"The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs."
_From an old Tahitian proverb._
We entered the land-locked harbour of Vavau in all the glory of a moon
scarcely past the full. And what a contrast to the islands from which we
had just parted! On every side of us towered mountains, broken, rugged,
height upon height, peak above peak. In every crevice of the mountain the
forest harboured, and everywhere flourished the feathery palm, that
Giraffe of Vegetables, as Stevenson so humorously describes it, nestling,
crowding, climbing to the summit.
It was midnight before we anchored alongside the jetty. The morning light
showed us all the varied beauty of the port of Neiaufu. In place of the
level shores, rising only a few feet above high-water mark, bold and
rugged headlands jutted seawards, and every islet in the Archipelago was
clear and definite. Let Stevenson, however, here speak in person, for
though he is not dealing with this particular island, yet his description
might have been written for it. "The land heaved up in peaks and rising
vales; it fell in cliffs and buttresses; its colour ran through fifty
modulations in a scale of pearl, rose and olive; and it was crowned above
by opalescent clouds. The suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; the
shadows of clouds were confounded with the articulations of the mountain,
and the isle and its unsubstantial canopy rose and shimmered before us
like a single mass."
Wooded hills, which spring from the water's edge, surround what seems to
be a beautiful lagoon, some four miles long and two wide. At the eastern
end there is a very narrow boat-passage. Our entrance was effected by the
western passage, which is also narrow but has deep water at the point. On
either side were white signal beacons, such as I have seen at the mouth of
the Brisbane. The great wharf to which we were moored was approached by a
road of coral, white to the point of dazzlement in the tropic sunshine.
The foreshore was being reclaimed by prison labour; the prisoners, men as
well as women, looked sleek and well favoured, they chanted songs as they
worked, and showed no signs about them whatever of ill-usage or
over-strain.
There is no beach at Vavau. On the sloping banks, which are green to the
water's edge, thatched houses peep through the orange-trees; indeed the
whole island seems one delightful orange grove, the sward was everywhere
littered with the freshly fallen fruit, the air was fragrant with the
subtle essence of blossom and fruit combined. With the exception of the
coral road leading to the jetty, all the paths at Nieaufu (as at
Nukualofa) are simply long stretches of green sward, overspread with
orange-trees. We climbed a steep hill, and while we rested on the top,
feasted our eyes upon a sight which was one to dream of. Everywhere little
cone-shaped islands outlined with big-fronded palms, everywhere that
wonderful violet sea, and between the golden gleam of the oranges we saw
the deep blue of the sky. It was an ecstasy in colour, a vision rather
than a prospect. From henceforth my standard of the beautiful was lifted
to a higher plane, and the words "The eye hath not seen, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man to conceive," had, for me, acquired a deeper
and intenser significance.
On the way back we encountered a French Catholic priest, and after a
little chat the old man took us to his house and initiated us into the
mysteries of Kava drinking. Stevenson tells us so much about Kava and Kava
feasts, that I make no apology for describing the process. The priest's
room was very plainly furnished, in the centre was the bowl carved out of
a solid block of wood and standing on four legs. That it had been long in
use was evident from the fine opalescent enamelling of the inside. Beside
it were the Kava stones.
Two native girls appeared bearing the Kava--the root of the _Piper
Methysticum_, about which in its raw state there was nothing at all
distinctive. Pieces of the Kava were torn, or bitten off, pounded between
the two stones and cast into the bowl. Then while one of the girls brought
water and poured it upon the pounded root, the other, with shapely brown
arms bare to the shoulder, kneaded the mass, until the whole virtue of the
Kava was expressed into the water.
Not until the bowl was half full of a frothy, muddy mixture did the
straining process begin. A lump of fibre, made from the bark of the yellow
hibiscus, was cast into the Kava, and the girls with arms dipped in the
mixture up to the elbow, proceeded to take up the liquor with this
improvised sponge, wring it over the bowl till it was dry, and fill it
again, repeating this process until the fibre had absorbed all the gritty
particles.
[Illustration: NATIVE GIRLS MAKING KAVA
_To face page 18_]]
The Kava was now ready for drinking, and with great ceremony one of the
girls filled a half coconut shell with the liquor and handed it to one of
our number, who, as the custom is, drained it without drawing a breath,
and then sent the empty cup spinning like a tee-to-tum across the floor to
the girls.
My turn came soon and I never saw a more uninviting looking drink,
nevertheless I boldly followed the example set me and emptied the shell.
The bitter, hot, acrid taste seemed to me at first nauseating to the last
degree--but after! To appreciate Kava you must estimate it from the
standpoint of _After_. My mouth felt clean, cool, wholesome, and
invigorated as it had never felt before, and never will again until by
good chance I light upon another bowl of Kava.
"Have you found it good?" inquired the old priest in French. My "Mais oui,
Monsieur, apres," raised a general laugh. Nevertheless the opinion was
unanimous that it is only in the "Apres" that you can enjoy Kava. To
define a sensation is difficult, but most of us are familiar with the
effect of the external application of menthol. Transfer that effect to an
internal sensation (on a very hot day), and you will then know something
of the delights of Kava drinking.
That afternoon we hired a sailing-boat and paid a visit to a cave some
four miles down the harbour. The entrance looked impossible for so large a
boat as ours, but our native boatman hauled down the sail and assured us
that it was all right. Like Brer Rabbit, we "lay low," and when we lifted
ourselves up we were inside.
Wonderful, dreamlike, unreal, impossible: that was the general verdict.
Like giant icicles that had never felt the touch of frost the huge, green,
semi-transparent and sharply pointed stalactites clustered about the
entrance. From floor to vaulted roof rose buttressed columns dividing the
cave into shadowy alcoves, and as for size--you could put the Blue Grotto
at Capri into one of those alcoves. The lofty arched roof was fretted like
that of a cathedral, but it was the light, not the vast outlines, that
arrested me, and held me spellbound--the weird effect of the sunshine
without reflected through the medium of this dim water world.
I can describe what I saw, but I cannot hope to convey any idea of the
sensation produced by the eye-witness. Gliding to and fro in sinuous coils
were long striped water-snakes, blue and black, pink and black, green and
black. Did Matthew Arnold dream of such a cavern when he wrote:
"When the sea snakes coil and turn,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine"?
Our boatman caught two of the sheeny, harmless creatures, and after
hooding them we carried them back to the steamer, but pity proved stronger
than the lust of possession and we gave them their liberty. I can see them
now (as one after the other I threw them over the side) making directly
for the cave. Did they reach it? Who shall say?
Glued to the fretted roof were the nests of innumerable swallows, and in
the dim innermost recesses queer bat-like creatures hung suspended by
their claws. An eerie feeling possessed us, a sudden silence reigned, the
impossible seemed possible here, the real unreal. One of our native
boatmen struck the rock with the butt-end of an oar--it gave back a
strange, reverberant, hollow sound, then from the darkness within came a
weird, mocking echo.
With the help of a rope, furnished by our helmsman, I climbed a sort of
natural stairway, and crouching on an overhanging ledge, looked down. The
peculiar malachite green of the water now seemed intensified a
hundred-fold, and the boat, its occupants, even the coral garden below,
became green under my eyes. The cave was as cold as winter inside, in
spite of the tropical heat without--cold and yet airless, as if the spell
of an enchantment held the place in thrall. One and all we were glad to
back out of it, re-hoist the sail, and return to our floating home.
Not far from this cave was a barren rock, standing out above the sea,
stark and sheer, a veritable All-Alone-Stone, only that there was no Madam
Gairfowl perched thereon. Below this rock is a submarine cavern, only to
be reached by diving. Here, so the legend goes, an island chief once held
a beautiful maiden in thrall, until he won her to his will. He had stolen
her from her tribe and here he hid her. In this same cavern, too, in more
recent years, a maiden of Vavau saved the life of her wounded lover by
nursing him secretly during the course of a tribal feud. For the details
of these pretty stories, however, I must refer my readers to Mariner's
"Tonga." I was further told that the captain of a British man-of-war once
had the hardihood to dive in search of the entrance of this cave, and that
he found it to be all that it was described, but that in returning to the
surface he grazed his back against the coral, and died a few days later of
acute blood poisoning.
[Illustration: TOWN OF APIA
_To face page 23_]]
At sunset we heaved the anchor and steamed for Apia. Our course was still
in a north-easterly direction and so continued for three hundred and
forty-five miles, when we attained the Samoan or Navigator group. This
last name was given by their discoverer, Bougainville, who christened them
thus out of compliment to the dexterity of the natives, whom he found
sailing their canoes far out at sea.
The group consists of ten inhabited islands, of which the principal are
Savaai, Upolu, Tutuila, Manu'a Olosenga, Ofu, Manono, and Apolima.
Upolu--Stevenson's Island--although not the largest, is by far the most
important. It is forty miles long and ten broad. We passed along the
eastern end, coasting along two lovely rocky islets covered with
vegetation of the most varied green.
The capital of Upoli is Apia, and this town gives its name to the bay.
The Bay of Apia is crescent-shaped, having the point of Mulinuu for the
western, and the point of Matatu for the eastern, tip of the horn.
Although the coral reef stretches from tip to tip, there is, in the very
middle, a natural gap in the submarine coral wall, deep enough and broad
enough to give passage even to a man-of-war.
We cast anchor at daylight, and as I looked over the side of the steamer
a sense of familiarity pervaded the landscape, possibly to be accounted
for by the fact that the slender, feathery palms had ceased to be
distinctive features; not that palms were lacking, but that their long,
straight stems were crowded out by a dense growth of other trees. In one
of his letters Stevenson himself comments on this, and implies that this
"home likeness" formed one of the attractions which drew him to Upolu.
The little town of Apia nestles at the foot of a peaked and forest-clad
mountain; indeed the whole of the shore, which is everywhere green and
level, is overshadowed by inland mountain tops.
At last I had attained the goal of my pilgrimage; at last I was within
hail of that lonely plateau, where all that was mortal of Robert Louis
Stevenson was laid to rest some eight years ago.
I looked shoreward with eyes full of reverence and wonder. This island
with its wooded peak was the "surfy palm-built bubble" of Gosse's
wonderful poem. The rhythm of the words made music in my brain.
"Now the skies are pure above you, Tusitala,
Feathered trees bow down before you,
Perfumed winds from shining waters
Stir the sanguine-leaved hibiscus,
That your kingdom's dusk-eyed daughters
Weave about their shining tresses,
Dew-fed guavas drop their viscous
Honey at the sun's caresses,
Where eternal summer blesses
Your ethereal musky highlands."
"You are circled, as by magic,
In a surfy palm-built bubble, Tusitala.
Fate hath chosen, but the choice is
Half delectable, half tragic,
For we hear you speak like Moses,
And we greet you back enchanted,
But reply's no sooner granted
Than the rifted cloud-land closes."
This poem, which forms the dedication to _Russet and Silver_, was received
by Stevenson only a few days before his death. The fact that he had barely
read it ere the "rifted cloud-land" did indeed close upon him imparts an
almost prophetic significance to the last two lines.