MY DEAR COLVIN,—One page out of my picture book I must give you. Fine
burning day; half past two P.M. We four begin to rouse up from
reparatory slumbers, yawn, and groan, get a cup of tea, and miserably
dress: we have had a party the day before, X’mas Day, with all the boys
absent but one, and latterly two; we had cooked all day long, a cold
dinner, and lo! at two our guests began to arrive, though dinner was not
till six; they were sixteen, and fifteen slept the night and breakfasted.
Conceive, then, how unwillingly we climb on our horses and start off in
the hottest part of the afternoon to ride 4½ miles, attend a native feast
in the gaol, and ride four and a half miles back. But there is no help
for it. I am a sort of father of the political prisoners, and have
_charge d’âmes_ in that riotously absurd establishment, Apia Gaol. The
twenty-three (I think it is) chiefs act as under gaolers. The other day
they told the Captain of an attempt to escape. One of the lesser
political prisoners the other day effected a swift capture, while the
Captain was trailing about with the warrant; the man came to see what was
wanted; came, too, flanked by the former gaoler; my prisoner offers to
show him the dark cell, shoves him in, and locks the door. ‘Why do you
do that?’ cries the former gaoler. ‘A warrant,’ says he. Finally, the
chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!
The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and
three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a
fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable
end with the inscription _O le Fale Puipui_. It is on the edge of the
mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we
drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd
outside—I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people.
The two sentries at the gate stood to arms passively, and there seemed to
be a continuous circulation inside and out. The captain came to meet us;
our boy, who had been sent ahead was there to take the horses; and we
passed inside the court which was full of food, and rang continuously to
the voice of the caller of gifts; I had to blush a little later when my
own present came, and I heard my one pig and eight miserable pine-apples
being counted out like guineas. In the four corners of the yard and
along one wall, there are make-shift, dwarfish, Samoan houses or huts,
which have been run up since Captain Wurmbrand came to accommodate the
chiefs. Before that they were all crammed into the six cells, and locked
in for the night, some of them with dysentery. They are wretched
constructions enough, but sanctified by the presence of chiefs. We heard
a man corrected loudly to-day for saying ‘_Fale_’ of one of them;
‘_Maota_,’ roared the highest chief present—‘palace.’ About eighteen
chiefs, gorgeously arrayed, stood up to greet us, and led us into one of
these _maotas_, where you may be sure we had to crouch, almost to kneel,
to enter, and where a row of pretty girls occupied one side to make the
ava (kava). The highest chief present was a magnificent man, as high
chiefs usually are; I find I cannot describe him; his face is full of
shrewdness and authority; his figure like Ajax; his name Auilua. He took
the head of the building and put Belle on his right hand. Fanny was
called first for the ava (kava). Our names were called in English style,
the high-chief wife of Mr. St— (an unpronounceable something); Mrs.
Straw, and the like. And when we went into the other house to eat, we
found we were seated alternately with chiefs about the—table, I was about
to say, but rather floor. Everything was to be done European style with
a vengeance! We were the only whites present, except Wurmbrand, and
still I had no suspicion of the truth. They began to take off their ulas
(necklaces of scarlet seeds) and hang them about our necks; we politely
resisted, and were told that the King (who had stopped off their _siva_)
had sent down to the prison a message to the effect that he was to give a
dinner to-morrow, and wished their second-hand ulas for it. Some of them
were content; others not. There was a ring of anger in the boy’s voice,
as he told us we were to wear them past the King’s house. Dinner over, I
must say they are moderate eaters at a feast, we returned to the ava
house; and then the curtain drew suddenly up upon the set scene. We took
our seats, and Auilua began to give me a present, recapitulating each
article as he gave it out, with some appropriate comment. He called me
several times ‘their only friend,’ said they were all in slavery, had no
money, and these things were all made by the hands of their
families—nothing bought; he had one phrase, in which I heard his voice
rise up to a note of triumph: ‘This is a present from the poor prisoners
to the rich man.’ Thirteen pieces of tapa, some of them surprisingly
fine, one I think unique; thirty fans of every shape and colour; a kava
cup, etc., etc. At first Auilua conducted the business with weighty
gravity; but before the end of the thirty fans, his comments began to be
humorous. When it came to a little basket, he said: ‘Here was a little
basket for Tusitala to put sixpence in, when he could get hold of
one’—with a delicious grimace. I answered as best as I was able through
a miserable interpreter; and all the while, as I went on, I heard the
crier outside in the court calling my gift of food, which I perceived was
to be Gargantuan. I had brought but three boys with me. It was plain
that they were wholly overpowered. We proposed to send for our gifts on
the morrow; but no, said the interpreter, that would never do; they must
go away to-day, Mulinuu must see my porters taking away the gifts,—‘make
’em jella,’ quoth the interpreter. And I began to see the reason of this
really splendid gift; one half, gratitude to me—one half, a wipe at the
King.
And now, to introduce darker colours, you must know this visit of mine to
the gaol was just a little bit risky; we had several causes for anxiety;
it _might_ have been put up, to connect with a Tamasese rising. Tusitala
and his family would be good hostages. On the other hand, there were the
Mulinuu people all about. We could see the anxiety of Captain Wurmbrand,
no less anxious to have us go, than he had been to see us come; he was
deadly white and plainly had a bad headache, in the noisy scene.
Presently, the noise grew uproarious; there was a rush at the gate—a rush
in, not a rush out—where the two sentries still stood passive; Auilua
leaped from his place (it was then that I got the name of Ajax for him)
and the next moment we heard his voice roaring and saw his mighty figure
swaying to and fro in the hurly-burly. As the deuce would have it, we
could not understand a word of what was going on. It might be nothing
more than the ordinary ‘grab racket’ with which a feast commonly
concludes; it might be something worse. We made what arrangements we
could for my tapa, fans, etc., as well as for my five pigs, my masses of
fish, taro, etc., and with great dignity, and ourselves laden with ulas
and other decorations, passed between the sentries among the howling mob
to our horses. All’s well that ends well. Owing to Fanny and Belle, we
had to walk; and, as Lloyd said, ‘he had at last ridden in a circus.’
The whole length of Apia we paced our triumphal progress, past the King’s
palace, past the German firm at Sogi—you can follow it on the map—amidst
admiring exclamations of ‘_Mawaia_’—beautiful—it may be rendered ‘O my!
ain’t they dandy’—until we turned up at last into our road as the dusk
deepened into night. It was really exciting. And there is one thing
sure: no such feast was ever made for a single family, and no such
present ever given to a single white man. It is something to have been
the hero of it. And whatever other ingredients there were, undoubtedly
gratitude was present. As money value I have actually gained on the
transaction!
Your note arrived; little profit, I must say. Scott has already put his
nose in, in _St. Ives_, sir; but his appearance is not yet complete;
nothing is in that romance, except the story. I have to announce that I
am off work, probably for six months. I must own that I have overworked
bitterly—overworked—there, that’s legible. My hand is a thing that was,
and in the meanwhile so are my brains. And here, in the very midst,
comes a plausible scheme to make Vailima pay, which will perhaps let me
into considerable expense just when I don’t want it. You know the vast
cynicism of my view of affairs, and how readily and (as some people say)
with how much gusto I take the darker view?
Why do you not send me Jerome K. Jerome’s paper, and let me see _The Ebb
Tide_ as a serial? It is always very important to see a thing in
different presentments. I want every number. Politically we begin the
new year with every expectation of a bust in 2 or 3 days, a bust which
may spell destruction to Samoa. I have written to Baxter about his
proposal.