THE SENTIMENTAL SAMOANS
1
On the _Niagara_ was a troupe of Samoan men and women who had been to
San Francisco demonstrating their arts at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition.
This, our meeting on the wide, syrup-like tropical sea seemed to me
almost a welcome, a coming out to greet me and to lead me to the portals
of their home. They were en route to Suva, Fiji, where they were to
await an inter-island vessel to take them to Samoa. They were traveling
third class, and the way I discovered them is not to their discredit. We
were becoming more or less bored with life on deck, the games of ship
tennis and quoits being too obviously make-believe to be entertaining.
At times I would get as far away from the gregarious passengers as
possible, and again a number of us would gather upon the hatchway and
read or chatter. It was a thick latticed covering, and the warm air from
below none too agreeable. But with it rose strains of strange melodies,
as from Neptune's regions of the deep. Peering down, we espied a number
of Samoan men and women, lounging upon the floor of the hold. We took
our reputations in our hands and made the descent.
There were big, burly men and broad, sprawling women, half-naked and
asleep. One could see at a glance that they had been spoiled by the
attention they had received while on exhibition at the fair, but the
freedom of life among third-class passengers somewhat softened the
acquired stiffness, and they relaxed again into native ways. Hour by
hour, as the vessel moved southward, they seemed to come back to life,
to thaw out as it were, while we were wilting by degrees.
The scene was one which could have been found only in tropical waters
under the burning sun. Smoke, bare feet, nakedness, people fat with the
sprawly fatness which is the style of the South Seas, unwashed
sailors,--a medley of people and cargo and steamer stench. But also of
the sweetly monotonous song of the Samoan girl, the swishing of the
water against the nose of the ship in the twilight without, and the
steady push of the vessel toward the equator.
I whiled away many a pleasant hour, learning a few of the native words
in song and gossip. It is hard to distinguish one native from the other
at first, but Fulaanu stood out above the rest like a creature
over-imbued with good-nature. She was flat, flabby, with a drawl in
speech that had the effect not only in her voice but her entire bearing
of a leaning Tower of Pisa. Her body bent backward, her head was tilted
up, and her long, prominent nose also slanted almost with pride. She was
an enormous girl, plain, soft, with absolutely no fighting-spirit in
her, but she stood her ground against all masculine advances with a
charm that was in itself teasingly alluring. She was always flanked on
each side by a sailor. They pretended to teach her the ukulele, they
proffered English lessons, they found one excuse after another for being
near her, and she never shooed them away; but I'd swear by all the gods
that not one of them ever more than held her hand or leaned lovingly
against her.
Yet Fulaanu was as sentimental a maiden as I have ever laid eyes on. She
was constantly drawling some sentimental song she had learned in
California, the ukulele was seldom out of her hands, she never joined in
any of the card games going on constantly roundabout her, and she was
always ready to swap songs with any one willing to teach her.
"I teach you my language," she said to me, and slowly, with twinkling
eyes, she pronounced certain words which I repeated. We had often taught
French to our boys at our little school in California in that way,--the
Marseillaise, for instance,--and the method was not strange to me. She
used the song method, too, an old English song that was just then the
rage in Samoa. The English words run somewhat like this:
And you will take my hand
As you did when you took my name;
But it's only a beautiful picture,
In a beautiful golden frame.
I'm sure I have them all muddled, but let me hum this tune to myself and
immediately Fulaanu, the hold, Fiji, Samoa, and all the scents and
sounds of savagedom come instantly to my mind. For everywhere I went
they were singing this song, through their noses but with all the
sentimental ardor of the young flapper; as at a summer resort in America
when a new song hit has been made, the sound of it is heard from
delivery boy to housemaid and as many different renderings of it as
individual temperament demands.
There was Setu, too,--tall, straight, with that easy grace known only
among people free of clothes. Setu spoke English very well, and was as
companionable a chap as one could pick up in many a mile. But Setu's
heart was not his own; he stood guardian over a treasure he had found in
San Francisco. Not an American girl, no, sir! These savage boys did not
play the devil in our land as our savages do in theirs. But Setu was the
personification of chivalry, and, what was more, he was in love. To look
at him and then at her was to despair of human instinct of natural
selection. How an Apollo of his excellence should have been unable to
find a more handsome objet d'amour, I cannot imagine. She was short,
well rounded, with a head as square as Fulaanu's was oblong, and a nose
as snubby as Fulaanu's was romanesque. She was evidently committed, body
and soul, to Setu for she was as devoid of charm for the others as
Fulaanu was full of it. And so all day long, Setu and his sweetheart
hugged each other in a corner, as oblivious of the presence of a
ship-load of people as though they had been ensconced in a hut of their
own. They were evidently taking advantage of proximity to civilization,
for such immodest behavior is not frequent in the tropics. Civilization
had taught the savages some things at least. Whenever Setu was free from
love-making, he would spare a moment to me, and on those rare occasions
he stirred my spirit with promises of guidance in his native island that
threatened to exhaust my funds.
The romantic associations we have with the South Seas were in this group
reversed, for to these primitive people the greatest romance imaginable
came with their journey to America. There young people from different
islands met and fell in love with one another; there, under the benign
influence of American spooning, one couple was married, and there their
first baby was born,--an American subject, brought back to Pago Pago
(American Samoa) to resume his citizenship. There they learned true
modesty, which comprised stockings and heavy boys' shoes; the art of
playing solitaire, in which one fat, matronly-looking woman indulged all
day as though she had been brought along as chaperon and felt herself
considerably out of it; and even en route for home they were learning
the art of striking by calculation and without passion or frenzy.
I was sitting on the hatch with Fulaanu, who was strumming away on her
ukulele, when a ring was formed in the middle of the hold and a young
white man began boxing with a Samoan. The white boxer was obviously an
amateur, bearing himself with all the unpleasant mannerisms of his
profession,--a haughty, pugnacious, overbearing self-conceit. He had
every advantage in training over his antagonist, whom he peppered
vigorously. He kept it up when it was evident that the young Samoan was
going under. One last blow and the fellow doubled over, bleeding from
nose and mouth. It took ten minutes to bring him round. In the
meanwhile, the victor of the unfair bout strutted around as though he
had accomplished something remarkable.
It was interesting to see the effect this had on the "primitive"
Samoans. There was consternation among them; a hush came over the hold.
The vibration of the steamer and the splashing of the water against its
iron side alone broke the stillness. The Samoan girls, though they did
not grow hysterical, were most decidedly displeased, turning in disgust
from the sight of blood. Yet according to our notions they are
primitive, and the fact is that a few generations ago they were savages.
But they were not long in distress. The spell of the equatorial sun was
upon them, and they soon relaxed. There upon mats, as in their own huts,
lay rows of fat, large, voluptuous men and women; nor was there even a
rope to separate the sexes as in an up-to-date Japanese bath. They
seemed to sleep all day, in shifts governed by impulse only. A woman
would rise and move about a while, then go back to lounge again.
Enormous, broad-shouldered and black mustached men would snore gently,
rise and inspect life, and decide that slumber was better for one's
soul. But Fulaanu lounged with her ukulele, surrounded by amorous
sailors who gazed longingly into her eyes.
One night we arranged for a meeting of the "classes." We promised the
Samoans a good collection if they would come and dance for us on deck.
We invited the first-class folk to come, too. They stood as far to one
side of us as was consonant with first-class dignity represented by an
extra few pounds sterling in the price of the ticket. But for a moment
we forgot that there were class and race in the world.
It was not one of those interminable revelries one reads about, that
begin with twilight and end with twilight. On the contrary, it was a
little squall of entertainment, one that breaks out of a clear sky and
leaves the sky just as clear in a trice. There was no occasion for
self-expression here. They had been asked to dance for our
entertainment, not for theirs. There we stood, ready to applaud; there
they were, ready to be applauded, to receive the collection promised. It
was another little thing they had picked up in our world, from our
civilization,--the commercialization of art. Our artists, scribes, and
entertainers have been considerably raised above prostitution of their
talents by a certain commercialization, by the translation of their
worth in dollars and cents; and we need a little more of it to free art
from bondage to patronage. But in the tropics, where the dance and
jollity are no private matters, there is something sterile in
commercialization. No doubt to the natives there is little difference
between a woman giving herself for gain and a man dancing for the money
there is in it without the whole group becoming part of the performance:
the dancer feels that his purchaser, his public, is cold and
unresponsive. And so it seemed to me at this dance. They finished, they
expected their money, they got it and departed, and there seemed
something immoral to me in the exploitation of their emotions.
What a different lot they were one night when I visited the little house
they rented in Suva while waiting for the _Atua_ to arrive from New
Zealand and take them on to Samoa. There it was song and dance out of
sheer ecstasy: life was so full. They were again in their home
atmosphere, and their voices only helped swell the volume of song which
issued forth everywhere about,--an electrification of humanity all along
the line, in village after village.
They hung about the pier before sailing for Samoa till after midnight,
singing sentimental songs and hobnobbing with the Fijians. The Fijian
constable joined them with a flute, and the lot of them tried to drown
out the voices of the natives loading and unloading cargo. Not until
notice was given that the ship was about to get under steam did they
think of going aboard. They looked as though ready for rest, but by no
means dissipated, by no means weary. The spell of song was still upon
them.
When we woke next morning, we were tied up to a pier at the foot of the
hills of Levuka. But I have already dwelt upon the features of this
former capital, and am only concerned with it here as it was reflected
in the eyes of the Samoans. Levuka to me was one thing; to them it was
quite another. The moldy little stores afforded them more interest than
the village to the left, or the shipyards to the right which were to my
Western notions commendable.
I followed in the wake of these gliding natives as we left the steamer.
They looked neither to the right nor to the left, but wended their ways,
like cattle in the pasture, straight toward the shops. Into one and out
the other they went, bargaining, pricing, buying little trinkets and
simple cloths, chatting with the Fijians as though friends of old.
Setu's sweetheart and the pretty mother of the young American citizen,
who was left in the care of the fat "chaperon," set off by themselves
through the one and only street of Levuka. It was obvious that they were
quite aware of whither they were going,--so direct was their journey. My
curiosity was roused and I wandered along with them. They said never a
word to me, nor objected to my presence. We turned to the left, off into
a side street that began to insinuate its way along the bed of a stream
lined with wooden huts and shacks. Some of these were fairly well
constructed, with verandas, like the houses of a miniature American
town, garlanded in flowers. Just above the village, where the stream
began to emerge from behind a rocky little gorge, the two women turned
in at a gate to a private cottage. A bridge led across the stream to
the little house, the veranda of which extended slightly over the
stream. Beneath, in a corner formed by a projecting boulder, lay a quiet
little pool of water--clear, cool, fresh and deep.
Without asking permission from the owners, the women began slowly,
cautiously to wade into the pool. Seeing that I had no thought of going,
they put modesty aside, slipped the loose garments down to their waists
and immersed themselves up to their necks. One of them was tattooed from
below her breasts to her hips; the other's breasts alone bore these
designs. They dipped and rose, splashed and spluttered, but there was
none of that intimacy with their own flesh which is the essence of
cleanliness and passion in our world. There was no soap, no scrubbing.
It was something objective, almost, a contact with nature like looking
at a landscape or listening to a storm.
Presently some of the inmates of the cottage, evidently well-to-do
Fijians, came out to greet them. I could not tell whether they were
friends or not, but the women were invited in,--and I turned into town
through back roads and alleys that were just like the back roads and
alleys anywhere in the world.
That afternoon we steamed out again for Apia, Samoa. The sea was
disturbed somewhat and gave us various sensations; but the vile odors
that threatened my nautical pride never changed.
Most of the Samoans were under the weather. They did not look cheerful,
and all song was gone out of them. Setu and his sweetheart were here
even more inseparable than on the _Niagara_. She was not very well and
stretched out on the bench on the edge of which he took his seat. In her
squeamish condition she could hardly be expected to pay much attention
to proprieties she had acquired in less than a year's residence in
America. Her sprawly bare feet on several occasions made too bold an
exit from beneath the loose Mother-Hubbard gown she wore, and each time
Setu would draw the skirt farther over them, affectionately pressing
them with his hand. This one instance, exceptional as it was, made me
notice more consciously the absence of that public intimacy which is the
bane of the prude with us. Not all the charm of the tropics which is so
real to me can take the place of the cleanliness of the West, the
tenderness of clean men and women in public, to be observed even on our
crowded subways, the loveliness of white skin tinged with pink and
scented with the essence of flowers.
I did not see them again before we arrived at Samoa the next day; the
sea was too choppy. But in the afternoon Setu came out with a pillow
held aloft over his head, and declared he would take a nap. There was
childish glee in his face at the prospect, and he stretched out on the
hard deck in perfect ease. And long after I ceased to figure in his
fancies, the beaming, sparkling eyes and merry grin seemed to light up
the soul within him.
Toward sundown we passed the first island of the group,--Savaii, the
largest. It lay at our left, Mua Peak emitting a sluggish smoke from
reaches beyond the depth of the waters which had nearly submerged it,
and as the sea made furious charges into blow-holes or half-submerged
caverns, the earth spit back the invading waters with an easy contempt.
At our right lay the island of Manono, much smaller, and nearer our
course. Shy Samoan villages hid in little ravines, almost afraid to show
their faces.
Shortly after eight o'clock we neared the island of Upolu. The troupe of
Samoans came out on deck with the eagerness in their eyes that marks
such arrivals at every port of the world. The lights of the village of
Apia pricked the delicate evening haze. One strong, steady lamp, like a
planet, shone from above the others. Setu called to me eagerly, his
right hand pointing toward it.
"That is from Vailima, Stevenson's home," he said, with some pride.
When at last we anchored just outside the reefs before Apia, these
natives, who had grown close to one another during the year of their
pilgrimage, began bidding one another farewell before slipping back to
the little separate grooves they called home. The women kissed one
another, cheek touching cheek at an angle, a practice common both at
meeting (_talofa_) and at parting (_tofa_). But with the men they only
shook hands. Then, clambering over into canoes, they were borne across
the reefs to their homes. And as long as Polynesia is Polynesia there
will echo the stories of this journey to the land of the white man and
all children will know that what the white man said about his lands is
true.
2
The reader who has never entered a strange port nor come home from
foreign lands will not be able to imagine the psychological effect of my
entry of Samoa. Not only did the thousands of eyes of the natives seem
to turn their gaze upon me, but it seemed, and I was quite sure, that at
least two thousand pale faces with as many bayonets were fixed upon me.
Samoa was under occupation. I asked the captain of the forces what I
could do to avoid trouble.
"See that you don't get shot," he said. I assured him there was nothing
nearer my heart's desire, and, seeing that I looked harmless, he
ventured to reassure me: "Oh, just keep away from the wireless. That's
all." I had come to see the natives, not electric gymnastics, so I found
it very easy to keep away from the wireless.
What there was of Apia was essentially European and lay along the
waterfront. Here stood the three-story hotel, built and until then
managed by Germans. Diagonally across from it and nearer the water's
edge, was a two-story ramshackle building even then run by Germans. The
little barber to whom I had been directed spoke with a most decided
German accent. He cut and shampooed my hair, but let me walk out with as
much of a souse on top of my head as I ever had in a shower-bath.
Wherever I went were Germans,--and yet they said the islands were under
occupation. Turn to the right and there, back off the street within a
small compound that seemed to lie flat and low, was a German school
still being conducted by black-bearded German priests. But to the left,
within the dark-red fence, stood the dark-red buildings of the German
Plantation Company, closed, and the little building that once was the
German Club had become the British Club; while at the other end of the
street were the office buildings of the military staff, where once ruled
the German militarists. In between, in a little building a block or two
behind the waterfront, was the printing-office,--where, strange to say,
the daily paper was still being printed in both German and English. With
the few structures that filled in the gaps between these outposts we had
small concern. They were the nests of traders, the haven of so-called
beach-combers and the barracks and missionary compounds. And alien Samoa
is at an end.
Mindful of the mild instructions not to get myself shot, I took as
little interest in the details of occupation as was compatible with my
sense of freedom; but this course was precarious, for at the time any
one who was not with us was against us. However, details of such
differences must be reserved for a later chapter. Here we are interested
in Samoa itself. But in my very interest in the place I struck a snag,
for every other day Germans were being deported or coraled for
attempting to stir up a native uprising. Still, inasmuch as I could not
acquire the language in so short a time, I felt secure, and took to the
paths that led to the Stone Age as a Dante without a love-affair to
guide him.
The island is hemmed in by coral reefs on the edge of which the waves
break, spreading in foam and gliding quietly toward shore. As they sport
in the brilliant sunlight, it seems as though the sea were calling back
the life lost to it through evolution. The tall, gaunt palms which lean
toward the sea, bow in a humble helplessness. There, a quarter of a mile
out, upon the unseen reefs, lies the iron skeleton of the _Adler_, the
German man-of-war which was wrecked on the memorable day in 1889. Such
seems to be the fate of the Germans: even their skeletons outlive
disaster. But the sea has been the protector of the natives. It would be
interesting to speculate as to what course events about the South Seas
would have taken had not that hurricane intervened. The natives are
indifferent to such speculations; for, as far as they were concerned,
one turn was as good as another. Borne over the swelling waves from
island drift to island drift, the ups and downs of eternity seem to
leave no great changes in their lives.
Roaming along the waterfront to the left of Apia with the sun near high
noon, all by myself, I met with nothing to disturb the utter sweetness
and glory of life about. I wavered between moods of exquisite
exhilaration and deep depression. Bound by the encircling consciousness
of the occupation, the sense of wrong done these natives who had neither
asked for our civilization nor invited us to squabble over their
"bones," I felt that but for the presence of the white man this would
have been the loveliest land in the world. For here one becomes aware of
nature as something altogether different from nature anywhere else. That
distant pleading of the sea; the gentle yielding of the palms to the
landborn breezes,--there was much more than peace and ease; there was
absolute harmony. But where was man?
I became restless. Nature was not sufficient. I went to seek out man,
for at that hour there was none of him anywhere about. I was, for all
intents and purposes, absolutely the only human being on that island.
Every one else had taken to cool retreats. But where should I go? I
wondered. I knew no one, and the sense of loneliness I had for a while
forgotten came back to me with a rush. For a moment I was again in
civilization, again in a world of fences and locked doors. "I will go
and look up Setu," I thought. "He promised to guide me about Samoa. I
have his address. I'll look up Setu." So I turned back toward the hills
and in among the palm groves, where I could see the huts of the village
of Mulinuu, where Setu lived.
When I arrived I realized why I had suddenly become conscious of my
loneliness. Throughout the village there wasn't a soul abroad. The domes
of thatch resting on circles of smooth pillars were deserted, it seemed,
and the fresh coolness that coursed freely within their shade was
untasted. Nowhere upon the broad, grassy fields beneath the palms was
there a walking thing; and I was a total stranger. It was slightly
bewildering, as though I were in a graveyard, or a village from which
the inhabitants had all gone. I approached one of the huts and found, to
my satisfaction, that there was a human being there. It was a woman,
attending to her household duties. She was just under the eaves on the
outside, beside the floor of the hut, which was like a circular stage
raised a foot or two above the ground, and paved with loose shingles
from the shore. I hardly knew how to approach her, not thinking she
might know my language.
"Good afternoon," she said in perfect English. "Sit down." The shock was
pleasant. So there were no fences or doors to social intercourse in
Samoa, after all. Still, I must find Setu. I asked her where I could
locate his home. Before directing me, she chatted a while and assured me
that I could go to any one of the huts about and make myself
comfortable. I was not to hesitate, as it was the custom of the country
and in no way unusual. She was a fine-looking woman, robust and tall,
genial and attentive, as housewifely a person as could be found
anywhere. I have since had occasion to talk with many a housewife in New
Zealand and Australia when searching for private quarters and cannot say
that their manners, their dress, their regard for a stranger's welfare
in any way exceeded those of this woman who had nothing to offer me but
rest and no wish for reward but my content.
Taking her directions, I turned across the village to where she said
Setu could be found. Beneath the shade of a palm squatted a group of men
who when they spied me called for me to come over to them. Had I not
been on curiosity bent, I should have regarded their request as sheer
impudence, for when I arrived they wanted me to employ them as guides.
It was amusing. Instead of running after hire, they commanded the
stranger to come to them. It was too comfortable under the spreading
palm branches. I told them that I had arranged with Setu to guide me and
was in search of him. They began running Setu down. He was
untrustworthy, they assured me, and would charge me too high a price.
Then they asked me what my business was, what Setu had said, when he was
going,--everything imaginable. But never an inch would they move to show
me the way to Setu's house. I wandered about for a while, inquiring of
one stray individual and another, but no one had seen Setu, and at last
I learned that he had left the village early that morning for his
father's place, far inland, and would not return. Setu had gone back on
me. He had promised to call for me with his horse and buggy and convey
me over the island. But Setu had forsaken me, and there was nothing to
do but to make the best of the day right there.
Taking the word of the well-spoken woman, I approached the most
attractive-looking hut, where sat a number of people roundabout the
pillars. It was a mansion-like establishment even to my inexperienced
judgment of huts. It was roofed with corrugated iron instead of thatch,
and the pillars were unusually straight and smooth. The raised floor was
very neatly spread with selected, smooth, flat stones four to five
inches in diameter, and framed with a rim of concrete. Fine straw mats
lay like rugs over a polished parquet floor at all angles to one
another, and straw drop curtains hung rolled up under the eaves, to be
lowered in case of rain or hurricane. The floor space must have been at
least thirty-five feet in diameter, and it was plain that each
inhabitant occupied his own section of the hut round the outer circle.
I was cordially greeted and invited to rest, which I did by sitting on
the ground with my legs out, and my back to a pillar for support. From
the quiet and decorum it was evident that the householders were
entertaining guests. Each couple or family sat upon its own mats. There
were twelve adults and three children. It happened that the man who
greeted me and bade me be seated was the guest of honor, a gentleman
from Rarotanga, passing through Samoa on his way to Fiji. He was a very
refined-looking individual, and made me feel that the Rarotangans were a
superior race, but the contrary is true. However, his regular features
and courtly manners were a distinction which might well have led to such
a supposition. His handsome wife, who sat with him, was as retiring as a
Japanese woman, and as considerate of his comfort.
The others were set in pairs all round the hut. At the extreme left were
two women, sewing; opposite us, a man and woman apportioning the
victuals; to my right, a man and a woman grinding the ava root
preparatory to the making of the drink. Farther way squatted a very fat
woman, with barely a covering over her breasts, which were full as
though she were in the nursing-stage. The children moved about freely
neither disturbing nor being curbed. In the center of the company sat
two men, one evidently the head of the family, with his back up against
a pillar, the other his equal in some relationship.
The dinner was being served by a portly individual, a man who could not
have been exactly a servant, yet who did not act as though he were a
member of the family. He passed round the ample supply of fish, meats,
and vegetables on enamel plates, his services always being acknowledged
graciously. No one looked at or noticed his neighbor, but indulged with
the aid of spoon or finger as he saw fit, and had any made a _faux pas_
there would have been none the wiser. That, I thought, was true
politeness.
Dinner over, the remains were removed and each person leaned back
against the nearest pillar. After a slight pause, the eldest man, he in
the center of the hut, clapped his hands, and uttered a gentle sound, as
one satisfied would say: "Well! Let's get down to business." But it was
nothing so serious or so material as that. It was ava-drinking time. The
polished cocoanut bowl was passed round, by the same old waiter, to the
man whose name was called aloud by the head of the household, and each
time all the rest clapped hands two or three times to cheer his cup. It
was like the Japanese method of "ringing" for a servant, not like our
applause. Then fruits were passed around. Cocoanuts, soft and ripe, the
outer shell like the skin of an alligator pear and easily cut with an
ordinary knife, were first in order, after which the companion of the
man in the middle of the hut, like a magician on the stage, drew out of
mysterious regions an enormous pineapple which may have been thirty
inches in circumference. It might have had elephantiasis, for all I
knew, but it was the cause of the only bit of disharmony I had noticed
during the entire time I rested with them. The man to whom it fell to
dispense its juicy contents--he who had sat unobtrusively beside the
head of the house now found it necessary to stretch his legs in order
the better to carve the fruity porcupine. The shock to my sense of form
the moment I caught sight of those legs was enough to dissipate my
greediest interest in the pineapple. They were twice the size of the
fruit, and as knotty. He was suffering from elephantiasis of the legs,
poor man,--a disease, according to the encyclopædia, "dependent on
chronic lymphatic obstruction, and characterized by hypertrophy of the
skin and subcutaneous tissue." Morbid persons seem to enjoy taking away
with them photographs of people affected by this hideous disease in
various parts of the body, but it was enough for me that I saw this one
case; and sorry enough was I that I saw it at that quiet, peaceful hut,
from which I should otherwise have carried away the loveliest of
memories.
For as soon as the meal was over, and the ava-drinking at an end,
pleasures more intellectual were in order. Neighbors began to arrive,
including the fine woman who had urged me to rest wherever I wished. As
each new guest appeared, he passed round on the outside and shook hands
with those to whom he was introduced, finally finding a quiet corner.
When the interruptions ceased, the head of the house began to speak in a
low, reflective tone of voice. All the others relaxed, as do men and
women over their cigarettes. My Tongan neighbor acted as interpreter for
me, being the only person present who could speak English. The head of
the house was telling some family legend, the point of which was the
friendship between his forefathers and the fathers of this Tongan guest.
Then one at a time, quietly, in a subdued tone, each one present
expressed his gratitude for the hospitality extended, or recited some
family reminiscence. There wasn't the slightest affectation, nor the
semblance of an argument. Here, then, was Thoreau's principle of
hospitality actually being practised. As each one spoke he gazed out
upon the open sky decorated with the broad green leaves of the palm.
Sometimes the listeners smiled at some witticism, but most of the time
they were interested in a sober way. Last of all arose the companion of
the head of the house, upon his heavy, elephantine legs, and in a
dramatic manner--probably made to seem more so by the tragic distortion
of his limbs--related a story, several times emphasizing a
generalization by a sweep of the hands toward the open world about.
A gentle breeze crept down from the hills and swept its way among the
pillars of this peaceful hut and skipped on through the palms out to
sea. As far as the eye could reach through the village there was no sign
of uncleanliness, no stifling enclosures, no frills to catch the unwary.
The afternoon was well-nigh gone when I moved reluctantly away from this
charmed spot. Slowly life was becoming more discontented with ease and
bestirred itself to the satisfaction of wants. A few hours of toil, in
the gathering of fruits, and one phase of tropical life was rounded out.
It might be more pleasant to believe that that is the only side, but
such faith is treacherous. The life of the average South Sea islander is
as arduous as any. Fruits there are usually a-plenty, but they must be
gathered and stored against famine and storm. Be that as it may, the
open life, the things one has which require only wishing to make them
one's own, the uncramped open world,--by that much every man is
millionaire in the tropics, and it is pleasant to forget if one can that
there is exploitation, despoliation, and oppression as well, both of
native and of alien origin. But for the time at least we may as well
enjoy that which is lovely.
3
That night I witnessed the usual events at the British Club. The
substance of the evening's conversation, every word of which was in my
own language, was quite foreign to me. It comprised "Dr. Funk" and
his special services in counteracting dengue fever. The aim and object
of every man there seemed to be to make me drink, quite against my will.
A visiting doctor added the weight of his learning to induce me to turn
from heedlessly falling a victim to fever by engaging "Dr. Funk." I was
inclined to dub him "Dr. Bunk," but why arouse animosity in the tropics?
there is enough of it.
[Illustration: THE STREET ALONG THE WATERFRONT OF APIA, SAMOA]
[Illustration: I THOUGHT THE VILLAGE BACK OF APIA, SAMOA, WAS
DESERTED, BUT IT WAS ONLY THE NOON HOUR]
[Illustration: CONTACT WITH CALIFORNIA CREATED THIS COMBINATION OF
SCOWL, BRACELETS AND BOY'S BOOTS--BUT FULAANU BESIDE HER WAS
UNCORRUPTIBLE]
[Illustration: TATTOOING OF THE LEGS IS AN ESSENTIAL IN SAMOA]
But I couldn't help contrasting in my own mind the little gathering on
the shingle-paved floor of that corrugated iron hut with the more
elaborate club that changed its name from German to British with no
little hauteur. More than once I wished that I had had command of the
language of those people in the hut where allegory, mixed with
superstition but seasoned with gentle hospitality--and not rum--was the
order of the day.
Weary of refusing booze and more booze, I set off for the shore. Though
military order forbade either natives or Germans or any one else without
a permit to be out after ten o'clock, I had had no difficulty in
securing a permit to roam about at will, day or night. The new military
Inspector of Police strolled out with me and we took to the road that
led out of Apia to the left, past the barracks, past the school, and the
church, past all the crude replicas of our civilization.
"Oh, how I loathe it all!" said Heasley to me. "God, what wouldn't I
give to be back with my wife and kiddies! This everlasting boozing, this
mingling with people whom I wouldn't recognize in Wellington, being
herded with the riffraff of the world. They talk of the lovely maidens.
Tell me, Greenbie, have you seen any here you'd care to mess about with?
The tropics!--rot!"
I saw that I had to deal with a frightfully homesick man, and there was
no point in running counter to him. The fact that to me the tropics were
lovely only when seen as an objective thing, not as something to feel a
part of, would have made little impression on his mind. He was
condemned to an indefinite sojourn, whereas I was foot-loose, had come
of my own free will, and was going as soon as I had had enough of it. To
him the daily round of drink and cheap disputes, the longing for his
wife and kiddies, the heat, the mosquitos, the mold, the cheap beds and
unvaried fare, the weeks during which the British troops had virtually
camped on the beach in the steady downpouring tropical rains; the
inability to dream his way into appreciation of South Sea life; the
necessity of looking upon the natives as possible rebels; suspicions of
the few Germans there, suspicions of every new-comer, suspicions of even
the death-dealing sun,--no wonder there was nothing romantic about it to
him!
But as we wandered along, chatting in an intimate way, as only men gone
astray from home will chat when they meet on the highways of the world,
he seemed to grow more cheerful. Time and again he told me what a relief
I was to him, how being able really to talk freely with me was balm to
his troubled spirit. I knew that an hour after my departure he would
forget all about me, that there was nothing permanent in his regard,
that I really meant nothing to him beyond an immediate release for his
pent-up mind,--but I felt that he was sincere.
As we kicked our way along the dusty road we came to a stretch where the
palm-trees stood wide apart. The smooth waters covered the reefs, and a
million moonbeams danced over them. Within the palm groves camp-fires
blazed beneath domes of moon-splattered thatch, and from all directions
deep, clear voices quickened the night air. We of the Northern lands do
not know what communal life is. We move in throngs, we crowd the
theaters, we crowd the summer resorts,--but still we do not know what
communal life is. We are separate icicles compared with the people of
the tropics. Only to one adrift at night within a little South Sea
village is the meaning of human commonalty revealed. It seemed to touch
Heasley as nothing had done before. After our little conversation he
appeared relieved and receptive. We wandered about till long after
midnight, long after the village had sung itself to sleep, even then
reluctant to take to our musty beds.
Thus did one day pass in Samoa, and every day is like the other, and my
tale is told.
4
I tapped one man after another in Samoa for some personal recollections
of Stevenson, but without success. At last I heard of an American trader
who had been an intimate friend of R. L. S. and knew more about him than
any other. So to him I went. He was a round-headed, red-faced, bald
individual in the late fifties, deeply engrossed in the sumptuous
accumulations he had made during more than a quarter-century of
residence in Samoa. His reactions to my declaration of interest in
Stevenson made me think he was turning to lock his safe and order his
guard, but instead he really opened the safe and dismissed all pretense.
In other words, he realized, it seemed to me, that he had another chance
of adding luster not to Stevenson, but to himself. Stevenson he
dismissed with, "Well, you know, after all he was just like other men.
Often he was disagreeable, ill-tempered," etc. The thing worth while was
the fact that _he_ had written a book about Stevenson, in which _he_ had
exhausted all he knew of the man, so why did I not read that and not
bother him about it! I felt apologetic, almost inclined to bow myself
out, backward, when he announced that he too had written stories of the
South Seas. My interest was whetted. I asked to be shown. He drew from
among his bills and invoices a packet of manuscripts, and handed one to
me to read. I thought of Setu and his enthusiasm at the recognition at
sea of the light from Vailima, and felt that, as far as Stevenson's own
life went, Setu was, to me at least, more important.
Notwithstanding all the cynics who laugh at those who come to Samoa to
climb to Stevenson's grave, I was determined to make the ascent. I could
get no one to make it with me. At five o'clock in the morning I mustered
what energy I had left from the North, ready to spend it all for the
sake of seeing Stevenson's grave. By six, the wind was already warm and
dragged behind it heavy rain-clouds. Hot and brain-fagged, I pressed on,
my body pushing listlessly forward while my mind battled with the
temptation to turn back. Near the end of European Apia I turned toward
the hills, into a wide avenue cut through the growths of shaggy palms.
Suddenly opening out from the main street, it as suddenly closes up, an
oblong that dissipates in a narrow, irregular roadway farther on. It was
too overgrown to indicate any great usefulness, yet in the history of
roads, none, I believe, is more unique. In the days when Samoa was the
scene of cheap international squabbles among England, France, Germany,
and America, Stevenson, the Scotsman, mindful of the fate of Scotland
and of the similarity between his adopted and his native land, stood by
the natives as against the foreign powers (Germany in particular). He
took up the challenge for Mataafa, courageously cuddled these children
while in prison, and won their everlasting good-will. Later, as a mark
of gratitude, they decided voluntarily to build a wide road to Vailima,
Stevenson's home. Their ambitions did not live long. The road was never
finished. But this is indicative not of diminished gratitude, but of the
overwhelming hopelessness of their situation in face of foreign pressure
and native temperature.
For everything in the tropics seems on the verge of exhaustion, a keen
enthusiasm in life which finds its ebb before it has reached high tide.
Only a supreme endeavor, a will sharper than nature, can overcome the
spirit of non-resistance which condemns native life from very birth. And
it was the remnant of determination bred in another climate that
carried me on toward the remains of the object of that gratitude which
this road symbolized.
Vailima was four miles from Apia, hidden within a rich tropical growth
well up the mountain side. Half the time I rested in the shade, taking
my cue from my idol that it was better to travel than to arrive. No one
was about, except here and there a child in search of fruit dropped from
the tall trees. Presently I came to a set of wooden buildings on the
road which upon investigation turned out to be the temporary barracks
for the guard of Colonel Logan, commander of the forces of occupation.
The soldiers directed me most cordially to a path near the barracks, and
there a board sign announced the way to "STEVENSON'S GRAVE."
Crossing a creek and turning to the right, I found myself immediately at
the foot of Mount Vaea. At this juncture lay a small concrete pool
obviously belonging to the cottage, well-preserved and clean. So was the
path upward. Strange contrasts here, for both pool and path were the
result of the private interest of the German Governor of Samoa who,
despite Stevenson's bitter opposition to German possession of the
islands, had generously had the path cleared and widened so that lovers
of the great man might visit his tomb with ease. It had been neglected
for ten years until this German reclaimed it.
For a decade the grave lay untended. At the moment of death, the silence
is deep. The pain is too fresh. Out of very love neglect is justifiable,
for it is the train of dejected mourners who cannot think of niceties.
But then come the "knockers at the gate," they who know nothing of the
frailties of men and revel in an immortality that is memory.
I paused frequently during that half-hour climb. Cooing doves called to
one another understandingly across the death-like stillness which filled
the valley below. From the direction of Apia came the sound of the
lali, which seemed only to quicken mystery into being. I breathed more
heavily. There, alone on the slopes of that peak, with the only thing
that makes it memorable beneath the sod on the summit, I felt strangely
in touch with the dead. The isolation gave distinction to him who had
been laid there, which no monument, however superb, can give in the
crowded graveyard. The personality of the departed hovers round in the
silence.
Still, the thought of death itself is alien here. Fear is barren. One
climbs on with an easy, smiling recognition of the summit of all
things,--not as death, but as life. Oh, the sweet silence that muffles
all!
A strange relapse into the ordinary came to me as I reached the top. I
took a picture of the tomb, gazed out across the hazy blue world
about,--and thought of nothing. I was not disappointed, nor sad. Had I
found myself sinking, dying, I believe that it would not have ruffled my
emotions any more than the flight of a bird leaves ripples in the air.
Below, five miles away, the waves broke upon the reefs and spread in
smooth foam which reached endlessly toward the shore. "It is better to
travel than to arrive," they seemed to say to me across the void.
The red hibiscus was in bloom around the tomb. A sweet-scented yellow
flower made the air heavy with its rich perfume. The trees speckled the
simple concrete casing over the grave with their restless little shadow
leaves. The spot was cool and free from growths. And it was, then, a
symbol of a quarter of a century made real.
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I laid me down with a will.
Savage, child, romancer, literary stylist,--all have been under the
influence of this wandering Scotsman, and the manner of showing him love
and gratitude has been not in imitation only. At Monterey in California
he was nursed by an old Frenchman through a long period of illness; in
semi-savage Samoa men untutored in our codes of affection beat not a
path but a road to his door, and carried his body up the steep slope of
Mount Vaea. And the month before I stood beside his tomb, the ashes of
his wife and devoted helpmate were deposited beside him by his
stepdaughter, who had journeyed all the way from California to unite
their remains.
Tusitala, the tale-teller, the natives called him, and in the sheer
music of that strange word one senses something of the regard it was
meant to convey. And in the years to come, when Samoans become a nation
in the Pacific, part of the Polynesian group, Tusitala will doubtless be
one of the heroes, tales of whose beneficence will light the way for
little Polynesians growing to manhood.
It was becoming too hot up there on the peak for me before
breakfast-time was over, so I slipped down into the valley. At the
barracks the soldiers invited me to have a bite with them. The simple
porridge, the crude utensils, the bare benches would elsewhere after so
long a walk and so steep a climb have been a Godsend; but here, in the
tropics, it seemed that more would have been a waste of human life. The
sergeant-at-arms asked me if I should like to have some breadfruit. He
stepped out into the yard and gathered a round, luscious melon-like
fruit which, when cut, opened the doors of alimentary bliss to me. The
trees grow in bisexual pairs, male and female, the female tree bearing
the fruit.
The sergeant then took me to Vailima, Stevenson's last home, now the
residence of the governor-general. It was, of course, stripped of
everything which once was Stevenson's, and had acquired wings and
porticos, gaunt and disproportioned. I could not work up any sentimental
regret at this change, for that is what Stevenson himself would have
wished. The best way to preserve a thing is to keep it growing.
Stevenson worked here for four years; others may tamper with it for
four hundred years without completely obliterating the character given
it by its first maker.
When I entered I was somewhat surprised at the hangings on the walls.
Pictures of the kaiser, pretty scenes along the Rhine, German
castles,--what had they to do with Stevenson? what with Colonel Logan
and British occupation? The chambers are so large and the woodwork is so
somber that these pictures fairly shrieked out at one, like a flock of
eagles in high altitudes. I felt almost guilty, myself, simply for being
in the presence of such enemy decorations, and remarked about them to my
guide.
"The colonel won't touch them," he said, respectfully. "They are the
property of the German Governor, and till the disposition of the islands
is finally settled, the colonel won't move them. He's a soldier,
y'know."
We came out again upon the veranda just in time to see Colonel and Mrs.
Logan arrive in their trap. He was tall, straight, an icy chill of
reserve in his bearing. Mrs. Logan was a pretty young woman, as warm and
cordial as he was stiff. He preceded her up the steps and was saluted by
the sergeant with the explanation of my presence.
"Am showing this gentleman round a bit," he said.
"Has he had a look round?" said the colonel, perfunctorily, saluted
stiffly, and passed by as though I didn't exist. As Mrs. Logan came up
behind she suppressed a smile that threatened to make her face still
more charming, and the two passed within.
I smiled to myself. How should I have been received had Stevenson come
up those steps that day? To the colonel there was nothing in my journey
to the tomb. Nor was there anything in it to the soldiers at the
barracks. Yet the fact that I had been there made me one of them.
"How'd ye like it?" asked a soldier on my return, with the same manner
as though I had gone to see a cock-fight. "Blaim me if Oi'd climb that
yer 'ill on a day as 'ot as this to see a dead man's grave."
They asked me if I'd like to take a swim in the stream Stevenson liked
so well, and on the strength of my great interest three of them got
leave to accompany me. They winked to me when the sergeant agreed. We
wandered along, jumping fences, crossing a grassy slope, and cutting
through a spare woods. The bamboo-trees creaked like rusty hinges. Cocoa
plantations stood ripe for picking. The luscious mango kept high above
our reach, so that we were compelled to devise means of getting at it.
The soldiers seemed concerned about my seeing everything, tasting
everything, learning everything the place afforded. We chatted sociably,
plunging about in the stream, with only a few stray natives looking on.
Then we made our way back as leisurely as possible, they being in no
hurry to return to the barracks. How I got back to Apia I haven't the
faintest recollection.
5
I had set out to see the world without any definite notion of whither I
was drifting. I had bartered the liquid sunshine of Hawaii for Fiji's
humid shade, and twisted a day in a knot between Suva and Apia so that I
hardly knew whether or not Fiji was more devilishly hot than Samoa. And
then for four days I endured the stench of ripening bananas in the hold
of a resurrected vessel which, if ships are feminine, as sailors seem to
believe, was decidedly beyond the age of spinsterhood. I was headed for
New Zealand. Little wonder, then, that when I found that we had finally
arrived with our olfactory senses still sane and were about to land in a
real country with real cities and a social life dangerously near
perfection, I felt as though I were coming to after ether.
When I suddenly found myself alone on the streets of Auckland, a sense
of the icy chill of reserve in civilization came over me. The weeks in
the tropics were of the past. There, though the faces were more than
strange to me and the speech quite unintelligible, there was a sense of
human kinship which stole from man to man through the still air. There
was the lali thumping its way across the valley; the chatter of voices
by day, the mutter of voices by night when the people gathered beneath
their thatched roofs; the gradual infusion of native melody with the
swish of palms and the hiss of the sea; call answering call across the
village; songs with that deep, primitive harmony which effects a ferment
of emotion not in one's heart, but in the pit of the stomach. In such a
place, the word _alone_ has no meaning. One cannot be a stark outsider.
Everything is done so freely and sociably that even the stranger,
despite thousands of years of restraint in civilization, merges into an
at-one-ment known to no group in our world.
Social life in New Zealand (as in all white communities) contained no
such admixture. Not even on Sunday, on which day I landed, did the
crowds that sauntered up and down the street, present any kindred
closeness. People just sauntered back and forth across the three or four
business blocks known as Queens Street. The sweeps and curves and
windings which were its offshoots made a short thoroughfare look
picturesque, but they were just flourishes. They did not lead to
anything. And one immediately returned to Queens Street.
There, the wheeled traffic having been withdrawn, the people leaving
church flooded the wide way, coursing up and down in what seemed to me
an utterly aimless journey between the monument at the upper fork in the
street and the piers at its foot. As a white man's city goes, in the
three-story structures and spacious business fronts, and the massing of
architecture tapering in an occasional turret, there was stability
enough in the appearance of things.
There were jolly flirtations, girls singly and in pairs, some mere
children in short skirts, gadding about with eyes on young men whom they
doubtless knew, and of whom they seemed in eternal pursuit. Groups
gathered for political or religious argument; platitudes and
pleasantries were exchanged, some interesting, some dull, seldom truly
cordial. A vague suspicion one of another was manifest in every
relationship.
Suddenly the crowd vanished. A few persistent ones hung about the lower
extremity of the street or lurked about the piers, spooning. The street
became deserted. Not a sound from anywhere. No joyous singing under the
eaves, no flickering lamp-lights beneath thatched roofs. Blinds drawn,
doors locked. Sunday evening in civilization! I had returned.