courting sleep, I had a comic seizure. There was nothing visible but the
southern stars, and the steersman there out by the binnacle lamp; we
were all looking forward to a most deplorable landfall on the morrow,
praying God we should fetch a tuft of palms which are to indicate the
Dangerous Archipelago; the night was as warm as milk, and all of a
sudden I had a vision of--Drummond Street. It came on me like a flash of
lightning: I simply returned thither, and into the past. And when I
remember all I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford's in the
rain and the east wind; how I feared I should make a mere shipwreck, and
yet timidly hoped not; how I feared I should never have a friend, far
less a wife, and yet passionately hoped I might; how I hoped (if I did
not take to drink) I should possibly write one little book, etc. etc.
And then now--what a change! I feel somehow as if I should like the
incident set upon a brass plate at the corner of that dreary
thoroughfare for all students to read, poor devils, when their hearts
are down. And I felt I must write one word to you. Excuse me if I write
little: when I am at sea, it gives me a headache; when I am in port, I
have my diary crying "Give, give." I shall have a fine book of travels,
I feel sure; and will tell you more of the South Seas after very few
months than any other writer has done--except Herman Melville perhaps,
who is a howling cheese. Good luck to you, God bless you.--Your
affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The signature used at foot of this letter and occasionally elsewhere,
"The Old Man Virulent," alludes to the fits of uncontrollable anger
to which he was often in youth, but by this time very rarely,
subject: fits occasioned sometimes by instances of official stolidity
or impertinence or what he took for such, more often by acts
savouring of cruelty, meanness, or injustice.
_Fakarava, Low Archipelago, September 21st, 1888._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Only a word. Get out your big atlas, and imagine a
straight line from San Francisco to Anaho, the N.E. corner of Nukahiva,
one of the Marquesas Islands; imagine three weeks there: imagine a day's
sail on August 12th round the eastern end of the island to Tai-o-hae,
the capital; imagine us there till August 22nd: imagine us skirt the
east side of Ua-pu--perhaps Rona-Poa on your atlas--and through the
Bordelais straits to Taa-hauku in Hiva-Oa, where we arrive on the 23rd;
imagine us there until September 4th, when we sailed for Fakarava, which
we reached on the 9th, after a very difficult and dangerous passage
among these isles. Tuesday, we shall leave for Taiti, where I shall
knock off and do some necessary work ashore. It looks pretty bald in the
atlas; not in fact; nor I trust in the 130 odd pages of diary which I
have just been looking up for these dates: the interest, indeed, has
been _incredible_: I did not dream there were such places or such races.
My health has stood me splendidly; I am in for hours wading over the
knees for shells; I have been five hours on horseback: I have been up
pretty near all night waiting to see where the _Casco_ would go ashore,
and with my diary all ready--simply the most entertaining night of my
life. Withal I still have colds; I have one now, and feel pretty sick
too; but not as at home: instead of being in bed, for instance, I am at
this moment sitting snuffling and writing in an undershirt and trousers;
and as for colour, hands, arms, feet, legs, and face, I am browner than
the berry: only my trunk and the aristocratic spot on which I sit retain
the vile whiteness of the north.
Please give my news and kind love to Henley, Henry James, and any whom
you see of well-wishers. Accept from me the very best of my affection:
and believe me ever yours,
THE OLD MAN VIRULENT.
_Papeete, Taiti, October 7th, 1888._
Never having found a chance to send this off, I may add more of my news.
My cold took a very bad turn, and I am pretty much out of sorts at this
particular, living in a little bare one-twentieth-furnished house,
surrounded by mangoes, etc. All the rest are well, and I mean to be
soon. But these Taiti colds are very severe and, to children, often
fatal; so they were not the thing for me. Yesterday the brigantine came
in from San Francisco, so we can get our letters off soon. There are in
Papeete at this moment, in a little wooden house with grated verandahs,
two people who love you very much, and one of them is
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Taiti, as ever was, 6th October 1888._
MY DEAR CHARLES,-- ... You will receive a lot of mostly very bad proofs
of photographs: the paper was so bad. Please keep them very private, as
they are for the book. We send them, having learned so dread a fear of
the sea, that we wish to put our eggs in different baskets. We have been
thrice within an ace of being ashore: we were lost (!) for about twelve
hours in the Low Archipelago, but by God's blessing had quiet weather
all the time; and once in a squall, we cam so near gaun heels ower
hurdies, that I really dinnae ken why we didnae a'thegither. Hence, as
I say, a great desire to put our eggs in different baskets, particularly
on the Pacific (aw-haw-haw) Pacific Ocean.
You can have no idea what a mean time we have had, owing to incidental
beastlinesses, nor what a glorious, owing to the intrinsic interest of
these isles. I hope the book will be a good one; nor do I really very
much doubt that--the stuff is so curious; what I wonder is, if the
public will rise to it. A copy of my journal, or as much of it as is
made, shall go to you also; it is, of course, quite imperfect, much
being to be added and corrected; but O, for the eggs in the different
baskets.
All the rest are well enough, and all have enjoyed the cruise so far, in
spite of its drawbacks. We have had an awfae time in some ways, Mr.
Baxter; and if I wasnae sic a verra patient man (when I ken that I
_have_ to be) there wad hae been a braw row; and ance if I hadnae
happened to be on deck about three in the marnin', I _think_ there would
have been _murder_ done. The American Mairchant Marine is a kent
service; ye'll have heard its praise, I'm thinkin'; an' if ye never did,
ye can get _Twa Years Before the Mast_, by Dana, whaur forbye a great
deal o' pleisure, ye'll get a' the needcessary information. Love to your
father and all the family.--Ever your affectionate friend,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
This lady, as we have seen, had made Stevenson a present of a
paper-cutter when he left Bournemouth; and it is in the character of
the paper-cutter that he now writes.
_Taiti, October 10th, 1888._
DEAR GIVER,--I am at a loss to conceive your object in giving me to a
person so locomotory as my proprietor. The number of thousand miles that
I have travelled, the strange bed-fellows with which I have been made
acquainted, I lack the requisite literary talent to make clear to your
imagination. I speak of bed-fellows; pocket-fellows would be a more
exact expression, for the place of my abode is in my master's right-hand
trouser-pocket; and there, as he waded on the resounding beaches of
Nukahiva, or in the shallow tepid water on the reef of Fakarava, I have
been overwhelmed by and buried among all manner of abominable South Sea
shells, beautiful enough in their way, I make no doubt, but singular
company for any self-respecting paper-cutter. He, my master--or as I
more justly call him, my bearer; for although I occasionally serve him,
does not he serve me daily and all day long, carrying me like an African
potentate on my subject's legs?--_he_ is delighted with these isles, and
this climate, and these savages, and a variety of other things. He now
blows a flageolet with singular effects: sometimes the poor thing
appears stifled with shame, sometimes it screams with agony; he pursues
his career with truculent insensibility. Health appears to reign in the
party. I was very nearly sunk in a squall. I am sorry I ever left
England, for here there are no books to be had, and without books there
is no stable situation for, dear Giver, your affectionate
WOODEN PAPER-CUTTER.
A neighbouring pair of scissors snips a kiss in your direction.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The ballad referred to in the letter which follows is the _Feast of
Famine_, published with others in the collection of 1890 _Ballads_
(Chatto & Windus). I never very much admired his South Sea ballads
for any quality except their narrative vigour, thinking them unequal
and uncertain both in metre and style.
_Taiti, October 16th, 1888._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--The cruiser for San Francisco departs to-morrow morning
bearing you some kind of a scratch. This much more important packet will
travel by way of Auckland. It contains a ballant; and I think a better
ballant than I expected ever to do. I can imagine how you will wag your
pow over it; and how ragged you will find it, etc., but has it not
spirit all the same? and though the verse is not all your fancy painted
it, has it not some life? And surely, as narrative, the thing has
considerable merit! Read it, get a typewritten copy taken, and send me
that and your opinion to the Sandwiches. I know I am only courting the
most excruciating mortification; but the real cause of my sending the
thing is that I could bear to go down myself, but not to have much MS.
go down with me. To say truth, we are through the most dangerous; but it
has left in all minds a strong sense of insecurity, and we are all for
putting eggs in various baskets.
We leave here soon, bound for Uahiva, Raiatea, Bora-Bora, and the
Sandwiches.
O, how my spirit languishes
To step ashore on the Sanguishes;
For there my letters wait,
There shall I know my fate.
O, how my spirit languidges
To step ashore on the Sanguidges.
_18th._--I think we shall leave here if all is well on Monday. I am
quite recovered, astonishingly recovered. It must be owned these
climates and this voyage have given me more strength than I could have
thought possible. And yet the sea is a terrible place, stupefying to the
mind and poisonous to the temper, the sea, the motion, the lack of
space, the cruel publicity, the villainous tinned foods, the sailors,
the captain, the passengers--but you are amply repaid when you sight an
island, and drop anchor in a new world. Much trouble has attended this
trip, but I must confess more pleasure. Nor should I ever complain, as
in the last few weeks, with the curing of my illness indeed, as if that
were the bursting of an abscess, the cloud has risen from my spirits and
to some degree from my temper. Do you know what they called the _Casco_
at Fakarava? The _Silver Ship_. Is that not pretty? Pray tell Mrs.
Jenkin, _die silberne Frau_, as I only learned it since I wrote her. I
think of calling the book by that name: _The Cruise of the Silver
Ship_--so there will be one poetic page at least--the title. At the
Sandwiches we shall say farewell to the _S. S._ with mingled feelings.
She is a lovely creature: the most beautiful thing at this moment in
Taiti.
Well, I will take another sheet, though I know I have nothing to say.
You would think I was bursting: but the voyage is all stored up for the
book, which is to pay for it, we fondly hope; and the troubles of the
time are not worth telling; and our news is little.
Here I conclude (Oct. 24th, I think), for we are now stored, and the
Blue Peter metaphorically flies.
R. L. S.
TO WILLIAM AND THOMAS ARCHER
Stevenson addresses a part of this letter, as well as the whole of
another later on, to a young son of Mr. Archer's, but rather to amuse
himself than his nominal correspondent, who was then aged three
_Taiti, October 17th, 1888._
DEAR ARCHER,--Though quite unable to write letters I nobly send you a
line signifying nothing. The voyage has agreed well with all; it has had
its pains, and its extraordinary pleasures; nothing in the world can
equal the excitement of the first time you cast anchor in some bay of a
tropical island, and the boats begin to surround you, and the tattooed
people swarm aboard. Tell Tomarcher, with my respex, that hide-and-seek
is not equal to it; no, nor hidee-in-the-dark; which, for the matter of
that, is a game for the unskilful: the artist prefers daylight, a
good-sized garden, some shrubbery, an open paddock, and--come on,
Macduff.
TOMARCHER, I am now a distinguished litterytour, but that was not the
real bent of my genius. I was the best player of hide-and-seek going;
not a good runner, I was up to every shift and dodge, I could jink very
well, I could crawl without any noise through leaves, I could hide under
a carrot plant, it used to be my favourite boast that I always _walked_
into the den. You may care to hear, Tomarcher, about the children in
these parts; their parents obey them, they do not obey their parents;
and I am sorry to tell you (for I dare say you are already thinking the
idea a good one) that it does not pay one halfpenny. There are three
sorts of civilisation, Tomarcher: the real old-fashioned one, in which
children either had to find out how to please their dear papas, or their
dear papas cut their heads off. This style did very well, but is now out
of fashion. Then the modern European style: in which children have to
behave reasonably well, and go to school and say their prayers, or their
dear papas _will know the reason why_. This does fairly well. Then there
is the South Sea Island plan, which does not do one bit. The children
beat their parents here; it does not make their parents any better; so
do not try it.
Dear Tomarcher, I have forgotten the address of your new house, but will
send this to one of your papa's publishers. Remember us all to all of
you, and believe me, yours respectably,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Tautira (The Garden of the World), otherwise called
Hans-Christian-Andersen-ville [November 1888]._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Whether I have a penny left in the wide world, I know
not, nor shall know, till I get to Honolulu, where I anticipate a devil
of an awakening. It will be from a mighty pleasant dream at least:
Tautira being mere Heaven. But suppose, for the sake of argument, any
money to be left in the hands of my painful doer, what is to be done
with it? Save us from exile would be the wise man's choice, I suppose;
for the exile threatens to be eternal. But yet I am of opinion--in case
there should be _some_ dibbs in the hand of the P.D., _i.e._ painful
doer; because if there be none, I shall take to my flageolet on the
high-road, and work home the best way I can, having previously made away
with my family--I am of opinion that if ---- and his are in the
customary state, and you are thinking of an offering, and there should
be still some funds over, you would be a real good P.D. to put some in
with yours and tak' the credit o't, like a wee man! I know it's a
beastly thing to ask, but it, after all, does no earthly harm, only that
much good. And besides, like enough there's nothing in the till, and
there is an end. Yet I live here in the full lustre of millions; it is
thought I am the richest son of man that has yet been to Tautira:
I!--and I am secretly eaten with the fear of lying in pawn, perhaps for
the remainder of my days, in San Francisco. As usual, my colds have much
hashed my finances.
Do tell Henley I write this just after having dismissed Ori the
sub-chief, in whose house I live, Mrs. Ori, and Pairai, their adopted
child, from the evening hour of music: during which I Publickly (with a
k) Blow on the Flageolet. These are words of truth. Yesterday I told Ori
about W. E. H., counterfeited his playing on the piano and the pipe, and
succeeded in sending the six feet four there is of that sub-chief
somewhat sadly to his bed; feeling that his was not the genuine article
after all. Ori is exactly like a colonel in the Guards.--I am, dear
Charles, ever yours affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The stanzas which end this letter are well known, having been
printed, with one additional, in _Songs of Travel_; but they gain
effect, I think, from being given here in their place.
_Tautira, 10th November '88._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Our mainmast is dry-rotten, and we are all to the
devil; I shall lie in a debtor's jail. Never mind, Tautira is first
chop. I am so besotted that I shall put on the back of this my attempt
at words to Wandering Willie; if you can conceive at all the difficulty,
you will also conceive the vanity with which I regard any kind of
result; and whatever mine is like, it has some sense, and Burns's has
none.
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree;
The true word of welcome was spoken in the door--
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.
Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces,
Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child.
Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the place of old.
R. L. S.
TO JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
The following is the draft of a proposed dedication to the South Sea
travel-book which was to be the fruit of the present voyages, as is
explained in a note at the end.
_November 11th, 1888._
_One November night, in the village of Tautira, we sat at the high table
in the hall of assembly, hearing the natives sing. It was dark in the
hall, and very warm; though at times the land wind blew a little
shrewdly through the chinks, and at times, through the larger openings,
we could see the moonlight on the lawn. As the songs arose in the
rattling Tahitian chorus, the chief translated here and there a verse.
Farther on in the volume you shall read the songs themselves; and I am
in hopes that not you only, but all who can find a savour in the ancient
poetry of places, will read them with some pleasure. You are to conceive
us, therefore, in strange circumstances and very pleasing; in a strange
land and climate, the most beautiful on earth; surrounded by a foreign
race that all travellers have agreed to be the most engaging; and taking
a double interest in two foreign arts._
_We came forth again at last, in a cloudy moonlight, on the forest lawn
which is the street of Tautira. The Pacific roared outside upon the
reef. Here and there one of the scattered palm-built lodges shone out
under the shadow of the wood, the lamplight bursting through the
crannies of the wall. We went homeward slowly, Ori a Ori carrying behind
us the lantern and the chairs, properties with which we had just been
enacting our part of the distinguished visitor. It was one of those
moments in which minds not altogether churlish recall the names and
deplore the absence of congenial friends; and it was your name that
first rose upon our lips. "How Symonds would have enjoyed this evening!"
said one, and then another. The word caught in my mind; I went to bed,
and it was still there. The glittering, frosty solitudes in which your
days are cast arose before me: I seemed to see you walking there in the
late night, under the pine-trees and the stars; and I received the image
with something like remorse._
_There is a modern attitude towards Fortune; in this place I will not
use a graver name. Staunchly to withstand her buffets and to enjoy with
equanimity her favours was the code of the virtuous of old. Our fathers,
it should seem, wondered and doubted how they had merited their
misfortunes: we, rather how we have deserved our happiness. And we stand
often abashed, and sometimes revolted, at those partialities of fate by
which we profit most. It was so with me on that November night: I felt
that our positions should be changed. It was you, dear Symonds, who
should have gone upon that voyage and written this account. With your
rich stores of knowledge, you could have remarked and understood a
thousand things of interest and beauty that escaped my ignorance; and
the brilliant colours of your style would have carried into a thousand
sickrooms the sea air and the strong sun of tropic islands. It was
otherwise decreed. But suffer me at least to connect you, if only in
name and only in the fondness of imagination, with the voyage of the_
Silver Ship.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
DEAR SYMONDS,--I send you this (November 11th), the morning of its
completion. If I ever write an account of this voyage, may I place this
letter at the beginning? It represents--I need not tell you, for you too
are an artist--a most genuine feeling, which kept me long awake last
night; and though perhaps a little elaborate, I think it a good piece of
writing. We are _in heaven here_. Do not forget.
R. L. S.
Please keep this: I have no perfect copy.
_Tautira, on the peninsula of Taiti._
TO THOMAS ARCHER
_Tautira, Island of Taiti [November 1888]._
DEAR TOMARCHER,--This is a pretty state of things! seven o'clock and no
word of breakfast! And I was awake a good deal last night, for it was
full moon, and they had made a great fire of cocoa-nut husks down by the
sea, and as we have no blinds or shutters, this kept my room very
bright. And then the rats had a wedding or a school-feast under my bed.
And then I woke early, and I have nothing to read except Virgil's
_AEneid_, which is not good fun on an empty stomach, and a Latin
dictionary, which is good for naught, and by some humorous accident,
your dear papa's article on Skerryvore. And I read the whole of that,
and very impudent it is, but you must not tell your dear papa I said so,
or it might come to a battle in which you might lose either a dear papa
or a valued correspondent, or both, which would be prodigal. And still
no breakfast; so I said "Let's write to Tomarcher."
This is a much better place for children than any I have hitherto seen
in these seas. The girls (and sometimes the boys) play a very elaborate
kind of hopscotch. The boys play horses exactly as we do in Europe; and
have very good fun on stilts, trying to knock each other down, in which
they do not often succeed. The children of all ages go to church and are
allowed to do what they please, running about the aisles, rolling balls,
stealing mamma's bonnet and publicly sitting on it, and at last going to
sleep in the middle of the floor. I forgot to say that the whips to play
horses, and the balls to roll about the church--at least I never saw
them used elsewhere--grow ready made on trees; which is rough on
toy-shops. The whips are so good that I wanted to play horses myself;
but no such luck! my hair is grey, and I am a great, big, ugly man. The
balls are rather hard, but very light and quite round. When you grow up
and become offensively rich, you can charter a ship in the port of
London, and have it come back to you entirely loaded with these balls;
when you could satisfy your mind as to their character, and give them
away when done with to your uncles and aunts. But what I really wanted
to tell you was this: besides the tree-top toys (Hush-a-by, toy-shop, on
the tree-top!), I have seen some real _made_ toys, the first hitherto
observed in the South Seas.
This was how. You are to imagine a four-wheeled gig; one horse; in the
front seat two Tahiti natives, in their Sunday clothes, blue coat, white
shirt, kilt (a little longer than the Scotch) of a blue stuff with big
white or yellow flowers, legs and feet bare; in the back seat me and my
wife, who is a friend of yours; under our feet, plenty of lunch and
things: among us a great deal of fun in broken Tahitian, one of the
natives, the sub-chief of the village, being a great ally of mine.
Indeed we have exchanged names; so that he is now called Rui, the
nearest they can come to Louis, for they have no _l_ and no _s_ in their
language. Rui is six feet three in his stockings, and a magnificent man.
We all have straw hats, for the sun is strong. We drive between the sea,
which makes a great noise, and the mountains; the road is cut through a
forest mostly of fruit trees, the very creepers, which take the place of
our ivy, heavy with a great and delicious fruit, bigger than your head
and far nicer, called Barbedine. Presently we came to a house in a
pretty garden, quite by itself, very nicely kept, the doors and windows
open, no one about, and no noise but that of the sea. It looked like a
house in a fairy-tale, and just beyond we must ford a river, and there
we saw the inhabitants. Just in the mouth of the river, where it met the
sea waves, they were ducking and bathing and screaming together like a
covey of birds: seven or eight little naked brown boys and girls as
happy as the day was long; and on the banks of the stream beside them,
real toys--toy ships, full rigged, and with their sails set, though they
were lying in the dust on their beam ends. And then I knew for sure they
were all children in a fairy-story, living alone together in that lonely
house with the only toys in all the island; and that I had myself
driven, in my four-wheeled gig, into a corner of the fairy-story, and
the question was, should I get out again? But it was all right; I guess
only one of the wheels of the gig had got into the fairy-story; and the
next jolt the whole thing vanished, and we drove on in our sea-side
forest as before, and I have the honour to be Tomarcher's valued
correspondent, TERIITERA, which he was previously known as
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter from Mrs. Stevenson serves to fill out and explain
allusions in the three or four preceding. The beautiful brown
princess is Princess Moe, ex-queen of Raiatea, well known to readers
of Pierre Loti and Miss Gordon Cumming. The move away from Papeete,
where Stevenson had fallen seriously ill, had been made in hopes of
finding on the island a climate that would suit him better.
_Tautira, Tahiti, Dec. 4th [1888]._
DEAR, long neglected, though never forgotten Custodian, I write you from
fairyland, where we are living in a fairy story, the guests of a
beautiful brown princess. We came to stay a week, five weeks have
passed, and we are still indefinite as to our time of leaving. It was
chance brought us here, for no one in Papeete could tell us a word about
this part of the island except that it was very fine to look at, and
inhabited by wild people--"almost as wild as the people of Anaho!" That
touch about the people of Anaho inclined our hearts this way, so we
finally concluded to take a look at the other side of Tahiti. The place
of our landing was windy, uninhabited except by mosquitoes, and Louis
was ill. The first day Lloyd and the Captain made an exploration, but
came back disgusted. They had found a Chinaman, a long way off, who
seemed to have some horses, but no desire to hire them to strangers, and
they had found nothing else whatever. The next morning I took Valentine
and went on a prospecting tour of my own. I found the Chinaman,
persuaded him to let me have two horses and a wagon, and went back for
the rest of my family. When asked where I wished to go, I could only say
to the largest native village and the most wild. Ill as Louis was, I
brought him the next day, and shall never cease to be thankful for my
courage, for he has gained health and strength every day. He takes sea
baths and swims, and lives almost entirely in the open air as nearly
without clothes as possible, a simple pyjama suit of striped light
flannel his only dress. As to shoes and stockings we all have scorned
them for months except Mrs. Stevenson, who often goes barefoot and
never, I believe, wears stockings. Lloyd's costume, in which he looks
remarkably well, consists of a striped flannel shirt and a pareu. The
pareu is no more or less than a large figured blue and white cotton
window curtain twisted about the waist, and hanging a little below the
bare knees. Both Louis and Lloyd wear wreaths of artificial flowers,
made of the dried pandanus leaf, on their hats.
Moe has gone to Papeete by the command of the king, whose letter was
addressed "To the great Princess at Tautira. P.V." P.V. stands for
Pomare 5th. Every evening, before she went, we played Van John lying in
a circle on pillows in the middle of the floor with our heads together:
and hardly an evening passed but it struck us afresh how very much you
would like Moe, and we told her of you again. The house (really here a
palace) in which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject and
relation of the Princess. He, and his whole family, consisting of his
wife, his two little adopted sons, his daughter and her two young
babies, turned out to live in a little bird-cage hut of one room. Ori is
the very finest specimen of a native we have seen yet; he is several
inches over six feet, of perfect though almost gigantic proportions, and
looks more like a Roman Emperor in bronze than words can express. One
day, when Moe gave a feast, it being the correct thing to do, we all
wore wreaths of golden yellow leaves on our heads; when Ori walked in
and sat down at the table, as with one voice we all cried out in
admiration. His manners and I might say his habit of thought are
English. In some ways, he is so like a Colonel of the Guards that we
often call him Colonel. It was either the day before, or the morning of
our public feast, that Louis asked the Princess if she thought Ori would
accept his name. She was sure of it, and much pleased at the idea. I
wish you could have seen Louis, blushing like a schoolgirl, when Ori
came in, and the brotherhood was offered. So now if you please, Louis is
no more Louis, having given that name away in the Tahitian form of
_Rui_, but is known as _Terii-Tera_ (pronounced Ter_ee_terah) that being
Ori's Christian name. "Ori a Ori" is his clan name.
Let me tell you of our village feast. The chief, who was our guide in
the matter, found four large fat hogs, which Louis bought, and four
cases of ship's biscuit were sent over from the _Casco_, which is lying
at Papeete for repairs. Our feast cost in all about eighty dollars.
Every Sunday all things of public interest are announced in the Farehau
(an enormous public bird cage) and the news of the week read aloud from
the Papeete journal, if it happens to turn up. Our feast was given on a
Wednesday, and was announced by the chief the Sunday before, who
referred to Louis as "the rich one." Our hogs were killed in the
morning, washed in the sea, and roasted whole in a pit with hot stones.
When done they were laid on their stomachs in neat open coffins of green
basket work, each hog with his case of biscuits beside him. Early in the
morning the entire population began bathing, a bath being the
preliminary to everything. At about three o'clock--four was the hour
set--there was a general movement towards our premises, so that I had to
hurry Louis into his clothes, all white, even to his shoes. Lloyd was
also in white, but barefoot. I was not prepared, so had to appear in a
red and white muslin gown, also barefoot. As Mrs. Stevenson had had a
feast of her own, conducted on religious principles, she kept a little
in the background, so that her dress did not matter so much. The chief,
who speaks French very well, stood beside Louis to interpret for him.
By the time we had taken our respective places on the veranda in front
of our door, an immense crowd had assembled. They came in five, instead
of four detachments which was what the chief expected, and he was a
little confused at first, as he and Louis had been arranging a speech to
four sets of people, which ran in this order. The clergyman at the head
of the Protestants: the chief, council, and irreligious:--one of the
council at their head. The schoolmaster with the schoolchildren: the
catechist and the Catholics: but there was another very small sect, by
some strange mischance called Mormons, which it was supposed would be
broken up and swallowed by the others. But no, the Mormons came in a
body alone, marshalled by the best and wittiest speaker--_bar Rui_--in
Tautira. Each set of people came bending under the weight of bamboo
poles laden with fruits, pigs, fowls, etc. All were dressed in their
gayest pareus, and many had wreaths of leaves or flowers on their heads.
The prettiest sight of all was the children, who came marching two and
two abreast, the bamboo poles lying lengthwise across their shoulders.
When all the offerings had been piled in five great heaps upon the
ground, Louis made his oration to the accompaniment of the squealing of
pigs, the cackling of hens, and the roar of the surf which beats
man-high upon the roof. A speech was made in return on behalf of the
village, and then each section sent forth its orator, the speeches
following in the order I have given above. Each speaker finished by
coming forward with one of the smaller things in his hand, which he
offered personally to Louis, and then shook hands with us all and
retired. Among these smaller presents were many fish-hooks for large
fishing, laboriously carved from mother-of-pearl shell. One man came
with one egg in each hand saying, "carry these to Scotland with you, let
them hatch into cocks, and their song shall remind you of Tautira." The
schoolmaster, with a leaf-basket of rose apples, made his speech in
French. Somehow the whole effect of the scene was like a story out of
the Bible, and I am not ashamed that Louis and I both shed tears when we
saw the enchanting procession of schoolchildren. The Catholic priest,
Father Bruno, a great friend of ours, said that for the next fifty years
the time of the feast of the rich one will be talked of: which reminds
me of our friend Donat, of Fakarava, who was temporary resident at the
time we were there. "I am so glad," he said, "that the _Casco_ came in
just now, otherwise I should be forgotten: but now the people will
always say this or that happened so long before--or so long after--the
coming of the _Silver Ship_, when Donat represented the government."
In front of our house is a broad stretch of grass, dotted with
cocoanuts, breadfruits, mangoes, and the strange pandanus tree. I wish
you could have seen them, their lower branches glowing with the rich
colours of the fruits hung upon them by Ori and his men, and great heaps
lying piled against their roots, on the evening of our feast. From the
bamboo poles that they were carried upon, a pen was made for the ten
pigs, and a fowl house for the twenty-three fowls that were among the
presents. But there was a day of reckoning at hand. Time after time we
ran down to the beach to look for the _Casco_, until we were in despair.
For over a month we had lived in Ori's house, causing him infinite
trouble and annoyance, and not even his, at that. Areia (the
chief--Areia means the Prince) went to Papeete and came back with a
letter to say that more work had to be done upon the _Casco_, and it
might be any time before she could get to Tautira. We had used up all
our stores, and had only a few dollars of money left in Tautira, and not
very much in Papeete. Could we stand the journey to Papeete, we could
not live upon the yacht in the midst of the workmen, and we had not
money enough left to live at an hotel. We were playing cards on the
floor, as usual, when this message came, and you can imagine its effect.
I knew perfectly well that Rui would force us to stay on with him, but
what depressed me the most of all, was the fact of Louis having made
brothers with him just before this took place. Had there been a shadow
of doubt on our dear Rui's face, I should have fled from before him.
Sitting there on the floor waiting for him was too much for my nerves
and I burst into tears, upon which the princess wept bitterly. In the
meantime the priest had dropped in, so that we had him and Moe, and
Areia, as witnesses to our humiliating position. First came Madame Rui,
who heard the story, and sat down on the floor in silence, which was
very damping for a beginning, and then Ori of Ori, the magnificent, who
listened to the tale of the shipwrecked mariners with serious dignity,
asking one or two questions, and then spoke to this effect. "You are my
brother: all that I have is yours. I know that your food is done, but I
can give you plenty of fish and taro. We like you, and wish to have you
here. Stay where you are till the _Casco_ comes. Be happy--_et ne
pleurez pas_." Louis dropped his head into his hands and wept, and then
we all went up to Rui and shook hands with him and accepted his offer.
Madame Rui, who had been silent only as a dutiful wife, that her husband
might speak first, poured forth manifold reasons for our staying on as
long as we could possibly manage. During all this scene, an attendant of
the princess had been sitting on the floor behind us, a baby in his
arms, where he had ensconced himself for the purpose of watching the
game. He understood nothing of what was going on; we wondered afterwards
what he thought of it. Reduced as we were, we still had a few bottles of
champagne left. Champagne being an especial weakness of our gigantic
friend, it occurred to some one that this was a proper occasion to open
a couple of bottles. Louis, the Princess, and I were quite, as the
Scotch so well say, "begrutten," Areia's immense eyes were fairly
melting out of his head with emotion, the priest was wiping his eyes and
blowing his nose: and then for no apparent cause we suddenly fell to
drinking and clinking glasses quite merrily: the bewildered attendant
clinked and drank too, and then sat down and waited in case there should
be any repetition of the drinking part of the performance. And sure
enough there was, for in the midst of an animated discussion as to ways
and means, Mrs. Stevenson announced that it was St. Andrew's day, so
again the attendant clinked and drank with Ori's mad foreigners.
It is quite true that we live almost entirely upon native food; our
luncheon to-day consisted of raw fish with sauce made of cocoanut milk
mixed with sea water and lime juice, taro poi-poi, and bananas roasted
in hot stones in a little pit in the ground, with cocoanut cream to eat
with them. Still we like coffee in the evening, a little wine at dinner,
and a few other products of civilisation. It would be possible, the
chief said, to send a boat, but that would cost sixty dollars. A final
arrangement, which we were forced to accept, was that Rui should go in
his own boat, and the chief would appoint a substitute for some public
work that he was then engaged upon. Early the next morning, amidst a
raging sea and a storming wind, Rui departed with three men to help him.
It is forty miles to Papeete, and Rui, starting in the early morning,
arrived there at nine o'clock; but alas, the wind was against him, and
it was altogether six days before he got back.
Louis has done a great deal of work on his new story, _The Master of
Ballantrae_, almost finished it in fact, while Mrs. Stevenson and I are
deep in the mysteries of hatmaking, which is a ladies' accomplishment
taking the place of water-colour drawing in England. It is a small
compliment to present a hat to an acquaintance. Altogether we have about
thirteen. Next door to us is Areia's out-of-door house, where he and the
ladies of his family sleep and eat: it has a thatched roof of palm
branches, and a floor of boards, the sides and ends being open to the
world. On the floor are spread mats plaited of pandanus leaves, and
pillows stuffed with silk cotton from the cotton tree. We make little
calls upon the ladies, lie upon the mats, and smoke cigarettes made of
tobacco leaves rolled in a bit of dried pandanus, and admire their work,
or get a lesson; or they call upon us, and lie upon our mats. One day
there was an election in the Farehau. It takes place all over the island
once a year, and among others, the sub-chief and head-councillor is
chosen. For the latter, our Rui was a candidate. In the beginning, the
French deposed the born chiefs and told the people to elect men for
themselves. The choice of Tautira fell upon Rui, who declined the
honour, saying that Areia was his natural chief, and he could not take a
position that should belong to his superior; upon which the people
elected Areia chief, and Rui sub-chief and head-councillor. We all went
over to the Farehau, where Areia sat in the middle of his councillors on
a dais behind a long table. The Farehau is an immense bird-cage of
bamboos tied together with pandanus fibre, and thatched with palms. In
front of the dais the ground is deeply covered with dried leaves. The
costume of the dignitaries was rather odd. Areia wore a white shirt and
blue flannel coat, which was well enough; but on his plump legs were a
pair of the most incredible trousers: light blue calico with a small red
pattern, such as servant girls wear for gowns in England: on his feet
were neat little shoes and stockings. Rui was a fine sight, and we were
very proud of him; he sat, exactly like an English gentleman, holding
himself well in hand, alert as a fox and keen as a greyhound: several
men spoke from the farther end of the hall, making objections of some
sort, we could see. Rui listened with a half satirical, half kindly
smile in his eyes, and then dropped a quiet answer without rising from
his seat, which had the effect of raising a shout of laughter, and quite
demolishing his opponent. Voters came up to the table and dropped their
bits of paper into a slit in a box: some led children by the hand, and
some carried babies in their arms; across the centre of the great room
children and dogs ran chasing each other and playing. I noticed two
little maids who walked up and down for a long time with their arms
intertwined about each other's waists. Near where we sat (we were on the
dais, above the common herd), a pretty young lady having tied up her
dog's mouth with a tuft of grass, industriously caught and cracked fleas
from its back. Both Lloyd and I grew very sleepy, and as we did not like
to leave till the election was decided, we just threw ourselves down and
took a nap at the feet of the councillors: nor did we wake till the
chief called out to us in English "it is finished." I never thought I
should be able to calmly sleep at a public meeting on a platform in the
face of several hundred people: but it is wonderful how quickly one
takes up the ways of a people when you live with them as intimately as
we do.
I hear dinner coming on the table, so with much love from us all to you
and other dear ones, including our dear friend Henry James, believe me,
affectionately yours,
FANNY V. de G. STEVENSON.]
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Yacht Casco, at Sea, 14th January 1889._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Twenty days out from Papeete. Yes, sir, all that, and
only (for a guess) in 4 deg. north or at the best 4 deg.30', though already the
wind seems to smell a little of the North Pole. My handwriting you must
take as you get, for we are speeding along through a nasty swell, and I
can only keep my place at the table by means of a foot against the
divan, the unoccupied hand meanwhile gripping the ink-bottle. As we
begin (so very slowly) to draw near to seven months of correspondence,
we are all in some fear; and I want to have letters written before I
shall be plunged into that boiling pot of disagreeables which I
constantly expect at Honolulu. What is needful can be added there.
We were kept two months at Tautira in the house of my dear old friend,
Ori a Ori, till both the masts of this invaluable yacht had been
repaired. It was all for the best: Tautira being the most beautiful
spot, and its people the most amiable, I have ever found. Besides which,
the climate suited me to the ground; I actually went sea-bathing almost
every day, and in our feasts (we are all huge eaters in Taiarapu) have
been known to apply four times for pig. And then again I got wonderful
materials for my book, collected songs and legends on the spot; songs
still sung in chorus by perhaps a hundred persons, not two of whom can
agree on their translation; legends, on which I have seen half a dozen
seniors sitting in conclave and debating what came next. Once I went a
day's journey to the other side of the island to Tati, the high chief of
the Tevas--_my_ chief that is, for I am now a Teva and Teriitera, at
your service--to collect more and correct what I had already. In the
meanwhile I got on with my work, almost finished _The Master of
Ballantrae_, which contains more human work than anything of mine but
_Kidnapped_, and wrote the half of another ballad, the _Song of Rahero_,
on a Taiarapu legend of my own clan, sir--not so much fire as the _Feast
of Famine_, but promising to be more even and correct. But the best
fortune of our stay at Tautira was my knowledge of Ori himself, one of
the finest creatures extant. The day of our parting was a sad one. We
deduced from it a rule for travellers: not to stay two months in one
place--which is to cultivate regrets.
At last our contemptible ship was ready; to sea we went, bound for
Honolulu and the letter-bag, on Christmas Day; and from then to now have
experienced every sort of minor misfortune, squalls, calms, contrary
winds and seas, pertinacious rains, declining stores, till we came
almost to regard ourselves as in the case of Vanderdecken. Three days
ago our luck seemed to improve, we struck a leading breeze, got
creditably through the doldrums, and just as we looked to have the N.E.
trades and a straight run, the rains and squalls and calms began again
about midnight, and this morning, though there is breeze enough to send
us along, we are beaten back by an obnoxious swell out of the north.
Here is a page of complaint, when a verse of thanksgiving had perhaps
been more in place. For all this time we must have been skirting past
dangerous weather, in the tail and circumference of hurricanes, and
getting only annoyance where we should have had peril, and ill-humour
instead of fear.
I wonder if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether
the usual damn hangs over my letter? "The midwife whispered, Be thou
dull!" or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted
with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot
tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: two
nights ago, the 12th January, we had it all planned out, arrived in the
lights and whirl of Waterloo, hailed a hansom, span up Waterloo Road,
over the bridge, etc. etc., and hailed the Monument gate in triumph and
with indescribable delight. My dear Custodian, I always think we are too
sparing of assurances: Cordelia is only to be excused by Regan and
Goneril in the same nursery; I wish to tell you that the longer I live,
the more dear do you become to me; nor does my heart own any stronger
sentiment. If the bloody schooner didn't send me flying in every sort of
direction at the same time, I would say better what I feel so much; but
really, if you were here, you would not be writing letters, I believe;
and even I, though of a more marine constitution, am much perturbed by
this bobbery and wish--O ye Gods, how I wish!--that it was done, and we
had arrived, and I had Pandora's Box (my mail-bag) in hand, and was in
the lively hope of something eatable for dinner instead of salt horse,
tinned mutton, duff without any plums, and pie fruit, which now make up
our whole repertory. O Pandora's Box! I wonder what you will contain. As
like as not you will contain but little money: if that be so, we shall
have to retire to 'Frisco in the _Casco_, and thence by sea _via_ Panama
to Southampton, where we should arrive in April. I would like fine to
see you on the tug: ten years older both of us than the last time you
came to welcome Fanny and me to England. If we have money, however, we
shall do a little differently: send the _Casco_ away from Honolulu empty
of its high-born lessees, for that voyage to 'Frisco is one long dead
beat in foul and at last in cold weather; stay awhile behind, follow by
steamer, cross the States by train, stay awhile in New York on business,
and arrive probably by the German Line in Southampton. But all this is a
question of money. We shall have to lie very dark awhile to recruit our
finances: what comes from the book of the cruise, I do not want to touch
until the capital is repaid.
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
_Honolulu, January 1889._
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--Here at last I have arrived. We could not get away
from Tahiti till Christmas Day, and then had thirty days of calms and
squalls, a deplorable passage. This has thrown me all out of gear in
every way. I plunge into business.
1. _The Master._ Herewith go three more parts. You see he grows in bulk;
this making ten already, and I am not yet sure if I can finish it in an
eleventh; which shall go to you _quam primum_--I hope by next mail.
2. _Illustrations to M._ I totally forgot to try to write to Hole. It
was just as well, for I find it impossible to forecast with sufficient
precision. You had better throw off all this and let him have it at
once. _Please do: all, and at once: see further_; and I should hope he
would still be in time for the later numbers. The three pictures I have
received are so truly good that I should bitterly regret having the
volume imperfectly equipped. They are the best illustrations I have seen
since I don't know when.
3. _Money._ To-morrow the mail comes in, and I hope it will bring me
money either from you or home, but I will add a word on that point.
4. My address will be Honolulu--no longer Yacht _Casco_, which I am
packing off--till probably April.
5. As soon as I am through with _The Master_, I shall finish _The Game
of Bluff_--now rechristened _The Wrong Box_. This I wish to sell, cash
down. It is of course copyright in the States; and I offer it to you for
five thousand dollars. Please reply on this by return. Also please tell
the typewriter who was so good as to be amused by our follies that I am
filled with admiration for his piece of work.
6. _Master_ again. Please see that I haven't the name of the Governor of
New York wrong (1764 is the date) in part ten. I have no book of
reference to put me right. Observe you now have up to August inclusive
in hand, so you should begin to feel happy.
Is this all? I wonder, and fear not. Henry the Trader has not yet turned
up: I hope he may to-morrow, when we expect a mail. Not one word of
business have I received either from the States or England, nor anything
in the shape of coin; which leaves me in a fine uncertainty and quite
penniless on these islands. H.M.[27] (who is a gentleman of a courtly
order and much tinctured with letters) is very polite; I may possibly
ask for the position of palace doorkeeper. My voyage has been a singular
mixture of good and ill fortune. As far as regards interest and
material, the fortune has been admirable; as far as regards time, money,
and impediments of all kinds, from squalls and calms to rotten masts and
sprung spars, simply detestable. I hope you will be interested to hear
of two volumes on the wing. The cruise itself, you are to know, will
make a big volume with appendices; some of it will first appear as
(what they call) letters in some of M'Clure's papers. I believe the book
when ready will have a fair measure of serious interest: I have had
great fortune in finding old songs and ballads and stories, for
instance, and have many singular instances of life in the last few years
among these islands.
The second volume is of ballads. You know _Ticonderoga_. I have written
another: _The Feast of Famine_, a Marquesan story. A third is half done:
_The Song of Rahero_, a genuine Tahitian legend. A fourth dances before,
me. A Hawaiian fellow this, _The Priest's Drought_, or some such name.
If, as I half suspect, I get enough subjects out of the islands,
_Ticonderoga_ shall be suppressed, and we'll call the volume _South Sea
Ballads_. In health, spirits, renewed interest in life, and, I do
believe, refreshed capacity for work, the cruise has proved a wise
folly. Still we're not home, and (although the friend of a crowned head)
are penniless upon these (as one of my correspondents used to call them)
"lovely but _fatil_ islands." By the way, who wrote the _Lion of the
Nile_? My dear sir, that is Something Like. Overdone in bits, it has a
true thought and a true ring of language. Beg the anonymous from me, to
delete (when he shall republish) the two last verses, and end on "the
lion of the Nile." One Lampman has a good sonnet on a "Winter Evening"
in, I think, the same number: he seems ill named, but I am tempted to
hope a man is not always answerable for his name.[28] For instance, you
would think you knew mine. No such matter. It is--at your service and
Mr. Scribner's and that of all of the faithful--Teriitera (pray
pronounce Tayree-Tayra) or (_gallice_) Teri-tera.
R. L. S.
More when the mail shall come.
I am an idiot. I want to be clear on one point. Some of Hole's drawings
must of course be too late; and yet they seem to me so excellent I would
fain have the lot complete. It is one thing for you to pay for drawings
which are to appear in that soul-swallowing machine, your magazine:
quite another if they are only to illustrate a volume. I wish you to
take a brisk (even a fiery) decision on the point; and let Hole know. To
resume my desultory song, I desire you would carry the same fire
(hereinbefore suggested) into your decision on _The Wrong Box_; for in
my present state of benighted ignorance as to my affairs for the last
seven months--I know not even whether my house or my mother's house have
been let--I desire to see something definite in front of me--outside the
lot of palace doorkeeper. I believe the said _Wrong Box_ is a real lark;
in which, of course, I may be grievously deceived; but the typewriter is
with me. I may also be deceived as to the numbers of _The Master_ now
going and already gone; but to me they seem First Chop, sir, First Chop.
I hope I shall pull off that damned ending; but it still depresses me:
this is your doing, Mr. Burlingame: you would have it there and then,
and I fear it--I fear that ending.
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu, February 8th, 1889._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--Here we are at Honolulu, and have dismissed the yacht,
and lie here till April anyway, in a fine state of haze, which I am yet
in hopes some letter of yours (still on the way) may dissipate. No
money, and not one word as to money! However, I have got the yacht paid
off in triumph, I think; and though we stay here impignorate, it should
not be for long, even if you bring us no extra help from home. The
cruise has been a great success, both as to matter, fun, and health; and
yet, Lord, man! we're pleased to be ashore! Yon was a very fine voyage
from Tahiti up here, but--the dry land's a fine place too, and we don't
mind squalls any longer, and eh, man, that's a great thing. Blow, blow,
thou wintry wind, thou hast done me no appreciable harm beyond a few
grey hairs! Altogether, this foolhardy venture is achieved; and if I
have but nine months of life and any kind of health, I shall have both
eaten my cake and got it back again with usury. But, man, there have
been days when I felt guilty, and thought I was in no position for the
head of a house.
Your letter and accounts are doubtless at S. F., and will reach me in
course. My wife is no great shakes; she is the one who has suffered
most. My mother has had a Huge Old Time; Lloyd is first chop; I so well
that I do not know myself--sea-bathing, if you please, and what is far
more dangerous, entertaining and being entertained by His Majesty here,
who is a very fine intelligent fellow, but O, Charles! what a crop for
the drink! He carries it, too, like a mountain with a sparrow on its
shoulders. We calculated five bottles of champagne in three hours and a
half (afternoon), and the sovereign quite presentable, although
perceptibly more dignified at the end....
The extraordinary health I enjoy and variety of interests I find among
these islands would tempt me to remain here; only for Lloyd, who is not
well placed in such countries for a permanency; and a little for Colvin,
to whom I feel I owe a sort of filial duty. And these two considerations
will no doubt bring me back--to go to bed again--in England.--Yours ever
affectionately,
R. L. S.
TO R. A. M. STEVENSON
_Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, February 1889._
MY DEAR BOB,--My extremely foolhardy venture is practically over. How
foolhardy it was I don't think I realised. We had a very small schooner,
and, like most yachts, over-rigged and over-sparred, and like many
American yachts on a very dangerous sail plan. The waters we sailed in
are, of course, entirely unlighted, and very badly charted; in the
Dangerous Archipelago, through which we were fools enough to go, we were
perfectly in ignorance of where we were for a whole night and half the
next day, and this in the midst of invisible islands and rapid and
variable currents; and we were lucky when we found our whereabouts at
last. We have twice had all we wanted in the way of squalls: once, as I
came on deck, I found the green sea over the cockpit coamings and
running down the companion like a brook to meet me; at that same moment
the foresail sheet jammed and the captain had no knife; this was the
only occasion on the cruise that ever I set a hand to a rope, but I
worked like a Trojan, judging the possibility of hemorrhage better than
the certainty of drowning. Another time I saw a rather singular thing:
our whole ship's company as pale as paper from the captain to the cook;
we had a black squall astern on the port side and a white squall ahead
to starboard; the complication passed off innocuous, the black squall
only fetching us with its tail, and the white one slewing off somewhere
else. Twice we were a long while (days) in the close vicinity of
hurricane weather, but again luck prevailed, and we saw none of it.
These are dangers incident to these seas and small craft. What was an
amazement, and at the same time a powerful stroke of luck, both our
masts were rotten, and we found it out--I was going to say in time, but
it was stranger and luckier than that. The head of the mainmast hung
over so that hands were afraid to go to the helm; and less than three
weeks before--I am not sure it was more than a fortnight--we had been
nearly twelve hours beating off the lee shore of Eimeo (or Moorea, next
island to Tahiti) in half a gale of wind with a violent head sea: she
would neither tack nor wear once, and had to be boxed off with the
mainsail--you can imagine what an ungodly show of kites we carried--and
yet the mast stood. The very day after that, in the southern bight of
Tahiti, we had a near squeak, the wind suddenly coming calm; the reefs
were close in with, my eye! what a surf! The pilot thought we were gone,
and the captain had a boat cleared, when a lucky squall came to our
rescue. My wife, hearing the order given about the boats, remarked to my
mother, "Isn't that nice? We shall soon be ashore!" Thus does the female
mind unconsciously skirt along the verge of eternity. Our voyage up here
was most disastrous--calms, squalls, head sea, waterspouts of rain,
hurricane weather all about, and we in the midst of the hurricane
season, when even the hopeful builder and owner of the yacht had
pronounced these seas unfit for her. We ran out of food, and were quite
given up for lost in Honolulu: people had ceased to speak to Belle[29]
about the _Casco_, as a deadly subject.
But the perils of the deep were part of the programme; and though I am
very glad to be done with them for a while and comfortably ashore, where
a squall does not matter a snuff to any one, I feel pretty sure I shall
want to get to sea again ere long. The dreadful risk I took was
financial, and double-headed. First, I had to sink a lot of money in the
cruise, and if I didn't get health, how was I to get it back? I have got
health to a wonderful extent; and as I have the most interesting matter
for my book, bar accidents, I ought to get all I have laid out and a
profit. But, second (what I own I never considered till too late), there
was the danger of collisions, of damages and heavy repairs, of
disablement, towing, and salvage; indeed, the cruise might have turned
round and cost me double. Nor will this danger be quite over till I hear
the yacht is in San Francisco; for though I have shaken the dust of her
deck from my feet, I fear (as a point of law) she is still mine till she
gets there.
From my point of view, up to now the cruise has been a wonderful
success. I never knew the world was so amusing. On the last voyage we
had grown so used to sea-life that no one wearied, though it lasted a
full month, except Fanny, who is always ill. All the time our visits to
the islands have been more like dreams than realities: the people, the
life, the beachcombers, the old stories and songs I have picked up, so
interesting; the climate, the scenery, and (in some places) the women,
so beautiful. The women are handsomest in Tahiti, the men in the
Marquesas; both as fine types as can be imagined. Lloyd reminds me, I
have not told you one characteristic incident of the cruise from a
semi-naval point of view. One night we were going ashore in Anaho Bay;
the most awful noise on deck; the breakers distinctly audible in the
cabin; and there I had to sit below, entertaining in my best style a
negroid native chieftain, much the worse for rum! You can imagine the
evening's pleasure.
This naval report on cruising in the South Seas would be incomplete
without one other trait. On our voyage up here I came one day into the
dining-room, the hatch in the floor was open, the ship's boy was below
with a baler, and two of the hands were carrying buckets as for a fire;
this meant that the pumps had ceased working.
One stirring day was that in which we sighted Hawaii. It blew fair, but
very strong; we carried jib, foresail, and mainsail, all single-reefed,
and she carried her lee rail under water and flew. The swell, the
heaviest I have ever been out in--I tried in vain to estimate the
height, _at least_ fifteen feet--came tearing after us about a point and
a half off the wind. We had the best hand--old Louis--at the wheel; and,
really, he did nobly, and had noble luck, for it never caught us once.
At times it seemed we must have it; old Louis would look over his
shoulder with the queerest look and dive down his neck into his
shoulders; and then it missed us somehow, and only sprays came over our
quarter, turning the little outside lane of deck into a mill race as
deep as to the cockpit coamings. I never remember anything more
delightful and exciting. Pretty soon after we were lying absolutely
becalmed under the lee of Hawaii, of which we had been warned; and the
captain never confessed he had done it on purpose, but when accused, he
smiled. Really, I suppose he did quite right, for we stood committed to
a dangerous race, and to bring her to the wind would have been rather a
heart-sickening manoeuvre.
R. L. S.
TO MARCEL SCHWOB
At Honolulu, Stevenson found awaiting him, among the accumulations of
the mail-bag, two letters of friendly homage--the first, I think, he
had received from any foreign _confrere_--addressed to him by the
distinguished young French scholar and man of letters, M. Marcel
Schwob, since deceased.
_Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, February 8th, 1889._
DEAR SIR,--I thank you--from the midst of such a flurry as you can
imagine, with seven months' accumulated correspondence on my table--for
your two friendly and clever letters. Pray write me again. I shall be
home in May or June, and not improbably shall come to Paris in the
summer. Then we can talk; or in the interval I may be able to write,
which is to-day out of the question. Pray take a word from a man of
crushing occupations, and count it as a volume. Your little _conte_ is
delightful. Ah yes, you are right, I love the eighteenth century; and so
do you, and have not listened to its voice in vain.--The Hunted One,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu, 8th March 1889._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--At last I have the accounts: the Doer has done
excellently, and in the words of ----, "I reciprocate every step of your
behaviour."... I send a letter for Bob in your care, as I don't know
his Liverpool address,[30] by which (for he is to show you part of it)
you will see we have got out of this adventure--or hope to have--with
wonderful fortune. I have the retrospective horrors on me when I think
of the liabilities I incurred; but, thank God, I think I'm in port
again, and I have found one climate in which I can enjoy life. Even
Honolulu is too cold for me; but the south isles were a heaven upon
earth to a puir, catarrhal party like Johns'one. We think, as Tahiti is
too complete a banishment, to try Madeira. It's only a week from
England, good communications, and I suspect in climate and scenery not
unlike our dear islands; in people, alas! there can be no comparison.
But friends could go, and I could come in summer, so I should not be
quite cut off.
Lloyd and I have finished a story, _The Wrong Box_. If it is not funny,
I am sure I do not know what is. I have split over writing it. Since I
have been here, I have been toiling like a galley slave: three numbers
of _The Master_ to rewrite, five chapters of _The Wrong Box_ to write
and rewrite, and about five hundred lines of a narrative poem to write,
rewrite, and re-rewrite. Now I have _The Master_ waiting me for its
continuation, two numbers more; when that's done, I shall breathe. This
spasm of activity has been chequered with champagne parties: Happy and
Glorious, Hawaii Ponoi paua: kou moi--(Native Hawaiians, dote upon your
monarch!) Hawaiian God save the King. (In addition to my other labours,
I am learning the language with a native moonshee.) Kalakaua is a
terrible companion; a bottle of fizz is like a glass of sherry to him;
he thinks nothing of five or six in an afternoon as a whet for dinner.
You should see a photograph of our party after an afternoon with H. H.
M.: my! what a crew!--Yours ever affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Ill-health and pressing preoccupations, together with uncertainty as
to when and where letters would reach him, had kept me from writing
during the previous autumn and winter.
_Honolulu, March 1889._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--Still not a word from you! I am utterly cast down; but
I will try to return good for evil and for once give you news. We are
here in the suburb of Honolulu in a rambling house or set of houses in a
great garden.
[Illustration: _a a a_, stairs up to balcony.]
1. Lloyd's room. 2. My mother's room. 3. A room kept dark for
photographs. 4. The kitchen. 5. Balcony. 6. The Lanai, an open room or
summer parlour, partly surrounded with Venetian shutters, in part quite
open, which is the living-room. 7. A crazy dirty cottage used for the
arts. 8. Another crazy dirty cottage, where Fanny and I live. The town
is some three miles away, but the house is connected by telephone with
the chief shops, and the tramway runs to within a quarter of a mile of
us. I find Honolulu a beastly climate after Tahiti and have been in bed
a little; but my colds _took on no catarrhal symptom_, which is
staggeringly delightful. I am studying Hawaiian with a native, a Mr.
Joseph Poepoe, a clever fellow too: the tongue is a little bewildering;
I am reading a pretty story in native--no, really it is pretty, although
wandering and wordy; highly pretty with its continual traffic from one
isle to another of the soothsayer, pursuing rainbows. Fanny is, I think,
a good deal better on the whole, having profited like me by the tropics;
my mother and Lloyd are first-rate. I do not think I have heard from you
since last May; certainly not since June; and this really frightens me.
Do write, even now. Scribner's Sons it should be; we shall probably be
out of this some time in April, home some time in June. But the world
whirls to me perceptibly, a mass of times and seasons and places and
engagements, and seas to cross, and continents to traverse, so that I
scarce know where I am. Well, I have had a brave time. _Et ego in
Arcadia_--though I don't believe Arcadia was a spot upon Tahiti. I have
written another long narrative poem: the _Song of Rahero_. Privately, I
think it good: but your ominous silence over the _Feast of Famine_ leads
me to fear we shall not be agreed. Is it possible I have wounded you in
some way? I scarce like to dream that it is possible; and yet I know too
well it may be so. If so, don't write, and you can pitch into me when we
meet. I am, admittedly, as mild as London Stout now; and the Old Man
Virulent much a creature of the past. My dear Colvin, I owe you and
Fleeming Jenkin, the two older men who took the trouble and knew how to
make a friend of me, everything that I have or am: if I have behaved
ill, just hold on and give me a chance, you shall have the slanging of
me and I bet I shall prefer it to this silence.--Ever, my dear Colvin,
your most affectionate
R. L. S.
[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON to MRS. SITWELL
This letter brought to friends in England the first news of the
intended prolongation of the cruise among the remoter islands of the
Pacific.
_Honolulu, towards the end of March 1889._
MY DEAR FRIEND,--Louis has improved so wonderfully in the delicious
islands of the South Seas, that we think of trying yet one more voyage.
We are a little uncertain as to how we shall go, whether in a missionary
ship, or by hiring schooners from point to point, but the "unregenerate"
islands we must see. I suppose we shall be off some time in June, which
will fetch us back to England in another year's time. You could hardly
believe it if you could see Louis now. He looks as well as he ever did
in his life, and has had no sign of cough or hemorrhage (begging pardon
of Nemesis) for many months. It seems a pity to return to England until
his health is firmly reestablished, and also a pity not to see all that
we can see quite easily starting from this place: and which will be our
only opportunity in life. Of course there is the usual risk from hostile
natives, and the horrible sea, but a positive risk is so much more
wholesome than a negative one, and it is all such joy to Louis and
Lloyd. As for me, I hate the sea, and am afraid of it (though no one
will believe that because in time of danger I do not make an
outcry--nevertheless I _am_ afraid of it, and it is not kind to me), but
I love the tropic weather, and the wild people, and to see my two boys
so happy. Mrs. Stevenson is going back to Scotland in May, as she does
not like to be longer away from her old sister, who has been very ill.
And besides, we do not feel justified in taking her to the sort of
places we intend to visit. As for me, I can get comfort out of very
rough surroundings for my people, I can work hard and enjoy it; I can
even shoot pretty well, and though I "don't want to fight, by jingo if I
must," why I can. I don't suppose there will be any occasion for that
sort of thing--only in case.
I am not quite sure of the names, but I _think_ our new cruise includes
the Gilberts, the Fijis, and the Solomons. A letter might go from the
Fijis; Louis will write the particulars, of which I am not sure. As for
myself, I have had more cares than I was really fit for. To keep house
on a yacht is no easy thing. When Louis and I broke loose from the ship
and lived alone amongst the natives I got on very well. It was when I
was deathly sea-sick, and the question was put to me by the cook, "What
shall we have for the cabin dinner, what for to-morrow's breakfast, what
for lunch? and what about the sailors' food? Please come and look at the
biscuits, for the weevils have got into them, and show me how to make
yeast that will rise of itself, and smell the pork which seems pretty
high, and give me directions about making a pudding with molasses--and
what is to be done about the bugs?"--etc. etc. In the midst of heavy
dangerous weather, when I was lying on the floor clutching a basin, down
comes the mate with a cracked head, and I must needs cut off the hair
matted with blood, wash and dress the wound, and administer
restoratives. I do not like being "the lady of the yacht," but ashore!
O, then I felt I was repaid for all. I wonder did any of my letters from
beautiful Tautira ever come to hand, with the descriptions of our life
with Louis's adopted brother Ori a Ori? Ori wrote to us, if no one else
did, and I mean to give you a translation of his letter. It begins with
our native names.
_Tautira, 26 Dec. 1888._
To Teriitera (Louis) and Tapina Tutu (myself) and Aromaiterai (Lloyd)
and Teiriha (Mrs. Stevenson) Salutation in the true Jesus.
I make you to know my great affection. At the hour when you left us, I
was filled with tears; my wife, Rui Tehini, also, and all of my
household. When you embarked I felt a great sorrow. It is for this that
I went upon the road, and you looked from that ship, and I looked at you
on the ship with great grief until you had raised the anchor and hoisted
the sails. When the ship started, I ran along the beach to see you
still; and when you were on the open sea I cried out to you, "farewell
Louis": and when I was coming back to my house I seemed to hear your
voice crying "Rui farewell." Afterwards I watched the ship as long as I
could until the night fell; and when it was dark I said to myself, "if I
had wings I should fly to the ship to meet you, and to sleep amongst
you, so that I might be able to come back to shore and to tell Rui
Tehini, 'I have slept upon the ship of Teriitera.'" After that we passed
that night in the impatience of grief. Towards eight o'clock I seemed to
hear your voice, "Teriitera--Rui--here is the hour for putter and tiro"
(cheese and syrup). I did not sleep that night, thinking continually of
you, my very dear friend, until the morning: being then awake I went to
see Tapina Tutu on her bed, and alas, she was not there. Afterwards I
looked into your rooms; they did not please me as they used to do. I did
not hear your voice crying, "hail Rui." I thought then that you had
gone, and that you had left me. Rising up I went to the beach to see
your ship, and I could not see it. I wept, then, till the night, telling
myself continually, "Teriitera returns into his own country and leaves
his dear Rui in grief, so that I suffer for him, and weep for him." I
will not forget you in my memory. Here is the thought: I desire to meet
you again. It is my dear Teriitera makes the only riches I desire in
this world. It is your eyes that I desire to see again. It must be that
your body and my body shall eat together at our table: there is what
would make my heart content. But now we are separated. May God be with
you all. May His word and His mercy go with you, so that you may be well
and we also, according to the words of Paul.
ORI A ORI; that is to say, RUI.
After reading this to me Louis has left in tears saying that he is not
worthy that such a letter should be written to him. We hope to so manage
that we shall stop at Tahiti and see Rui once more. I tell myself that
pleasant story when I wake in the night.
I find my head swimming so that I cannot write any more. I wish some
rich Catholic would send a parlour organ to Pere Bruno of Tautira. I am
going to try and save money to do it myself, but he may die before I
have enough. I feel ashamed to be sitting here when I think of that old
man who cannot draw because of scrivener's paralysis, who has no one
year in and year out to speak to but natives (our Rui is a Protestant
not bigoted like the rest of them--but still a Protestant) and the only
pastime he has is playing on an old broken parlour organ whose keys are
mostly dumb. I know no more pathetic figure. Have you no rich Catholic
friends who would send him an organ that he could play upon? Of course I
am talking nonsense, and yet I know somewhere that person exists if only
I knew the place.
Our dearest love to you all.
FANNY.]
TO HENRY JAMES
_Honolulu [March 1889]._
MY DEAR JAMES,--Yes--I own up--I am untrue to friendship and (what is
less, but still considerable) to civilisation. I am not coming home for
another year. There it is, cold and bald, and now you won't believe in
me at all, and serve me right (says you) and the devil take me. But look
here, and judge me tenderly. I have had more fun and pleasure of my life
these past months than ever before, and more health than any time in ten
long years. And even here in Honolulu I have withered in the cold; and
this precious deep is filled with islands, which we may still visit; and
though the sea is a deathful place, I like to be there, and like
squalls (when they are over); and to draw near to a new island, I cannot
say how much I like. In short, I take another year of this sort of life,
and mean to try to work down among the poisoned arrows, and mean (if it
may be) to come back again when the thing is through, and converse with
Henry James as heretofore; and in the meanwhile issue directions to H.
J. to write to me once more. Let him address here at Honolulu, for my
views are vague; and if it is sent here it will follow and find me, if I
am to be found; and if I am not to be found, the man James will have
done his duty, and we shall be at the bottom of the sea, where no
post-office clerk can be expected to discover us, or languishing on a
coral island, the philosophic drudges of some barbarian potentate:
perchance, of an American Missionary. My wife has just sent to Mrs.
Sitwell a translation (_tant bien que mal_) of a letter I have had from
my chief friend in this part of the world: go and see her, and get a
hearing of it; it will do you good; it is a better method of
correspondence than even Henry James's. I jest, but seriously it is a
strange thing for a tough, sick, middle-aged scrivener like R. L. S. to
receive a letter so conceived from a man fifty years old, a leading
politician, a crack orator, and the great wit of his village: boldly
say, "the highly popular M.P. of Tautira." My nineteenth century strikes
here, and lies alongside of something beautiful and ancient. I think the
receipt of such a letter might humble, shall I say even ----? and for
me, I would rather have received it than written _Redgauntlet_ or the
sixth _AEneid_. All told, if my books have enabled or helped me to make
this voyage, to know Rui, and to have received such a letter, they have
(in the old prefatorial expression) not been writ in vain. It would seem
from this that I have been not so much humbled as puffed up; but, I
assure you, I have in fact been both. A little of what that letter says
is my own earning; not all, but yet a little; and the little makes me
proud, and all the rest ashamed; and in the contrast, how much more
beautiful altogether is the ancient man than him of to-day!
Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he _is_ of the nineteenth
century, and that glaringly. And to curry favour with him, I wish I
could be more explicit; but, indeed, I am still of necessity extremely
vague, and cannot tell what I am to do, nor where I am to go for some
while yet. As soon as I am sure, you shall hear. All are fairly
well--the wife, your countrywoman, least of all; troubles are not
entirely wanting; but on the whole we prosper, and we are all
affectionately yours,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Honolulu, April 2nd, 1889._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am beginning to be ashamed of writing on to you
without the least acknowledgment, like a tramp; but I do not care--I am
hardened; and whatever be the cause of your silence, I mean to write
till all is blue. I am outright ashamed of my news, which is that we are
not coming home for another year. I cannot but hope it may continue the
vast improvement of my health: I think it good for Fanny and Lloyd; and
we have all a taste for this wandering and dangerous life. My mother I
send home, to my relief, as this part of our cruise will be (if we can
carry it out) rather difficult in places. Here is the idea: about the
middle of June (unless the Boston Board objects) we sail from Honolulu
in the missionary ship (barquentine auxiliary steamer) _Morning Star_:
she takes us through the Gilberts and Marshalls, and drops us (this is
my great idea) on Ponape, one of the volcanic islands of the Carolines.
Here we stay marooned among a doubtful population, with a Spanish
vice-governor and five native kings, and a sprinkling of missionaries
all at loggerheads, on the chance of fetching a passage to Sydney in a
trader, a labour ship or (maybe, but this appears too bright) a ship of
war. If we can't get the _Morning Star_ (and the Board has many reasons
that I can see for refusing its permission) I mean to try to fetch Fiji,
hire a schooner there, do the Fijis and Friendlies, hit the course of
the _Richmond_ at Tonga Tabu, make back by Tahiti, and so to S. F., and
home: perhaps in June 1890. For the latter part of the cruise will
likely be the same in either case. You can see for yourself how much
variety and adventure this promises, and that it is not devoid of danger
at the best; but if we can pull it off in safety, gives me a fine book
of travel, and Lloyd a fine lecture and diorama, which should vastly
better our finances.
I feel as if I were untrue to friendship; believe me, Colvin, when I
look forward to this absence of another year, my conscience sinks at
thought of the Monument; but I think you will pardon me if you consider
how much this tropical weather mends my health. Remember me as I was at
home, and think of me sea-bathing and walking about, as jolly as a
sandboy: you will own the temptation is strong; and as the scheme, bar
fatal accidents, is bound to pay into the bargain, sooner or later, it
seems it would be madness to come home now, with an imperfect book, no
illustrations to speak of, no diorama, and perhaps fall sick again by
autumn. I do not think I delude myself when I say the tendency to
catarrh has visibly diminished.
It is a singular thing that as I was packing up old papers ere I left
Skerryvore, I came on the prophecies of a drunken Highland sibyl, when I
was seventeen. She said I was to be very happy, to visit America, and
_to be much upon the sea_. It seems as if it were coming true with a
vengeance. Also, do you remember my strong, old, rooted belief that I
shall die by drowning? I don't want that to come true, though it is an
easy death; but it occurs to me oddly, with these long chances in front.
I cannot say why I like the sea; no man is more cynically and
constantly alive to its perils; I regard it as the highest form of
gambling; and yet I love the sea as much as I hate gambling. Fine, clean
emotions; a world all and always beautiful; air better than wine;
interest unflagging; there is upon the whole no better life.--Yours
ever,
R. L. S.
TO E. L. BURLINGAME
[_Honolulu, April 1889._]
MY DEAR BURLINGAME,--This is to announce the most prodigious change of
programme. I have seen so much of the South Seas that I desire to see
more, and I get so much health here that I dread a return to our vile
climates. I have applied accordingly to the missionary folk to let me go
round in the _Morning Star_; and if the Boston Board should refuse, I
shall get somehow to Fiji, hire a trading schooner, and see the Fijis
and Friendlies and Samoa. He would be a South Seayer, Mr. Burlingame. Of
course, if I go in the _Morning Star_, I see all the eastern (or
western?) islands.
Before I sail, I shall make out to let you have the last of _The
Master_: though I tell you it sticks!--and I hope to have had some
proofs forbye, of the verses anyway. And now to business.
I want (if you can find them) in the British sixpenny edition, if not,
in some equally compact and portable shape--Seaside Library, for
instance--the Waverley Novels entire, or as entire as you can get 'em,
and the following of Marryat: _Phantom Ship_, _Peter Simple_, _Percival
Keene_, _Privateersman_, _Children of the New Forest_, _Frank Mildmay_,
_Newton Forster_, _Dog Fiend (Snarleyyow)_. Also _Midshipman Easy_,
_Kingsburn_, Carlyle's _French Revolution_, Motley's _Dutch Republic_,
Lang's _Letters on Literature_, a complete set of my works, _Jenkin_, in
duplicate; also _Familiar Studies_, ditto.
I have to thank you for the accounts, which are satisfactory indeed, and
for the cheque for $1000. Another account will have come and gone before
I see you. I hope it will be equally roseate in colour. I am quite
worked out, and this cursed end of _The Master_ hangs over me like the
arm of the gallows; but it is always darkest before dawn, and no doubt
the clouds will soon rise; but it is a difficult thing to write, above
all in Mackellarese; and I cannot yet see my way clear. If I pull this
off, _The Master_ will be a pretty good novel or I am the more deceived;
and even if I don't pull if off, it'll still have some stuff in it.
We shall remain here until the middle of June anyway; but my mother
leaves for Europe early in May. Hence our mail should continue to come
here; but not hers. I will let you know my next address, which will
probably be Sydney. If we get on the _Morning Star_, I propose at
present to get marooned on Ponape, and take my chance of getting a
passage to Australia. It will leave times and seasons mighty vague, and
the cruise is risky; but I shall know something of the South Seas when
it is done, or else the South Seas will contain all there is of me. It
should give me a fine book of travels, anyway.
Low will probably come and ask some dollars of you. Pray let him have
them, they are for outfit. O, another complete set of my books should go
to Captain A. H. Otis, care of Dr. Merritt, Yacht _Casco_, Oakland,
Cal.--In haste,
R. L. S.
TO MISS ADELAIDE BOODLE
_Honolulu, April 6th, 1889._
MY DEAR MISS BOODLE,--Nobody writes a better letter than my Gamekeeper:
so gay, so pleasant, so engagingly particular, answering (by some
delicate instinct) all the questions she suggests. It is a shame you
should get such a poor return as I can make, from a mind essentially and
originally incapable of the art epistolary. I would let the
paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden
seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies.
The place he seems to have stayed at--seems, for his absence was not
observed till we were near the Equator--was Tautira, and, I assure you,
he displayed good taste, Tautira being as "nigh hand heaven" as a
paper-cutter or anybody has a right to expect.
I think all our friends will be very angry with us, and I give the
grounds of their probable displeasure bluntly--we are not coming home
for another year. My mother returns next month. Fanny, Lloyd, and I push
on again among the islands on a trading schooner, the _Equator_--first
for the Gilbert group, which we shall have an opportunity to explore
thoroughly; then, if occasion serve, to the Marshalls and Carolines; and
if occasion (or money) fail, to Samoa, and back to Tahiti. I own we are
deserters, but we have excuses. You cannot conceive how these climates
agree with the wretched house-plant of Skerryvore: he wonders to find
himself sea-bathing, and cutting about the world loose, like a grown-up
person. They agree with Fanny too, who does not suffer from her
rheumatism, and with Lloyd also. And the interest of the islands is
endless; and the sea, though I own it is a fearsome place, is very
delightful. We had applied for places in the American missionary ship,
the _Morning Star_, but this trading schooner is a far preferable idea,
giving us more time and a thousandfold more liberty; so we determined to
cut off the missionaries with a shilling.
The Sandwich Islands do not interest us very much; we live here,
oppressed with civilisation, and look for good things in the future. But
it would surprise you if you came out to-night from Honolulu (all
shining with electric lights, and all in a bustle from the arrival of
the mail, which is to carry you these lines) and crossed the long wooden
causeway along the beach, and came out on the road through Kapiolani
park, and seeing a gate in the palings, with a tub of gold-fish by the
wayside, entered casually in. The buildings stand in three groups by
the edge of the beach, where an angry little spitfire sea continually
spirts and thrashes with impotent irascibility, the big seas breaking
further out upon the reef. The first is a small house, with a very large
summer parlour, or _lanai_, as they call it here, roofed, but
practically open. There you will find the lamps burning and the family
sitting about the table, dinner just done: my mother, my wife, Lloyd,
Belle, my wife's daughter, Austin her child, and to-night (by way of
rarity) a guest. All about the walls our South Sea curiosities, war
clubs, idols, pearl shells, stone axes, etc.; and the walls are only a
small part of a lanai, the rest being glazed or latticed windows, or
mere open space. You will see there no sign of the Squire, however; and
being a person of a humane disposition, you will only glance in over the
balcony railing at the merrymakers in the summer parlour, and proceed
further afield after the Exile. You look round, there is beautiful green
turf, many trees of an outlandish sort that drop thorns--look out if
your feet are bare; but I beg your pardon, you have not been long enough
in the South Seas--and many oleanders in full flower. The next group of
buildings is ramshackle, and quite dark; you make out a coach-house
door, and look in--only some cocoanuts; you try round to the left and
come to the sea front, where Venus and the moon are making luminous
tracks on the water, and a great swell rolls and shines on the outer
reef; and here is another door--all these places open from the
outside--and you go in, and find photography, tubs of water, negatives
steeping, a tap, and a chair and an ink-bottle, where my wife is
supposed to write; round a little further, a third door, entering which
you find a picture upon the easel and a table sticky with paints; a
fourth door admits you to a sort of court, where there is a hen
sitting--I believe on a fallacious egg. No sign of the Squire in all
this. But right opposite the studio door you have observed a third
little house, from whose open door lamp-light streams and makes hay of
the strong moonlight shadows. You had supposed it made no part of the
grounds, for a fence runs round it lined with oleander; but as the
Squire is nowhere else, is it not just possible he may be here? It is a
grim little wooden shanty; cobwebs bedeck it; friendly mice inhabit its
recesses; the mailed cockroach walks upon the wall; so also, I regret to
say, the scorpion. Herein are two pallet beds, two mosquito curtains,
strung to the pitch-boards of the roof, two tables laden with books and
manuscripts, three chairs, and, in one of the beds, the Squire busy
writing to yourself, as it chances, and just at this moment somewhat
bitten by mosquitoes. He has just set fire to the insect powder, and
will be all right in no time; but just now he contemplates large white
blisters, and would like to scratch them, but knows better. The house is
not bare; it has been inhabited by Kanakas, and--you know what children
are!--the bare wood walls are pasted over with pages from the _Graphic_,
_Harper's Weekly_, etc. The floor is matted, and I am bound to say the
matting is filthy. There are two windows and two doors, one of which is
condemned; on the panels of that last a sheet of paper is pinned up, and
covered with writing. I cull a few plums:--
"A duck-hammock for each person.
A patent organ like the commandant's at Taiohae.
Cheap and bad cigars for presents.
Revolvers.
Permanganate of potass.
Liniment for the head and sulphur.
Fine tooth-comb."
What do you think this is? Simply life in the South Seas foreshortened.
These are a few of our desiderata for the next trip, which we jot down
as they occur.
There, I have really done my best and tried to send something like a
letter--one letter in return for all your dozens. Pray remember us all
to yourself, Mrs. Boodle, and the rest of your house. I do hope your
mother will be better when this comes. I shall write and give you a new
address when I have made up my mind as to the most probable, and I do
beg you will continue to write from time to time and give us airs from
home. To-morrow--think of it--I must be off by a quarter to eight to
drive in to the palace and breakfast with his Hawaiian Majesty at 8.30:
I shall be dead indeed. Please give my news to Scott, I trust he is
better; give him my warm regards. To you we all send all kinds of
things, and I am the absentee Squire,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
_Honolulu, April 1889._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--As usual, your letter is as good as a cordial, and I
thank you for it, and all your care, kindness, and generous and
thoughtful friendship, from my heart. I was truly glad to hear a word of
Colvin, whose long silence has terrified me; and glad to hear that you
condoned the notion of my staying longer in the South Seas, for I have
decided in that sense. The first idea was to go in the _Morning Star_,
missionary ship; but now I have found a trading schooner, the _Equator_,
which is to call for me here early in June and carry us through the
Gilberts. What will happen then, the Lord knows. My mother does not
accompany us: she leaves here for home early in May, and you will hear
of us from her; but not, I imagine, anything more definite. We shall get
dumped on Butaritari, and whether we manage to go on to the Marshalls
and Carolines, or whether we fall back on Samoa, Heaven must decide; but
I mean to fetch back into the course of the _Richmond_--(to think you
don't know what the _Richmond_ is!--_the_ steamer of the Eastern South
Seas, joining New Zealand, Tongatabu, the Samoas, Taheite, and
Rarotonga, and carrying by last advices sheep in the saloon!)--into the
course of the _Richmond_ and make Tahiti again on the home track. Would
I like to see the Scots Observer? Wouldn't I not? But whaur? I'm
direckit at space. They have nae post offishes at the Gilberts, and as
for the Car'lines! Ye see, Mr. Baxter, we're no just in the punkshewal
_centre_ o' civ'lisation. But pile them up for me, and when I've decided
on an address, I'll let you ken, and ye'll can send them stavin' after
me.--Ever your affectionate
R. L. S.
TO CHARLES BAXTER
The reference in the first paragraph is to the publication in the
press, which Mr. Baxter had permitted, of one of Stevenson's letters
written during the earlier part of his voyage. R. L. S. had
remonstrated, always greatly disliking the publication of private
letters during the writer's lifetime; and now writes to soften the
effect of his remonstrance.
_Honolulu, 10th May 1889._
MY DEAR CHARLES,--I am appalled to gather from your last just to hand
that you have felt so much concern about the letter. Pray dismiss it
from your mind. But I think you scarce appreciate how disagreeable it is
to have your private affairs and private unguarded expressions getting
into print. It would soon sicken any one of writing letters. I have no
doubt that letter was very wisely selected, but it just shows how things
crop up. There was a raging jealousy between the two yachts; our captain
was nearly in a fight over it. However, no more; and whatever you think,
my dear fellow, do not suppose me angry with you or ----; although I was
_annoyed at the circumstance_--a very different thing. But it is
difficult to conduct life by letter, and I continually feel I may be
drifting into some matter of offence, in which my heart takes no part.
I must now turn to a point of business. This new cruise of ours is
somewhat venturesome; and I think it needful to warn you not to be in a
hurry to suppose us dead. In these ill-charted seas, it is quite on the
cards we might be cast on some unvisited, or very rarely visited,
island; that there we might lie for a long time, even years, unheard of;
and yet turn up smiling at the hinder end. So do not let me be "rowpit"
till you get some certainty we have gone to Davie Jones in a squall, or
graced the feast of some barbarian in the character of Long Pig.
I have just been a week away alone on the lee coast of Hawaii, the only
white creature in many miles, riding five and a half hours one day,
living with a native, seeing four lepers shipped off to Molokai, hearing
native causes, and giving my opinion as _amicus curiae_ as to the
interpretation of a statute in English; a lovely week among God's
best--at least God's sweetest works--Polynesians. It has bettered me
greatly. If I could only stay there the time that remains, I could get
my work done and be happy; but the care of my family keeps me in vile
Honolulu, where I am always out of sorts, amidst heat and cold and
cesspools and beastly _haoles_.[31] What is a haole? You are one; and
so, I am sorry to say, am I. After so long a dose of whites, it was a
blessing to get among Polynesians again even for a week.
Well, Charles, there are waur haoles than yoursel', I'll say that for
ye; and trust before I sail I shall get another letter with more about
yourself.--Ever your affectionate friend,
R. L. S.
TO W. H. LOW
The allusions in the latter half of this letter are to the departure
for Europe of the young Hawaiian princess Kaiulani (see the poem
beginning "When from her land to mine she goes," in _Songs of
Travel_), and to the circumstances of the great hurricane at Apia on
March 15th, 1889.
_Honolulu, (about) 20th May '89._
MY DEAR LOW,-- ... The goods have come; many daughters have done
virtuously, but thou excellest them all.--I have at length finished
_The Master_; it has been a sore cross to me; but now he is buried, his
body's under hatches,--his soul, if there is any hell to go to, gone to
hell; and I forgive him: it is harder to forgive Burlingame for having
induced me to begin the publication, or myself for suffering the
induction.--Yes, I think Hole has done finely; it will be one of the
most adequately illustrated books of our generation; he gets the note,
he tells the story--_my_ story: I know only one failure--the Master
standing on the beach.--You must have a letter for me at Sydney--till
further notice. Remember me to Mrs. Will. H., the godlike sculptor, and
any of the faithful. If you want to cease to be a republican, see my
little Kaiulani, as she goes through--but she is gone already. You will
die a red: I wear the colours of that little royal maiden, _Nous allons
chanter a la ronde, si vous voulez!_ only she is not blonde by several
chalks, though she is but a half-blood, and the wrong half Edinburgh
Scots like mysel'. But, O Low, I love the Polynesian: this civilisation
of ours is a dingy, ungentlemanly business; it drops out too much of
man, and too much of that the very beauty of the poor beast: who has his
beauties in spite of Zola and Co. As usual, here is a whole letter with
no news: I am a bloodless, inhuman dog; and no doubt Zola is a better
correspondent.--Long live your fine old English admiral--yours, I
mean--the U.S.A. one at Samoa; I wept tears and loved myself and mankind
when I read of him: he is not too much civilised. And there was Gordon,
too; and there are others, beyond question. But if you could live, the
only white folk, in a Polynesian village; and drink that warm, light
_vin du pays_ of human affection and enjoy that simple dignity of all
about you--I will not gush, for I am now in my fortieth year, which
seems highly unjust, but there it is, Mr. Low, and the Lord enlighten
your affectionate
R. L. S.
[MRS. R. L. STEVENSON TO SIDNEY COLVIN
This letter shows the writer in her character of wise and anxious
critic of her husband's work. The result, in the judgment of most of
his friends, went far to justify her misgivings.
_Honolulu, May 21st, 1889._
BEST OF FRIENDS,--It was a joy inexpressible to get a word from you at
last. Fortunately for our peace of mind, we were almost positive that
your letters had been sent to the places we had already left. Still it
was a bitter disappointment to get nothing from you when we arrived
here. I wish you could have seen us both throwing over the immense
package of letters searching for your handwriting. Now that we know you
have been ill, please do let some one send us a line to our next address
telling us how you are. What that next address may be we do not yet
know, as our final movements are a little uncertain. To begin with, a
trading schooner, the _Equator_, will come along some time in the first
part of June, lie outside the harbour here and signal to us. Within
forty-eight hours we shall pack up our possessions, our barrel of sauer
kraut, our barrel of salt onions, our bag of cocoanuts, our native
garments, our tobacco, fish hooks, red combs, and Turkey red calicoes
(all the latter for trading purposes), our hand organ, photograph and
painting materials, and finally our magic lantern--all these upon a
large whaleboat, and go out to the _Equator_. Lloyd, also, takes a
fiddle, a guitar, a native instrument something like a banjo, called a
taropatch fiddle, and a lot of song books. We shall be carried first to
one of the Gilberts, landing at Butaritari. The _Equator_ is going about
amongst the Gilbert group, and we have the right to keep her over when
we like within reasonable limits. Finally she will leave us, and we
shall have to take the chances of what happens next. We hope to see the
Marshalls, the Carolines, the Fijis, Tonga and Samoa (also other islands
that I do not remember), perhaps staying a little while in Sydney, and
stopping on our way home to see our friends in Tahiti and the Marquesas.
I am very much exercised by one thing. Louis has the most enchanting
material that any one ever had in the whole world for his book, and I am
afraid he is going to spoil it all. He has taken into his Scotch
Stevenson head that a stern duty lies before him, and that his book must
be a sort of scientific and historical impersonal thing, comparing the
different languages (of which he knows nothing, really) and the
different peoples, the object being to settle the question as to whether
they are of common Malay origin or not. Also to compare the Protestant
and Catholic missions, etc., and the whole thing to be impersonal,
leaving out all he knows of the people themselves. And I believe there
is no one living who has got so near to them, or who understands them as
he does. Think of a small treatise on the Polynesian races being offered
to people who are dying to hear about Ori a Ori, the making of brothers
with cannibals, the strange stories they told, and the extraordinary
adventures that befell us:--suppose Herman Melville had given us his
theories as to the Polynesian language and the probable good or evil
results of the missionary influence instead of _Omoo_ and _Typee_, or
Kinglake[32] instead of _Eothen_. Louis says it is a stern sense of duty
that is at the bottom of it, which is more alarming than anything else.
I am so sure that you will agree with me that I am going to ask you to
throw the weight of your influence as heavily as possible in the scales
with me. Please refer to the matter in the letters we shall receive at
our first stopping place, otherwise Louis will spend a great deal of
time in Sydney actually reading up other people's books on the Islands.
What a thing it is to have a "man of genius" to deal with. It is like
managing an overbred horse. Why with my own feeble hand I could write a
book that the whole world would jump at. Please keep any letters of mine
that contain any incidents of our wanderings. They are very exact as to
facts, and Louis may, in this conscientious state of mind (indeed I am
afraid he has), put nothing in his diary but statistics. Even if I
thought it a desirable thing to write what he proposes, I should still
think it impossible unless after we had lived and studied here some
twenty years or more.
Now I am done with my complaining, and shall turn to the pleasanter
paths. Louis went to one of the other islands a couple of weeks ago,
quite alone, got drenched with rain and surf, rode over mountain
paths--five and a half hours one day--and came back none the worse for
it. To-day he goes to Molokai, the leper island. He never has a sign of
hemorrhage, the air cushion is a thing of the past, and altogether he is
a new man. How he will do in the English climate again I do not know,
but in these latitudes he is very nearly a well man, nothing seems to do
him harm but overwork. That, of course, is sometimes difficult to
prevent. Now, however, the _Master_ is done, we have enough money to go
upon and there is no need to work at all. I must stop. My dear love to
you all.
FANNY V. DE G. STEVENSON.]
TO MRS. R. L. STEVENSON
The following two letters were written during and immediately after
Stevenson's trip to the noted leper settlement, the scene of Father
Damien's labours, at Molokai.
_Kalawao, Molokai [May 1889]._
DEAR FANNY,--I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr. Gilfillan,
both born in the States, yet the first still with a strong Highland, and
the second still with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the
night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his
berth, and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next
stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the morning; I turned
in all standing, so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the
peep out of a low morning bank, and we were wallowing along under
stupendous cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain
abutments and buttresses on their front where wood clustered and grass
grew brightly. But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart
sank at the sight. Two thousand feet of rock making 19 deg. (the Captain
guesses) seemed quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and,
to tell you the truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I dared
not go back on the adventure in the interests of my own self-respect.
Presently we came up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and
bleak and harsh, a little town of wooden houses, two churches, a
landing-stair, all unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart the
sunrise, with the great wall of the pali cutting the world out on the
south. Our lepers were sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor
child very horrid, one white man, leaving a large grown family behind
him in Honolulu, and then into the second stepped the sisters and
myself. I do not know how it would have been with me had the sisters not
been there. My horror of the horrible is about my weakest point; but the
moral loveliness at my elbow blotted all else out; and when I found that
one of them was crying, poor soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a
little myself; then I felt as right as a trivet, only a little crushed
to be there so uselessly. I thought it was a sin and a shame she should
feel unhappy; I turned round to her, and said something like this:
"Ladies, God Himself is here to give you welcome. I'm sure it is good
for me to be beside you; I hope it will be blessed to me; I thank you
for myself and the good you do me." It seemed to cheer her up; but
indeed I had scarce said it when we were at the landing-stairs, and
there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save us!) pantomime masks in
poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters and the new patients.
Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on the
boat's voyage _not_ to give my hand; that seemed less offensive than the
gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and presently I
got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot
across the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. All horror was
quite gone from me: to see these dread creatures smile and look happy
was beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful
_alohas_ with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; I was
stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, only ashamed of myself
that I was here for no good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good
English, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly;
she thought I was the new white patient; and when she found I was only a
visitor, a curious change came in her face and voice--the only sad
thing, morally sad, I mean--that I met that morning. But for all that,
they tell me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became
rare; dry stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; a dreary
country; from overhead in the little clinging wood shogs of the pali
chirruping of birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade
blew pure and cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and
stopped and chatted with the patients whom I still met on their horses,
with not the least disgust. About half-way over, I met the
superintendent (a leper) with a horse for me, and O, wasn't I glad! But
the horse was one of those curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always
dully want to go somewhere else, and my traffic with him completed my
crushing fatigue. I got to the guest-house, an empty house with several
rooms, kitchen, bath, etc. There was no one there, and I let the horse
go loose in the garden, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.
Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept
again while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner; and I
came back and slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and
then in about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary
guest-house, played the flageolet, and am now writing to you. As yet,
you see, I have seen nothing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue
(though I believe that was moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the
doctor's opinion make me think the pali hopeless. "You don't look a
strong man," said the doctor; "but are you sound?" I told him the truth;
then he said it was out of the question, and if I were to get up at all,
I must be carried up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses
continually fall on this ascent: the doctor goes up with a change of
clothes--it is plain that to be carried would in itself be very
fatiguing to both mind and body; and I should then be at the beginning
of thirteen miles of mountain road to be ridden against time. How should
I come through? I hope you will think me right in my decision: I mean to
stay, and shall not be back in Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You
must all do the best you can to make ready.
Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and run, and
they live here as composed as brick and mortar--at least the wife does,
a Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite
amazed at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! Gilfillan
too, a good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, kept up his hard
Lowland Scottish talk in the boat while the sister was covering her
face; but I believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and
part perhaps in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I
made my speech to them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to
do so, and remembered one of my golden rules, "When you are ashamed to
speak, speak up at once." But, mind you, that rule is only golden with
strangers; with your own folks, there are other considerations. This is
a strange place to be in. A bell has been sounded at intervals while I
wrote, now all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike
the sound of telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark,
with a small fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one
cricket whistling in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen
cheeping between my inky fingers.
Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80 deg. in the shade, strong,
sweet Anaho trade-wind.
LOUIS.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
_Honolulu, June 1889._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--I am just home after twelve days' journey to Molokai,
seven of them at the leper settlement, where I can only say that the
sight of so much courage, cheerfulness, and devotion strung me too high
to mind the infinite pity and horror of the sights. I used to ride over
from Kalawao to Kalaupapa (about three miles across the promontory, the
cliff-wall, ivied with forest and yet inaccessible from steepness, on my
left), go to the Sisters' home, which is a miracle of neatness, play a
game of croquet with seven leper girls (90 deg. in the shade), got a little
old-maid meal served me by the Sisters, and ride home again, tired
enough, but not too tired. The girls have all dolls, and love dressing
them. You who know so many ladies delicately clad, and they who know so
many dressmakers, please make it known it would be an acceptable gift to
send scraps for doll dressmaking to the Reverend Sister Maryanne, Bishop
Home, Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaiian Islands.
I have seen sights that cannot be told, and heard stories that cannot be
repeated: yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor (strange as it
may seem) loved life more than in the settlement. A horror of moral
beauty broods over the place: that's like bad Victor Hugo, but it is the
only way I can express the sense that lived with me all these days. And
this even though it was in great part Catholic, and my sympathies flow
never with so much difficulty as towards Catholic virtues. The passbook
kept with heaven stirs me to anger and laughter. One of the sisters
calls the place "the ticket office to heaven." Well, what is the odds?
They do their darg, and do it with kindness and efficiency incredible;
and we must take folks' virtues as we find them, and love the better
part. Of old Damien, whose weaknesses and worse perhaps I heard fully, I
think only the more. It was a European peasant: dirty, bigoted,
untruthful, unwise, tricky, but superb with generosity, residual candour
and fundamental good-humour: convince him he had done wrong (it might
take hours of insult) and he would undo what he had done and like his
corrector better. A man, with all the grime and paltriness of mankind,
but a saint and hero all the more for that. The place as regards scenery
is grand, gloomy, and bleak. Mighty mountain walls descending sheer
along the whole face of the island into a sea unusually deep; the front
of the mountain ivied and furred with clinging forest, one viridescent
cliff: about half-way from east to west, the low, bare, stony promontory
edged in between the cliff and the ocean; the two little towns (Kalawao
and Kalaupapa) seated on either side of it, as bare almost as bathing
machines upon a beach; and the population--gorgons and chimaeras dire.
All this tear of the nerves I bore admirably; and the day after I got
away, rode twenty miles along the opposite coast and up into the
mountains: they call it twenty, I am doubtful of the figures: I should
guess it nearer twelve; but let me take credit for what residents
allege; and I was riding again the day after, so I need say no more
about health. Honolulu does not agree with me at all: I am always out of
sorts there, with slight headache, blood to the head, etc. I had a good
deal of work to do and did it with miserable difficulty; and yet all the
time I have been gaining strength, as you see, which is highly
encouraging. By the time I am done with this cruise I shall have the
material for a very singular book of travels: names of strange stories
and characters, cannibals, pirates, ancient legends, old Polynesian
poetry,--never was so generous a farrago. I am going down now to get the
story of a shipwrecked family, who were fifteen months on an island with
a murderer: there is a specimen. The Pacific is a strange place; the
nineteenth century only exists there in spots: all round, it is a no
man's land of the ages, a stir-about of epochs and races, barbarisms and
civilisations, virtues and crimes.
It is good of you to let me stay longer, but if I had known how ill you
were, I should be now on my way home. I had chartered my schooner and
made all arrangements before (at last) we got definite news. I feel
highly guilty; I should be back to insult and worry you a little. Our
address till further notice is to be c/o R. Towns & Co., Sydney. That is
final: I only got the arrangement made yesterday; but you may now
publish it abroad.--Yours ever,
R. L. S.
TO JAMES PAYN
The following was written to his old friend of Cornhill Magazine
days, Mr. James Payn, on receiving in Hawaii news of that gentleman's
ill health and gathering deafness.
_Honolulu, H.I., June 13th, 1889._
MY DEAR JAMES PAYN,--I get sad news of you here at my offsetting for
further voyages: I wish I could say what I feel. Sure there was never
any man less deserved this calamity; for I have heard you speak time and
again, and I remember nothing that was unkind, nothing that was untrue,
nothing that was not helpful, from your lips. It is the ill-talkers that
should hear no more. God knows, I know no word of consolation; but I do
feel your trouble. You are the more open to letters now; let me talk to
you for two pages. I have nothing but happiness to tell; and you may
bless God you are a man so sound-hearted that (even in the freshness of
your calamity) I can come to you with my own good fortune unashamed and
secure of sympathy. It is a good thing to be a good man, whether deaf or
whether dumb; and of all our fellow-craftsmen (whom yet they count a
jealous race), I never knew one but gave you the name of honesty and
kindness: come to think of it gravely, this is better than the finest
hearing. We are all on the march to deafness, blindness, and all
conceivable and fatal disabilities; we shall not all get there with a
report so good. My good news is a health astonishingly reinstated. This
climate; these voyagings; these landfalls at dawn; new islands peaking
from the morning bank; new forested harbours; new passing alarms of
squalls and surf; new interests of gentle natives,--the whole tale of my
life is better to me than any poem.
I am fresh just now from the leper settlement of Molokai, playing
croquet with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old, blind,
leper beachcombers in the hospital, sickened with the spectacle of
abhorrent suffering and deformation amongst the patients, touched to the
heart by the sight of lovely and effective virtues in their helpers: no
stranger time have I ever had, nor any so moving. I do not think it a
little thing to be deaf, God knows, and God defend me from the
same!--but to be a leper, or one of the self-condemned, how much more
awful! and yet there's a way there also. "There are Molokais
everywhere," said Mr. Dutton, Father Damien's dresser; you are but new
landed in yours; and my dear and kind adviser, I wish you, with all my
soul, that patience and courage which you will require. Think of me
meanwhile on a trading schooner bound for the Gilbert Islands,
thereafter for the Marshalls, with a diet of fish and cocoanut before
me; bound on a cruise of--well, of investigation to what islands we can
reach, and to get (some day or other) to Sydney, where a letter
addressed to the care of R. Towns & Co. will find me sooner or later;
and if it contain any good news, whether of your welfare or the courage
with which you bear the contrary, will do me good.--Yours affectionately
(although so near a stranger),
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO LADY TAYLOR
_Honolulu, June 19th, 1889._
MY DEAR LADY TAYLOR,--Our new home, the _Equator_, trading schooner,
rides at the buoy to-night, and we are for sea shortly. All your folk of
the Roost held us for phantoms and things of the night from our first
appearance; but I do wish you would try to believe in our continued
existence, as flesh and blood obscurely tossed in the Pacific, or
walking coral shores, and in our affection, which is more constant than
becomes the breasts of such absconders. My good health does not cease to
be wonderful to myself: Fanny is better in these warm places; it is the
very thing for Lloyd; and in the matter of interest, the spice of life,
etc., words cannot depict what fun we have. Try to have a little more
patience with the fugitives, and think of us now and again among the
Gilberts, where we ought to be about the time when you receive this
scrap. They make no great figure on the atlas, I confess; but you will
see the name there, if you look--which I wish you would, and try to
conceive us as still extant. We all send the kindest remembrances to all
of you; please make one of the girls write us the news to the care of R.
Towns & Co., Sydney, New South Wales, where we hope to bring up about
the end of the year--or later. Do not forget yours affectionately,
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
Stevenson and his party sailed accordingly on the trading schooner
_Equator_, "on a certain bright June day in 1889," for the Gilbert
Islands, a scattered group of atolls in the Western Pacific. Their
expectation was to come back into civilisation again by way of the
Carolines, Manila, and the China ports; but instead of this,
circumstances which occurred to change the trader's course took them
southwards to Samoa, where they arrived in December of the same year.
Their second voyage was thus of six months' duration; in the course
of it they spent two periods of about six weeks each on land, first
at one and then at another of the two island capitals, Butaritari and
Apemama. The following letter is the first which reached Stevenson's
friends from this part of his voyage, and was written in two
instalments, the first from on board the _Equator_ in the lagoon of
the island of Apaiang; the second, six weeks later, from the
settlement on shore at Apemama, which the king, his friend Temhinoka,
allowed him and his party to occupy during their stay. The account of
this stay at Apemama and of the character of the king is far the most
interesting and attractive part of the volume called _In the South
Seas_, which was the literary result of these voyages.
_Schooner Equator, Apaiang Lagoon, August 22nd, 1889._
MY DEAR COLVIN,--The missionary ship is outside the reef trying (vainly)
to get in; so I may have a chance to get a line off. I am glad to say I
shall be home by June next for the summer, or we shall know the reason
why. For God's sake be well and jolly for the meeting. I shall be, I
believe, a different character from what you have seen this long while.
This cruise is up to now a huge success, being interesting, pleasant,
and profitable. The beachcomber is perhaps the most interesting
character here; the natives are very different, on the whole, from
Polynesians: they are moral, stand-offish (for good reasons), and
protected by a dark tongue. It is delightful to meet the few Hawaiians
(mostly missionaries) that are dotted about, with their Italian _brio_
and their ready friendliness. The whites are a strange lot, many of them
good, kind, pleasant fellows; others quite the lowest I have ever seen
even in the slums of cities. I wish I had time to narrate to you the
doings and character of three white murderers (more or less proven) I
have met. One, the only undoubted assassin of the lot, quite gained my
affection in his big home out of a wreck, with his New Hebrides wife in
her savage turban of hair and yet a perfect lady, and his three
adorable little girls in Rob Roy Macgregor dresses, dancing to the hand
organ, performing circus on the floor with startling effects of nudity,
and curling up together on a mat to sleep, three sizes, three attitudes,
three Rob Roy dresses, and six little clenched fists: the murderer
meanwhile brooding and gloating over his chicks, till your whole heart
went out to him; and yet his crime on the face of it was dark:
disembowelling, in his own house, an old man of seventy, and him drunk.
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 a while
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
3. _The Beachcombers_ } Lloyd O.
_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 out-skirts 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.
TO SIDNEY COLVIN
The following, written in the last days of the sail southwards from
the Gilberts to Samoa, contains the full plan of the South Sea book
as it had now been conceived. In the issue, Part I. (so far as I
know) was never written; Parts II. and III. appeared serially in the
New York Sun, and were reprinted with corrections in the volume
called _In the South Seas_; Part IV. was never written; Part V. was
written but has not been printed, at least in this country; Part VI.
(and far the most successful) closes the volume _In the South Seas_;