IN SAMOA
From what I have said about Hayston, it will readily be understood that
every tale relating to him was strangely exciting to my boyish mind. For
me he was the incarnation of all that was utterly reckless, possibly
wicked, and of course, as such, possessed a fascination that a better
man would have failed to inspire.
My hero, however, had disappeared, and with him all zest seemed to have
gone out of life at Frisco. So after mooning about for a few weeks I
resolved on returning to Sydney.
My friends on the Pacific slope did their best to dissuade me, trying to
instil the idea into my head that I was cut out for a merchant prince by
disposition and intellect. But I heeded not the voice of the charmer.
The only walk in life for which I felt myself thoroughly fitted was that
of an armed cruiser through the South Sea Islands. All other vocations
were tame and colourless in comparison. I could fancy myself parading
the deck of my vessel, pistol at belt, dagger in sheath, a band of
cut-throats trembling at my glance, and a bevy of dark-skinned
princesses ready to die for me at a moment's notice, or to keep the
flies from bothering, whichever I preferred.
I may state "right here," as the Yankees have it, that I did not become
a "free trader," though at one time I had a close shave of being run up
to the yardarm of a British man-of-war in that identical capacity. But
this came later on.
I returned, therefore, to my native Sydney in due course of time, and as
a wholesome corrective after my somewhat erratic experiences, was placed
by my father in a merchant's office. But the colourless monotony became
absolutely killing. It was awful to be stuck there, adding up columns of
pounds, shillings, and pence, and writing business letters, while there
was stabbing, shooting, and all sorts of wild excitement going on "away
down in the islands."
It was about this time that I made the acquaintance of certain South Sea
Islanders belonging to whalers or trading vessels. With one of them,
named George, a native of Raratonga, I became intimate. He impressed me
with his intelligence, and amused me with his descriptions of island
life. He had just returned from a whaling voyage in the barque
_Adventurer_ belonging to the well-known firm of Robert Towns & Company.
So when George, having been paid off in Sydney with a handsome cheque,
confided to me that he intended going back to the Navigators' Islands,
where he had previously spent some years, in order to open a small
trading station, my unrest returned. He had a hundred pounds which he
wished to invest in trade-goods, so I took him round the Sydney firms
and saw him fairly dealt with. A week afterwards he sailed to Samoa viâ
Tonga, in the _Taoji Vuna_, a schooner belonging to King George of that
ilk.
Before he left he told me that two of his countrymen were trading for
Captain Hayston--one at Marhiki, and one at Fakaofo, in the Union group.
Both had made money, and he believed that Captain Hayston had fixed upon
Apia, the chief port of Samoa, as his head-quarters.
Need I say that this information interested me greatly, and I asked
George no end of questions. But the schooner was just leaving the wharf
in tow of a tug, and my dark-skinned friend having shipped as an A. B.,
was no longer of the "leisure classes." So, grasping my hand, and
telling me where to hear of him if I ever came to Samoa, we parted.
Before going further let me explain the nature of a Polynesian trader's
mission.
On the greater number of the islands white men are resident, who act as
agents for a firm of merchants, for masters of vessels, or on their own
account. In some cases a piece of ground is rented from the king or
chief whereon to make the trading station. In others the rulers are paid
a protection fee. Then, if a trader is murdered, his principal can claim
blood for blood. This, however, is rarely resorted to. A trader once
settled on his station proceeds to obtain cocoa-nuts from the natives,
for which he pays in dollars or "trade." He further employs them to
scrape the fruit into troughs exposed to the sun, by which process the
cocoa-nut oil is extracted. Of late years "copra" has taken the place of
the oil. This material--the dried kernel of the nut--has become far more
valuable; for when crushed by powerful machinery the refuse is pressed
into oil-cake, and proved to be excellent food for cattle.
To be a good trader requires pluck, tact, and business capacity. Many
traders meet their death for want of one or other of these attributes.
All through the South Seas, more especially in the Line Islands, are to
be found the most reckless desperadoes living. Their uncontrolled
passions lead them to commit acts which the natives naturally resent;
the usual result being that if the trader fails to kill or terrorise
them, they do society a kindness by ridding it of him. Then comes the
not infrequent shelling of a native village by an avenging man-of-war.
And thus civilisation keeps ever moving onwards.
The traders were making fortunes in the South Seas at that time,
according to George. I returned to business with a mind full of
projects. The glamour of the sea, the magic attraction of blue water,
was again upon me; I was powerless to resist. My father smiled. My
mother and sisters wept afresh. I bowed myself, nevertheless, to my
fate. In a fortnight I bade my relations farewell--all unworthy as I
felt myself of their affection. Inwardly exultant, though decently
uncheerful, I took passage a fortnight later in a barque trading to the
Friendly and Navigators' Islands. She was called the _Rotumah_,
belonging to Messrs. M'Donald, Smith, & Company, of Hunter Street,
Sydney. Her captain was a Canadian named Robertson, of great experience
in the island trade.
There were two other passengers--a lady going to join her brother who
was in business at Nukulofa, in Tonga, and a fine old French priest whom
we were taking to Samoa. The latter was very kind to me, and during our
passage through the Friendly Islands I was frequently the guest of his
brother missionaries at their various stations in the groups.
How shall I describe my feelings, landed at last among the charmed isles
of the South, where I had come to stay, I told myself? Generally
speaking, how often is there a savour of disappointment, of anticipation
unrealised, when the wish is achieved! But the reality here was beyond
the most brilliant mental pictures ever painted. All things were fresh
and novel; the coral reefs skirting the island shore upon which the surf
broke ceaselessly with sullen roar; cocoa-palms bowed with their
feathery crests above a vegetation richly verdurous. The browns and
yellows of the native villages, so rich in tone, so foreign of aspect,
excited my unaccustomed vision. Graceful figures, warm and dusky of
colouring, passed to and fro. The groves of broad leafed bananas; the
group of white mission houses; the balmy, sensuous air; the transparent
water, in which the very fish were strange in form and hue,--all things
soever, land and water, sea and sky, seemed to cry aloud to my eager,
wondering soul, "Hither, oh fortunate youth, hast thou come to a world
new, perfect, and complete in itself--to a land of Nature's fondness and
profuse luxuriance, to that Aïdenn, long lost, mysteriously concealed
for ages from all mankind."
At the Marist Mission at Tongatabu I was received most kindly by the
venerable Father Chevron, the head of the Church in Tonga. His had been
a life truly remarkable. For fifty years he had laboured unceasingly
among the savage races of Polynesia, had had hairbreadth escapes, and
passed through deadliest perils. Like many of his colleagues he was
unknown to fame, dying a few years later, beloved and respected by all,
yet comparatively "unhonoured and unsung." During the whole course of my
experiences in the Pacific I have never heard the roughest trader speak
an ill word of the Marist Brothers. Their lives of ceaseless toil and
honourable poverty tell their own tale. The Roman Catholic Church may
well feel proud of these her most devoted servants.
One morning Captain Robertson joined me; the Father seemed pleased to
see him. On my mentioning how kindly they had treated me, a stranger and
a Protestant, he replied,--
"Ay, ay, my lad; they are different from most of the missionaries in
Tonga, anyway, as many a shipwrecked sailor has found. If a ship were
cast away, and the crew hadn't a biscuit apiece to keep them from
starving, they wouldn't get so much as a piece of yam from some of the
reverend gentlemen."
I asked Father Chevron if he knew Captain Peese and Captain Hayston.
"Yes! I am acquainted with both; of the latter I can only say that when
I met him here I forgot all the bad reports I had heard about him. He
cannot be the man he is reputed to be."
I was sorry to part with the good Father when the time came to leave.
But a native messenger arrived next day with a note from the captain,
who intended sailing at daylight.
So I said farewell and went on board.
We called at Hapai and Vavau, the two other ports of the Friendly
Islands, sighting the peak of Upolu, in the Navigators', three days
after leaving the latter place.
We rounded the south-east point of Upolu next day, running in so close
to the shore that we could see the natives walking on the beaches. Saw a
whaleboat, manned by islanders and steered by a white man, shoot through
an opening in the reef opposite Flupata. For him we tarried not, in
spite of a signal, running in as we were with the wind dead aft, and at
four o'clock in the afternoon anchored in Apia harbour, opposite the
American consulate.
The scenery around Apia harbour is beauteous beyond description.
Spacious bays unfold themselves as you approach, each revealing the
silvery white-sanded beach fringed with cocoa-palms; stretching afar
towards the hills lies undulating forest land chequered with the white
houses of the planters. The harbour itself consists of a horseshoe bay,
extending from Matautu to Mullinu Point. Fronting the passage a mountain
rears its summit cloud-enwrapped and half-hidden, narrow paths wind
through deep gorges, amid which you catch here and there the sheen of a
mountain-torrent. On the south the land heads in a graceful sweep to
leeward, until lost in the all-enveloping sea-mists of the tropics,
while the straggling town, white-walled, reed-roofed, peeps through a
dark-green grove of the bananas and cocoa-palms which fringe the beach.
At this precise period I paid but little attention to the beauties of
Apia, for in a canoe paddled by a Samoan boy sat my friend George. I
hailed him; what a look of joy and surprise rippled over his dark
countenance as he recognised me! With a few strokes of the paddle the
canoe shot alongside and he sprang on deck.
"I knew you would come," he said; "I boarded every ship that put in here
since I landed. Going to live here?"
"I think so, George! I have some money and trade with me; if I get a
chance I'll start somewhere in Samoa."
He was delighted, and said I would make plenty of money by and by. He
wouldn't hear of my going to an hotel. I must come with him. He had a
Samoan wife at Lellepa, a village about a mile from Apia on the Matautu
side.
It was dark when we landed. As we walked towards his home George pointed
out a house standing back from the beach, which, he said, belonged to
Captain Hayston.
That personage had just left Samoa, and was now cruising in the Line
Islands, where he had a number of traders. He was expected back in two
months. A short time before I arrived, the American gunboat
_Narraganset_ had suddenly put in an appearance in Apia where Hayston's
brig was lying. Her anchor had barely sounded bottom, before an armed
boat's crew left her side, boarded, took Hayston prisoner, and kept
possession of the _Leonora_.
There was wild excitement that day in Apia. Many of the residents had a
strong liking for Hayston and expressed sympathy for him. Others,
particularly the German element, were jubilant, and expressed a hope
that he would be taken to America in irons.
The captain of the _Narraganset_ then notified his seizure to the
foreign consuls, and solicited evidence regarding alleged acts of piracy
and kidnapping. During this time Hayston was, so the Americans stated,
in close confinement on board the man-of-war, but it was the general
opinion that he was treated more as a guest than a prisoner. The trial
came on at the stated time, but resulted in his acquittal. Either the
witnesses were unreliable or afraid of vengeance, for nothing of a
criminal nature could be elicited from them. Hayston was then conducted
back to his brig, and in half-an-hour he had "dressed ship" in honour
of the event. The next act was to give his crew liberty--when those
bright particular stars sallied forth on shore, all more or less drunk,
in company with the blue jackets from the man-of-war, and immediately
set about "painting the town red," and looking for the witnesses who had
testified against their commander. On the next night Hayston gave a ball
to the officers, and, doubtless, from that time felt his position
secure, as far as danger from warships of his own country was concerned.
All this was told to me by George as we walked along the track to his
house, where we arrived just in time for a good supper. The place was
better built than the ordinary native houses. The floor was covered with
handsome clean mats on which, on the far end of the room, his wife and
two daughters by a former marriage were sitting. They seemed so
delighted at the idea of having me to live with them, that in a few
minutes I felt quite at home. The evening meal was ready on the mats;
the smell of roast pork and bread-fruit whetted my appetite amazingly;
nor was it appeased until George and his wife had helped me to food
enough to satisfy a boarding-school.
After supper the family gathered round the lamp which was placed in the
middle of the room. There they went through the evening prayers; a hymn
was sung, after which a chapter was read from a Samoan Testament,
followed by a prayer from the master of the house.
I found that the custom of morning and evening prayers was never
neglected in any Samoan household; for, whether the Samoans are really
religious or no, they keep up a better semblance of it than many who
have whiter skins.
That night George, who by the way was called Tuluia by his wife and
daughters, made plans for our future. As we sat talking the others
retired to a far corner, where they sat watching us, their big dark eyes
dilated with interest. We agreed to buy a boat between us and make
trading trips to the windward port as far as Aleipata. Then after
smoking a number of "salui" or native cigarettes, we turned in.
All next day we were incommoded by crowds of inquisitive visitors, who
came to have a look at me and learn why I had come to Samoa--George
having told them merely that I was his "uo," or friend, treated most of
them with scant courtesy, explaining that the natives about Apia are
thorough loafers and beggars, and warning me not to sell any of them my
"trade" unless I received cash in return. In the afternoon I landed my
effects, but could scarcely get into the house for the crowds.
George's wife, it appeared, had been so indiscreet as to tell some of
her relations that I had rifles for sale; as a consequence there were
fully a hundred men eager to see them. Some had money, others wanted
credit, others desired loose powder, and kept pointing to a shed close
by, saying, "Panla pana fanua" (powder for the cannon). I discovered
that under the shed lay a big gun which Patiole and Asi, two chiefs, had
bought from Captain Hayston for six hundred dollars, but had run out of
ammunition.
I had no powder to sell, but George found me a cash buyer for one of my
Winchesters at seventy-five dollars. I could have sold the other three
for sixty dollars each, but he advised me to keep them in order to get a
better price up the coast. It was just on the eve of the second native
war, so the Samoans were buying arms in large quantities. From some
Californians' trading vessels they had brought about three hundred
breech-loaders, and Hayston had sold them the cannon aforesaid, which he
had brought from China in the _Leonora_.
The chief, Malietoa, had an idea of carrying the war into the enemy's
country. His plan was to charter a vessel, and take five hundred men to
Tuvali, the largest island in the group. Hayston had met a deputation of
chiefs, and told them that for a thousand dollars he would land that
number of Malietoa's warriors in any part of the group. Moreover, if
they gave him ten dollars for every shot fired, he would land them under
cover of four guns. But they were not to bring their arms, and were to
arrange to have taumualuas, or native boats, to meet the brig off the
coast and put them on board. This, he explained, was necessary to
prevent the vessel being seized if they met a man-of-war, and so getting
him into serious trouble.
The chiefs took this proposition in eagerly at first, but, on thinking
it over, suspicions arose as to their reaching their destination safely;
and, finally, after the usual amount of fawning and flattering, in which
every Samoan is an adept, they told Hayston that they could not raise
sufficient money, and so the matter ended.
The following months of my sojourn in Samoa passed quickly. George and I
bought a cutter in which we made several trips to the windward villages,
whence we ran down to the little island of Manono, situated between
Upolu and Savaii. There we did a good business, selling our trade for
cash to the people of Manono, and buying a cargo of yams to take to
Apia, to sell to the natives there, who were short of food owing to the
outbreak of hostilities.
On our way up we took advantage of a westerly wind, and made the passage
inside the reef, calling at the villages of Multifanna and
Saleimoa--visiting even places with only a few houses nestling amongst
the cocoa-palms.
We left Saleimoa at dusk, and although we were deeply laden, we made
good way. Whilst at the village I heard that a large Norwegian ship
laden with guano had put into Apia, having sprung a leak and run short
of provisions; also that there was not a yam to be had in the place. Our
informant was a deserter from a man-of-war, living at Saleimoa. He had
been tattooed, and was a thorough Samoan in appearance, but was anxious
to get a passage to New Britain, being afraid to remain longer in his
present quarters. He was known as "Flash Jack," and was held to be a
desperate character. After a few drinks he became communicative, telling
me certain things which he had better have kept to himself. He informed
me that he intended to ship with Hayston, whose brig was expected daily
with a hundred recruits for Goddeffroy and Sons' plantations. He advised
me to keep my yams until the _Leonora's_ cargo of "boys" arrived, as the
Germans would pay me my own price for them, being short of food for
their plantation labourers. In another few minutes Jack was drunk, and
wanted to fight us, when two of his wives came on board, and after
beating him with pieces of wood, carried him on shore and laid him in
his bunk.
I determined, however, to take his advice about the yams, and was
cogitating as to the price I should ask for them, when George, who was
steering, called my attention to two "taumualuas" full of men, paddling
quickly in from sea through an opening in the reef.
Not apprehending danger we kept on. Our boat was well known along the
coast by the Tua Massaga or Malietoa faction, and we merely supposed
that these boats were coming down from Apia to the leeward ports. It was
a clear night; George called out the usual Samoan greeting, used when
canoes meet at night. The next moment we saw them stop paddling, when,
without a word of warning, we received a volley, the bullets striking
the cutter in at least twenty places. How we escaped is a mystery.
George got a cut on the shoulder from a piece of our saucepan, which was
lying against the mast. It flew to pieces when struck, and I thought a
shell had exploded.
Flinging ourselves flat on the deck, George called out to the canoes,
which were now paddling quickly after us, and told them who we were, at
the same time lowering our jib and foresail. The taumualuas dashed up,
one on each side. Luckily some of the warriors instantly recognised us.
They expressed great sorrow, and explained that they had mistaken us for
a boat bringing up a war party from Savaii.
Every man was armed with a rifle, mostly modelled on the German
needle-gun, and as they were all in full fighting costume they had a
striking and picturesque effect. After mutual expressions of regard and
a general consumption of cigarettes, we gave them a bottle of grog to
keep out the cold night air, sold them some cartridges from my own
private stock, and with many a vociferous "To Fa," we sailed away, and
left them in the passage waiting for the expected invaders.