just returned from a short cruise to one of the off Isles of the main
Samoan group; rain was falling heavily, in true South Sea style. I had
taken refuge in a native bungalow by Apia beach. Close by lived my
friend the Samoan shell-seller, whom I have before mentioned. We were
almost drenched to the skin, and were talking with some natives and an
old shell-back who also had taken shelter, when out of the darkness,
across the open track, came hurrying Stevenson. He was dressed in a
large extemporised hood of sail-canvas to protect him from the torrent
of rain, probably lent to him by some friendly trading skipper.
Breathless he stood beside us, was quite chummy with the natives, and
seemed in a most amiable mood; he was smoking, talking to the natives
one side in Samoan and joking with the shell-back, who “sir-ed” him, the
other side. It was a terrible night. As we stood there we could hear the
seas thundering against the barrier-reefs as they rebounded heavily and
threw their manes of spray shoreward, where lay the wrecked warship
_Adler_ with a broken back, high and dry, thrown up by the hurricane of
some time back. Overhead moaned the bending coco-palms that stood
scattered about amongst the native bungalows. Soon the roof of our
shelter started to badly leak, whereupon we all decided to make a dive
for the old shell-seller’s home, hard by. Stevenson led the way,
enjoying the venture, laughing and running like a schoolboy. Though the
distance was only a hundred yards or so, we all received a good soaking,
Stevenson excepted, who held his canvas sail-sheet with arms
outstretched as he ran, making a sheltering roof over his head. The
shell-seller was asleep on his mat, but upon our arrival at once got up.
He slept “all standing,” in the middle-class South Sea style, and was
not overburdened with clothes. Lighting his candles, he did his best to
welcome and entertain us. As I have before said, the walls, indeed his
home itself, seemed composed of shining shells, all the varieties of the
South Seas, pearl, red, white and glittering rows, small ones and some
weighing half-a-hundredweight, made up the length and breadth of his
walls, beautiful shapes and curves, glittering as they reflected the
candle gleams. As we all stood gazing in the gloom, Stevenson forgot the
late hour and the rain, and with enthusiasm went off into natural
history as the old fellow, who was an enthusiast in his art, got very
delighted to be able to expatiate over the various specimens, the depths
and dangers he had encountered whilst gathering together his vast shell
tribe. He was overjoyed when Stevenson bargained with him for a
quantity, and salaamed in a ridiculous way, till Stevenson’s mouth
curved with humour as he strove to be polite to the old chap every time
that his garment, a torn sailor’s shirt, touched the ground in front as
he bowed! I do not know if that particular shell-house has been
described by visitors to Apia of that time; if not, it should certainly
have been numbered amongst the curio sights, both for its ingenious
construction and for the combined artistic and commercial instinct of
the Polynesians that it revealed. As we stood smoking in the doorway
that faced inland, we could hear the songs and laughter of traders and
sailors who drank deeply in the small grog shanty not far off. I have no
doubt that Stevenson did not seek its shelter because of its extra
gloomy side rooms kept by dubious Samoan women, and to be seen going in
or out on a dark night would not enhance the reputation of anyone. It
must have then been close on midnight; the rain suddenly ceased
sufficiently to encourage us all to go out and venture on a run for it.
Between the squalls we all made headway, tacking from bungalow to
bungalow; some of the inhabitants we found awake, squatting just inside
the door-hole. As we dodged from shelter to shelter Stevenson seemed to
enjoy the whole thing as much as a boy on a truant night out. Of course,
we all were familiar enough with native homes, but the late hour, the
rain-dodging, the jovial receptions we had as we suddenly all scrambled
into them without ceremony, was an experience that had a deal of novelty
in it, and at times whilst we were on flight strikingly weird, for as
the moon overhead burst through the flying scud, Stevenson with his
oilskin canvas sail stretched out by his extended arms flapping looked
like some forest fiend running, only his long tight-breeched legs
revealed as he flew ahead of us all across the moonlit track to the next
shelter. As I write it seems like a dream to me that the lively
boyish-mannered man of that stormy night in Apia years ago was the now
idealised poet and author, Robert Louis Stevenson.
[Illustration: LOADING BANANAS]
Before I left the Islands I went off on a schooner to Ellice Islands and
then on to Santa Cruz and called at the Islands of the Solomon Group. In
a typhoon that struck us fifty miles north of Rotuma we lost the chief
mate, Herberts, and a Chinaman who was a deck hand. I was asleep on deck
at the time right aft, snug by the stern sheets. Before I went to sleep
the night was calm and clear, the stars shining brilliantly all around,
and we were just drifting to a lazy breeze at about four knots an hour.
Suddenly I was awakened by a terrible crash and an awful typhoon was on;
the seas were rising rapidly and it seemed that hail and rain were
falling in a deluge, but the sky was quite clear overhead, for it was
the rifts of the waves all around being whipped off by the wind. I
scrambled along the deck, the skipper was calling me. “Hi, hi, sir,” I
shouted, and in a trice we got the sails in, and then, as I stood by the
skipper holding on to some cordage for dear life as she lay over, the
seas lifted their heads to windward and as their tops hissed and foamed
a tremendous sea came over. I distinctly felt the boat sink under the
weight of that ocean of water. The skipper grabbed hold of me and I
grabbed hold of him; the sailors forward by the fo’c’sle saved
themselves by rushing in the fo’c’sle alley-way. We heard a cry above
the thundering of the waves and then the vessel righted; the skipper was
overboard head and shoulders, half through poop bulwark bars and
cordage! I had hold of his leg! I was holding on to save myself, and so
saved my life and his too! Two sailors came to our assistance; we were
both half insensible but scrambled to our feet as Alf, the bos’n,
shouted “Sir, the mate and the Chinese hand have gone overboard.” I
shall never forget those words, and the sudden realisation of what it
meant, as we all stood and gazed out across the black waters as the
mountainous seas arose slowly and grandly, blazing with phosphorous
foams, and as they travelled onward the typhoon blew with such terrific
force that our clothes were ripped up! It was impossible to attempt to
save them, our boats were all washed away; once we all thought we heard
a faint cry across the waters, and that was the last of John Herberts,
chief mate, and Ching the deck hand.
I stuck to that skipper and eventually arrived back at Vanua Levu, and
went over on a cutter to Samoa again, and for a long time I was
despondent and had sleepless nights, as I would lay awake and remember.
Before I left Samoa I went over to Savage Island with Castle, who seemed
at that time mighty pleased with himself over some contract he had got
to take a cargo of copra and other stuff to Tonga. It was at Savage
Island that I stayed with an Englishman who had married a native woman.
He had several children and they seemed very happy. I stayed with him
for two weeks before returning to Apia with Castle. He would often talk
to me about England in a sentimental way and knock the ash out of his
pipe and sigh, and yet he seemed, as I have said, happy in his free
life, for he had a beautiful plantation and grew all kinds of tropic
fruit, and his wife was a most pleasant woman; indeed I think he was
much happier than thousands of English people in old England who live in
the London suburbs and toil their lives away to bring up their children,
And for their sakes eternally
Ride up to London Town,
Each morning pulled up in the train
And each night pulled back down!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIX
Father Damien and the Leper Girl, as told to me by Raeltoa the Samoan
I WILL now tell you of one of those missionaries who were sincere in
their faith, unselfish in their ambition and moreover suffered in
sympathy over the sorrows of the sick. In a village home about eight
miles inland from Apia, I had the good fortune to come across a
pure-blooded Polynesian who was a poet and musician. I think I stayed
with him for about five or six weeks, but in that little time we became
the best of friends. I well remember his intelligent brown eyes gazing
delightedly around as I played the violin to him and his pretty
daughter, a child of eight years, as she sat on a mat by the door and
clapped her little brown hands with hysterical pleasure at the sweet
noise of the “piddle,” as she called my fiddle. I would extemporise a
chanting accompaniment to his native compositions as he sat beside me,
and his wife sang away in the shadows of the homestead, like a wild
bird. She, too, had a beautiful face; her eyes were very
earnest-looking. They had four children altogether, and as I sat by
night in their snug little room, I could see the four little brown heads
lying fast asleep in a row in the next room, all stretched out on one
large sleeping mat.
Raeltoa, for that was his name, was a Catholic and had known Father
Damien, who lived and died just about that time on Molokai, the leper
island of the Hawaiian Group. As a boy he had lived with Damien in
Honolulu, and had been a servant to him, and so I heard first hand from
Raeltoa little incidents of Damien’s life and character, the man who has
since those days become famous the world over for his devotion to the
lepers and who sacrificed his own life so that he could minister to
their needs and brighten their lives of living death with the hope of
another life beyond their own loathsome existence. All lepers were
searched for and caught as though they were escaped convicts, and then
exiled for ever to Molokai, a bare lonely isle of the Pacific, whereon
they lived in wretched huts, wailing their days away as the dreadful
scourge ate deeper into their wasting bodies. One by one as the months
and years crept by they died and were buried by the solitary missionary
Damien, who lived alone with them and buried thousands with his own
hands. Eventually he contracted the dreadful scourge himself and died,
but not till he had caught the ear of civilisation afar and had vastly
improved the conditions of the leper isle and built better huts and made
the lepers more contented with their lot.
Well, as I was saying, Raeltoa knew him well, and told me that, though
Damien was very morose and would get at times into a terrible rage with
him, he was a good master and would treat him and all the natives who
were under his care as though they were his own children, “and he most
true to God,” said Raeltoa, as the tears crept into his eyes over old
memories. Then he told me how Damien would sit up all night long
“talking to great God playing and playing” (meaning praying). It
appeared that Raeltoa had a relative who had signs of leprosy. She was a
Samoan girl of about twenty years of age, and when the Government
announced that all the lepers were to be exiled to Molokai she was
broken-hearted, for she was “nice happy and much love my brother,” said
Raeltoa. One night, about three months after the search parties had been
in force, she came to Raeltoa’s home, and flinging her arms about him,
wailed and appealed to him to save her. The tears were in the Samoan’s
eyes as he told me all this. It appeared that a jealous woman, who was
also in love with the man that the poor leper girl loved, had told the
missionaries or the authorities that Loloa, for that was her name, had
signs of the leprosy patch on her shoulders, and so they were after her.
For several weeks she had been hiding in the forest, trembling and
frightened out of her life, till at last, hungry and nearly dead with
grief, she suddenly appeared at Raeltoa’s home. He had hidden her for
several days, and then she agreed to go with him to Damien and ask for
his protection. One night, with Raeltoa, she came out into the forest,
almost resigned to her fate—for it had come to her ears that her lover
was paying attention to the woman who had put the leper-hunters on her
track, and now she felt that she had nothing much to live for—and the
poor forsaken leper girl took the risk and appeared in the doorway of
Damien’s room at midnight with her one true friend by her side. In her
childish native language, she told Damien the truth as he sat in his
hut, gazing steadily in front of him, for it was his duty to give her up
to the authorities. As she knelt before him with uplifted hands, her
eyes made more beautiful through the earnestness of despair, Damien
still gazed upon her as though fascinated by her sorrow and helpless
loveliness, and then he bade her rise, and told Raeltoa to take her home
again, and hide her before he was tempted to do that which he ought to
do. So Raeltoa took her away again and Damien and he built her a little
hut by the forest, where she could be isolated and cared for, “and she
was there for many many moons,” said Raeltoa to me, as I listened.
“And what happened then?” I asked Raeltoa, and he bowed his head and
said: “Loloa was happy, and she loved the white missionary, ‘Father
Damien,’ more than she loved the man whom her rival had stolen from her,
and so she was happy,” and as he said this he sighed and dropped his
eyes, and I knew that he had also loved the beautiful leper girl Loloa.
“And what became of Loloa?” I asked again.
“They came one night when all was silent, excepting the sighing of the
coco-palms by the voice of the sea. I was alone at my home dreaming,
when I heard the scream far off in the forest, and I knew then that they
had found her, and they took her away, and I never saw her again, and
Father Damien prayed for many days and many nights and did eat of no
food, and I saw the white missionary cry, and cry, to himself many
times, and a long time after he too went to Molokai and one year after
Loloa died and Damien buried her,” and saying this the Samoan placed his
arm gently round his wife, who had sat listening in a wondering way. She
could not understand all the language which we were speaking in, but she
nestled closer to him as he spoke, for his manner was earnest, and his
eyes had tears in them. I also was touched, for I knew I had heard the
sad truth of a terrible drama of life, and I saw it all in vivid mental
flashes as Raeltoa eagerly told me the secret of his heart and the truth
that he had known, and I read the affection and compassion in his eyes
for the woman he had loved and the splendid friendship for the man who
had befriended her in her terrible sorrow, and who afterwards shared her
fate, and lies buried near her on the lonely leper Isle of Molokai. I am
glad that now, years after, I am able to tell to the world through my
book that which I heard from the lips of Raeltoa the Samoan.[7]
Footnote 7:
Raeltoa lived at Honolulu for eight years before he returned to Samoa
with his parents.
I made his little daughter “Damien,” for he had called her after the
leper missionary, a small violin and bow. I sat all day over the job,
and made it from a cigar-box, and fixed two wire strings on it. It was
not much of a success, but the child and parents were delighted, and as
the tiny brown girl toddled about with nothing on, grinding away
mimicking me, as she pulled the stick to and fro over the strings, I was
very much amused and pleased that I had done it, but I was extremely
sorry after, for the poor mite became fond of me and followed me into
the forest, and as I lifted her up to carry her over a fallen tree, my
foot slipped and, falling with her in my arms, I broke her leg. I was in
a terrible state as I carried her home to Raeltoa. As tenderly as I
could I held her, and when I took her into the hut I told them what had
happened. Instead of them both flying at me in a rage, as I thought they
would surely do, they both quickly reassured me, and Raeltoa went to
Apia, got a German doctor, and in a fortnight she was rapidly
recovering, and I would often sit by her and pick at the fiddle-strings
and amuse her. I taught her to say several English words which she soon
picked up and laughed delightedly as she repeated them over and over
again.
Raeltoa would take me away to the coco-nut plantations where he worked,
and the natives collected and dried the heaps of copra which was bought
by the traders and taken away to Australia. The scenery round his home
was very beautiful. The slopes by Vaea Mountain ran down to his
homestead, thickly covered with jungle, mangroves, guavas and bananas,
banyan and many other tropical trees, the names of which I did not know.
There were at that time several other bungalows hard by, wherein lived
married native couples and some of the white traders with Samoan wives.
They were the real old beachcombers and “black-birders” who had made and
were still making good incomes by stealing natives, and selling them to
the stealthy slavers that called in Apia harbours presumably for cargoes
of copra, but really for natives, whom they enticed on board by splendid
promises of a glorious sea-trip. They baited their promises with
spoonfuls of condensed milk and cabin-biscuits, and while the natives
stood on deck smacking their lips with delight, up went the anchor, and
before the wretched natives realised what it was to really leave their
native land, they were powerless and far at sea. I’ve seen many a Samoan
mother rocking herself to and fro wailing and lamenting the loss of her
bonny son and very often lamenting the loss of a daughter too.
Raeltoa and I went to the top of Vaea Mountain once; when you are
half-way up you can look right across Apia and see the beautiful bay and
farther across the sea. The jungle at some parts was so thick that we
had to cut our way through it. I found some pretty tropical bird-nests,
and as we climbed up the frigate birds flew over our heads. We
eventually got to the top of the seaward side, right up against the sky.
It was very silent and beautiful, almost noiseless, excepting for a bird
singing now and again in the big-leafed dark green scrub that grew
thickly just below. I did not dream as I stood up there that I was
standing on the spot which was to be the silent and beautiful tomb of
the man who was living miles away down by the river that ran seaward,
for that is where R.L.S. lived in his secluded home, “Vailima.” I am
sure that no poet who ever lived has found such a grand silent spot for
his long rest as R.L.S. found on the top of that mountain that stands
for ever staring seaward. I often look up at the moon on stormy nights
under other skies, and fancy I see it shining over Vailima Mountain,
dropping its silver tide over that lonely tomb, and on the jungle and
forest trees of the slopes all around, and over the highways of the sea
where now thunder the mail steamers bound for South America.
It was about that time that I made the acquaintance of a gentleman named
Joyce, who had been a chemist in Sydney. He was a remarkable-looking old
fellow and was touring for his health. He had small grey quick eyes, and
a monstrous beard, and having no hair on his head he had managed in a
most clever way to lift his heavy grey side whiskers up over his eyes
and on to his bald head, so that when his hat was on the whiskers
protruded and looked as though they were genuine locks in large quantity
under his hat.
[Illustration: COCONUT PALMS AND PASTURE LAND]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XX
Mr Joyce and Mythologies—Numea and the Convicts—I play Violin to Native
King and get a Knighthood!!—I lead a Native Orchestra of Barbarian
Instruments
JOYCE took a great fancy to me and I to him, and I was eventually
engaged as his travelling secretary. He was very fond of music and would
get me to play his favourite melodies, and as I entertained him he would
sit by his bungalow with his hands on his knees, and often would give me
a gracious smile as he gazed through his big-rimmed spectacles. He took
a passage on the schooner _Barcoo_, bound for Rarotonga, and I went with
him. We had some terrible weather on the voyage and poor old Joyce was
sea-sick the whole time, and as we skimmed along with all sails set
heaving to a broadside swell he looked the picture of woe as he spewed
in the schooner’s scuppers. In his sorrow he forgot his hat, and his
whiskers pulled up and tied in a knot on top of his head doing duty as
hair gave him a woeful look and I felt very tenderly for him; for he
could not help being old and bald—could he?
Rarotonga was a lovely Island. As they loosed the anchor ready to drop I
gazed shoreward and saw the grand mountainous country brilliant under
the tropical sun and covered with vegetation. Close to the shore stood
the coco-palms, and by the sheds on the beach under the shelter of the
palms stood the natives, fine-looking men and women they were, some
half-dressed and some only in their lava-lavas. As soon as we dropped
the anchor they swarmed round the schooner in their catamarans, bringing
us corals and other curios of the South Seas. That night we enjoyed
ourselves ashore, and were specially entertained by the King and Queen.
They were both dressed in old dressing-gowns, and as they sat on the
throne I played them a selection on the violin and the King knighted me
on the spot.
Joyce was delighted with all that he saw and kept saying that his health
was improving rapidly, and to tell the truth he got badly smitten with
love over a Rarotongan girl, and under very suspicious circumstances
disappeared for twenty-four hours. Next day he took me inland and up in
the hills he visited the natives in their primeval homes. There were a
lot of missionaries about and they all looked happy and prosperous.
Joyce was deeply interested in the mythologies and genealogies of the
Island races, and would go inland for miles so as to investigate native
manners and characteristics. I remember well how he would see a fine
specimen of the Polynesian fair sex walk out from her forest home, and
rush up to her, take his rule from his waistcoat pocket, start to
measure her from head to foot, open her mouth wide and examine her
teeth, all the time taking notes down in his pocket-book, while the
astounded native stood like a machine, obedient as a statue, knowing
that a good tip would end the examination. “Of decided Maori origin,” he
would mutter to himself as he lifted the limbs up and examined the soles
of the patient’s feet.
I must say I enjoyed Joyce’s society, for he was immensely amusing and
so serious in all that he did. Sometimes he would run across a native
with a face that suggested the palæolithic period, or a terrible
Mongolian-nigger mixture, and then out came his camera and he would
snapshot them with delight. He would measure their limbs and turning to
me point at the hideous nose, or extraordinary pot-belly, and say, “My
boy, this is a fine specimen of the neolithic age.” Then he would start
to give me a lecture as to the reasons of certain abnormal conditions,
while the grinning native showed his big teeth and did the right about
turn and stooped to show to Joyce the different parts of his anatomy.
The next day Joyce made me tramp right up to the forest that lay at the
ridge of the inland mountains and that night we slept in a native
bungalow with two old Rarotongan men who had promised to take Joyce into
the hills and show him an Island South Sea god. It was a beautiful
moonlight night. Joyce lay on the bed of leaves beside me asleep, his
beard tied in a knot over his head so as to keep it well trained, and as
I lay sleepless, watching and thinking, a shadow fell across the tiny
room. “Look out, Mr Joyce,” I shouted and not a moment too soon either,
for there stood one of the Rarotongan old men with a war-club upraised.
I sprang to my feet and gave him a tremendous shove. He was a strong
fellow, and as I fell he got hold of me with a firm grip, but I was
desperate and strong too, and I made a great effort and got him under
me, and then he fixed his teeth in a fleshy part of my shoulder as I
gripped him by the throat with all my might. In the meantime Joyce had
rubbed his eyes and was hastily searching around for something to strike
the native with and then down came his camera, crash on the old man’s
head! His teeth at once relaxed their grip from my flesh and up he
jumped and ran off out into the moonlit night, running fast with Joyce’s
camera in his hand, for that no doubt was what he was after.