_Vailima Plantation_, _Upolu_, _Samoan Islands_, _November_ 15_th_, 1892.
DEAR EELES,—In the first place, excuse me writing to you by another hand,
as that is the way in which alone all my correspondence gets effected.
Before I took to this method, or rather before I found a victim, it
_simply_ didn’t get effected.
Thank you again and again, first for your kind thought of writing to me,
and second for your extremely amusing and interesting letter. You can
have no guess how immediately interesting it was to our family. First of
all, the poor soul at Nukufetau is an old friend of ours, and we have
actually treated him ourselves on a former visit to the island. I don’t
know if Hoskin would approve of our treatment; it consisted, I believe,
mostly in a present of stout and a recommendation to put nails in his
water-tank. We also (as you seem to have done) recommended him to leave
the island; and I remember very well how wise and kind we thought his
answer. He had half-caste children (he said) who would suffer and
perhaps be despised if he carried them elsewhere; if he left them there
alone, they would almost certainly miscarry; and the best thing was that
he should stay and die with them. But the cream of the fun was your
meeting with Burn. We not only know him, but (as the French say) we
don’t know anybody else; he is our intimate and adored original;
and—prepare your mind—he was, is, and ever will be, TOMMY HADDON! {271}
As I don’t believe you to be inspired, I suspect you to have suspected
this. At least it was a mighty happy suspicion. You are quite right:
Tommy is really ‘a good chap,’ though about as comic as they make them.
I was extremely interested in your Fiji legend, and perhaps even more so
in your capital account of the _Curaçoa’s_ misadventure. Alas! we have
nothing so thrilling to relate. All hangs and fools on in this isle of
misgovernment, without change, though not without novelty, but wholly
without hope, unless perhaps you should consider it hopeful that I am
still more immediately threatened with arrest. The confounded thing is,
that if it comes off, I shall be sent away in the Ringarooma instead of
the _Curaçoa_. The former ship burst upon by the run—she had been sent
off by despatch and without orders—and to make me a little more easy in
my mind she brought newspapers clamouring for my incarceration. Since
then I have had a conversation with the German Consul. He said he had
read a review of my Samoa book, and if the review were fair, must regard
it as an insult, and one that would have to be resented. At the same
time, I learn that letters addressed to the German squadron lie for them
here in the Post Office. Reports are current of other English ships
being on the way—I hope to goodness yours will be among the number. And
I gather from one thing and another that there must be a holy row going
on between the powers at home, and that the issue (like all else
connected with Samoa) is on the knees of the gods. One thing, however,
is pretty sure—if that issue prove to be a German Protectorate, I shall
have to tramp. Can you give us any advice as to a fresh field of energy?
We have been searching the atlas, and it seems difficult to fill the
bill. How would Rarotonga do? I forget if you have been there. The
best of it is that my new house is going up like winking, and I am
dictating this letter to the accompaniment of saws and hammers. A
hundred black boys and about a score draught-oxen perished, or at least
barely escaped with their lives, from the mud-holes on our road, bringing
up the materials. It will be a fine legacy to H.I.G.M.’s Protectorate,
and doubtless the Governor will take it for his country-house. The
Ringarooma people, by the way, seem very nice. I liked Stansfield
particularly.
Our middy {272} has gone up to San Francisco in pursuit of the phantom
Education. We have good word of him, and I hope he will not be in
disgrace again, as he was when the hope of the British Navy—need I say
that I refer to Admiral Burney?—honoured us last. The next time you
come, as the new house will be finished, we shall be able to offer you a
bed. Nares and Meiklejohn may like to hear that our new room is to be
big enough to dance in. It will be a very pleasant day for me to see the
Curaçoa in port again and at least a proper contingent of her officers
‘skipping in my ’all.’
We have just had a feast on my birthday at which we had three of the
Ringaromas, and I wish they had been three _Curaçoas_—say yourself,
Hoskin, and Burney the ever Great. (Consider this an invitation.) Our
boys had got the thing up regardless. There were two huge sows—oh,
brutes of animals that would have broken down a hansom cab—four smaller
pigs, two barrels of beef, and a horror of vegetables and fowls. We sat
down between forty and fifty in a big new native house behind the kitchen
that you have never seen, and ate and public spoke till all was blue.
Then we had about half an hour’s holiday with some beer and sherry and
brandy and soda to restrengthen the European heart, and then out to the
old native house to see a siva. Finally, all the guests were packed off
in a trackless black night and down a road that was rather fitted for the
_Curaçoa_ than any human pedestrian, though to be sure I do not know the
draught of the _Curaçoa_. My ladies one and all desire to be
particularly remembered to our friends on board, and all look forward, as
I do myself, in the hope of your return.—Yours sincerely,