I can often hear in my dreams the cry of the night bird and the hushed
intervals, as the sea-surf rose and thundered over the shore barrier by
the forest track near Vaea Mountain’s thickly wooded slopes as I sat by
Papoo and made love to her, just the very same as English boys do to the
girls in the London suburbs to-day. Papoo was just the same in her
manner, modest to a fault, betraying her modesty by adding another
garment over her ridi, which looked to me very much like the half of a
discarded red nightshirt of some cranky old skipper. I played the violin
to Papoo by the thatched hut where she lived and she sang weird Samoan
songs, which stealing into my ears from her lips trembled with lyrical
beauty, the soul of which was in my own head. Nights followed nights and
I would creep behind her thatched hut on all-fours and meet her
secretly. I got so deeply in love with her that I asked her to clear
from the Island and go with me to Australia; and then the end came, in
the sense that we could not meet so often. Her father found us out! I
thought he would kill me at first, but the anger in his dark eyes sank
down and he jabbered in South Sea lingo tremendously for a time. I hung
my head and pretended to be heartily ashamed of myself, and so he
forgave me, but kept his weather eye on me just the same; and my dear
Papoo crept in the hut door, gazed over her shoulder at me as she
disappeared, and pointed to the shore, and I knew that she would meet me
and bolt at the first opportunity.
It was the day after that episode that I was sitting by a dead
banyan-tree, when a white man, whom I thought was a rather respectable
trader, emerged from the forest just by. It was Robert Louis Stevenson.
He had intellectual keen eyes and a sad emotional-looking face, and
looked a bit of a dreamer. Of course I did not know him then, nor can I
remember much what he said at that moment. I know that I had climbed a
tree and was looking at a bird’s egg when he came up to me and asked me
what bird’s egg it was; I could not tell him, but I did as he requested,
climbed up the tree and placed it back into the nest. Had I known he was
a great author and poet I should have taken more stock of him. I
remember that we strolled across the slope together and I gave him some
tobacco and climbed several more trees as he stood below calling up to
me to show him the eggs. It was not till nearly a week after, when I was
on the beach talking to a trader friend who said to me “That’s
Stevenson, the writer,” that I asked about him, but even then I did not
gather that he was as famous as he was. I remember the very next day as
I and Papoo lay hidden by some coco-palms we saw him lying full length,
leaning half on his elbow gazing seaward, writing now and again on a
slip of paper that he held in his hand. He had his boots off, for they
stood beside him. I think he must have been bathing in one of the creeks
by the Bay and afterwards crept up to the seclusion of the banyan-trees
to dream and write down his thoughts. Papoo and I watched him for a
moment, and then arose and stole away, as she had the household duties
to attend to and I did not want her father to catch her again.
Almost every night I would go down by the beach and mix with sailors and
traders—men from all countries they were, a good many Germans among
them, especially when the _Lubeck_ arrived from Sydney, bringing
passengers and a varied cargo. The crew would come ashore and have a
regular spree, some of them drinking the vile concoction sold at a
shanty bar by the beach. There was one old chap who hailed from “Nuka
Hiva.” He would sit drinking and smoking and yarning away for hours,
telling us his experiences; he knew all the Islands, had been married
over and over again, and as he was growing old and infirm through drink
and temper (for he had a terribly fiery head) he would sit and curse the
memory of his numerous family, not one of whom would help him. He had
grown-up sons and daughters on most of the Isles of the South Seas round
about; some of his children were as blackish as their mothers, and some
half white and half brown. He would sit for hours while I played and
strummed on the violin, telling me of the strange habits of the
different tribes and their marriage customs. We would sit together and
roar with laughter as he (half drunk) crawled on the shanty floor
illustrating the way he solemnised the marriage of his eighth wife in
Fiji, describing how he kissed her feet, and how he went through
ceremonies of a most extraordinary kind in the many weddings that he had
attended as bridegroom. I could not very well write here the tales he
told, and moreover I do not believe all that he said was true, though he
would pull his billy-goat whiskers, lift his hat from his extraordinary
high bald head, and seal every detail with a blasphemous oath of “God’s
truth.” He was interesting at first, but I soon wearied of his
adventures, for he told the same yarn night after night, and as I slept
in the same room with him my life became a burden to me. Just as I was
going off to sleep he would suddenly sit up, half drunk, and say: “Did I
ever tell you of my marriage with Betsy Brownlegs, the Fiji chief’s
daughter?” And then, notwithstanding that I quickly answered “Yes, you
have told me and everyone else in Samoa,” he would sit up and start off,
pouring out the old tales.
[Illustration: NATIVE GIRL, SAMOA]
One night I got him in a decent mood, played him some old English songs,
and then he revealed the best side of his character, that all men have,
and with tears in his eyes looked up at me and said, “Matey, that ’ere
old song makes me remember—she sang that, and I killed her!” And then
out came the sorrow of his life, why he was a drunken exile in the South
Seas. As a young man when in England, for he was an Englishman, he had
fallen madly in love with a pretty girl in a Kent village. All went well
for a time; then a rival came on the scene who was more polished than
poor Hornecastle, and the object of his affections cooled down towards
him and gave every encouragement to the suitor who wore a top hat and
white cuffs. I can still see the gleaming of Hornecastle’s eyes as he
told me of that rival of his, how he caught his village sweetheart one
night sitting on a stile with the top hat hanging on a post beside her
and the cuffs round her neck. “I did for her,” he said; “I meant the
shot for him.” And then, though many years had passed since that tragedy
which had made him fly from his native land, the tears of remorse crept
up to his eyes, but they quickly brightened as he told me that he had
read in an old newspaper that the second shot had succeeded, and his
rival had died in the hospital. So ended my strange comrade’s
courtship—the girl and the rival in the grave, and Hornecastle an exile
in the South Seas, and on the slopes his many wives and children romping
with glee, brought into existence by the top hat and white cuffs
episode. How strange and inscrutable are the ways of Fate.
I made the acquaintance of another old chap who had a mania for eating
hard-boiled eggs. He had been a sailor, travelled the world over, done
many misdeeds and many good ones. He spoke with a Yankee twang and I
believe was an American. He would sit in the grog shanty telling all the
traders and sailors in the bar, when his turn came round, of other
lands, and invariably finished up by condemning the country in question
or praising it according to the quality of the hard-boiled eggs that he
had eaten while residing there. They were real old “Shell-backs,” the
men of those days, had sailed the seas, lived on “hard tack,” slept “all
standing” in wind and rain, and as the various yarns were told they
would listen and quietly sip their beer, spitting over their shoulders
out of the grog shanty windows without missing, in a way that struck me
as wonderful. They were wild times, those that I am writing of, not so
long ago either, as I am still a young man. You see I started young and
saw more of life before I reached man’s estate (which is the only estate
I ever possessed) than a good many men see in their threescore and ten
years. As I write and dream on I can see those Isles glittering under
the tropic sun, with the shoreward surfs rising and breaking into
rainbow-flushed colours, thundering over the reefs. They are still
breaking and curling to spray out there, as on the beach through the
tracks of moonlight pass and repass the semi-savage-looking figures of
Samoan men and women, and still I can hear the songs of those who fish
in the Bay as they glide along from shore to shore in the strange
outrigged canoes, while the half-caste and white traders loaf, lean,
smoke and spit by the shore shanties, tugging at their short beards.
Time went on till Papoo and I drifted apart, and since I must tell the
truth, this being no romance, one of her own tribe courted her. She
still had her eye on me, but the novelty was wearing off, and I went off
to Tonga in a small trading schooner. When I returned to Samoa after
about six months, I found that Papoo and her family had left the Island.
I never saw her again, and so ended my second love affair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
I go cruising amongst the Islands—Arrive in Sydney—Wharfers looking for
Work—I go off hunting for Gold—Meet R. L. Stevenson at Sea
ONCE more the wandering fever came over me, and wishing old Hornecastle
good-bye and my few other friends, I shipped in a schooner bound for the
Fijis. For two or three months I roamed with her from isle to isle, saw
the various tribes of original mankind of all the South Seas, heard
their songs and squatted with them in their little huts as the children
of past bloodthirsty cannibals said grace over their meals to the great
pride of the onlooking missionaries, who have done a deal of good
notwithstanding their own sins.
After a week’s stay at Vanua-Levu we proceeded for the Australian coast,
and I arrived once more in Sydney Harbour and there once again I fell in
with sailors. There they were, a ragged chain of shoulders on the wharf,
mostly men of forty to fifty years of age, stalwart and sunburnt relics
of better, or worse, days. Still they stood, watching with weary eyes
for work, tugging grizzly beards and moustaches, smoking plug tobacco or
fiercely chewing in the hot sunshine, arguing the point over the latest
trade union grievance, spitting over their shoulders with the same
wonderful precision and fate-like persistence. And still they stand
there, at least the younger ones; the older ones are now dead, asleep in
the “Necropolis” out at “Rookwood,” with all their grievances at rest
and their dried-up chewing gums silent for ever, the cry for higher
wages for ever entombed!—while their pals stand down by Sydney Bay and
now and again in the long silent watch of many years wipe their noses
with their outstretched thumb and forefinger and break the silence by
some brief remark, such as “Poor pal Bill, whenever I sees the old
windjammers being tugged out across the Bay I thinks of ’im and the good
old days before the mast, before we joined the trade union, and now he’s
dead, I wonder where he is.” Then, by way of punctuation, the
reminiscent loafer spits out a thin swift stream of black tobacco juice.
I soon tired of the wharf monotony, and finally, hearing of the gold
discoveries of those times, the fever got hold of me and I resolved with
a friend, whose spirit seemed very much like my own, to go up country
and see if we could find gold ourselves. The gold discoveries were far
away in Western Australia, but I got an idea in my head that gold was to
be found in New South Wales. I bought a blanket, a billy can and other
necessaries for bush exploitation, and we started off by taking tickets
on the Newcastle night boat. It took one night to get round, and next
morning we started off. I remember we passed some old coal-mine shafts
and then tramped along a main track with tall gums each side of us. We
were happy together. My comrade was a Scotch fellow, stolid and full of
dry humour, and I believe he would have marched on for years without
complaining so long as he could smoke. At midday, both tired and hungry,
we hailed the driver of a cart that came across some paddocks to the
right of us. He was an Australian farmer and a kind fellow we found him.
I shall never forget his jolly laughter and the twinkle of his eyes when
I told him we were “travelling up country in search of gold,” as we sat
up there beside him and the Australian buck-jumper galloped along at
about four miles an hour. He put us down about four miles outside of
Maitland. It was an old-fashioned, sleepy-looking place, and as we
tramped through the main street, with our cheese-cutter caps on and
swags on our backs, the Australian youths opened their big mouths and
grinned from ear to ear, as they stood in groups by the roadside.
That night we left Maitland behind and slept on the scrub by the Hunter
River and then tramped across country. The heat was terrific and
reminded me of my Queensland experience. We got work at homesteads and
pulled pumpkins, examined creeks carefully, dug holes, gazed for
sparkling running water that might reveal the precious metal as it ran
over the pockets in the hills; but we found no gold, only hard work and
toil. We soon sickened of the life, only suitable to the Chinamen who
toiled about us on the stations. Grim, rum-looking things these men
were. They looked so stolid and emotionless as they tramped in Indian
file across the slopes at sunset back to their sweltering huts that it
would require very little imagination to dream that they were stuffed
mummies of the Pyramids walking in some long sleep, exiled to the
dried-up Australian Bush, and they smelt so strong that when the wind
blew from their direction my comrade and I at once lit our pipes!
We soon made tracks for Sydney, where once more I tried to get a berth
on an English ship. I had received several letters from home and longed
to see them all again; but it was not to be, all the home boats were
full up that week and money was getting scarce. My comrade and I
determined to get a job somewhere, and going on board the _Lubeck_, a
German ship, I was taken on as mess-room steward, and my mate secured a
job in the saloon. We were delighted at such a companionable bit of
luck. Next morning she sailed, and as I was walking along the deck next
day I saw the Pacific Ocean all around us, and gazing over the bulwark
side by the saloon leaned Robert Louis Stevenson. He did not notice me
as I stood there by the engine-room door, and I stared on and had a good
opportunity of examining the man who had just begun to be interesting to
me, as I had a faint idea that he stood apart from ordinary mortals and
wrote books of poetry, and so I examined him with interest. He was a
good deal like the photographs which I have since seen of him in books
and elsewhere, though he looked somewhat older. His face seemed very
much sunburnt, and its outline struck me as though it expressed Jewish
origin.
The voyage to Samoa, as far as I can now remember, only took about a
week or ten days. We called at Tonga and stayed, I think, only a few
hours. I slept among the sailors in the fo’c’sle. They were all Germans
and they spoke very little English. I discovered that one of them had a
violin and, mine being in pawn in Sydney, I borrowed it from him and
started to entertain the crew by playing old English songs, and some sea
chanteys, one of which was the good stirring old Capstan song “Blow the
Man Down.” As I sat on the hatchway at night and two German sea-salts
shouted songs in German as I played, Robert Louis Stevenson came and
spoke to me, and seemed very much interested in my playing. He
remembered seeing me in the Islands and asked me if I was an Australian.
I told him I came from England. He became interested in me and just as I
was losing my first embarrassment, and had played him once again a
Scottish melody which seemed to please him very much, I heard the
wretched German chief steward shouting for me, and I had to make a bolt.
I did not see him again till we arrived near the Islands, then one night
as I was sitting on the hatchway picking the fiddle strings, sweating a
good deal, for it was a sweltering hot night, Stevenson came through the
alley-way by the engine-room, and sat beside me and another sailor who
was humming as I strummed away. I saw his face outlined distinctly; it
was a calm night, the moon right overhead flooded the sea with a silver
sheen as the screw whirled steadily round and the vessel sped along
leaving a long silver wake which could easily be seen for miles behind
as the sparkling foam drifted with the glassy swell.
Stevenson was one of those men with a keen face that made you feel a bit
reticent until he spoke, and then you discovered a human note in the
voice that put you thoroughly at your ease, and as he spoke to a German
sailor he picked my violin up and started to try and play some old folk
melody. I told him how to hold the bow correctly and hold the head of
the violin level with his chin, which he at once attempted to do and
made several efforts to perform, upon which I smiled approvingly at my
illustrious pupil! He had long delicate fingers and looked well as he
stood in the Maestro fashion and did all I told him to do in an obedient
way as though I were Stevenson and he the humble sailor-lad. He asked me
many questions about music and seemed to know more about the history of
celebrated violinists and the history of musical notation than I did,
but he spoke modestly and did not take the least advantage of my
inferior knowledge as he walked to and fro restlessly and then sat down
again. He seemed fond of looking over the ship’s side, gazing out to
sea, and up at the stars. He was very friendly with all the sailors,
went into the fo’c’sle, talked to the crew and was greatly interested in
ship life. I did not see him again till I arrived on the Islands. I did
not care about travelling with Germans whom I could not speak to, my
knowledge of German being no more than “nein,” and “jah,” and so I left
the _Lubeck_ and once more came in contact with old Hornecastle. My
chum, though I did all I could to persuade him to leave the boat, would
not do so, and so we parted, and the last I heard of him was that he had
shipped before the mast of a sailing ship bound for San Francisco and
during terrible weather got lost overboard. Poor Ned, I often think of
him and even regret leaving the _Lubeck_, otherwise he might not have
gone off on the ill-fated ship, for she too got lost later on with “All
Hands.”
Hornecastle[1] had also been away from the Islands somewhere or other, I
forget now where, but I remember his pleasure at seeing me again as he
smacked me on the back, and shouted “Hello, my hearty.”
Footnote 1:
Hornecastle was a successful trader and always gave me employment if I
required it, and paid well.
It was about that time that I spent a good deal of my time in practising
the fiddle and studying music, and Hornecastle and another old
shell-back would sit on a chest and say, “Shut it, youngster, give us a
toon!” I had got hold of Kreutzer’s violin studies, and some of the
double-stopping strains, I must admit, got very monotonous even to me as
I played them over and over again hundreds of times, and when I think of
the old chap’s temper at my persistence, and the way he got out of his
bed one night, as I was practising, and said, “By Christ, if yer don’t
stop that hell of a row, I’ll smash yer fiddle,” I can hardly blame him.
[Illustration: VIEW OF APIA FROM MULINU]
One night a schooner arrived from Honolulu and the crew came ashore and
had a fine spree. She brought as passengers two missionaries. I do not
remember their names, only that we all called them the “reverends”; the
elder one of the two, who looked like a German, was a real “knock-out”;
he had succumbed to more women, and had made more devoted mothers on
that Isle than Hornecastle had in all his populating career! But he was
a good fellow withal, and after he had been to the missionary school and
done his duties he would come to us and talk about our evil ways, and
try to reform old Hornecastle, who was dead against the Church.
Hornecastle would listen to him, blinking his grey eyes all the time. He
would tug his beard, put his finger to his beak-like nose and say, “Look
ye here, Missy” (which was an abbreviation for missionary). “It’s no
good yer trying to come your old swank over me, you’d best start to
reform yerself, old cock.” But that missionary was oblivious, and used
to the sarcasm and genial observations of his own kind, and took it all
in good part. Half comic and half in earnest, he would raise his pious
hands above his head, as old Hornecastle would let go and curse
missionaries and all creation in general. This missionary meanwhile
would sit quietly gazing around, taking notes down, asking questions,
the names of trees, flowers, and Isle afar and near, busily engaged in
compiling his memoirs, to be published when he returned to his native
land in a grand volume chock-full of extreme virtue and self-sacrifice,
and the sad ways of the children of the South Seas, and the little bit
of good white men had circulated in the children who would grow up
pious. I have read a good many books written by men who have presumably
travelled and lived in the parts they have written about, but I can most
earnestly assure my readers of this autobiography that black men of
India and on the Gold Coast of West Africa and in the South Seas do not
speak as I have read that they do speak.
The copper-coloured man of Ceylon and Bombay, as soon as you step
ashore, speeds towards you and says, “Me show you where live, me good
man, carry parcel and nebber steal,” points viciously to his rival—who
is clamouring in pigeon English for your patronage—and swears that “He’s
bad man, steal all, and been pison” (meaning prison), as the
aristocratic dark-turbaned gentleman, with long black naked legs, white
shoes and no socks, grins, shows his white teeth, pulls his black hand
from under his shirt tail, and tries to entice you to scan his splendid
selection of photographs—photographs that, not to put too fine a point
upon it, even a Turk, on looking at them, would blow his nose and blush!
The South Sea Islanders accost you in a more innocent way; naturally a
virtuous race, and living in isolation from civilised Europe, they have
watched the White askance, and gradually discovered that the godliness
he clothes himself with sometimes covers a deal of vice! So they strive
to sell you corals and fruit, as they patter over the ship’s deck with
naked feet, and when they see the white man’s eyes wandering over their
lithe figures, the women, who have been schooled in Western ways, glide
up to you with speaking eyes, stroke your hand with their soft brown
fingers, stand with their curved nude brown bodies, clothed only in a
string of beads, and like a big greedy child say, “You like me? give me
money, eh?”
This, of course, sounds very different to the books I have read, but
whoever you are, go to the South Seas, and keep your weather-eye open
and you will not contradict me when I say that the money spent by
Christian Societies in England and America to polish up the South Sea
Island daughters and men, who were far more innocent than Europe ever
remembers being, could be spent in our own countries with far greater
advantage. The South Sea Islanders would be happier and the English poor
and starving children better looked after.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII
An Old Time Marquesan Queen—Forced Teetotalism and the Result—With
R.L.S. watching Native Dance—A German Missionary—A Medley of
Incidents