linens; made a fine
salute, and demanded the key of the kitchen in German and
English. And he cooked dinner for us, like a little man, and
had it on the table and the coffee ready by the hour. Paul
had arranged me this surprise. Some time later, Paul
returned himself with a fresh surprise on hand; he was almost
sober; nothing but a hazy eye distinguished him from Paul of
the week days: VIVAT!
On the evening I cannot dwell. All the horses got out of the
paddock, went across, and smashed my neighbour's garden into
a big hole. How little the amateur conceives a farmer's
troubles. I went out at once with a lantern, staked up a gap
in the hedge, was kicked at by a chestnut mare, who
straightway took to the bush; and came back. A little after,
they had found another gap, and the crowd were all abroad
again. What has happened to our own garden nobody yet knows.
Fanny had a fair night, and we are both tolerable this
morning, only the yoke of correspondence lies on me heavy. I
beg you will let this go on to my mother. I got such a good
start in your letter, that I kept on at it, and I have
neither time nor energy for more.
Yours ever,
R. L. S.
SOMETHING NEW.
I was called from my letters by the voice of Mr. -, who had
just come up with a load of wood, roaring, 'Henry! Henry!
Bring six boys!' I saw there was something wrong, and ran
out. The cart, half unloaded, had upset with the mare in the
shafts; she was all cramped together and all tangled up in
harness and cargo, the off shaft pushing her over, Mr. -
holding her up by main strength, and right along-side of her
- where she must fall if she went down - a deadly stick of a
tree like a lance. I could not but admire the wisdom and
faith of this great brute; I never saw the riding-horse that
would not have lost its life in such a situation; but the
cart-elephant patiently waited and was saved. It was a
stirring three minutes, I can tell you.
I forgot in talking of Saturday to tell of one incident which
will particularly interest my mother. I met Dr. D. from
Savaii, and had an age-long talk about Edinburgh folk; it was
very pleasant. He has been studying in Edinburgh, along with
his son; a pretty relation. He told me he knew nobody but
college people: 'I was altogether a student,' he said with
glee. He seems full of cheerfulness and thick-set energy. I
feel as if I could put him in a novel with effect; and ten to
one, if I know more of him, the image will be only blurred.
TUESDAY, DEC. 2ND.
I should have told you yesterday that all my boys were got up
for their work in moustaches and side-whiskers of some sort
of blacking - I suppose wood-ash. It was a sight of joy to
see them return at night, axe on shoulder, feigning to march
like soldiers, a choragus with a loud voice singing out,
'March-step! March-step!' in imperfect recollection of some
drill.
Fanny seems much revived.
R. L. S.
CHAPTER III
MONDAY, TWENTY-SOMETHINGTH OF DECEMBER, 1890.
MY DEAR COLVIN, - I do not say my Jack is anything
extraordinary; he is only an island horse; and the profane
might call him a Punch; and his face is like a donkey's; and
natives have ridden him, and he has no mouth in consequence,
and occasionally shies. But his merits are equally
surprising; and I don't think I should ever have known Jack's
merits if I had not been riding up of late on moonless
nights. Jack is a bit of a dandy; he loves to misbehave in a
gallant manner, above all on Apia Street, and when I stop to
speak to people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the German consul said
about three days ago), 'O what a wild horse! it cannot be
safe to ride him.' Such a remark is Jack's reward, and
represents his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia
on a dark night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast
steady walk, with his head down, and sometimes his nose to
the ground - when he wants to do that, he asks for his head
with a little eloquent polite movement indescribable - he
climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the wood.
The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to
see the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and
shine in the open end of the road, as bright as moonlight at
home; but the crypt itself was proof, blackness lived in it.
The next night it was raining. We left the lights of Apia
and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for himself, but he
does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I am
directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my
switch upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting.
In the forest, the dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights
the whole ground is strewn with it, so that it seems like a
grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is one of the things
that feed the night fears of the natives; and I am free to
confess that in a night of trackless darkness where all else
is void, these pallid IGNES SUPPOSITI have a fantastic
appearance, rather bogey even. One night, when it was very
dark, a man had put out a little lantern by the wayside to
show the entrance to his ground. I saw the light, as I
thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a pedestrian coming
to meet me; I was quite taken by surprise when it struck in
my face and passed behind me. Jack saw it, and he was
appalled; do you think he thought of shying? No, sir, not in
the dark; in the dark Jack knows he is on duty; and he went
past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he went, he
groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we
only pass one house - that where the lantern was; and about
1500 of these are in the darkness of the pit. But now the
moon is on tap again, and the roads lighted.
I have been exploring up the Vaituliga; see your map. It
comes down a wonderful fine glen; at least 200 feet of cliffs
on either hand, winding like a corkscrew, great forest trees
filling it. At the top there ought to be a fine double fall;
but the stream evades it by a fault and passes underground.
Above the fall it runs (at this season) full and very gaily
in a shallow valley, some hundred yards before the head of
the glen. Its course is seen full of grasses, like a flooded
meadow; that is the sink! beyond the grave of the grasses,
the bed lies dry. Near this upper part there is a great show
of ruinous pig-walls; a village must have stood near by.
To walk from our house to Wreck Hill (when the path is buried
in fallen trees) takes one about half an hour, I think; to
return, not more than twenty minutes; I daresay fifteen.
Hence I should guess it was three-quarters of a mile. I had
meant to join on my explorations passing eastward by the
sink; but, Lord! how it rains.
(LATER.)
I went out this morning with a pocket compass and walked in a
varying direction, perhaps on an average S. by W., 1754
paces. Then I struck into the bush, N.W. by N., hoping to
strike the Vaituliga above the falls. Now I have it plotted
out I see I should have gone W. or even W. by S.; but it is
not easy to guess. For 600 weary paces I struggled through
the bush, and then came on the stream below the gorge, where
it was comparatively easy to get down to it. In the place
where I struck it, it made cascades about a little isle, and
was running about N.E., 20 to 30 feet wide, as deep as to my
knee, and piercing cold. I tried to follow it down, and keep
the run of its direction and my paces; but when I was wading
to the knees and the waist in mud, poison brush, and rotted
wood, bound hand and foot in lianas, shovelled
unceremoniously off the one shore and driven to try my luck
upon the other - I saw I should have hard enough work to get
my body down, if my mind rested. It was a damnable walk;
certainly not half a mile as the crow flies, but a real
bucketer for hardship. Once I had to pass the stream where
it flowed between banks about three feet high. To get the
easier down, I swung myself by a wild-cocoanut - (so called,
it bears bunches of scarlet nutlets) - which grew upon the
brink. As I so swung, I received a crack on the head that
knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree had
taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the
other, and the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the
stream and was gone before I had recovered my wits. (I
scarce know what I write, so hideous a Niagara of rain roars,
shouts, and demonizes on the iron roof - it is pitch dark too
- the lamp lit at 5!) It was a blessed thing when I struck
my own road; and I got home, neat for lunch time, one of the
most wonderful mud statues ever witnessed. In the afternoon
I tried again, going up the other path by the garden, but was
early drowned out; came home, plotted out what I had done,
and then wrote this truck to you.
Fanny has been quite ill with ear-ache. She won't go, hating
the sea at this wild season; I don't like to leave her; so it
drones on, steamer after steamer, and I guess it'll end by no
one going at all. She is in a dreadful misfortune at this
hour; a case of kerosene having burst in the kitchen. A
little while ago it was the carpenter's horse that trod in a
nest of fourteen eggs, and made an omelette of our hopes.
The farmer's lot is not a happy one. And it looks like some
real uncompromising bad weather too. I wish Fanny's ear were
well. Think of parties in Monuments! think of me in
Skerryvore, and now of this. It don't look like a part of
the same universe to me. Work is quite laid aside; I have
worked myself right out.
CHRISTMAS EVE.
Yesterday, who could write? My wife near crazy with ear-
ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing
hell's tattoo, like a TUTTI of battering rams, on our sheet-
iron roof; the wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb
mutter, or striking us full, so that all the huge trees in
the paddock cried aloud, and wrung their hands, and
brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in the shed
like things stupid. The sea and the flagship lying on the
jaws of the bay vanished in sheer rain. All day it lasted; I
locked up my papers in the iron box, in case it was a
hurricane, and the house might go. We went to bed with
mighty uncertain feelings; far more than on shipboard, where
you have only drowning ahead - whereas here you have a smash
of beams, a shower of sheet-iron, and a blind race in the
dark and through a whirlwind for the shelter of an unfinished
stable - and my wife with ear-ache! Well, well, this
morning, we had word from Apia; a hurricane was looked for,
the ships were to leave the bay by 10 A.M.; it is now 3.30,
and the flagship is still a fixture, and the wind round in
the blessed east, so I suppose the danger is over. But
heaven is still laden; the day dim, with frequent rattling
bucketfuls of rain; and just this moment (as I write) a
squall went overhead, scarce striking us, with that singular,
solemn noise of its passage, which is to me dreadful. I have
always feared the sound of wind beyond everything. In my
hell it would always blow a gale.
I have been all day correcting proofs, and making out a new
plan for our house. The other was too dear to be built now,
and it was a hard task to make a smaller house that would
suffice for the present, and not be a mere waste of money in
the future. I believe I have succeeded; I have taken care of
my study anyway.
Two favours I want to ask of you. First, I wish you to get
'Pioneering in New Guinea,' by J. Chalmers. It's a
missionary book, and has less pretensions to be literature
than Spurgeon's sermons. Yet I think even through that, you
will see some of the traits of the hero that wrote it; a man
that took me fairly by storm for the most attractive, simple,
brave, and interesting man in the whole Pacific. He is away
now to go up the Fly River; a desperate venture, it is
thought; he is quite a Livingstone card.
Second, try and keep yourself free next winter; and if my
means can be stretched so far, I'll come to Egypt and we'll
meet at Shepheard's Hotel, and you'll put me in my place,
which I stand in need of badly by this time. Lord, what
bully times! I suppose I'll come per British Asia, or
whatever you call it, and avoid all cold, and might be in
Egypt about November as ever was - eleven months from now or
rather less. But do not let us count our chickens.
