It is lunch-time, I see, and I must close up with my warmest love
to you. I wish you were here to sit upon me when required. Ah! if
you were but a good sailor! I will never leave the sea, I think;
it is only there that a Briton lives: my poor grandfather, it is
from him I inherit the taste, I fancy, and he was round many
islands in his day; but I, please God, shall beat him at that
before the recall is sounded. Would you be surprised to learn that
I contemplate becoming a shipowner? I do, but it is a secret.
Life is far better fun than people dream who fall asleep among the
chimney stacks and telegraph wires.
Love to Henry James and others near. - Ever yours, my dear fellow,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
EQUATOR TOWN, APEMAMA, OCTOBER 1889.
No MORNING STAR came, however; and so now I try to send this to you
by the schooner J. L. TIERNAN. We have been about a month ashore,
camping out in a kind of town the king set up for us: on the idea
that I was really a 'big chief' in England. He dines with us
sometimes, and sends up a cook for a share of our meals when he
does not come himself. This sounds like high living! alas,
undeceive yourself. Salt junk is the mainstay; a low island,
except for cocoanuts, is just the same as a ship at sea: brackish
water, no supplies, and very little shelter. The king is a great
character - a thorough tyrant, very much of a gentleman, a poet, a
musician, a historian, or perhaps rather more a genealogist - it is
strange to see him lying in his house among a lot of wives (nominal
wives) writing the History of Apemama in an account-book; his
description of one of his own songs, which he sang to me himself,
as 'about sweethearts, and trees, and the sea - and no true, all-
the-same lie,' seems about as compendious a definition of lyric
poetry as a man could ask. Tembinoka is here the great attraction:
all the rest is heat and tedium and villainous dazzle, and yet more
villainous mosquitoes. We are like to be here, however, many a
long week before we get away, and then whither? A strange trade
this voyaging: so vague, so bound-down, so helpless. Fanny has
been planting some vegetables, and we have actually onions and
radishes coming up: ah, onion-despiser, were you but awhile in a
low island, how your heart would leap at sight of a coster's
barrow! I think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips. No
doubt we shall all be glad to say farewell to low islands - I had
near said for ever. They are very tame; and I begin to read up the
directory, and pine for an island with a profile, a running brook,
or were it only a well among the rocks. The thought of a mango
came to me early this morning and set my greed on edge; but you do
not know what a mango is, so -.
I have been thinking a great deal of you and the Monument of late,
and even tried to get my thoughts into a poem, hitherto without
success. God knows how you are: I begin to weary dreadfully to
see you - well, in nine months, I hope; but that seems a long time.
I wonder what has befallen me too, that flimsy part of me that
lives (or dwindles) in the public mind; and what has befallen THE
MASTER, and what kind of a Box the Merry Box has been found. It is
odd to know nothing of all this. We had an old woman to do devil-
work for you about a month ago, in a Chinaman's house on Apaiang
(August 23rd or 24th). You should have seen the crone with a noble
masculine face, like that of an old crone [SIC], a body like a
man's (naked all but the feathery female girdle), knotting cocoanut
leaves and muttering spells: Fanny and I, and the good captain of
the EQUATOR, and the Chinaman and his native wife and sister-in-
law, all squatting on the floor about the sibyl; and a crowd of
dark faces watching from behind her shoulder (she sat right in the
doorway) and tittering aloud with strange, appalled, embarrassed
laughter at each fresh adjuration. She informed us you were in
England, not travelling and now no longer sick; she promised us a
fair wind the next day, and we had it, so I cherish the hope she
was as right about Sidney Colvin. The shipownering has rather
petered out since I last wrote, and a good many other plans beside.
Health? Fanny very so-so; I pretty right upon the whole, and
getting through plenty work: I know not quite how, but it seems to
me not bad and in places funny.
South Sea Yarns:
1. THE WRECKER }
} R. L. S.
2. THE PEARL FISHER } by and
} Lloyd O.
3. THE BEACHCOMBERS }
THE PEARL FISHER, part done, lies in Sydney. It is THE WRECKER we
are now engaged upon: strange ways of life, I think, they set
forth: things that I can scarce touch upon, or even not at all, in
my travel book; and the yarns are good, I do believe. THE PEARL
FISHER is for the NEW YORK LEDGER: the yarn is a kind of Monte
Cristo one. THE WRECKER is the least good as a story, I think; but
the characters seem to me good. THE BEACHCOMBERS is more
sentimental. These three scarce touch the outskirts of the life we
have been viewing; a hot-bed of strange characters and incidents:
Lord, how different from Europe or the Pallid States! Farewell.
Heaven knows when this will get to you. I burn to be in Sydney and
have news.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
SCHOONER 'EQUATOR,' AT SEA. 190 MILES OFF SAMOA. MONDAY, DECEMBER
2ND, 1889
MY DEAR COLVIN, - We are just nearing the end of our long cruise.
Rain, calms, squalls, bang - there's the foretopmast gone; rain,
calm, squalls, away with the staysail; more rain, more calm, more
squalls; a prodigious heavy sea all the time, and the EQUATOR
staggering and hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a
great square, crowded with wet human beings, and the rain
avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping everywhere: Fanny,
in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up wonderfully. But such
voyages are at the best a trial. We had one particularity: coming
down on Winslow Reef, p. d. (position doubtful): two positions in
the directory, a third (if you cared to count that) on the chart;
heavy sea running, and the night due. The boats were cleared,
bread put on board, and we made up our packets for a boat voyage of
four or five hundred miles, and turned in, expectant of a crash.
Needless to say it did not come, and no doubt we were far to
leeward. If we only had twopenceworth of wind, we might be at
dinner in Apia to-morrow evening; but no such luck: here we roll,
dead before a light air - and that is no point of sailing at all
for a fore and aft schooner - the sun blazing overhead, thermometer
88 degrees, four degrees above what I have learned to call South
Sea temperature; but for all that, land so near, and so much grief
being happily astern, we are all pretty gay on board, and have been
photographing and draught-playing and sky-larking like anything. I
am minded to stay not very long in Samoa and confine my studies
there (as far as any one can forecast) to the history of the late
war. My book is now practically modelled: if I can execute what
is designed, there are few better books now extant on this globe,
bar the epics, and the big tragedies, and histories, and the choice
lyric poetics and a novel or so - none. But it is not executed
yet; and let not him that putteth on his armour, vaunt himself. At
least, nobody has had such stuff; such wild stories, such beautiful
scenes, such singular intimacies, such manners and traditions, so
incredible a mixture of the beautiful and horrible, the savage and
civilised. I will give you here some idea of the table of
contents, which ought to make your mouth water. I propose to call
the book THE SOUTH SEAS: it is rather a large title, but not many
people have seen more of them than I, perhaps no one - certainly no
one capable of using the material.
PART I. GENERAL. 'OF SCHOONERS, ISLANDS, AND MAROONS.'
CHAPTER I. Marine.
II. Contraband (smuggling, barratry, labour traffic).
III. The Beachcomber.
IV. Beachcomber stories. i. The Murder of the Chinaman. ii. Death
of a Beachcomber. iii. A Character. iv. The Apia Blacksmith.
PART II. THE MARQUESAS.
V. Anaho. i. Arrival. ii. Death. iii. The Tapu. iv. Morals. v.
Hoka.
VI. Tai-o-hae. i. Arrival. ii. The French. iii. The Royal
Family. iv. Chiefless Folk. v. The Catholics. vi. Hawaiian
Missionaries.
VII. Observations of a Long Pig. i. Cannibalism. ii. Hatiheu.
iii. Frere Michel. iv. Toahauka and Atuona. v. The Vale of
Atuona. vi. Moipu. vii. Captain Hati.
PART III. THE DANGEROUS ARCHIPELAGO.
VIII. The Group.
IX. A House to let in a Low Island.
X. A Paumotuan Funeral. i. The Funeral. ii. Tales of the Dead.
PART IV. TAHITI.
XI. Tautira.
XII. Village Government in Tahiti.
XIII. A Journey in Quest of Legends.
XIV. Legends and Songs.
XV. Life in Eden.
XVI. Note on the French Regimen.
PART V. THE EIGHT ISLANDS.
XVII. A Note on Missions.
XVIII. The Kona Coast of Hawaii. i. Hookena. ii. A Ride in the
Forest. iii. A Law Case. iv. The City of Refuge. v. The Lepers.
XIX. Molokai. i. A Week in the Precinct. ii. History of the Leper
Settlement. iii. The Mokolii. iv. The Free Island.
PART VI. THE GILBERTS.
XX. The Group. ii. Position of Woman. iii. The Missions. iv.
Devilwork. v. Republics.
XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, its King and Court.
ii. History of Three Kings. iii. The Drink Question.
XXII. A Butaritarian Festival.
XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. ii. Equator
Town and the Palace. iii. The Three Corselets.
PART VII. SAMOA.
which I have not yet reached.
Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300
CORNHILL pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to
be accounted for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work
in observations on Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other
Polynesian islands. It is still possible, though unlikely, that I
may add a passing visit to Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am
growing impatient to see yourself, and I do not want to be later
than June of coming to England. Anyway, you see it will be a large
work, and as it will be copiously illustrated, the Lord knows what
it will cost. We shall return, God willing, by Sydney, Ceylon,
Suez and, I guess, Marseilles the many-masted (copyright epithet).
I shall likely pause a day or two in Paris, but all that is too far
ahead - although now it begins to look near - so near, and I can
hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, and see the gates
swing back, and feel myself jump out upon the Monument steps -
Hosanna! - home again. My dear fellow, now that my father is done
with his troubles, and 17 Heriot Row no more than a mere shell, you
and that gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have in
view when I use the word home; some passing thoughts there may be
of the rooms at Skerryvore, and the black-birds in the chine on a
May morning; but the essence is S. C. and the Museum. Suppose, by
some damned accident, you were no more: well, I should return just
the same, because of my mother and Lloyd, whom I now think to send
to Cambridge; but all the spring would have gone out of me, and
ninety per cent. of the attraction lost. I will copy for you here
a copy of verses made in Apemama.
I heard the pulse of the besieging sea
Throb far away all night. I heard the wind
Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms.
I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand,
And flailing fans and shadows of the palm:
The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault -
The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.
The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives,
Slept in the precinct of the palisade:
Where single, in the wind, under the moon,
Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire,
Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel.
To other lands and nights my fancy turned,
To London first, and chiefly to your house,
The many-pillared and the well-beloved.
There yearning fancy lighted; there again
In the upper room I lay and heard far off
The unsleeping city murmur like a shell;
The muffled tramp of the Museum guard
Once more went by me; I beheld again
Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street;
Again I longed for the returning morn,
The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds,
The consentaneous trill of tiny song
That weaves round monumental cornices
A passing charm of beauty: most of all,
For your light foot I wearied, and your knock
That was the glad reveille of my day.
Lo, now, when to your task in the great house
At morning through the portico you pass,
One moment glance where, by the pillared wall,
Far-voyaging island gods, begrimed with smoke,
Sit now unworshipped, the rude monument
Of faiths forgot and races undivined;
Sit now disconsolate, remembering well
The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd,
The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice
Incessant, of the breakers on the shore.
As far as these from their ancestral shrine,
So far, so foreign, your divided friends
Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
SCHOONER 'EQUATOR,' AT SEA, WEDNESDAY, 4TH DECEMBER 1889.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - We are now about to rise, like whales, from
this long dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to
you by the first mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that
group I cannot forecast; but it will be best still to address at
Sydney, where I trust, when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month
from now, more probably in two or three, to find all news.
BUSINESS. - Will you be likely to have a space in the Magazine for
a serial story, which should be, ready, I believe, by April, at
latest by autumn? It is called THE WRECKER; and in book form will
appear as number 1 of South Sea Yarns by R. L. S. and Lloyd
Osbourne. Here is the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed
executed. ...
The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be
insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before,
no more has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success.
There is, besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising
American, on whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the
American merchant marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It
should run to (about) three hundred pages of my MS. I would like
to know if this tale smiles upon you, if you will have a vacancy,
and what you will be willing to pay. It will of course be
copyright in both the States and England. I am a little anxious to
have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of the mystery.
PLEASURE. - We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though
four months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largish
order; and my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a
pillar of health, though our long and vile voyage of calms,
squalls, cataracts of rain, sails carried away, foretopmast lost,
boats cleared and packets made on the approach of a p. d. reef,
etc., has cured me of salt brine, and filled me with a longing for
beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted. The interest has been
immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the Napoleon of the group,
poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me the woven corselets
of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and, what pleased me
more, told me their singular story, then all manner of strange
tales, facts and experiences for my South Sea book, which should be
a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.
We are now engaged in the hell of a dead calm, the heat is cruel -
it is the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but
a pair of serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford
gauze - O, yes, and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit
here in the cabin, sweat streams from me. The rest are on deck
under a bit of awning; we are not much above a hundred miles from
port, and we might as well be in Kamschatka. However, I should be
honest: this is the first calm I have endured without the added
bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated blue-bottle wallowings
and knockings of the helpless ship.
I wonder how you liked the end of THE MASTER; that was the hardest
job I ever had to do; did I do it?
My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame.
Remember all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I
don't get a word through for him. - I am, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
SAMOA, [DECEMBER 1889].
MY DEAR BAXTER, - . . . I cannot return until I have seen either
Tonga or Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have
finished my collections on the war - a very interesting bit of
history, the truth often very hard to come at, and the search (for
me) much complicated by the German tongue, from the use of which I
have desisted (I suppose) these fifteen years. The last two days I
have been mugging with a dictionary from five to six hours a day;
besides this, I have to call upon, keep sweet, and judiciously
interview all sorts of persons - English, American, German, and
Samoan. It makes a hard life; above all, as after every interview
I have to come and get my notes straight on the nail. I believe I
should have got my facts before the end of January, when I shall
make our Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in the hurricane season;
but they had so bad a one last year, I don't imagine there will be
much of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney some time in
April, and I shall have done well, and be in a position to write a
very singular and interesting book, or rather two; for I shall
begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble,
about as long as KIDNAPPED, not very interesting, but valuable -
and a thing proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South
Sea Book: a devil of a big one, and full of the finest sport.
This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before
seven, reading a number of BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, I was startled by
a soft TALOFA, ALII (note for my mother: they are quite courteous
here in the European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear:
it was Mataafa coming from early mass in his white coat and white
linen kilt, with three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest
thing to a hero in my history, and really a fine fellow; plenty
sense, and the most dignified, quiet, gentle manners. Talking of
BLACKWOOD - a file of which I was lucky enough to find here in the
lawyer's - Mrs. Oliphant seems in a staggering state: from the
WRONG BOX to THE MASTER I scarce recognise either my critic or
myself. I gather that THE MASTER should do well, and at least that
notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you
will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my
labours, I suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every
day I ride up and see Fanny and Lloyd, who are in a house in the
bush with Ah Fu. I live in Apia for history's sake with Moors, an
American trader. Day before yesterday I was arrested and fined for
riding fast in the street, which made my blood bitter, as the wife
of the manager of the German Firm has twice almost ridden me down,
and there seems none to say her nay. The Germans have behaved
pretty badly here, but not in all ways so ill as you may have
gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and if the insane
Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out of the
muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as
things occur to me.
I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you
to keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all
friends to hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the
day, and strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how
hard worked I am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty
tired man.
29TH DECEMBER, [1889].
To-morrow (Monday, I won't swear to my day of the month; this is
the Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with
Mr. Clarke, one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to
examine schools, see Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph.
Pray Heaven we have good weather; this is the rainy season; we
shall be gone four or five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall
be glad of the change; if it rain, it will be beastly. This
explains still further how hard pressed I am, as the mail will be
gone ere I return, and I have thus lost the days I meant to write
in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets and copies for me, and is
a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to me in order to
learn 'long expressions.' Henry goes up along with us; and as I am
not fond of him, he may before the trip is over hear some 'strong
expressions.' I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors',
palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself
lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel's song) 'clad
in robes of virgin white'; the ink is dreadful, the heat delicious,
a fine going breeze in the palms, and from the other side of the
house the sudden angry splash and roar of the Pacific on the reef,
where the warships are still piled from last year's hurricane, some
under water, one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure
of a ship was ever witnessed; the narrow bay there is full of
ships; the men-of-war covered with sail after the rains, and
(especially the German ship, which is fearfully and awfully top
heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what appears to be calm water.
Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or
Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of
nature; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German
plantations with their countless regular avenues of palms. The
island has beautiful rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in
the Lothians, with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging
verdure, and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought
I was passing near a mill, and it was only the voice of the river.
I am not specially attracted by the people; but they are courteous;
the women very attractive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike,
well set up, tall, lean, and dignified. As I write the breeze is
brisking up, doors are beginning to slam: and shutters; a strong
draught sweeps round the balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow.
Here I shut up. - Ever your affectionate,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO DR. SCOTT
APIA, SAMOA, JANUARY 20TH, 1890.
MY DEAR SCOTT, - Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of
me before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas,
and am (up to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think
nothing of long walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone
the other day, partly riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I
have stood a six months' voyage on a copra schooner with about
three months ashore on coral atolls, which means (except for
cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever from ship's food. My wife
suffered badly - it was too rough a business altogether - Lloyd
suffered - and, in short, I was the only one of the party who 'kept
my end up.'
I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle;
have even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred
acres, I know not which till the survey is completed, and shall
only return next summer to wind up my affairs in England;
thenceforth I mean to be a subject of the High Commissioner.
Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant
patient, but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I
find I can (almost immediately) fight off a cold with liquid
extract of coca; two or (if obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the
day for a variable period of from one to five days sees the cold
generally to the door. I find it at once produces a glow, stops
rigour, and though it makes one very uncomfortable, prevents the
advance of the disease. Hearing of this influenza, it occurred to
me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps a stronger
exhibition - injections of cocaine, for instance - still better.
If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems
highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much
inclined to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me
from if you shall have previously made it on ANIMA VILI, on some
less important sufferer, and shall have found it worse than
useless.
How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and
all friends in Bournemouth, yours very sincerely,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
FEBRUAR DEN 3EN 1890.
DAMPFER LUBECK ZWISCHEN APIA UND SYDNEY.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - I have got one delightful letter from you, and
heard from my mother of your kindness in going to see her. Thank
you for that: you can in no way more touch and serve me. . . . Ay,
ay, it is sad to sell 17; sad and fine were the old days: when I
was away in Apemama, I wrote two copies of verse about Edinburgh
and the past, so ink black, so golden bright. I will send them, if
I can find them, for they will say something to you, and indeed one
is more than half addressed to you. This is it -
TO MY OLD COMRADES
Do you remember - can we e'er forget? -
How, in the coiled perplexities of youth,
In our wild climate, in our scowling town,
We gloomed and shivered, sorrowed, sobbed, and feared?
The belching winter wind, the missile rain,
The rare and welcome silence of the snows,
The laggard morn, the haggard day, the night,
The grimy spell of the nocturnal town,
Do you remember? - Ah, could one forget!
As when the fevered sick that all night long
Listed the wind intone, and hear at last
The ever-welcome voice of the chanticleer
Sing in the bitter hour before the dawn, -
With sudden ardour, these desire the day:
(Here a squall sends all flying.)
So sang in the gloom of youth the bird of hope;
So we, exulting, hearkened and desired.
For lo! as in the palace porch of life
We huddled with chimeras, from within -
How sweet to hear! - the music swelled and fell,
And through the breach of the revolving doors
What dreams of splendour blinded us and fled!
I have since then contended and rejoiced;
Amid the glories of the house of life
Profoundly entered, and the shrine beheld:
Yet when the lamp from my expiring eyes
Shall dwindle and recede, the voice of love
Fall insignificant on my closing ears,
What sound shall come but the old cry of the wind
In our inclement city? what return
But the image of the emptiness of youth,
Filled with the sound of footsteps and that voice
Of discontent and rapture and despair?
So, as in darkness, from the magic lamp,
The momentary pictures gleam and fade
And perish, and the night resurges - these
Shall I remember, and then all forget.
They're pretty second-rate, but felt. I can't be bothered to copy
the other.
I have bought 314 and a half acres of beautiful land in the bush
behind Apia; when we get the house built, the garden laid, and
cattle in the place, it will be something to fall back on for
shelter and food; and if the island could stumble into political
quiet, it is conceivable it might even bring a little income. . . .
We range from 600 to 1500 feet, have five streams, waterfalls,
precipices, profound ravines, rich tablelands, fifty head of cattle
on the ground (if any one could catch them), a great view of
forest, sea, mountains, the warships in the haven: really a noble
place. Some day you are to take a long holiday and come and see
us: it has been all planned.
With all these irons in the fire, and cloudy prospects, you may be
sure I was pleased to hear a good account of business. I believed
THE MASTER was a sure card: I wonder why Henley thinks it grimy;
grim it is, God knows, but sure not grimy, else I am the more
deceived. I am sorry he did not care for it; I place it on the
line with KIDNAPPED myself. We'll see as time goes on whether it
goes above or falls below.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
SS. LUBECK, [BETWEEN APIA AND SYDNEY, FEBRUARY] 1890.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - I desire nothing better than to continue my
relation with the Magazine, to which it pleases me to hear I have
been useful. The only thing I have ready is the enclosed barbaric
piece. As soon as I have arrived in Sydney I shall send you some
photographs, a portrait of Tembinoka, perhaps a view of the palace
or of the 'matted men' at their singing; also T.'s flag, which my
wife designed for him: in a word, what I can do best for you. It
will be thus a foretaste of my book of travels. I shall ask you to
let me have, if I wish it, the use of the plates made, and to make
up a little tract of the verses and illustrations, of which you
might send six copies to H. M. Tembinoka, King of Apemama VIA
Butaritari, Gilbert Islands. It might be best to send it by
Crawford and Co., S. F. There is no postal service; and schooners
must take it, how they may and when. Perhaps some such note as
this might be prefixed:
AT MY DEPARTURE FROM THE ISLAND OF APEMAMA, FOR WHICH YOU WILL LOOK
IN VAIN IN MOST ATLASES, THE KING AND I AGREED, SINCE WE BOTH SET
UP TO BE IN THE POETICAL WAY, THAT WE SHOULD CELEBRATE OUR
SEPARATION IN VERSE. WHETHER OR NOT HIS MAJESTY HAS BEEN TRUE TO
HIS BARGAIN, THE LAGGARD POSTS OF THE PACIFIC MAY PERHAPS INFORM ME
IN SIX MONTHS, PERHAPS NOT BEFORE A YEAR. THE FOLLOWING LINES
REPRESENT MY PART OF THE CONTRACT, AND IT IS HOPED, BY THEIR
PICTURES OF STRANGE MANNERS, THEY MAY ENTERTAIN A CIVILISED
AUDIENCE. NOTHING THROUGHOUT HAS BEEN INVENTED OR EXAGGERATED; THE
LADY HEREIN REFERRED TO AS THE AUTHOR'S MUSE, HAS CONFINED HERSELF
TO STRINGING INTO RHYME FACTS AND LEGENDS THAT I SAW OR HEARD
DURING TWO MONTHS' RESIDENCE UPON THE ISLAND.
R. L. S.
You will have received from me a letter about THE WRECKER. No
doubt it is a new experiment for me, being disguised so much as a
study of manners, and the interest turning on a mystery of the
detective sort, I think there need be no hesitation about beginning
it in the fall of the year. Lloyd has nearly finished his part,
and I shall hope to send you very soon the MS. of about the first
four-sevenths. At the same time, I have been employing myself in
Samoa, collecting facts about the recent war; and I propose to
write almost at once and to publish shortly a small volume, called
I know not what - the War In Samoa, the Samoa Trouble, an Island
War, the War of the Three Consuls, I know not - perhaps you can
suggest. It was meant to be a part of my travel book; but material
has accumulated on my hands until I see myself forced into volume
form, and I hope it may be of use, if it come soon. I have a few
photographs of the war, which will do for illustrations. It is
conceivable you might wish to handle this in the Magazine, although
I am inclined to think you won't, and to agree with you. But if
you think otherwise, there it is. The travel letters (fifty of
them) are already contracted for in papers; these I was quite bound
to let M'Clure handle, as the idea was of his suggestion, and I
always felt a little sore as to one trick I played him in the
matter of the end-papers. The war-volume will contain some very
interesting and picturesque details: more I can't promise for it.
Of course the fifty newspaper letters will be simply patches chosen
from the travel volume (or volumes) as it gets written.
But you see I have in hand:-
Say half done. 1. THE WRECKER.
Lloyd's copy half done, mine not touched. 2. THE PEARL FISHER (a
novel promised to the LEDGER, and which will form, when it comes in
book form, No. 2 of our SOUTH SEA YARNS).
Not begun, but all material ready. 3. THE WAR VOLUME.
Ditto. 4. THE BIG TRAVEL BOOK, which includes the letters.
You know how they stand. 5. THE BALLADS.
EXCUSEZ DU PEU! And you see what madness it would be to make any
fresh engagement. At the same time, you have THE WRECKER and the
WAR VOLUME, if you like either - or both - to keep my name in the
Magazine.
It begins to look as if I should not be able to get any more
ballads done this somewhile. I know the book would sell better if
it were all ballads; and yet I am growing half tempted to fill up
with some other verses. A good few are connected with my voyage,
such as the 'Home of Tembinoka' sent herewith, and would have a
sort of slight affinity to the SOUTH SEA BALLADS. You might tell
me how that strikes a stranger.
In all this, my real interest is with the travel volume, which
ought to be of a really extraordinary interest
I am sending you 'Tembinoka' as he stands; but there are parts of
him that I hope to better, particularly in stanzas III. and II. I
scarce feel intelligent enough to try just now; and I thought at
any rate you had better see it, set it up if you think well, and
let me have a proof; so, at least, we shall get the bulk of it
straight. I have spared you Tenkoruti, Tenbaitake, Tembinatake,
and other barbarous names, because I thought the dentists in the
States had work enough without my assistance; but my chiefs name is
TEMBINOKA, pronounced, according to the present quite modern habit
in the Gilberts, Tembinok'. Compare in the margin Tengkorootch; a
singular new trick, setting at defiance all South Sea analogy, for
nowhere else do they show even the ability, far less the will, to
end a word upon a consonant. Loia is Lloyd's name, ship becomes
shipe, teapot, tipote, etc. Our admirable friend Herman Melville,
of whom, since I could judge, I have thought more than ever, had no
ear for languages whatever: his Hapar tribe should be Hapaa, etc.
But this is of no interest to you: suffice it, you see how I am as
usual up to the neck in projects, and really all likely bairns this
time. When will this activity cease? Too soon for me, I dare to
say.
R. L. S.
Letter: TO JAMES PAYN
FEBRUARY 4TH, 1890, SS. 'LUBECK.'
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN, - In virtue of confessions in your last, you
would at the present moment, if you were along of me, be sick; and
I will ask you to receive that as an excuse for my hand of write.
Excuse a plain seaman if he regards with scorn the likes of you
pore land-lubbers ashore now. (Reference to nautical ditty.)
Which I may however be allowed to add that when eight months' mail
was laid by my side one evening in Apia, and my wife and I sat up
the most of the night to peruse the same - (precious indisposed we
were next day in consequence) - no letter, out of so many, more
appealed to our hearts than one from the pore, stick-in-the-mud,
land-lubbering, common (or garden) Londoner, James Payn. Thank you
for it; my wife says, 'Can't I see him when we get back to London?'
I have told her the thing appeared to me within the spear of
practical politix. (Why can't I spell and write like an honest,
sober, god-fearing litry gent? I think it's the motion of the
ship.) Here I was interrupted to play chess with the chief
engineer; as I grow old, I prefer the 'athletic sport of cribbage,'
of which (I am sure I misquote) I have just been reading in your
delightful LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS. How you skim along, you and
Andrew Lang (different as you are), and yet the only two who can
keep a fellow smiling every page, and ever and again laughing out
loud. I joke wi' deeficulty, I believe; I am not funny; and when I
am, Mrs. Oliphant says I'm vulgar, and somebody else says (in
Latin) that I'm a whore, which seems harsh and even uncalled for:
I shall stick to weepers; a 5s. weeper, 2s. 6d. laugher, 1s.
shocker.
My dear sir, I grow more and more idiotic; I cannot even feign
sanity. Sometime in the month of June a stalwart weather-beaten
man, evidently of seafaring antecedents, shall be observed wending
his way between the Athenaeum Club and Waterloo Place. Arrived off
No. 17, he shall be observed to bring his head sharply to the wind,
and tack into the outer haven. 'Captain Payn in the harbour?' -
'Ay, ay, sir. What ship?' - 'Barquentin R. L. S., nine hundred and
odd days out from the port of Bournemouth, homeward bound, with
yarns and curiosities.'
Who was it said, 'For God's sake, don't speak of it!' about Scott
and his tears? He knew what he was saying. The fear of that hour
is the skeleton in all our cupboards; that hour when the pastime
and the livelihood go together; and - I am getting hard of hearing
myself; a pore young child of forty, but new come frae my Mammy, O!
Excuse these follies, and accept the expression of all my regards.
- Yours affectionately,
R. L. STEVENSON.
Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
UNION CLUB, SYDNEY, MARCH 7TH, 1890.
MY DEAR CHARLES, - I did not send off the enclosed before from
laziness; having gone quite sick, and being a blooming prisoner
here in the club, and indeed in my bedroom. I was in receipt of
your letters and your ornamental photo, and was delighted to see
how well you looked, and how reasonably well I stood. . . . I am
sure I shall never come back home except to die; I may do it, but
shall always think of the move as suicidal, unless a great change
comes over me, of which as yet I see no symptom. This visit to
Sydney has smashed me handsomely; and yet I made myself a prisoner
here in the club upon my first arrival. This is not encouraging
for further ventures; Sydney winter - or, I might almost say,
Sydney spring, for I came when the worst was over - is so small an
affair, comparable to our June depression at home in Scotland. . .
. The pipe is right again; it was the springs that had rusted, and
ought to have been oiled. Its voice is now that of an angel; but,
Lord! here in the club I dare not wake it! Conceive my impatience
to be in my own backwoods and raise the sound of minstrelsy. What
pleasures are to be compared with those of the Unvirtuous Virtuoso.
- Yours ever affectionately, the Unvirtuous Virtuoso,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Letter: TO SIDNEY COLVIN
SS. 'JANET NICOLL,' OFF UPOLU [SPRING 1890].
MY DEAREST COLVIN, - I was sharply ill at Sydney, cut off, right
out of bed, in this steamer on a fresh island cruise, and have
already reaped the benefit. We are excellently found this time, on
a spacious vessel, with an excellent table; the captain,
supercargo, our one fellow-passenger, etc., very nice; and the
charterer, Mr. Henderson, the very man I could have chosen. The
truth is, I fear, this life is the only one that suits me; so long
as I cruise in the South Seas, I shall be well and happy - alas,
no, I do not mean that, and ABSIT OMEN! - I mean that, so soon as I
cease from cruising, the nerves are strained, the decline
commences, and I steer slowly but surely back to bedward. We left
Sydney, had a cruel rough passage to Auckland, for the JANET is the
worst roller I was ever aboard of. I was confined to my cabin,
ports closed, self shied out of the berth, stomach (pampered till
the day I left on a diet of perpetual egg-nogg) revolted at ship's
food and ship eating, in a frowsy bunk, clinging with one hand to
the plate, with the other to the glass, and using the knife and
fork (except at intervals) with the eyelid. No matter: I picked
up hand over hand. After a day in Auckland, we set sail again;
were blown up in the main cabin with calcium fires, as we left the
bay. Let no man say I am unscientific: when I ran, on the alert,
out of my stateroom, and found the main cabin incarnadined with the
glow of the last scene of a pantomime, I stopped dead: 'What is
this?' said I. 'This ship is on fire, I see that; but why a
pantomime?' And I stood and reasoned the point, until my head was
so muddled with the fumes that I could not find the companion. A
few seconds later, the captain had to enter crawling on his belly,
and took days to recover (if he has recovered) from the fumes. By
singular good fortune, we got the hose down in time and saved the
ship, but Lloyd lost most of his clothes and a great part of our
photographs was destroyed. Fanny saw the native sailors tossing
overboard a blazing trunk; she stopped them in time, and behold, it
contained my manuscripts. Thereafter we had three (or two) days
fine weather: then got into a gale of wind, with rain and a
vexatious sea. As we drew into our anchorage in a bight of Savage
Island, a man ashore told me afterwards the sight of the JANET
NICOLL made him sick; and indeed it was rough play, though nothing
to the night before. All through this gale I worked four to six
hours per diem, spearing the ink-bottle like a flying fish, and
holding my papers together as I might. For, of all things, what I
was at was history - the Samoan business - and I had to turn from
one to another of these piles of manuscript notes, and from one
page to another in each, until I should have found employment for
the hands of Briareus. All the same, this history is a godsend for
a voyage; I can put in time, getting events co-ordinated and the
narrative distributed, when my much-heaving numskull would be
incapable of finish or fine style. At Savage we met the missionary
barque JOHN WILLIAMS. I tell you it was a great day for Savage
Island: the path up the cliffs was crowded with gay islandresses
(I like that feminine plural) who wrapped me in their embraces, and
picked my pockets of all my tobacco, with a manner which a touch
would have made revolting, but as it was, was simply charming, like
the Golden Age. One pretty, little, stalwart minx, with a red
flower behind her ear, had searched me with extraordinary zeal; and
when, soon after, I missed my matches, I accused her (she still
following us) of being the thief. After some delay, and with a
subtle smile, she produced the box, gave me ONE MATCH, and put the
rest away again. Too tired to add more. - Your most affectionate,
R. L. S.
Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME
S.S. 'JANET NICOLL,' OFF PERU ISLAND, KINGSMILLS GROUP, JULY 13th,
'90.
MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - I am moved to write to you in the matter of
the end papers. I am somewhat tempted to begin them again. Follow
the reasons PRO and CON:-
1st. I must say I feel as if something in the nature of the end
paper were a desirable finish to the number, and that the
substitutes of occasional essays by occasional contributors somehow
fail to fill the bill. Should you differ with me on this point, no
more is to be said. And what follows must be regarded as lost
words.
2nd. I am rather taken with the idea of continuing the work. For
instance, should you have no distaste for papers of the class
called RANDOM MEMORIES, I should enjoy continuing them (of course
at intervals), and when they were done I have an idea they might
make a readable book. On the other hand, I believe a greater
freedom of choice might be taken, the subjects more varied and more
briefly treated, in somewhat approaching the manner of Andrew Lang
in the SIGN OF THE SHIP; it being well understood that the broken
sticks method is one not very suitable (as Colonel Burke would say)
to my genius, and not very likely to be pushed far in my practice.
Upon this point I wish you to condense your massive brain. In the
last lot I was promised, and I fondly expected to receive, a vast
amount of assistance from intelligent and genial correspondents. I
assure you, I never had a scratch of a pen from any one above the
level of a village idiot, except once, when a lady sowed my head
full of grey hairs by announcing that she was going to direct her
life in future by my counsels. Will the correspondents be more
copious and less irrelevant in the future? Suppose that to be the
case, will they be of any use to me in my place of exile? Is it
possible for a man in Samoa to be in touch with the great heart of
the People? And is it not perhaps a mere folly to attempt, from so
hopeless a distance, anything so delicate as a series of papers?
Upon these points, perpend, and give me the results of your
perpensions.
3rd. The emolument would be agreeable to your humble servant.
I have now stated all the PROS, and the most of the CONS are come
in by the way. There follows, however, one immense Con (with a
capital 'C'), which I beg you to consider particularly. I fear
that, to be of any use for your magazine, these papers should begin
with the beginning of a volume. Even supposing my hands were free,
this would be now impossible for next year. You have to consider
whether, supposing you have no other objection, it would be worth
while to begin the series in the middle of a volume, or desirable
to delay the whole matter until the beginning of another year.
Now supposing that the CONS have it, and you refuse my offer, let
me make another proposal, which you will be very inclined to refuse
at the first off-go, but which I really believe might in time come
to something. You know how the penny papers have their answers to
correspondents. Why not do something of the same kind for the
'culchawed'? Why not get men like Stimson, Brownell, Professor
James, Goldwin Smith, and others who will occur to you more readily
than to me, to put and to answer a series of questions of
intellectual and general interest, until at last you should have
established a certain standard of matter to be discussed in this
part of the Magazine?
I want you to get me bound volumes of the Magazine from its start.
The Lord knows I have had enough copies; where they are I know not.
A wandering author gathers no magazines.
THE WRECKER is in no forrader state than in last reports. I have
indeed got to a period when I cannot well go on until I can refresh
myself on the proofs of the beginning. My respected collaborator,
who handles the machine which is now addressing you, has indeed
carried his labours farther, but not, I am led to understand, with
what we used to call a blessing; at least, I have been refused a
sight of his latest labours. However, there is plenty of time
ahead, and I feel no anxiety about the tale, except that it may
meet with your approval.
All this voyage I have been busy over my TRAVELS, which, given a
very high temperature and the saloon of a steamer usually going
before the wind, and with the cabins in front of the engines, has
come very near to prostrating me altogether. You will therefore
understand that there are no more poems. I wonder whether there
are already enough, and whether you think that such a volume would
be worth the publishing? I shall hope to find in Sydney some
expression of your opinion on this point. Living as I do among -
not the most cultured of mankind ('splendidly educated and perfect
gentlemen when sober') - I attach a growing importance to friendly
criticisms from yourself.
I believe that this is the most of our business. As for my health,
I got over my cold in a fine style, but have not been very well of
late. To my unaffected annoyance, the blood-spitting has started
again. I find the heat of a steamer decidedly wearing and trying
in these latitudes, and I am inclined to think the superior
expedition rather dearly paid for. Still, the fact that one does
not even remark the coming of a squall, nor feel relief on its
departure, is a mercy not to be acknowledged without gratitude.
The rest of the family seem to be doing fairly well; both seem less
run down than they were on the EQUATOR, and Mrs. Stevenson very
much less so. We have now been three months away, have visited
about thirty-five islands, many of which were novel to us, and some
extremely entertaining; some also were old acquaintances, and
pleasant to revisit. In the meantime, we have really a capital
time aboard ship, in the most pleasant and interesting society, and
with (considering the length and nature of the voyage) an excellent
table. Please remember us all to Mr. Scribner, the young chieftain
of the house, and the lady, whose health I trust is better. To
Mrs. Burlingame we all desire to be remembered, and I hope you will
give our news to Low, St. Gaudens, Faxon, and others of the
faithful in the city. I shall probably return to Samoa direct,
having given up all idea of returning to civilisation in the
meanwhile. There, on my ancestral acres, which I purchased six
months ago from a blind Scots blacksmith, you will please address
me until further notice. The name of the ancestral acres is going
to be Vailima; but as at the present moment nobody else knows the
name, except myself and the co-patentees, it will be safer, if less
ambitious, to address R. L. S., Apia, Samoa. The ancestral acres
run to upwards of three hundred; they enjoy the ministrations of
five streams, whence the name. They are all at the present moment
under a trackless covering of magnificent forest, which would be
worth a great deal if it grew beside a railway terminus. To me, as
it stands, it represents a handsome deficit. Obliging natives from
the Cannibal Islands are now cutting it down at my expense. You
would be able to run your magazine to much greater advantage if the
terms of authors were on the same scale with those of my cannibals.
We have also a house about the size of a manufacturer's lodge.
'Tis but the egg of the future palace, over the details of which on
paper Mrs. Stevenson and I have already shed real tears; what it
will be when it comes to paying for it, I leave you to imagine.
But if it can only be built as now intended, it will be with
genuine satisfaction and a growunded pride that I shall welcome you
at the steps of my Old Colonial Home, when you land from the
steamer on a long-merited holiday. I speak much at my ease; yet I
do not know, I may be now an outlaw, a bankrupt, the abhorred of
all good men. I do not know, you probably do. Has Hyde turned
upon me? Have I fallen, like Danvers Carew?
