Mr Powell, who was a friend of Stevenson’s. I was playing the violin on
an American ship that had put into Apia harbour, and he was on board. He
was one of the head missionaries, and struck me as a very pleasant
gentleman. I was trying to get a berth on the boat, which was going to
San Francisco, but I did not succeed. The night before she left I was in
the fo’c’sle, playing the fiddle, with the sailors who had accordions
and banjos, and as we were playing “Down by the Swanee River” R.L.S.
peeped in at the door. I could just see him by the dim oil lamp, as he
gazed over the shoulder of Mr Powell, his friend, who was with him. His
face lit up with a gleam of pleasure as he listened to the rough sailor
concert as one of the crew danced a jig.
Though Stevenson at the time must have been in consumption, he never
struck me as delicate, but, on the other hand, looked one of the thin
wiry kind, always alert, and boyishly curious in all that was going on
around him; when he laughed it was as though to himself over some
pleasant memory, and his eyes gazed with a feminine gleam, half
revealing the emotional strain of the woman and the firmness of the man
in his intellectual face—the mixture that all brave men are made up of.
I was unusually observant at that time through my increased knowledge
that he was a writer far above the average, and I also noticed the
respect with which he was treated by those around him, and especially
the natives, who were comical in their unconcealed pride when he spoke
to them.
If I had seen and spoken to R.L.S. without knowing who he was, I should
have thought he was a skipper or mate of some American or English ship;
his manner was easy, in fact, almost rollicking at times.
I met Mrs Stevenson again later, and she asked me to come up to their
home and bring the violin, and chided me for not keeping an appointment
I had made before. I promised to go, but never went; unfortunately I
went off in the morning of the appointed day, on a cruise with my
comrade. A hurricane came and blew us out to sea, several times we
nearly turned upside down and once a sea went right over the boat, and
away went my comrade. I leaned over the side to drag him back, and he
grabbed hold of me and over I went also. We could both swim, but I went
under, came up and found I was under the boat. It was a terrible feeling
of despair and fright that went through me as my head bobbed under the
keel; the universe seemed to be a tremendous black grip that had got me
into its death-clutch. All the life in my body seemed to wrench my bones
apart as I swallowed water and gave a desperate plunge downward in my
last bit of consciousness, and came up to the surface just by the boat’s
side.
My comrade clutched my head by the hair, and when I was in the boat
again safe I almost hugged him with affection, the wind and the flying
clouds overhead, all sunlit, made me feel delirious as I thought how
near I had been to never seeing them again! At last, after a terrible
struggle, we landed some miles round the coast. Our hands were bleeding
and blistered through straining at the oars to keep the boat’s head to
the seas, and desperate bailing to stop us from being swamped.
As we landed on the beach and pulled our boat safely up the shore, an
old native man came running down from the palm patch and offered us
shelter, which we gladly accepted. He turned out to be an old servant of
some Mataafa chief, full of spite for being out of favour with his late
illustrious master, but proud of being a late vassal to Samoan royal
blood. He had a nice roomy homestead, two large rooms. Though he was
old, his wife looked only twenty. They had one child, a few months old.
My chum and I kissed it affectionately and drank bowls of kava which our
host kindly gave us. We stayed the night, slept on sleeping mats. All
night torrents of rain fell, the hurricane and wind nearly blew the
house down and lifted me off my mat, for the room was open three feet
from the ground all round in the Samoan style. It was a warm wind; with
the moan of the seas breaking on the shore below, the moaning of the
bending coco-palms and the wailing cry of the baby at regular intervals,
I had no sleep.
[Illustration: PARA RUBBER-TREE]
In the morning we went down to the boat; our fishing tackle, revolver
and my coat had vanished from the locker. I had my suspicions about our
host, and we felt very much annoyed, for we could not go back and accuse
him after his hospitality, as we were only absolutely certain in our
suspicions, and had no witnesses to prove we had been betrayed—like the
astute Fijian maids about whom I told you some pages back. I deeply
regretted the incidents of that cruise, which caused my not being able
to keep the appointment with Mrs Stevenson.
When I arrived back I went to their home, but they were all away on a
cruising trip, I think. I stayed with Holders, my comrade, for some
little time after that, long enough to teach him to play simple melodies
on the fiddle, and on those nights I composed some of the melodies of my
“Entr’actes,” “Song of the Night,” “The Monk’s Dream” and many others
which have since been embodied in my compositions for pianoforte,
orchestra and military bands.[5] I also composed at that time my waltz,
“A Soldier’s Dream,” which was played at Government House, Sydney. I
received a letter of praise from Sir Henry Parkes and felt very pleased;
that waltz became popular all over New South Wales, although it was
unpublished, and played from manuscript.
Footnote 5:
Published by Boosey & Co., London.
Holders was not one of the polished kind, but he was better, being a
brave good-hearted fellow, and I liked his companionship all the more
because he did not drink. Though I found drunken men amusing in my
travels of the South Seas, my instincts secretly detested them, and gave
me a kind of sorrow akin to sympathy for men so affflicted.
Eventually we both secured berths on a large schooner, bound for Fiji.
On board was an American missionary who had not been long out from Home.
He became very friendly with me, and I liked him very well, and there
was a link of comradeship between us for we were both homesick. The crew
were nearly all Samoans who cheerily sang the whole day and night. I
slept in the deck-house with them as there was no room aft, where I
should have slept, as we had four passengers. The skipper was never
sober, and came to the deck-house one night and continued to sing. I
think he had got the delirium tremens. He made us crowd sail on when it
was blowing a gale and take sail in when a four-knot breeze was on;
swore that he saw spirits dancing on the deck, and that the natives had
put evil spirits and demons on his track. He went off to sleep at last,
and I and the mate took charge of the ship and the passengers were much
relieved, and the Samoans started off on their old idol songs _ad
libitum_.
Two of them had fine voices; their songs were old folk-lore chants
telling of South Sea heroes. I would get them to sing to me and so
learnt them off by heart and played them on the violin, but the melodies
all seemed to lose their wild atmosphere when played as simple strains
and divided into bars, unwedded to the Samoan words and the intonation
of the wild childlike voices of the Islanders. Most of the South Sea
strains are in minor keys; I give you here as near as possible my own
impression of the melodies as I heard them sung.
[Music: _Andante._ _Chant Style._ Composed by A.S.M.
_mp_ Lais
(Drums) _ff_ lais ... lais ...
COPYRIGHT.]
When we arrived at Viti-Levu, I went ashore and stayed for several days
and had the pleasure of hearing a Fijian princess sing native songs. She
was a granddaughter of King Thakambau, and resided in one of the best
houses in Suva, was a good hand at playing the guitar and took an
interest in me, as I was a musician; her husband, a Fijian chief, had a
deep mellow voice which was astonishingly musical for a Fijian, and they
sang together to me in their native home, squatting on their mats side
by side. The princess was a beautiful-looking woman for a full-blooded
native, and I spent a good deal of time with them, and really
appreciated her songs and playing. Some of the melodies she sang had the
Western note in them. As near as I can I reproduce here one of my own
impressions of a characteristic Samoan song’s note.
[Music: SAMOAN LOVE SONG[6]
MINOR.
_Moderato._ _mp_ Words and Music by A.S.M.
Mia Ta - lo - fa, The chiefs are sleep - ing, the
seas in moon - light sing. The
REFRAIN, _Moderato_. _con expressione_.
night-winds are sing - ing my Ma - la - boo maid
Un - der the co - - - co - palms.
COPYRIGHT. ]
Footnote 6:
“Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also for
orchestra and military band. Published in London.
I could not stand the skipper of the boat which we had come across by (I
think the name of the schooner was the _Nelson_) and so I left, and my
friend Holders with me. We got into pretty low water in about a week,
and both eventually secured a berth on another ship, a small barque,
which was going to the Marquesas Islands. The mate was ill, and went
into hospital at Suva, and I secured the berth. She was not sailing for
two or three days, and so we were still stranded, beachcombers and
cashless, but I met a Mr Fisher, who was a wealthy trader and had
settled on the Islands. I went up to his house with my comrade and took
the violin for an evening’s pleasure. We arrived a few minutes before
the dining hour (in the true poet and musician style of the South Seas
and Western Seas) because we had not a cent between us and on the
Islands it was a great breach of etiquette not to treat the host before
the meal hour. Mr and Mrs Fisher were on the look-out for us and our
programme went off well, for we sat down to dinner almost immediately.
We had a splendid time, received some cash in hand, warmly shook our
host’s hand, and departed late at night in a misty dream, for we were
not used to the strong wine which our host was so liberal with, and
seemed to walk on air as our legs went up the white moonlit forest track
as we tramped along together merrily singing years ago.
Next morning we were aboard the boat and stopped on her till she sailed,
and I think we put in about six weeks of cruising, calling at Samoa and
then going to the Marquesas Islands. I went ashore at nearly all the old
places. In Hiva-oa, my comrade and I saw the old cannibal courts wherein
the grand “Long Pig” feasts had taken place as the natives ate the
bodies of their dead who had been slain in battle. It was sunset as we
stood by the big banyans gazing on the terrible arena and the
sacrificial altar, whereon the mortally wounded, still lingering,
received the last club smash, that sent their souls to Eternity and
their bodies to the stomachs of mortality, and as I watched the natives,
who with childlike eyes stood by us cadging for money, sunset blazed on
the primeval ruins of that terrible amphitheatre and before my eyes the
vision of the dying sun-fused twilight lay over everything. I saw the
tiers of long-ago cannibal guests arise in the mist, with their hideous
faces aglow with hunger as the mangled victims fizzed on the
cannibalistic spits. I heard the sounds of the long-dead laughter as the
coco-palms and banyans around sighed into silence as a gust of wind came
in from the sea, and with the horror of what must have been, I kicked
the native and pushed him away as he clambered, begging for money all
the time that I was watching and dreaming.
We then went to the native village, and became acquainted with a
half-caste Marquesan. He was a convivial old fellow and followed us
wherever we went. We could not get rid of him; we gave him many hints,
and even told him at last that we wanted to kneel and pray together and
would he please depart and leave us to our devotion; but no, he was as
relentless as Fate and immovable, and so, not being able to kill him, we
put up with him. He took us miles away to show us another old arena
where the Marquesans had in the past fought their historic duels, till
the victim fell and was eaten.
Tired out we slept in a little stone house till daybreak; it was a snug
little room, with stone shelves in it. On one of these I slept, out of
the reach of tropical lizards and other odious insects. In the morning I
asked our “old man of the sea” what the house was, and found that it was
an old dead-house, a kind of cooling place where the bodies had been
kept before they were cooked. I had slept soundly on that shelf. I
didn’t even dream! And how many thousands of dead men, dead girls, dead
mothers and children had slept their last cold sleep on the spot whereon
I had innocently lay, breathing and warm? I had a cold chill on me the
whole morning as I thought of the dead of the past, and how I had warmed
that last bed. At last we were rid of the half-caste and rambled about
on our own, and saw hundreds of natives at a village near Taapauku. It
was a beautiful spot by the mountain. Banyans, tropic palms, coco-nuts
and gorgeous-coloured flowers swarmed everywhere, as between the patches
of trees, across tracks passed the natives, almost naked, singing and
carrying loads of fruit, etc., as they stooped and went into their
native dens that stood in the cleared spaces.
That night we saw two Marquesans fighting with clubs. They were jealous
over a woman; there were no other whites (excepting some Chinamen) near
at the time, and we could do nothing. The fight did not last long. They
held their clubs in a firm grip, and swayed and ran round each other
seeking a weak spot. They were swarthy men, and very powerful-looking,
and as we watched under the verandah of a native house, down came the
club on the head of the smaller man and the blood and brain matter
splashed all over the place as the skull flattened like an egg-shell: I
will say no more, excepting that I felt sick for some days. On the way
back we met our “old man of the sea” again, but managed to give him the
slip as we ran down a side forest track as fast as we could go.
Telling you of him reminds me of an experience I had in Sydney once. I
had met by chance, in a saloon in George Street, an old man who had been
a sailor. He had been drinking, and I treated him, as he kept imploring
me to do so, and at length he became very confidential. I gathered from
all he said that he was a social outcast; but nevertheless I liked him.
He was really a most queer character and in the end became an
intolerable nuisance. He managed to know where I lived, and wherever I
would go he would go, and if I got ahead of him, and was remorsefully
pleased that I was at last rid of him, up he would come! He had the
instinct of a bloodhound, I think.
I lived in a little two-roomed wooden house near the bush beyond
Leichardt, off the Paramatta Road, Sydney. He was homeless, and so I
took him in and gave him a bed on the floor, but I was down on him if he
was drunk. His name was Naylor and I think he was a Welshman; he had a
beautiful voice, and though he was an old villain, he would sing most
pathetically as I played the violin by night in our little home. He was
so drunk repeatedly, and caused me such sorrow, that at last I turned
him out. I thought I had got rid of him, but as I lay asleep at midnight
I was suddenly awakened by hearing the sound of singing coming toward my
home, down the road—it was Naylor! for I recognised the voice. He was
singing “Barney, take me Home again!” and, notwithstanding my stern
resolution to have no more to do with him, my heart was touched and made
me follow my impulses as the silence of the night was broken by the song
of appeal. I crept to my window and peeped through a chink; there he
stood white bearded and drunk in the moonlight, appealing to me with his
song over and over again. Of course I let him in, and night after night
I was disturbed by that old song.
One night the crisis arrived. I was suddenly awakened by a terrible
crash at my front door, and the old “Barney Dear” was being sung with
ferocious energy. I had overslept; he was outside terribly drunk,
imploring to be let in. I was obdurate; and would not stir. At last his
voice as he shouted, “Dear old Middy, let me in, I’ve got a roasted fowl
here for you,” woke my curiosity, so anguish-stricken and appealing was
his voice that I jumped up at once and looked out of the window. A large
fire was blazing in my yard, and over it, spluttering and fizzling on an
extemporised spit, was a fowl cooking! Unplucked, entrails and all,
there it steamed, just as he had stolen it off the roost of my
neighbour’s fowl-house, a hundred yards off.
As I opened the door I gazed sternly at him. He seemed surprised that I
was not as pleased as he was with himself. I positively refused to eat
of the fowl, and at this he got into a fearful rage, and kicked it as it
hung on the spit. Well, I even forgave him for that night’s work. He’s
dead now, and I always feel a bit sad when anyone sings, “Barney, take
me Home again.” I remember years after, when in England, I sat by the
fire telling my mother and sisters of old Naylor, and how relieved they
seemed when I told them I had let the old man in, when he had sung,
“Barney, take me Home again.”
It is strange how secretly in our hearts we have a world of sympathy for
the villain, especially old ones, and had Naylor been a good pious old
man he would have never been heard of.
A very strange thing happened some years after, when I was mate on a
Clipper boat. A Welsh sailor by the name of Naylor, a member of my crew,
showed a strong resemblance to the old Naylor of my Sydney experience,
so much so that, one night while I was on the poop, I called him up and
said, “Are you any relation to a Lloyd Naylor, an old man whom I had the
pleasure of knowing in Australia?”
“That must have been my father,” he said, and he was delighted to know
that I had known his father. I did not tell him of my experiences with
his father, but said, “Naylor, your father was a fine man, a great
friend of mine,” and sneaking the fellow into my cabin, I opened a
bottle of whisky, poured him out a tumbler full to the brim, and by the
way he smacked his lips I perceived that he was a real chip of the old
block.
[Illustration: NATIVE POTTERY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVIII
Back in Apia—Robert Louis Stevenson—Chief Mate Herberts lost
Overboard—Savage Island—Thoughts of the Workman’s Train to London
and back to the Suburbs
FROM Hiva-oa we went to Fatou Hiva, then to the Paumotu group that
sparkled like Isles of Eden in the vast shining water-tracks of the
Pacific; for miles and miles there are islands dotted, and I felt some
of the enthusiasm that R.L.S. felt when he visited the same Islands, and
he did not exaggerate about the beauty and novelty of the Marquesas and
Paumotus group. I heard him telling some friends of his experiences at
Hiva-oa and elsewhere as he delightedly told them anecdotes of Marquesan
etiquette, and I daresay I saw him writing some of the experiences which
he gave to the world in his books, for one day in Apia, while I was
having some dinner in the German Hotel, I sauntered around and, gazing
through one of the doors, saw Stevenson quite alone, sitting at a little
table with a bundle of paper by him, writing; he stooped very much while
he was writing, which must have been very bad for anyone who suffered
from chest complaint.
By his side was a glass of something; he was quite oblivious to all
around him, and did not notice anything. I think he often went to that
silent hotel room so as to get away from everyone and write.
A gentleman came into the bar while I was there, and walking towards the
door of the room wherein Stevenson was writing he was spotted by the
hotel manager, who shouted to him that the room was engaged, and I
believe Stevenson tipped the manager of the hotel so as to be left to
himself.
After calling at Society Islands we left for Samoa, where once again I
met the incorrigible Hornecastle. He had been away to the Solomon Group,
and as I strolled out the next morning after my arrival, I met him on
the beach in a hot argument with two Samoan sailors, who were demanding
their wages.
“Not a God-damned cent,” Hornecastle was shouting, as I came up. It
appeared they had contracted to do a week’s job and had done one day of
it and then demanded the full week’s money. That was real Samoan all
over, especially those who were Christianised; they were terrible
hypocrites; would do you by tricks, and then go off to the mission class
and shout “Me good Samoan mans, all good, no steal. Halee, hal-ee
ju-ja!” rolling their eyes skyward terrifically the whole time. Some of
them are really serious in their belief and they are then very
dangerous. I met a fierce-looking fellow one night and he started to try
and reform me. I was sitting talking to Hornecastle and two Americans at
the time, and they had been giving him a drink or two and then they
started to chaff him about the missionaries, and I laughed at something
Hornecastle said about a missionary who had married; in a moment he
lifted a knife, and if I had not dodged swiftly I should have had it in
my ribs up to the hilt.
He was not a full-blooded Samoan. I have never seen a Samoan who had
once accepted your friendship turn traitor afterwards. But even the true
Samoans are not so trustworthy when they have got the religious mania on
them; they are a superstitious people, and the solemn-voiced
missionaries chanting into their childish ears create extraordinary
illusions in their minds. Some go raving mad and others go off to the
other Isles and live a life of isolation and devote all their remaining
days to begging the one great white God to save them from hell fire. I
have seen them myself in this miserable state, deserted by all their
relatives, and when they become dangerous they often suddenly disappear,
for the Samoans quietly finish them off on dark nights! They club them
and bury them with sorrow in their hearts, just the same as Europeans
do, only our methods are perhaps the unkindest—we bury our insane in an
asylum and they bury them under the forest earth and flowers. They do
have lunatic asylums in the Islands, but they are for the milder cases,
and the Government found that the incarcerating principle was very much
abused, for the Samoans soon got to know of the free food, lodgings and
comforts of the asylums of the South Seas, and drastic measures had to
be taken to end the numerous cases of mild madness that kept seizing
Samoans and Fijians who were down on their luck and wanted a rest. I do
not know what the South Sea Islands are like now, but when I was there
penal servitude was one of the greatest honours that could be conferred
on the middle-class Fijians, Tongans, and Samoans, for they got food in
the prisons that they only smelt outside, also warm comfortable beds,
and when the discharge day arrived they could be seen leaving the prison
gate wailing bitterly over the cruel flight of time! Nor is this an
attempt of mine to be funny. I have seen the natives deliberately come
on to a schooner’s deck, and right in front of my eyes start to unscrew
the cabin skylight to steal it, so that they could get, as they say, “in
pison place.”
Again I fell in with a “new chum” who had just arrived and cleared from
a schooner. Together we secured positions as superintendent post-diggers
for the German Commissioners.
We had several natives under us. It was a look-out job; we had to watch
and see that they toiled without cessation. At first we were kind to
them, but it did not pay; the natives were very much like children, they
soon took advantage, and so we soon changed our manner, looked stern as
charity organisation officials, and once more obtained the approval of
Van Haustein, the head overseer.
We had been extremely short of cash. The storekeepers required the
wherewithal down (as elsewhere) before parting with necessaries which we
had not got, and which we anxiously needed to make us respectable Samoan
citizens. We did not stick the job more than two weeks. It was squally
weather the whole time, and my eyes often inclined seaward as longing
thoughts came to me of home and England.