One of her few failures was trying to make beer out of bananas. The stuff, after being bottled, blew up with a great noise and a dissemination of the astonishingly offensive odour of the fermented fruit that seemed to spread for acres about. On the other hand, her attempt at making perfume from the moso'oi flower (said to be the real ylang-ylang) was a distinct success. She had to get permission from the government to import the small still she set up in a corner of the garden. The flowers were boiled and distilled, and as the oil rose to the top of the water it was removed with a medicine-dropper. It was a charming sight to see her working in her little distillery, while processions of pretty Samoan girls came with their huge baskets of flowers and scattered them in piles around her. Long afterwards when she was in New York she took a sample of the perfume to Colgates, who pronounced it the best they had ever seen.
The house at Vailima with the additions made to the first structure.
The house at Vailima with the additions made to the first structure.
In the midst of all these labours there were a thousand other troubles to be met and conquered—servants'quarrels in the kitchen, for Samoans are not a whit different in such respects from domestics all the world over, jealousy between the house boys and the out boys, constant alarms about devils and bewitchments, and, above all, sickness of all sorts to be sympathized with and cured. For help in all these derangements every one went to the mistress, for all had a simple faith in her ability to relieve them of all their sorrows. At one time she and her daughter nursed twenty-two men through the measles—a very serious disease among the islanders. At another time the large hall at Vailima was entirely filled with the beds of influenza patients, Mr. Stevenson being isolated upstairs. In the performance of the plantation work accidents sometimes happened to the men, and she was often called upon to bind up dreadful wounds that would have made many women faint. From her earliest youth she had always been the kind of person to whom every one instinctively turns in an emergency. When Mr. Stevenson was ill she understood what he wanted by the merest gesture, and was always calm, reassuring, and self-reliant, never breaking down until after the crisis was past. She was a most delightful nurse otherwise, too, for when her children were sick in bed she entertained them with cheerful stories to divert their minds, and when they were convalescent made tempting dishes for them to eat. One of my own dear memories is of a time when, as a little child, I lay dangerously and painfully ill, unable to move even a hand, and she lightened my sufferings immeasurably by buying a Noah's ark and arranging the animals on a little table by mybedside where I could look at them. When her husband was having one of his speechless illnesses at Vailima she allowed only one at a time to go in to him, under orders to be entertaining and to recount amusing little adventures of the household. She herself was an adept at this, though when she came out she left her smile at the bedroom door. For his amusement she would sit by his bedside and play her famous game of solitaire, learned so long ago from Prince Kropotkin, the Russian revolutionist. He would make signs when she went wrong and point at cards for her to take up. Sometimes she read trashy novels to him, for they both liked such reading when it was bad enough to be funny.
With the childlike Samoans she found sympathy to be as necessary as medical treatment for their ails. An interesting example of this was the case of Eliga, who was afflicted with an unsightly tumour on his back. This, in a land where any sort of deformity is looked upon with horror, caused the unfortunate man great unhappiness, besides depriving him of his titles and estates. His kind master and mistress had him examined by the surgeon of an English man-of-war that was in the harbour, and the opinion was given that an operation was quite feasible. Poor Eliga, however, was stricken with terror at the thought and carefully explained that there were strings in the wen that were tied about his heart, and if they were severed he would die. Besides, he said, as his skin was different from the white man's, his insides were probably different also. In the end, more to please them than through any faith in it, heconsented to the operation, although so certain was he of a fatal ending that he had his house swept and garnished, ready for the funeral. To comfort and cheer him through the ordeal, both Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson went to his house and remained with him until all was done. The result was most happy, and the grateful man, now proudly holding up his head among his fellows, composed in honour of the event "The Song of the Wen":
"O Tusitala, when you first came here I was ugly and poor and deformed. I was jeered at and scorned by the unthinking. I ate grass; a bunch of leaves was my sole garment, and I had nothing to hide my ugliness. But now, O Tusitala, now I am beautiful; my body is sound and handsome; I bear a great name; I am rich and powerful and unashamed, and I owe it all to you, Tusitala. I have come to tell your highness that I will not forget. Tusitala, I will work for you all my life, and my family shall work for your family, and there shall be no question of wage between us, only loving-kindness. My life is yours, and I will be your servant till I die."[46]
It was in Samoa that Mrs. Stevenson acquired the name of Tamaitai,[47]by which she was known thenceforth to her family and intimate friends until the day of her death. English words do not come easily from the tongues of the natives, and so they obviate the difficulty by bestowing names of their own upon strangers who come to dwell among them. It wasas Tusitala, the writer of tales, that Louis was best known, his wife was called Aolele,[48]flying cloud, and her daughter, because of her kindness in giving ribbons and other little trinkets to the girls, was named Teuila, the decorator. Tamaitai is a general title, meaning "Madam," and is used in reference to the lady of the house. Mr. Stevenson himself started the custom by calling his wife Tamaitai, and it was finally adopted by everybody and grew to be her name—the complete title being Tamaitai Aolele (Madam Aolele). These Samoan names were adopted partly as a convenience, to escape the embarrassment that sometimes arose from the habit among the natives of calling the different members of the family by their first names. It was felt to be rather undignified, for instance, that the mistress of the house should be called "Fanny" by her servants.
Mrs. Stevenson, as I have said before, was a famous cook, and had learned how to make at least some of the characteristic dishes of each of the many countries where she had sojourned awhile in her long wanderings. From her mother she had inherited many an old Dutch receipt—peppery pot, noodle soup, etc.; in France she acquired the secret of preparing abouillabaise,[49]soleà la marguery, and many others; from Abdul, an East Indian cook she brought from Fiji, she learned how to make a wonderful mutton curry which contained more ingredients than perhaps any other dish on earth; in the South Seasshe picked up the art of making raw-fish salad; and now at Vailima she lost no time in adding Samoan receipts to her list. She soon knew how to prepare to perfection a pig roasted underground and eaten with Miti sauce,[50]besides dozens of other dishes, includingavafor drinking.
It was not the least of her duties to play the hostess to a remarkable assortment of guests—the Chief Justice, officers from the men-of-war that frequently came into the harbour, Protestant, Catholic, and Mormon missionaries, all kinds of visitors to the islands, including an English duchess, and native kings and chiefs. Once a high chief, one of the highest, bearing the somewhat lengthy name of Tuimalealiifono, came on a visit to Vailima. He was quite unacquainted with white ways of living, and, when shown to his bedroom, looked askance at the neat, comfortable bed that had been prepared for him. In the morning it was found that he had scorned the bed, and, retiring to the piazza, had rolled himself up in his mat and lain down to pleasant dreams. At table, although he had never before seen knives and forks, he picked up their use instantly by quietly observing the manners of the others.
A curious episode, which might have turned out to be dangerous, happened during the war troubles, when King Malietoa went up to Vailima secretly to have a talk with Tusitala. After the talk Louis offered him a present, asking what he preferred. Malietoa said he would like a revolver, and Louistook one from the safe and handed it to his wife, who happened to be sitting next the king. She emptied the chambers, as she thought, and then, not noticing that the thing was pointing straight at the king's heart, she clicked it five times. By a lucky chance, before clicking it the sixth time she looked in, and behold, there was the last cartridge! If she had given the last click she certainly would have killed the king, and one can imagine the complications that would have resulted in those uneasy times. Of course the episode, with all the dramatic possibilities attached to it, appealed to the romantic imaginations of the two Stevensons, and, after the king's departure, they spent the evening in making up a harrowing tale about what would have happened if she had killed him.
Among the notable visitors to Vailima was the Italian artist Pieri Nerli, who came to paint Mr. Stevenson's portrait—the one that now hangs in Swanson Cottage in Scotland. This portrait pleased his wife as little as did the Sargent picture, and, in a letter to Lord Guthrie of Edinburgh, she makes what Lord Guthrie calls "an acute criticism of this overdramatized likeness." She says: "It would have been all right if Nerli had only been content to paint just Louis, and had not insisted on representing instead the author ofDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
It was not all work at Vailima by any means. "Socially," she writes, "Samoa was not dull. There were many entertainments given by diplomats and officials in Apia. Besides native feasts there were afternoon teas, evening receptions, dinner parties,private and public balls, paper chases on horseback, polo, tennis parties, and picnics. Sometimes a party of flower-wreathed natives might come dancing over the lawn at Vailima, or a band of sailors from a man-of-war would be seen gathered in an embarrassed knot at the front gate." She herself cared little for these entertainments, and usually busied herself in helping others with the preparations for them. Her mother-in-law writes: "A fancy dress ball has been held in honor of the birthday of the Prince of Wales. Fanny designed a costume for Mrs. Gurr (a pretty Samoan girl) as Zenobia, Empress of the East. She wore a Greek dress, made in part of cotton stuff with a gold pattern stamped on it; over this a crimson chuddah was correctly draped, with a gold belt, many beads, and an elaborate gold crown."
From the busy round of her many-sided activities she took time now and then to do a little writing, though in truth she had little liking for it nor any high regard for her own literary style, in which she complained of a certain "dry nippedness" that she detested but could not get rid of. It was only when she wanted some extra money for her water-works at Vailima that she "took her pen in hand" and wrote a story for Scribners.
All this sounds hurried and breathless, but in reality these activities were spread out over far more time than appears in the telling of them, and there were peaceful intervals of rest and happiness in seeing Louis well and able for the first time to bear his share in hospitality.
Always, high above every other purpose, was herunfailing devotion to her husband and his work, and no other task ever interfered with her careful watch over his health and her keen interest in his writing. He appreciated her aid from the bottom of his heart, and in the dedication to his last unfinished novel,Weir of Hermiston, he endeavours to express in some degree his profound sense of obligation:
"I saw the rain falling and the rainbow drawnOn Lammermuir. Hearkening, I heard againIn my precipitous city beaten bellsWinnow the keen sea wind. And here afar,Intent on my own race and place I wrote.Take thou the writing; thine it is. For whoBurnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal,Held still the target higher; chary of praiseAnd prodigal of counsel—who but thou?So now in the end; if this the least be good,If any deed be done, if any fireBurn in the imperfect page, the praise be thine."
This was to the critic; to the wife he wrote:
"Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,Steel true and blade straightThe great Artificer made my mate.Honor, anger, valor, fire,A love that life could never tire,Death quench, or evil stir,The mighty Master gave to her.Teacher, tender comrade, wife,A fellow-farer true through life,Heart whole and soul free,The August Father gave to me."
"Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,Steel true and blade straightThe great Artificer made my mate.
Honor, anger, valor, fire,A love that life could never tire,Death quench, or evil stir,The mighty Master gave to her.
Teacher, tender comrade, wife,A fellow-farer true through life,Heart whole and soul free,The August Father gave to me."
As the years passed, their comradeship grew closer, and, indeed, their relationship can perhaps be expressed in no better way than to call them "comrades," with all that the word implies. In writing to her he usually called her "My dear fellow," and in speaking often addressed her in the same way. His attachment and admiration for her steadily increased in proportion to his longer acquaintance with her. Once at Vailima they were all playing a game called "Truth," in which each person writes a list of the qualities—courage, humour, beauty, etc.—supposed to be possessed by the others, with the corresponding ratio in numbers, ten being the maximum. Louis put his wife down as ten for beauty. She argued with him that he must be perfectly honest and not complimentary; he looked at her in amazement and said: "I am honest; I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world."
Once when her birthday, the 10th of March, came around, she found on waking these verses pinned to the netting of her bed:
"To the Stormy Petrel"Ever perilousAnd precious, like an ember from the fireOr gem from a volcano, we to-dayWhen drums of war reverberate in the landAnd every face is for the battle blacked—No less the sky, that over sodden woodsMenaces now in the disconsolate calmThe hurly-burly of the hurricane—Do now most fitly celebrate your day.Yet amid turmoil, keep for me, my dear,The kind domestic fagot. Let the hearthShine ever as (I praise my honest gods)In peace and tempest it has ever shone."
"To the Stormy Petrel
"Ever perilousAnd precious, like an ember from the fireOr gem from a volcano, we to-dayWhen drums of war reverberate in the landAnd every face is for the battle blacked—No less the sky, that over sodden woodsMenaces now in the disconsolate calmThe hurly-burly of the hurricane—Do now most fitly celebrate your day.Yet amid turmoil, keep for me, my dear,The kind domestic fagot. Let the hearthShine ever as (I praise my honest gods)In peace and tempest it has ever shone."
She said these verses were the best of all her birthday presents. He called her the "stormy petrel" in reference to her birth in the wild month of March, and because she was such a fiery little person. When she took sides in an argument he would say, in mild irony: "The shouts of the women in the opposite camp were heard demanding the heads of the prisoners."
All through the daily entries in her diary, mingled with the incidents of the household, runs the talk of impending war:
"War news continues exciting, and there are threats of a massacre of all the whites. Although nothing of the kind is really anticipated, I think it would be better to look up our cartridges. Lafaele has blacked his face in the fashion of a warrior, saying he must be prepared to protect the place. He has a very sore toe, which he thinks is bewitched. He sent for the Samoan doctor, a grave middle-aged man, who announced that a devil, instigated by some enemy, has entered the toe and is now on the point of travelling up the leg, and unless it is checked in time will soon have possession of Lafaele's entire body.
"March 22.This entry is written in Suva, Fiji. For a long time I had not been well, and so I was sent off in the steamer to this place, though I went with a heavy heart, for I thought Louis did not look well. I have been to the botanical gardens, whichare in charge of a pleasant young man from Kew, and have secured four boxes of plants for Vailima. The young man told me, as a trade secret, that if cauliflowers get an occasional watering of sea water they will head up in any climate. I have also secured an East Indian cook named Abdul.
"September 23.At home again. I find that Lloyd and the Strongs have been teaching a native boy named Talolo to cook, with the best results, so my fine Indian cook is a fifth wheel. However, Mr. Haggard has agreed to take him—though he seems very reluctant to leave Vailima.
"October 28.Paul left us some time ago to be overseer on a German plantation. Before he left, in his blundering desire to do all he could for me, he transplanted a lot of my plants, all wrong, and in fact did all the damage he well could in so short a time. I felt sorry to see the last of him, for with all his mistakes his heart was in the right place. Much more distressing is it that our dear Simile is gone. He wept very much in leaving, saying that 'his poor old family' needed him. I was told afterwards that he had in reality eloped with a young lady, which may be the truth of the matter. Talolo, our new cook, amuses me very much. He was greatly shocked at hearing of the scalping of victims by American Indians, but thought the taking of heads in the Samoan fashion perfectly right, as the victim was then dead and felt nothing.
"November 2.Talolo's mother, a very respectable woman indeed, came to see us, bringing with her a relative who is almost blind from cataract. Theywere shown over the house and could be heard at every moment crying out in Samoan 'How extremely beautiful!' Even when shown into the cellar, where it was quite dark, they were heard to make the same remark.... Last Saturday Lloyd marshalled up all the men before they left for their Sunday at home and administered to each a blue pill. One fellow was caught hiding his in his cheek and was made to swallow it amid shouts of laughter. I feared they would never come back, but all returned on Monday morning declaring they were much improved in health.
"We are all blazing with cacao-planting zeal, and we already have over six hundred plants set out. The method of planting them is very laborious, for the seeds must first be set in baskets made of plaited cocoanut leaves, and when the sprouts come up they are put in the earth, basket and all; in this way the roots are not disturbed and in time the basket decays in the damp soil and drops off. The whole family has been infected with the planting fever, and even Mrs. Stevenson works away at it most gallantly. To-day is Sunday, but we must all, the family and the house boys, plant the seeds that are left.
"November 30.Simile has come back in a sad condition from a wound with a spear or club in the back of his head, and much distressed over the state of his 'poor old family'.... We have now set out 1,200 cacao plants. All yesterday Joe[51]and I were superintending the building of a bridge over the river. We had two trees cut down for the purpose; one of them was of the most lovely pinkish wood,with salmon pink bark, and emitted a perfume like a mixture of sassafras and wintergreen.... Last night we were somewhat alarmed by earthquake shocks and rifle shots. Yesterday three of the chairs made by the carpenter out of our own wood, mahogany, and designed from an antique model, came up. They are very satisfactory—a beautiful shape and comfortable to sit in."
So the weeks rolled swiftly by, filled with an infinitude of duties and much happiness, until the bright tropic sun broke on Christmas morning, 1893. The day was always celebrated at Vailima with much ceremony, and a gigantic tree, covered with carefully chosen presents for everybody, from the head of the family down to the humblest Samoan retainer, was set up in the large hall. Months before Mr. Stevenson had sent to the army and navy stores in London and had a large boxful of presents for the tree sent out. The diary gives us some account of this, the last Christmas spent on earth by Robert Louis Stevenson:
"Our washerwomen," so it runs, "came with presents—tapaand fans, and Simile brought baskets andtapa. Our people were wild with delight over their presents. Christmas we spent with friends in Apia, where we had a most delightful evening. Each gave some performance to add to the gaiety. Louis and Lloyd played, very badly indeed, on their pipes. Teuila recited one of Louis's poems, and Austin poured out with much dramatic fireLochinvar. There was some very pretty Samoan dancing by Mrs. Gurr and Mrs. Willis, who gave a sitting danceand one with clubs. The next day we rode home, dashing at full speed through mud and water, and reached there drenched to the skin by a sudden shower. I was alarmed about Louis, but it did him no harm whatever. We were happy to be at pleasant Vailima again.
"January 3.There has been a terrific storm, lasting three days, but the hurricane shutters were put up, and proved a great protection, though the house was dark and airless. Trees went crashing all around us. There was a curious exhilaration in the air, and the natives shouted with glee whenever anything came down. The road was filled with débris from the storm, which had to be cleared away before any one could pass. In the evening I was told that both the Fiji man and Simi had been spitting blood. The Fiji man seems to have a touch of pneumonia. Much to Simi's alarm we put the cupping glass on him, and the whole party of house servants escorted him to bed, shouting and laughing and dancing as they went.
"January 7.Lloyd sailed to-day for San Francisco, intending to make the round trip only, for a change of air. In the afternoon Joe and I jumped on one horse and galloped as fast as we could down to the landing, only to find that all the boats were out. Just then the American consul's boat returned to the landing. We sprang into it, and with the American flag flying over us, went speeding over the water, in spite of the fact that the German man-of-war was having target practice (a most dangerous proceeding) right across the harbor. As we drew near the shipwe suddenly realized that they were holding it in the supposition that we were bringing a consular message. We saw Lloyd running on deck to see us, but, alarmed at the situation, we took a hasty departure. In the evening we heard very sweet and mournful singing in the servants' quarters, and on asking what it was were told by Talolo that it was a farewell to Loia (Lloyd). It was explained that the song was told to go to France, to Tonga, and other places to look for Lloyd, and, in case of not finding him there, to search all over the world for him and carry pleasant dreams to him.
"January 11.To-day the Fiji man appeared in war paint—his nose blackened and black stripes under his eyes. Lafaele says the war is soon going to begin, adding 'Please, Tamaitai, you look out; when Samoa man fight he all same devil.' While we were talking low, dull thunder was rolling around the horizon, sounding, as we thought, very like the noise of battle. Strange to say there was not a cloud in the sky nor a flash of lightning to be seen.
"All the Samoan women married to white men wish to express their gratitude to me for making it possible for them to return to their native dress or, rather, the dress introduced among them by the missionaries. Before we came, all such women were expected to dress in European fashion, for otherwise they were not considered respectable, and they were delighted and surprised when I and all the other women at Vailima appeared in the missionary dress. This dress, called theholaku, is nothing more than the old-fashioned sacque (known in America as the'Mother Hubbard'), which fortunately happened to be the mode in England when the missionaries first came to the South Seas. It was loose, cool, modest, and graceful, and so well suited to the natives and the hot climate of the islands that it became the regulation garment of the South Pacific. The climax seemed to be my going to a party in a very handsome black silkholakuwith embroidered yoke and sleeves. The husbands have removed the taboo and several of the native ladies are to have fine silk gowns made in their own pretty, graceful fashion. Corsets must be agony to the poor creatures, and most of them are only the more clumsy and awkward for these European barbarities. I am very glad I have inadvertently done so much good."
The political pot was now boiling fiercely, but as the trouble in Samoa has been discussed in detail in other books, it is not my purpose to touch upon it here except in so far as any phase of it directly concerned Mrs. Stevenson herself. It is enough to say that the family espoused the cause of Mataafa, and in the diary Mrs. Stevenson describes a visit made by them to that monarch for the purpose of attempting to reconcile the two parties.
"On the second of May," she writes, "Louis, Teuila[52]and I, taking Talolo with us, went in a boat to Malie to visit King Mataafa. I took a dark red silkholaku, trimmed with Persian embroidery, and Teuila took a green silk one, in which to appear before royalty. Long before we got to the villagewe could see the middle part of an immense native house rising up like a church spire. Mataafa's own house was the largest and finest I had ever seen, and there were others as large. Louis tried in vain to get an interpreter, but was fain to put up with Talolo, who nearly expired with fright and misery, for he could not speak the high chief language and felt that every word he uttered was an insult to Mataafa. We have been in the habit of referring to the king as 'Charley over the water,' and toasting him by waving our glasses over the water bottle. Talolo had some vague notion of what this meant and now thought it a good time to do the same. To our great amusement, he took his glass, waved it in the air, and cried 'Charley in the water!' which we felt to be a rather ominous toast. His translations of 'Charley's' words came to little more than 'Mataafa very much surprised (pleased),' but Louis knew enough Samoan to make a little guess at what was going on. Thekavabowl was in the centre of the group, with the king's talking men beside it.Kavawas first given to the king and Louis simultaneously—a great honor for Louis—then to Teuila and me. The king evidently supposed us both to be wives of Louis, and was much puzzled as to which was the superior in station, a dilemma which was finally neatly solved by serving us both at the same moment. I had seen that it was chewedkava,[53]but in my weariness after the long journey I forgot that fact before it came my turn todrink. Before the bowl was offered to the king a libation was poured out and fresh water from a cocoanut shell was sprinkled first to the right and then to the left. The talking man and the others made polite orations, one of them likening Louis to Jesus Christ, at which Talolo manifested sighs of acute embarrassment. We were then offered a little refreshment before dinner. The king, who was a Catholic, crossed himself and said grace. A folded leaf containing a quantity of arrowroot cooked in cocoanut milk by dropping in hot stones was placed before each of us, and each had the milk of a fresh young nut to drink. The arrowroot was grateful but difficult to manage, on account of the stickiness, and a little gritty with sand from the stones. We were then invited to take a siesta behind an immense curtain oftapathat had been hung across one end of the room. There mats and pillows were laid for Teuila and me, and in a few seconds we were fast asleep. In an hour and a half we waked simultaneously and found dinner waiting for us. Louis then offered his present—a hundred-pound keg of beef—and the talking man went outside and informed the populace, in stentorian tones, of the nature and amount of the present received. We ate of pig, fowl, andtaro, in civilized fashion, sitting on chairs and using plates, tumblers, spoons, knives, and forks. After a walk about the village we all sat on mats under the eaves and conversed. A distant sound of singing was heard, and soon a procession of young men in wreaths, walking two by two, came up to us and each deposited a root oftaro, to which the king added a couple ofyoung fowls, and an immense root of freshkava. Speeches were made, after which mats were spread out for the dancers, who had been called by the sound of a bugle. There were two long rows of them, with two comic men and a hunchback, apparently the king's jester. They first sang a song of welcome to us, and then sang, danced, and acted several pieces—all well done and some very droll indeed. The hunchback excelled particularly in an imitation of a circus that was here not long since. Louis could not speak successfully through Talolo, as he had more to say than 'much surprised,' so we then took our departure. We returned by moonlight, all ardent admirers of Mataafa. About a week later Louis went again, this time with an interpreter named Charley Taylor, and had a more satisfactory interview. In the early morning, at about four, he was awakened by the sound of some sort of pipe playing a curious air. When he inquired about this Mataafa told him that he always had this performance at the time of the singing of the early birds, as it conduced to pleasant dreams. His father, he added, would never allow a bird or animal to be injured, and, in consequence, was called the 'king of the birds.'"
As the war-cloud grew blacker, the superstitious fears of Lafaele increased, and every day some new portent was reported. "On May 16," says the diary, "Lafaele and Araki reported that while walking on the road they met Louis riding on my horse Musu. What was their surprise and terror when they reached home to find that he had not left the house all day. Great anxiety and alarm are felt all over the place,for it is supposed that Louis sent his other self to see what Lafaele and Araki were about." Araki was a runaway "black boy," or Solomon Islander, from the German plantations, who became a member of the Vailima household in a rather dramatic way. One day a strange figure was seen flitting about the lawn behind the trees. The servants ran out and dragged in a thin, terrified black boy, who fell on his face before the master and begged for protection. Such a plea could not be refused, and Mr. Stevenson went down to the German firm and made arrangements to keep him. He soon began to fill out, and grew to be a saucy, lively fellow. Although the natives of Samoa look upon the Solomon Islanders as cannibals and savages, at Vailima they made a pet of Araki and dyed his bushy hair red and hung wreaths round his neck.
"May 19.This is the twelfth anniversary of our marriage. It seems impossible. Also impossible that two years ago (or a little more) we came up to live in the bush. Everything looks settled and as though we had lived here for many years.
"May 22.Saturday the captain of theUpolucame up and had luncheon with us. We had nothing but vegetables, curried and cooked in various ways, but no meat. Sunday there came a German vegetarian when there were no vegetables and nothing but meat.... We are having a great deal of trouble with the servants, as Tomasi, the Fiji man, says his wife, Elena, is too good to associate with the other women, and Lafaele's little girl is terribly afraid of Araki, the black boy, although he speaks ofher most tenderly as 'that little girlie.' When the last litter of pigs was born, each family on the place was given a pig. Elena chose a spotted boar, which she named Salé Taylor, and Lafaele took what he calls a 'mare pig,' that is, a little sow. Both pigs have been tamed and trot around after Elena and Fanua like pug dogs. They go to bed with their mistresses every night like babies, and must also be fed once in the night with milk like babies. Both pigs came to prayers this morning.... Talolo's brother, a beautiful young boy, has elephantiasis.[54]He has had it for a long time—about a year—but was afraid to tell. Worse than that has happened; one of our boys had a fit of insanity, during which it required the exertions of the entire household to restrain him from running off into the bush and losing himself. It became necessary to tie him down to the bed with strips of sheeting and ropes. The strangest thing about this occurrence is that Lafaele restored him to his senses in a short time by chewing up certain leaves that he brought from the bush and then putting them into the sick boy's ears and nostrils. I had a talk with Lafaele about his remedy. He told me that in case of lockjaw, if these chewed leaves are forced up the nostrils, first the jaw, then the muscles, will soon relax and the cure is accomplished. For some reason he seems unwilling to point out the tree to me.... Talolo affords us muchamusement with his naïve ideas. I said to him, 'It seems to me that you Samoans do not feel badly about anything very long.' 'Yes, we do,' said Talolo, seeming much hurt by the accusation. 'When a man's wife runs away he feels badly for two or three days.'
"July 3, 1893.Nothing is talked of or thought of but the impending war. One of our former men came up yesterday to draw out his wages. I asked him if he meant to act like a coward and take heads of wounded men. He said he meant to take all the heads he could get. I reasoned with him, as did Lloyd, but he stood respectfully firm, saying that each people had its own customs. I am afraid the government has not thought to forbid this abomination, or has not dared.
"July 8.News comes that the fighting has begun, and that eleven heads have been taken to Mulinuu,[55]and, worst of all, that one of the heads is that of a village maid, a thing before unheard-of among Samoans.
"July 10.Mataafa is routed, and, after burning Malie, has fled to Manono. His son was killed with a hatchet and his head taken. In all we hear of three heads of women being brought in to Mulinuu. When Mataafa was the man before whom all trembled we offered him our friendship and broke bread with him. If I gave him loyalty then, fifty thousand times more do I give it now."
At last the smoke and thunder of war rolled away, and peace and security came once more to dwell atVailima. Entertainments and gaieties again made the place lively. Mrs. Strong[56]describes one of these affairs in a letter to Mr. Stevenson's mother:
"I suppose Louis will write and tell you of the grand day we had here when the sailors of theKatoombawere invited up here to play. We had twenty-four people on the place—natives, house boys, outside boys, and contractors—and the house was gorgeously decorated with ferns and moso'oi flowers. One large table was piled high with cocoanuts, oranges, lemons, passion fruit, pineapples, mangoes, and even a large pumpkin and some ripe tomatoes, besides three huge bowls of lemonade. The other table had seven baked chickens, ham sandwiches, cakes and coffee—lots of all. At half-past twelve we saw the white caps bobbing at the gate, and sent Simile down to meet them. He was dressed in a dark coat andlavalavaand white shirt, and looked very swagger indeed. The sailors all saluted Simile as he appeared, and in another moment—boom, bang, and the band burst out with the big drum in full swing, with the men, fourteen of them, all marching in time. The faces of our Samoans were stricken with amazement as the jackies marched up to the lawn in the blazing sun and finished the piece. The veranda was crowded with our people, all in wreaths of flowers, and a number of guests were there to witness the festivities. Well, we fed our sailors, who were all very red and hot and smiling, and the way they dipped into the lemonade was a caution. Then, to a guitar accompaniment, one of them sang a song with a melodramaticstory running through it about a poor fellow going to a house and sitting on the door-step wan and weary, and seeing on the doorplate the name of Jasper. Soon Jasper comes out, and though the poverty-stricken one pleads for a bit of bread he's told to go to the workhouse. 'I pays my taxes,' says the heartless Jasper, 'and to the workhouse you must go.' 'And who would have thought it,' goes the chorus, 'for we were schoolmytes, schoolmytes!'"
A devastating epidemic of measles, much aggravated by the improper treatment given to patients by the natives, now broke out. Even Vailima did not escape its ravages, and Mrs. Strong writes of it on October 8:
"Everybody is well of the measles by now and all are crawling out into the sunshine. There have been a hundred and fifty deaths on this island alone. Our Sosimo was taken ill down in the town. Tamaitai and I went down to see him, and, finding him in a wretched state, had him brought home in a native sling on a pole, the way they carry wounded soldiers. None of our people died, for they willingly accepted our rules for their care."
After the war was over, it was found that the stress and excitement of it all had told on Mr. Stevenson's health, and in the early part of September he went to Honolulu for a change. The trip was a disappointment, for he was taken quite seriously ill there, and his wife had to take steamer and go after him, arriving in a state of great anxiety. Under her tender care he soon recovered and they returned to Vailima.
In Samoa, Tusitala was not the only "teller of tales," for all sorts of strange stories—some amusing,some scurrilous and malicious—were invented about the family at Vailima and ran current in the gossip "on the beach." One of the most fantastic of these inventions was that Mr. Stevenson had been married before to a native woman, and that Mrs. Strong[57]was his half-caste daughter by this marriage. The one advantage about this peculiar story was the hilarious fun he was able to get out of it. He made up all kinds of wonderful romances about the supposititious first wife, who he said was a native of Morocco, "black, but a damned fine woman." When Mrs. Stevenson scolded him for not wearing his cloak in the rain he pretended to weep and said: "Moroccy never spoke to me like that!" One evening Mrs. Strong heard gay laughter in her mother's room, and, going in to see what it was about, found her mother sitting up in bed laughing, while Louis walked up and down the room gesticulating and telling her the "true story" of his affair with Moroccy.
So passed all too swiftly three full years—years crowded with work and play and many rare experiences—and less darkly shadowed by the spectre that had stalked beside them ever since their marriage. For this short space he knew what it was to live like a man, not like a "pallid weevil in a biscuit," and she, though her vigilance was never relaxed for a moment, breathed somewhat more freely. The days sped happily by, until Thanksgiving, November 29, 1894, which was celebrated with an elaborate dinner at Vailima. Mrs. Stevenson was anxious to have thisa truly American feast, from the turkey to the last detail, but cranberries were not to be had, so she produced a satisfactory substitute from a native berry, and under her careful supervision her native servants succeeded in setting out a dinner that would have satisfied even an old Plymouth Rock Puritan. At the dinner, the last entertainment taken part in by Mr. Stevenson, in enumerating his reasons for thankfulness, he spoke of his wife, who had been all in all to him when the days were very dark, and rejoiced in their undiminished affection.
A day or two afterwards she was seized with a presentiment of impending evil—a formless shadow that seemed to settle down upon her spirit, and that no argument could relieve. Her mother-in-law writes: "I must tell you a very strange thing that happened just before his death. For a day or two Fanny had been telling us that she knew—that she felt—something dreadful was going to happen to some one we cared for; as she put it, to one of our friends. On Monday she was very low and upset about it and dear Lou tried to cheer her. Strangely enough, both of them had agreed that it could not be to either ofthemthat the dreadful thing was to happen."
On the afternoon of December 3, 1894, according to their custom he took his morning's work for her criticism. She quickly perceived that in this, which neither dreamed was to be the last work of his pen, his genius had risen to its highest level, and she poured out her praise in a way that was unusual with her. It was almost with her words of commendation still ringing in his ears that he passed to the greatbeyond. In a letter addressed to his friends shortly afterwards, Lloyd Osbourne gives us the details of these last moments:
"At sunset he came downstairs, rallied his wife about the forebodings she could not shake off; talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager to make, 'as he was now so well,' and played a game of cards with her to drive away her melancholy. He said he was hungry; begged her assistance to help him make a salad for the evening meal; and to enhance the little feast he brought up a bottle of old Burgundy from the cellar. He was helping his wife on the veranda, and gaily talking, when suddenly he put both hands to his head and cried out: 'What's that?' Then he asked quickly: 'Do I look strange?' Even as he did so, he fell on his knees beside her." Just as he had leaned upon her for help, comfort, and advice for so many years of his life, so it was at her feet that he sank in death when the last swift summons came. He was helped into the great hall between his wife and his body servant, Sosimo, and at ten minutes past eight the same evening, Monday, December 3, 1894, he passed away.
Her great task was finished, and she sat with folded hands in the quiet house from which the soul had fled; but, although the lightning suddenness of the blow made it almost a crushing one, the bitterness of her grief was greatly softened by her firm belief in a life beyond the grave and the certainty of a reunion with him there.
She bore this supreme sorrow with the same silent fortitude with which she had always met trouble, buta subtle change came over her. While it could not be said that she looked exactly old, yet the youthfulness for which she had been so remarkable seemed suddenly to vanish, and her hair grew rapidly grey. A little child—Frank Norris's daughter—said, with an acuteness beyond her years: "Tamaitai smiles with her lips, but not with her eyes."
Among the hundreds of letters of condolence which she received from all over the world, none, perhaps, came more directly from the heart than that written by her old friend, Henry James from which I have taken the following extracts:
"My dear Fanny Stevenson:
"What can I say to you that will not seem cruelly irrelevant or vain? We have been sitting in darkness for nearly a fortnight, but what isourdarkness to the extinction of your magnificent light? You will probably know in some degree what has happened to us—how the hideous news first came to us via Auckland, etc., and then how, in the newspapers, a doubt was raised about its authenticity—just enough to give one a flicker of hope; until your telegram to me via San Francisco—repeated also from other sources—converted my pessimistic convictions into the wretched knowledge. All this time my thoughts have hovered round you all, aroundyouin particular, with a tenderness of which I could have wished you might have, afar-off, the divination. You are such a visible picture of desolation that I need to remind myself that courage, and patience, and fortitude are also abundantly with you. The devotion that Louis inspired—andof which all the air about you must be full—must also be much to you. Yet as I write the word, indeed, I am almost ashamed of it—as if anything could be 'much' in the presence of such an abysmal void. To have lived in the light of that splendid life, that beautiful, bountiful being—only to see it, from one moment to the other, converted into a fable as strange and romantic as one of his own, a thing that has been and has ended, is an anguish into which no one can enter with you fully and of which no one can drain the cup for you. You are nearest to the pain, because you were nearest the joy and the pride. But if it is anything to you to know that no woman was ever more feltwithand that your personal grief is the intensely personal grief of innumerable hearts—know it well, my dear Fanny Stevenson, for during all these days there has been friendship for you in the very air. For myself, how shall I tell you how much poorer and shabbier the whole world seems, and how one of the closest and strongest reasons for going on, for trying and doing, for planning and dreaming of the future, has dropped in an instant out of life. I was haunted indeed with a sense that I should never again see him—but it was one of the best things in life that he wasthere, or that one had him—at any rate one heard him, and felt him and awaited him and counted him into everything one most loved and lived for. He lighted up one whole side of the globe, and was in himself a whole province of one's imagination. We are smaller fry and meaner people without him. I feel as if there were a certain indelicacy in saying it to you, save that I know that there is nothingnarrow or selfish in your sense of loss—for himself, however, for his happy name and his great visible good fortune, it strikes one as another matter. I mean that I feel him to have been as happy in his death (struck down that way, as by the gods, in a clear, glorious hour) as he had been in his fame. And, with all the sad allowances in his rich full life, he had the best of it—the thick of the fray, the loudest of the music, the freshest and finest of himself. It isn't as if there had been no full achievement and no supreme thing. It was all intense, all gallant, all exquisite from the first, and the experience, the fruition, had something dramatically complete in them. He has gone in time not to be old, early enough to be so generously young and late enough to have drunk deep of the cup. There have been—I think—for men of letters few deaths more romantically right. Forgive me, I beg you, what may sound cold-blooded in such words—or as if I imagined there could be anything for you 'right' in the rupture of such an affection and the loss of such a presence. I have in my mind in that view only the rounded career and the consecrated work. When I think of your own situation I fall into a mere confusion of pity and wonder, with the sole sense of your being as brave a spirit as he was (all of whose bravery you shared) to hold on by. Of what solutions or decisions you see before you we shall hear in time; meanwhile please believe that I am most affectionately with you.... More than I can say, I hope your first prostration and bewilderment are over, and that you are feeling your way in feeling all sorts of encompassing arms—allsorts of outstretched hands of friendship. Don't, my dear Fanny Stevenson, be unconscious ofmine, and believe me more than ever faithfully yours,
"Henry James."[58]
With this and the many other letters came one written in pencil on a scrap of paper, unsigned:
"Mrs. Stevenson.
"Dear Madam:—All over the world people will be sorry for the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, but none will mourn him more than the blind white leper at Molokai."[Back to Contents]
As the slow, empty days passed, the weight of her sorrow bore more and more heavily upon her and she grew steadily weaker. Finally, the doctors said the only thing was change, so, in April, 1895, she set sail with her family for San Francisco.
On the way a stop was made in Honolulu, where Mrs. Stevenson was deeply distressed to find the provisional government in control and her old friend, Queen Liliuokalani, imprisoned. The deposed queen was kept in Iolani Palace under close guard, and ostensibly debarred from all visitors, but one must presume the guard not to have been so strict as it seemed, for Mrs. Stevenson was able to gain entrance and secure an audience with the royal prisoner through the not very dignified avenue of the kitchen-door of the palace. When she gave expression to her profound sympathy and indignation at the turn affairs had taken, Liliuokalani replied that she wished she had had Louis to advise her in her dark hours.
A summer without special incident was spent in California—a grey summer for her, for her son and daughter tried in vain to interest her in things there. Her health improved, but she cared for nothing outside of Samoa and only yearned to go back and be near the grave on Mount Vaea, so in the autumn they again turned their faces toward the Pacific Isles.
When they left San Francisco they had added another member to their party—a small donkey named Dicky, given to Mrs. Stevenson by one of the Golden Gate Park commissioners, which she intended to use in driving about the plantation to a little Studebaker cart she had had made especially for the purpose. A little stable was put up on deck for Dicky and a bale of hay provided for him, but it was not long before the little fellow had become such a pet with the carpenter and his mates that he was taken into the forecastle to live with them and share their mess, eating his meals out of a tin plate. The men taught him many amusing tricks, and it got to be quite the thing for the cabin passengers to make trips down to the forecastle to see him do them and to feed him chocolate creams. At Waikiki Beach, where they lived in a cottage attached to theSans SouciHotel during their stay of several months in Hawaii, Mrs. Stevenson often drove about the park in the little cart which was just fitted to Dicky. She was surprised at first to find that he would only make short trips and then come to a dead stop, from which it was impossible to budge him. Nothing would make him go on until his mistress got out and in again, and then he would pick up his little feet and trot on for another five minutes, when the same performance would have to be repeated. At last they realized that he had been trained to make five-cent trips at Golden Gate Park, and that nothing would ever break him of it. When they left Honolulu for Samoa they had difficulty in getting him on board the steamer, for although there was a belt and tackle tohoist him up, they could not drag him to it. One man—then two—then finally six men were hauling at him, while the ship waited, with all passengers on board and surveying the scene with intense amusement. The captain suddenly shouted through a megaphone: "Pull him the other way!" They did so and he immediately backed right up to the tackle and was hauled on deck amid the plaudits of the multitude. At Samoa he was a great pet; the native girls loved him and took him with them when they went to cut alfalfa for the cows. They made a pretty picture coming through the forest—the girls in leaves and flowers and Dicky a walking mountain of green, with only his long ears sticking out and his bright eyes gleaming through the foliage.
Honolulu brought back to Mrs. Stevenson many poignant memories of other days, of which she wrote to her mother-in-law in these words:
"As you suppose, this has been a sad season with me. People say that one gets used to things with time, but I do not believe it. Every day seems harder for me to bear. I say to myself many comforting things, but even though I believe them they do not comfort me. Everything here reminds me of Louis, and I do not think there is one moment that I am not thinking of him. People say: 'What a comfort his great name must be to you!' It is a pride to me, but not a comfort; I would rather have my Louis here with me, poor and unknown. And I do not like to have my friends offer me their sympathy—only you and one or two who loved him for what he was and not for what he did.... As to his Christianityhis life and work show what he was. Iknowthat whether or not he always succeeded in living up to his intentions, he was a true follower of Christ, a real Christian, and not many have come as close as he; and I believe that not many have tried as honestly and earnestly. In this place everything reminds me of him, and I feel that I must see him. I cannot believe that all these months have passed since he left us. Perhaps the whole time will not seem so long until we meet again. It gives me a sharp shock when I hear him spoken of as dead. He is not dead to me—I cannot think it nor feel it. He is only waiting, I seem to feel, somewhere near at hand."
After a winter spent in Hawaii, during which the marriage of her son took place, Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter sailed, in May, 1896, for Samoa. In these various trips between San Francisco and the islands she usually sailed on theMariposa, and because she had so much baggage Captain Morse and the other officers took to calling the ship "Mrs. Stevenson's lighter."
Their home-coming, being unexpected, was rather forlorn. They reached Vailima in the evening and went to bed rather drearily in the empty house, Mrs. Strong having determined to get breakfast as best she could the next morning and then send out word to their former Samoan helpers. After their long journey she slept late, and, springing from her bed somewhat guiltily, ran to the window. What was her astonishment to see smoke coming out of the cookhouse chimney, Talolo at the door, and Iopu, the yard man, coming up with a pail of water—all thebusiness of the place, in fact, going on like clockwork, just as though they had never been absent for a day! Running into her mother's room, she found her sitting up in bed just finishing her breakfast, which had been brought up on a tray by Sosimo. The news had gone forth the night before that they had returned, and every man of the Vailima force was at his post at break of day.
Once more the lonely widow took up the routine of her life, and, though its main incentive had gone, in time there came to her a sort of melancholy satisfaction in living among the scenes made dear by memories of the loved one. The scale on which the household had been conducted was now cut down very much, and she and her daughter, retaining but a few of the former great retinue of servants, led a calm and peaceful life among their tropic flowers. "Vailima is so lovely now," writes Mrs. Strong to the elder Mrs. Stevenson. "The trees are all so big, and the hibiscus hedge is over ten feet high and blazing with flowers. The lawn is like velvet and everywhere the grass is knee-high. If it is true that Louis can see us from another world he would be pleased with this day. This is the day when we decorate the grave, and all the afternoon people kept coming with flowers and strange Samoan ornaments. You should have seen Leuelu's sisters in silk bodices trimmed with gold braid, and green velvetlavalavasbordered with plush furniture fringe! And they looked very fine, too. Once arrived on the mountain top we stood looking at the magnificent view of the sea, and the coral reef, and the distant mountains. We banked the grave with flowers and the wreath of heatherthat you sent. Chief Justice Ide and his two beautiful daughters were there."
Mother and daughter spent pleasant days in the garden—digging up kava roots, stringing them on twine and hanging them up in the hall to dry, and in many another homely task. In the evening they played chess, and, as neither knew the game, they were well matched, and spent engrossing evenings over it. Sometimes they would light a lantern and walk over to see Mr. Caruthers, the lawyer, who lived more than a mile away. When he saw the flicker of their lantern through the palm-trees he would wind up his little musical box and they could hear its tinkle of welcome. "We walked barefoot,"[59]says Mrs. Strong, "and I shall never forget those lovely walks at night and the feel of the soft, mossy grass under our feet. Mr. Caruthers was a clever, interesting man. His Samoan wife would sit by sewing, and his children would study their lessons in the other room while we sat on his veranda and had long talks. On the night of his farewell visit to us we stood on the veranda at Vailima and looked out on a glittering moonlight night, the lawn sloping before us, the great shadowy trees beyond, and in the distance the blue line of the sea—'nothing between us and the North Pole,' we used to say. Mr. Caruthers said, 'How can you leave this for any other country? This is the "cleaner, greener land,"' and he quoted Kipling's verses."
The two women lived in perfect security in their lonely forest home, never having the slightest fear of the natives who passed that way in their comings andgoings. Once in the middle of the night Mrs. Strong was waked up by the sound of voices on the veranda, and, running down, found her mother surrounded by twenty Samoans, all with baskets. Mrs. Stevenson, hearing the sound of talking, had come down, to find these men coming heavily laden from the direction of the Vailima taro, yam, cocoanut, and banana plantation. "I politely asked them," says Mrs. Strong, "to show my mother the contents of their baskets. They agreed readily enough, and one after another they opened their baskets at her feet, disclosing nothing but edible wild roots, until we began to feel abashed and asked them to desist. Nothing would do, however, but that each of the twenty should empty out his basket, with much laughing and joking, and thereby prove his innocence of having plundered the plantation. As a peace offering, my mother directed me to give them some twists of tobacco and tins of salmon and biscuit. Then they explained that, owing to the breadfruit having been blown off the trees while still green, by a hurricane, there had been a famine in their village. Their Samoan pride made them ashamed for the other villages to know that they were reduced to eating wild roots, and so they had sneaked up in the night to the bush back of our plantation and filled their baskets with the roots. We apologized again and went back to bed. The twenty Samoans sat on our veranda for hours singing, but, although our servants were gone for the night and we two white women were entirely alone in the house, we felt no fear. Where else in the world could this have happened?"
Secluded as Vailima was, the family could not even here escape the curiosity of tourists, for on "steamer days" there was always a procession of them going up the hill from Apia to see the home of Stevenson. One day its mistress was directing some workmen on the roof of the carriage house when a party of tourists came up and asked if that was Vailima and where was Mrs. Stevenson. She replied, "No spik English," and they went on to the house, sat on the veranda and had tea, never dreaming that the odd little person in the blue gown, directing the roofing of the carriage house, was Mrs. Stevenson herself.
The variety of her experiences and the wide scope of her abilities may be shown better than in any other way, perhaps, by quotations from a small notebook which she had carried with her from one end of the world to the other. These entries show that she did not simply "do the best she could," but that she made a conscientious study of how to take care of her invalid husband, what to do in emergencies, how to feed him when they were on ships or desert islands, etc. In every place that they went to she kept her eyes open and learned new receipts for cooking, sickness, and all the other requirements of life. The entries were jotted down so hastily and often under such peculiar circumstances that in many cases they are written upside down, so that you have to keep turning the book about to follow it. I quote here a few of the most characteristic entries:
The telephone number of a chronometer maker (Butler, Clay 416).
Mr. Antone knows all about Samoan vegetation.
Our marriage day was the 19th of May. [Neither she nor Mr. Stevenson could ever remember the date of any event, not even that of their marriage, so she evidently made sure of it by putting it in the notebook.]
Name of my adopted father [in the South Seas] is Paaena. Name of Pa's village is Atuona.
Addresses of friends in San Francisco, London, Scotland, Nebraska, Philadelphia, France, Italy, New York, Hawaii.
Receipt for Spanish fish.
Lotion for the hands.
Then follow a number of prescriptions stamped and evidently written out by the chemist. They are for a "tickling cough," "night sweats," "for light blood spitting," "for violent hemorrhages," "how to inject ergotine tonic for weakness after spitting blood," and "hypodermic injections for violent hemorrhages." Among other doctors' prescriptions pasted in the book there is one for cankered ear in dogs. It was this prescription that she used on a young English officer of theCuraçoawho was visiting Vailima, and who was suffering terribly from some ear trouble. Mrs. Stevenson said to him, "I can cure you if you will let me treat you with my dog medicine." He agreed, and, as a result, was well enough to attend a theatre that night, and before long was entirely recovered.
One interesting prescription, written and signed in a hand that looks very French, has the heading in Mrs. Stevenson's hand, "Elixir of Life."
How to make roof paint.
How to make house paint.
Dr. Funk's cure for elephantiasis. [She cured several of her Samoan servants of this dread disease with this simple remedy.]
Dr. Russel's cure for anemia.
Receipts for ginger beer, lemon pudding, icing, and candy, oranges in syrup, macaroni and corn, savory, pineapple cake, taro and fish rolled into balls and fried, Abdul Rassak's mutton curry, home mincemeat, rice yeast and bannocks for cooking aboard ship, Butaritari potato cake and pudding, Ah Fu's pig's head, Ah Fu's yeast, pork cake, fritters, mulled wine, and green corn cakes.
A memorandum of a lock to be turned by figures.
Medicine fortona—boils with which Samoan children are often afflicted.
More cooking receipts—Magzar fowl, Tautira duff, raw-fish salad from a Tahiti receipt, strawberry shortcake, spontaneous yeast, bananapopoi, Pennsylvania scrapple, miti sauce to eat with pig roasted underground, baked breadfruit, breadfruit pudding, onion soup, bisque of lobster, bouillabaise, banana beer, Russianrisotto, Scotch woodcock, Russian pancake, Spanish tortillas, and blackberry cordial.
Bamboo fence.
To graft mangoes.
Fill wet boots with oats.
How to mend a hole in a boat (Captain Otis).
Abdul Rassak's receipt for taking the poison out of cucumbers.
Creosote in a cupboard to keep out flies and preserve meat.
Furniture polish.
To make a Hawaiian oven.
To make Tahitian flowers and ornaments.
To clean Benares ware.
To destroy red ants.
To preserve meats.
How to keep butter cool in hot weather.
To knit a baby's hood.
Crochet cover for a pincushion [with a little picture showing it when finished].
Surely, it would not be easy to duplicate this cosmopolitan list in any other woman's notebook.
Among the villages of the island there was one, Vaiee, with which the Stevensons had a special friendship, dating back to the first year of their arrival in Samoa. At that time the villagers were building a church and had saved up sixty dollars with which to buy corrugated iron for the roof. One day a deputation of elders, headed by the chief, called on Mr. Stevenson to ask if he would act as their agent in buying the iron. Of course, he was interested at once and laid out the money to such good advantage that they got more corrugated iron than sixty dollars had ever bought before. After that they came again with small sums, which were kept for them in the Vailima safe, and whenever they wanted to buy anything for the village he helped them to get good value for their money. Their gratitude sometimes took embarrassing forms, as on one occasion when they brought a present of a large white bull with a wreath around its neck. At other times, they brought offerings of turtles, rolls of tapa, fish, and pigs; and on the night of Mr. Stevenson's death several of the chiefs crossedthe island on foot and were in time to help the men who were cutting the road to Mount Vaea.
Remembering all this, when the village of Vaiee invited Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter to make them a visit they naturally wanted to go. This sort of visiting trip—usually lasting three days, one to arrive, one to visit, and one to go—is called amalaga(accented on second syllable—malan'ga), and is a very popular institution among the natives. The visiting party generally travels in state, taking with it a boat, food, and servants. The story of themalagato the village of Vaiee follows in Mrs. Strong's own words:
"There was only a footpath over the mountain, and as we had to cross many torrents on no better bridge than a felled cocoanut tree, we could not even go on horseback. My mother was not able to make the trip on foot, and I conceived the brilliant idea of slinging a chair with ropes to two poles and having our Samoan men carry her in it. So all was arranged, and we made an early morning start. I walked barefoot and my mother sat in her 'sedan chair' like an island princess, with her little bare feet swinging with the swaying of the chair. We had four men for relays in carrying the chair, while others carried our presents—tins of biscuits, barrels of salt beef, rolls of calico, and numerous trinkets—besides our wardrobe, which contained a 'silika' (silk) dress for each of us in which to do honor to our hosts.
"As we swung into the Ala Loto Alofa[60]—an odd procession, for our boys had decorated us with wreaths and garlands—we passed a carriage-load of surprised'steamer-day' tourists who had come up the mountainside to look at Vailima. As our little party wound into the forest the road grew gradually steeper, and we walked under the dense shade of huge trees, hung with lianas, orchids, and other parasitic plants. The jungle was so thick that now and then the men had to cut away branches with their cane knives to make a passage for us. This sounds like hard work, but the wild banana plants, giant ferns, lush grass, and fat leaves fell before one slash of the knife. It was damp and a little breathless in the depths of the forest, but we rested often on the way. The worst place was about a mile of swamp land that was full of leeches. They fell on us from the overhanging branches of the trees, and as our feet sank into the mud they stuck to our ankles. However, the men were constantly on the lookout for them, and when they saw one would sprinkle salt on it and it would immediately fall off. We had invited an English couple, a Captain F. and his wife, who were staying at the hotel, to go with us. The lady wore shoes, and as her feet grew more and more soppy from walking in the damp grass and through the swamps she suffered a good deal. I was much better off walking barefoot.
"By nightfall we reached the summit of the mountain, where there was a house, and there we had an example of Samoan hospitality. The house was not large enough to hold us and its occupants, too, so they had built a big oven,[61]stuffed it with food, laidout fine mats for our beds, and then quietly decamped. We never even saw our hosts to thank them. It was a glorious night on the summit, for the full moon made the scene as bright as daylight, and in the distance we could see the ocean all around us. It made us feel very small and a little frightened to see what a tiny island it was we had been living on with such a feeling of security. Before us a beautiful waterfall fell away into the thickets of greenery.