It was at this time that Stevenson began work on the scheme of his book on the South Seas. This was one of the rare occasions when he and his wife reached a deadlock in their opinions, and, unfortunately for the success of the book, he refused to accept her advice. Writing to Sir Sidney Colvin, she says:
"I am very much exercised by one thing. Louis has the most enchanting material that any one ever had in the whole world for his book, and I am afraid he is going to spoil it all. He has taken into his Scotch-Stevenson head that a stern duty lies before him, and that his book must be a sort of scientific and historical, impersonal thing, comparing the different languages (of which he knows nothing really) and the different peoples, the object being to settle the question as to whether they are of common Malay origin or not.... Think of a small treatise on the Polynesian races being offered to people who are dying to hear about Ori a Ori, the 'making of brothers' with cannibals, the strange stories they told, and the extraordinary adventures that befell us! Louis says it is a stern sense of duty that is atthe bottom of it, which is more alarming than anything else ... What a thing it is to have a man of genius to deal with! It is like managing an over-bred horse!"
"This letter," justly comments Sir Sidney, "shows the writer in her character of wise and anxious critic of her husband's work. The result, in the judgment of most of his friends, went far to justify her misgivings."
It had been their intention to return to England by way of America in the following summer, but the state of Mr. Stevenson's health was still not good enough to warrant this venture, and, besides, the short cruise among the islands in theCascohad but whetted their appetites for more. It was finally decided that while the elder Mrs. Stevenson went on a visit to Scotland the rest of the party should sail again for the South Seas, and they began at once to make preparations. The charter of theCascohaving come to an end, it was necessary to find another vessel. All these details were taken in hand by Mrs. Stevenson and her son, while Louis went to Molokai to visit the leper colony, in which he had become intensely interested after discovering that every island visited in theCascowas afflicted with the curse of leprosy. They saw many distressing cases, and their admiration for Father Damien and his unexampled heroism rose higher and higher. It was while they were in Honolulu that Mr. Stevenson read the letter written by the Reverend Mr. Hyde, and printed in a missionary paper, which inspired his eloquent defence of Father Damien, afterwards written and published in Sydney, Australia.
In the meantime Mrs. Stevenson made arrangements to charter theEquator, a trading schooner of only sixty-four tons register, but stanchly built and seaworthy, and having the added advantage of being commanded by a skilful mariner, Captain Denny Reid. On June 24, 1889, taking the faithful Ah Fu as cook, and this time accompanied by Mrs. Stevenson's son-in-law, Joseph Strong, they sailed away for the Gilbert Islands. During their stay in Honolulu they had struck up a great friendship with the interesting and genial King Kalakaua, and on the day of their departure he appeared at the wharf with the royal band of musicians to see them off in proper style.
As Mrs. Strong, Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, did not wish to leave her son Austin and the voyage was considered too hazardous for so young a child, she went to Sydney to await the arrival of theEquator.
Through lovely days and glorious nights they sailed along, the little schooner lying so low in the water that they were brought close to the sea, "with a sort of intimacy that those on large ships, especially steamers, can never know."
Captain Reid is described by Mrs. Stevenson as "a small fiery Scotch-Irishman, full of amusing eccentricities, and always a most gay and charming companion." Beneath this jolly sea-dog exterior, however, some eccentricities lay hidden that the crew did not always find amusing. Hearing a noise of splashing in the water by the ship's side, Mrs. Stevenson found on inquiry that it was the captain taking his regular morning bath while surrounded by a circle of sailors to keep off the sharks. When she asked him if he did not think it selfish to expose the sailorsto the danger in order to protect himself, he answered: "No, for if the captain should be lost think how much worse it would be for all on board than if it were a mere sailor!"
Their first stop in the Gilberts was at the port of Butaritari in the island of Great Makin, their arrival being unfortunately timed to strike the town just when the taboo against strong drink had been temporarily lifted by the king, and the whole population was engaged in a wild carouse. For a few days their situation seemed precarious, but the king at length restored the taboo, and after that peace settled again over the island.
After a stay of about a month at Butaritari they moved to Apemama, ruled over by the strong and despotic king Tembinoka, who, although usually unfavourable to whites, admitted the Stevensons to his closest friendship. He said he was able to judge all people by their eyes and mouths, and, they having passed his examination successfully, he proceeded at once to do all in his power to make them comfortable. They were provided with four houses, "charming little basket-work affairs, something like bird-cages, standing on stilts about four feet above the ground, with hanging lids for doors and windows," and a retinue of several more or less useless servants, who spent most of their time in frolicking.
When they chartered theEquatorit had been in the agreement that the ship should be permitted to engage in her legitimate occupation of trading in the islands when opportunity offered. She now went off on a cruise for copra, while the Stevensons stayed on shore at Apemama, where they spent six peacefulweeks. As they were again marooned longer than they expected, provisions began to run short, and it became necessary to live on the products of the island. Wild chickens were plentiful, and the handy Ah Fu found no difficulty in shooting them with a gun borrowed from the king, but a constant diet of these birds finally palled on them, and they were overjoyed when some of the king's fishermen caught several large turtles. "Never," says Mrs. Stevenson, "was anything more welcome than these turtle steaks!" The long deprivation of green vegetables caused a great desire for them, and Louis said: "I think I could shed tears over a dish of turnips!" As Mrs. Stevenson always carried garden-seeds with her, she took advantage of their extended stay here to plant onions and radishes, which soon came up and were received with intense appreciation.
The shrewd Tembinoka, judge and critic of his fellow men, whom they found to be the most interesting of all their South Sea acquaintances, did not fail to perceive unusual qualities in the wife of his guest. He remarked: "She good; look pretty; plenty chench (sense)."
The king desired a new design for a flag, and all set to work to produce a suitable one. Mrs. Stevenson's drawing, which consisted of three vertical stripes of green, red, and yellow, with a horizontal shark of black showing white teeth and a white eye, pleased him best and was adopted. The design was afterwards sent to Sydney and Tembinoka's flag manufactured from it. The shark was a neat reference to the king's supposed descent, of which he was very proud, from a fish of that species.
Finding that the whole island was rapidly falling away from Christianity, the king the worst of all, the Stevensons felt it to be their duty to go to church every Sunday, to set an example, although they understood nothing of the services, which were conducted in the native language. During the latter part of their stay they gave an exhibition of magic-lantern pictures—wretched daubs, it is true—of the life of Christ. That their efforts to do good were not all in vain was proved by the gratifying news received some time afterwards that all the natives, including the despot king, were returning to their Christian duties and the big church was full again.
The absence of theEquatorwas so prolonged that they were in great alarm lest she might be lost, but at last she hove in sight.
After much discussion during the long days aboard ship and ashore, their plans had been definitely formed to make Apia, Samoa, their next port of call, and bidding farewell, with many regrets, to the island king, the little schooner once more raised her sails to the breeze. Stern old savage as Tembinoka was, he could not restrain his tears when he saw these delightful visitors from across the seas sail away forever, leaving him to the dull society of his many wives, whom he described as "good woman, but not very smart." Later, while living in Samoa, they were pained to hear of the death of their dear old friend Tembinoka, king of the island where they had spent so many happy days. It seemed that he had an abscess on his leg, and one of the native doctors lanced it with an unclean fish-bone, which causedblood-poisoning and the death of the king in great agony. For the better protection of his heir he left directions that his body should be buried in the centre of the royal residence, no doubt with the idea of frightening away evil-doers through their superstitious fears.
This time they took with them a passenger, a German trader named Höflich, of whom Lloyd Osbourne writes:
"When Paul Höflich, then trading in Butaritari, learned that Louis had chartered theEquatorfor Samoa, he packed up his merchandise and with this and twenty tons of copra engaged passage for the neighboring island of Maraki, distant about sixty miles. For this passage he paid sixty dollars. In spite of all efforts, however, theEquatorfailed to reach Maraki, being foiled by light airs and violent currents; so there was nothing left to do but to carry Paul on with us to Samoa, and though the captain tried to make him pay an increased passage he smilingly but firmly refused. We always thought that the twenty tons of copra saved our lives, for it stiffened the ship in the dreadful little hurricane that almost capsized us."
I shall let Paul Höflich tell his own story of the days when he cruised with the Stevensons, in the letters he was kind enough to write me:
"My dear Mrs. Sanchez:
"In reply to your letter to pen any little happenings concerning Mr. R. L. Stevenson while I was with the Stevenson party on board the oldEquator, I maysay that I am very pleased to do so, but I am afraid the results will be meagre, for the length of time I had the pleasure of being with them did not exceed ten weeks. Besides, it is now just twenty-seven years ago. I boarded theEquatorwhile she was among the islands cruising for copra, and in due time we reached Apemama and dropped anchor in the lagoon near the king's boat fleet. Going on shore we found the party hale and much pleased with the ship's arrival. In the evening the king, a fat and clever native, paid a visit and entertained us by telling about his ancestors. On the mother's side they came from a shark, and the father resigned in his favor, as he was not so high a chief as his son, the descendant of the shark.
"Mrs. Stevenson told us she had a garden planted with all kinds of things, but the soil was stubborn and would not yield anything good but cocoanuts; in fact, all the plants seemed to be growing into cocoanut trees. She also told us about her first experience as a medicine man. One day a man came along, sat down, and complained of a severe headache, asking for 'binika,' by which he meant painkiller. The lady thought he meant vinegar, and told him it was useless against a headache, but he persisted. So a generous portion was poured out and handed to him, to be used externally. He received it, smelled it, and suspicion was visible on his countenance, but, being too polite to return it, he swallowed the whole and returned the glass, profusely thanking Mrs. Stevenson. He then rose and left, more sick than when he came.
"The king offered Mrs. Stevenson a sewing-machine, saying he had a houseful of them, and as his arsenal was short of boat anchors he used the sewing-machines as such for his fleet.
"In a few days everything was snug, and we left the moorings to beat through the passage, and from there pointed her head for Maraki. A nice breeze favored us, but gradually it moderated, and as the weary days dragged on a rumor started that there was a Jonah on board. At first we eyed each other with distrust, then it was whispered and at last openly declared that I must be the Jonah. I mildly protested, saying that Mrs. Stevenson was most likely to blame. I told them all sorts of stories to prove that sailors believed that a woman on board would bring bad luck to a ship, but all to no avail. Their idea that the passenger for Maraki was a Jonah had taken firm hold. Worse still, I began to believe it myself, and made up my mind to jump the ship as soon as I had a chance.
"In the meantime we were creeping slowly along until one morning, lo and behold, my island hove in sight. As the sun rose the breeze freshened and I got hilarious. We were drawing nearer our anchorage in good style and could see my station now plainly, and the natives gathering on the beach. I pictured myself already landing amidst their shouts of welcome, when, to my horror—I shudder even now as I pen these lines—the wind died out. I whistled for wind until my lips blistered, but all in vain, for the breeze kept straight up and down. Jonah was at work again. I demanded loudly of the captainto be put on shore, but he only shrugged his shoulders. The argument brought up Mr. Stevenson, who said 'What about that for a boat?' nodding at a certain small deck house. 'It resembles a skiff, and I dare say the trade-room will spare a pair of paddles.' 'The very thing,' said I, and began sharpening my sheath knife to cut the lashings. While I got busy Mrs. Stevenson came to me and I told her what way I was going on shore. 'Why,' she said, 'if you make your appearance in a miserable craft of that kind your reputation on Maraki will be gone forever. Besides they might take you for a Jonah fresh from a whale and turn you right back to sea again. It would be safer to stay on board and make another attempt to reach Maraki, this time via Samoa.' I did not think I was getting quite a square deal, but I stayed. The current had taken us out of sight of land when a strong and fair breeze sprang up and carried us by noon next day to our anchorage in Butaritari lagoon.
"Here the party went ashore, biding the vessel getting ready for sea. In a week we lifted anchor and made for the passage, but theEquatorwas unwilling to leave. She hung on to a reef, and not until she had parted with her false keel would she push on and gain the open. During the first few weeks we had to beat to the eastward, which brought much calm and rainy weather. Mrs. Stevenson soon found that her berth was not the driest place in the ship. The tropical sun had warped the decks so that the rain found its way into the cabins. So Mrs. Stevenson would emigrate to the galley-way withher couch, and, with the help of an umbrella ingeniously handled, manage to do fairly well for a night's rest.
"One calm morning she called to tell us that sharks were around, and that one of them was wearing the glasses Mr. Osbourne had lost out of a boat at Maraki. Sure enough there were lots of them, and we soon had shark and chain hooks over the side, pulling them in and despatching them quickly and painlessly, but we never caught the one with the glasses on. Mrs. Stevenson said he could probably see a little better than the others. Now it seems that all these sharks stirred the appetite of Mr. Stevenson for shark steak—at least he advocated making a meal of them. Mrs. Stevenson mildly remonstrated, pointing out that it would be gruesome to eat the ancestors of Tembinoka, the man who had sheltered them for weeks. Mr. Stevenson could not see so far back, so the shark steak came on the table, but his wife managed to evade it. At last a breeze sprang up and the sharks took their leave.
"One night it blew stiff and we shortened sail, but with little advantage. The ship capered about till she had her topmast overboard with the jib attached to it. This episode occasioned the composition of the song 'On board the oldEquator,' by Mrs. Stevenson and Mr. Osbourne, I believe for Mr. Stevenson's birthday. I sang it on that occasion for the first time, and later at Apia at a dinner given for the ship. This was before Mr. Stevenson had given away his birthday,[31]so he was allowed to enjoy it, as did weall. Speeches were made and we drank his health, severally and all together. We felt as happy as any crew on board of a 20,000 tonner."
Of this jolly party, gathered together by thecamaraderieof the sea, Lloyd Osbourne writes:
"The rousing chorus was sung in unison: 'Captain darling, where has your topmast gone, I pray? Captain darling, where has your topmast gone?' Such things sound foolish years afterwards, but at the time are gay and funny. Now, looking back, it seems as though the incongruity of the party was the funniest thing about it—Louis, my mother, myself, the boyish young Scotch captain, the big Norwegian mate, the Finnish second mate, Rick, a Russian ex-sea-captain, Paul Höflich, Joe Strong the artist, all the very best of friends, who had lived a month together crowded to suffocation, and yet were better friends than ever when they left the ship."
To continue the story of Paul Höflich:
"On the twenty-sixth morning out Mrs. Stevenson called from the deck: 'Come up and see Samoa!' Proudly the vessel cut her way towards the mountainous island covered with dark green forest from peak to beach. We were all struck with its beauty and elated with expectations as to its hidden shadowy secrets. Inside of an hour we dropped anchor in the port of Apia, and a friend came off and took the party on shore. The vessel's stay was five days, and then we up sails and pointed her head for Maraki, toget rid of the last passenger, the Jonah of the voyage. Before our departure Mr. Stevenson gave a dinner, where we gathered for the last time around the hospitable board. Needless to say, I was in love with the island and acquired a piece of land to bring me back for sure.[32]
"As I look back now I cannot help admiring Mrs. Stevenson for her bravery and endurance in her resolution to remain with her husband. For us men this life was right enough, but for a refined woman it meant great hardship. When Mr. Stevenson, in his birthday speech on board, said with moist eyes that he had never enjoyed a voyage and company so well as ours, Mrs. Stevenson deserved the largest share of that praise. I remember how she took care of him. A doctor in Tahiti, who apprehended his early end, gave his wife a vial of medicine, which she carried sewn in her dress for three years to have it handy. I have a much-prized photograph of her on which she wrote 'Dear Paul. This is to remind you of the days when we were so happy on board of the oldEquator.' This gives me a sad pleasure in recalling the old times when the South Seas seemed to us so much brighter than now. Civilization is coming to the natives at the rate of geometrical progression, and soon their good qualities will be swept away by greed and false education.
"I have the honor to remain,Yours faithfully,P. Höflich."
That the voyage was a rough one is clear from Mr. Stevenson's description in a letter to Sir Sidney Colvin:
"On board theEquator, 190 miles off Samoa. We are just nearing the end of our long cruise. Rain, calms, squalls, bang—there's the fore-topmast gone; rain, calms, squalls—away with the staysail; more rain, more calms, more squalls; a prodigious heavy sea all the time, and theEquatorstaggering and hovering like a swallow in a storm; and the cabin, a great square, crowded with wet human beings, and the rain avalanching on the deck, and the leaks dripping everywhere; Fanny, in the midst of fifteen males, bearing up wonderfully." She rejoiced, nevertheless, that her mother-in-law had not accompanied them on this voyage, with its extreme discomfort and hardship, but adds, "and yet I would do it all over again."
In the early part of December, 1889, they arrived at the Navigator Islands—so called by Bougainville because of the skill with which the natives managed their canoes and sailed them far out to sea—and, as related above by Paul Höflich, dropped anchor in the harbour of Apia. They were not especially attracted to this place at first, the scenery being of a softer and less striking character than that of Tahiti, but as time passed the charm of the place grew upon them more and more, and finally they decided to make it their permanent headquarters between cruises. To this end they bought four hundred acres in the "bush," as the great tropical forests are called, and after making arrangements for the erection of a temporary cabin during their absence, they sailed onthe steamerLubeckfor Sydney, with the intention of going on from there for a visit to England.
It was during this stay in Sydney that Mr. Stevenson wrote his famous defense of Father Damien. When he realized that its publication might result in a suit for libel and the loss of all he had in the world, he thought it only right to ask for a vote of the family, for without their concurrence he would not take such a step. The vote was unanimously in favour of the publication. When the pamphlets were ready, his wife, with her son and daughter, set to work addressing them and sending them far and wide. It was certain that he would not appeal in vain in such a matter to his wife, for in their sympathies with the unfortunate and unjustly used they were as one.
Their hopes of going to England, based on the long respite of eighteen months during which Mr. Stevenson had been free from his old trouble, were dashed to the ground by a severe cold caught in Sydney and a return of the hemorrhages. His only chance seemed to lie on the sea—in fact, the doctor said nothing would save him but the South Seas—but when his wife went to the water-front to secure passage she found that, owing to a sailors' strike, only one ship, theJanet Nichol, an iron-screw steamer of about six hundred tons, was going out. She went to the owners and asked to be taken, but they refused, on the ground that they didn't want women on board. Nevertheless she went right on, with pitiful persistence, with her preparations, and finally had the sick man carried down to the landing-place and rowed out to the ship. She had won out, but they receivedher very reluctantly. And such a ship! It must have looked fine, however, to Mrs. Stevenson, after theEquator, for she writes: "Think of two bathrooms and only one other passenger besides ourselves, a nice long wide deck to walk on, steam to run away from squalls with, and no flopping about in calms." But when her daughter went on board to see them off she was horrified at the sight of it—black with coal dust, manned by Solomon Island "black boys," and just as they stepped on deck Tin Jack (Jack Buckland[33]) came up the gangway drunk and fell off into the water. It was pandemonium, but very exciting, and in the midst of it Mrs. Stevenson was calmly looking after her husband and keeping up a smiling, courageous face.
As soon as they were at sea Louis recovered, and after stopping off at Apia for a look at their new property, they went the rounds of the "low islands," visiting thirty-three in all. Although they confessed to a certain monotony in these islands, their adventures, of which Mrs. Stevenson kept a regular diary, were many and exciting. These notes were written for her husband's benefit, but as it happened that he made but slight use of them, she prepared them for publication herself in a volume calledThe Cruise of the Janet Nichol. "This diary," she says in her preface, "was written under the most adverse conditions—sometimes on the damp up-turned bottom of a canoe or whale-boat, sometimes when lying face downward on the burning sands of the tropic beach,often in copra sheds in the midst of a pandemonium of noise and confusion, but oftener on board the rollingJanet, whose pet name was theJumping Jenny, but never in comfortable surroundings."
It was on this voyage, during which they were well tossed about by the friskyJanet, that the ship was set on fire by the spontaneous combustion of some fireworks in one of the cabins. In the midst of the excitement some native sailors were seen by Mrs. Stevenson about to toss overboard a blazing trunk. She stopped them in time and was thankful to discover that she had saved all her husband's manuscripts.
At the end of the cruise, from which his health did not benefit as much as had been hoped, they returned to Sydney, meeting there a reception which, while irritating enough at the time, afterwards afforded them much amusement. They went directly from the ship to the most fashionable hotel, but, not being known there, their queer appearance, with their Tokalu buckets, mats, shells, straw hats, etc., brought upon them a severe snubbing. Then they went to the Oxford, a little old inn on George Street, where they were courteously received and given the whole first floor, without being asked to show their credentials. The next morning every paper in Sydney had their names on the front page, and all the clubs, societies, churches, and schools sent cards to the fine hotel, whose proprietor had to send a messenger three times a day to the Oxford with a basketful of letters for the Stevensons. The proprietor, now aware of what he had done, came in great chagrin to beg themto come back, and offered them the rooms for half price—for nothing—but they refused; and, besides, they were too comfortable at the Oxford to be willing to leave. After that, whenever Mrs. Stevenson went to Sydney she always stayed at the Oxford, for she was always loyal to those who showed her consideration.
During their stay in Sydney at this time Mr. Stevenson was so ill that he was compelled to keep his room, and all thought of a return to England was now definitely abandoned. Plans were set on foot for establishing a permanent residence in Samoa, and while Lloyd Osbourne went to England to bring the furniture from Skerryvore, the Stevensons returned to Apia and camped in a gate lodge on their place until the new house should be built.[Back to Contents]
It was in Samoa that the word "home" first began to have a real meaning for these gypsy wanderers, lured on as they had been half round the world in their quest of the will-o'-the-wisp, health. Having bought the land, which lay on rising ground about three miles from the town of Apia, it was then necessary to find the money to build a house on it. After some thought, Mrs. Stevenson suggested that they might sell Skerryvore in England, and thus turn the one house directly into the other. As Skerryvore had been a gift to her from her father-in-law, Louis said, "But this money is yours," and he then said he would make it all right by leaving her the Samoan place in his will, which he did, "with all that it contained."
The next thing was to choose a name, and they finally decided upon the native word Vailima,[34]meaning "five waters," in reference to a stream fed by four tributaries that ran through the place.
Without more ado they plunged eagerly into the business of clearing the forest and building their house—a task for which Fanny Stevenson, by taste and early training, was supremely fitted. She wrote at once to her mother-in-law in Scotland, saying: "Comewhen you like. Even if we make a temporary shelter you need not be so very uncomfortable. The only question is the food problem, and if in six months I cannot have a garden producing and fowls and pigs and cows it will be strange to me." In all this she took a high delight, for, like a true pioneer, she found more pleasure in thedoingof a task than in the thing finished. When the house or garden or what-not was done, and there was nothing left but to admire, a great part of the interest in it was gone for her. At Vailima she had almost a virgin field for her gardening activities, and her "Dutch blood" rejoiced within her. In the old California days her husband, in his humorous way, had called her "the forty-niner," but now, as he watched her, flitting in her blue dress, like a witch, in all parts of the plantation, directing, expostulating, and working with her hands when words failed, he called her "my little blue bogie planter." Writing to Miss Taylor, he says: "Ill or well, rain or shine, a little blue indefatigable figure is to be observed howking about certain patches of garden. She comes in heated and bemired up to the eyebrows, late for every meal...."
The place they had bought was not precisely in the "bush," as the unbroken forest is called in those lands, for it had once been partly under cultivation; but it needs only a short season of neglect for the devouring jungle to sweep over and obliterate all traces of the handiwork of man. To all intents they began anew to clear out a place for their house and garden, in the midst of the great silent forest, "where one might hear the babbling of a burn close by, andthe birds, and the sea breaking on the coast three miles away and six hundred feet below." The days were "fine like heaven; such a blue of the sea, such green of the trees, and such crimson of the hibiscus flowers were never dreamed of; and the air as mild and gentle as a baby's breath—and yet not hot."
"The scenery," writes Mrs. Stevenson to Miss Boodle, "is simply enchanting; here a cliff, there a dashing little river, yonder a waterfall, here a great gorge slashed through the hillside, and everywhere a vegetation that baffles description. Our only workmen are cannibals from other islands and so-called savages—though I have never yet met one man whom that word described accurately. I have with me [on the steamerLubeck, on the way from Sydney to Samoa] a cageful of beautiful yellow fowls, a big black mother sow is to follow, and soon I mean to have some pretty Jersey cows and some gentle horses. I have packages of garden seeds to experiment with, and it is odd indeed if I am not able soon to provision a garrison. One of the first things I shall plunge into is an ice-house run by cascade power."
At first they lived in a two-room cottage, designed to serve later as a gate lodge, where comfort was at a minimum. The road to Apia was scarcely more than a footpath, and it was difficult to bring up supplies in any quantity. At times provisions ran low, and the story of the occasion when they were reduced to dining on a single avocado[35]pear was told so often, in print and otherwise, that during all the following time of plenty they had to keep explaining that theyreally had enough to eat. Of course the famine was more apparent than real, for there was enough food at the town only three miles away, and the occasional dearth in those first days was merely a matter of the inconvenience of bringing it up.
It was in the hurricane season, too, and there were days when they sat in momentary fear lest their frail dwelling should be carried away by the fury of the storm or crushed beneath some falling giant of the forest.
From the day of their arrival at Vailima, in September, 1890, Mrs. Stevenson began to keep a diary—a record which has proved to be one of the most valuable sources of material in writing her biography, and which itself has a curious history. When, after her husband's death, she finally left Vailima, the diary was inadvertently left behind, eventually making its way to London and falling into the hands of an English lady, Miss Gladys Peacock, who, thinking it might be of some use to the family, sent it to Lloyd Osbourne, with a note saying that "of course she had not read it." It is to the courtesy of this Englishwoman that I am indebted for the extracts from the diary, of which I shall make free use.
In their temporary lodge in the wilderness, where they were encamped while the big house was building, furniture and other comforts of civilization were decidedly lacking, but they had brought beds with them, and Mrs. Stevenson at once set the carpenter to putting them up. For help about the house and premises they had to depend on Paul Einfürer, the German pantryman from theLubeck, who had come up andasked for work. He was good-natured but clumsy, and spoke so little English that it was difficult to communicate with him. The natives employed in clearing and planting knew only Samoan, and Mrs. Stevenson often found it necessary to instruct them by doing the work with her own hands. Writing humorously of her troubles to Sir Sidney Colvin, her husband says: "Fanny was to have rested; blessed Paul began making a duck house; she let him be; the duck house fell down, and she had to set her hand to it. He was then to make a drinking place for the pigs; she let be again, and he made a stair by which the pigs will probably escape this evening, and she was near weeping.... Then she had to cook the dinner; then, of course, like a fool and a woman, must wait dinner for me and make a flurry of herself. Her day so far." Again he writes: "The guid wife had bread to bake, and she baked it in a pan, O! But between whiles she was down with me weeding sensitive[36]in the paddock. Our dinner—the lowest we have ever been—consisted of an avocado pear between Fanny and me, a ship's biscuit for the guid man, white bread for the missis, and red wine for the twa; no salt horse, even, in all Vailima!"
On the last trip from Sydney Mrs. Stevenson had brought all sorts of seeds with her—tomatoes, beans, alfalfa, melons, and a dozen others—and she went about the place dropping them in wherever she thought they would grow. Some difficulties peculiar to the tropics had to be met and conquered. For instance,rats ate out the inside of the melons as soon as they were ripe, and it became necessary to put out poison. A beginning had been made in the way of live stock, of which she says: "We have three pigs—one fine imported boar and two slab-sided sows. They dwell in a large circular enclosure, which, with its stone walls, looks like an ancient fortification."
These same swine became the torment of their lives, for some of the devils said to haunt Vailima seemed to have entered into them, and no sty could be made strong enough to restrain them.
In clearing away the dense growth on the site of their projected house they were careful to preserve the best of the native plants. "The trees that have been left standing in the clearing," says the diary, "are of immense size, really majestic, with creepers winding about their trunks and orchids growing in the forks of their branches. These great trees are alive with birds, which chatter at certain hours of the night and morning with rich, throaty voices. Though they do not exactly sing, the sound they make is very musical and pretty. Yesterday Ben [the man of all work] took his gun and went into the bush to shoot. He returned with some small birds like parrots, which were almost bursting with fat. I felt some compunction about eating birds that suggested cages and swings and stands, but as we had nothing else to eat was fain to cook them, and a very excellent dish they made. I have read somewhere that the dodo and a relative of his called the 'tooth-billed pigeon' are still to be foundon this island. It would be delightful to possess a pet dodo."[37]
Although their stay in the little lodge was to be but temporary, it was like her to set to work to make it a pleasant abode even for the short time that they were to be there. "What we most dislike about our house," she says, "is the chilly, death-like aspect of the colors in which it is painted—black and white and lead-color. So we unearthed from our boxes some pieces oftapa[38]in rich shades of brown and nailed them on the walls, using pieces of another pattern for bordering, and at once the whole appearance of the room was changed. Over the door connecting the two rooms we fastened a large flat piece of pink coral, a present given me by Captain Reid when we were on theEquator. We have had the carpenter put up shelves in one corner of the room and on two sides of one of the windows. I also had him nail some boards together in the form of a couch, upon which I have laid a mattress covered by a shawl. On the table an old pink cloth is spread, and when we light the lamp and set the little Japanese burner to smoking buhach—for, alas, there are mosquitoes—we feel quite snug and homelike.
"The pig house, a most unsightly thing, is finished, and a creeper or two will soon disguise its ugliness.There seem to be a great number of mummy apples[39]springing up through the clearing, of which I am glad for the sake of the prospective cow. Paul and I have planted out a lot of kidney potatoes, which is an experiment only, as they are not supposed to grow in Samoa. We have sowed tomato seeds, also artichokes and eggplants, in boxes. A few days ago Mr. Caruthers sent us half a dozen very fine pineapples, and as fast as we eat them we plant the tops.
"October 6.I have been too busy to write before. Much has been accomplished. A good lot of sweet corn is planted, besides peas, onions, lettuce, and radishes. Lima beans are coming up, and some of the cantaloupes. Mr. Caruthers has brought a root of mint and some cuttings of granadilla,[40]which have been set out along the arbor. It seems absolutely impossible to get anything sent up to us from Apia. Lists and notes go flying, but, except from Krause the butcher, with no results. It seems an odd thing that there should not be a spade or a rake for sale in a town where there would be no difficulty in finding the best quality of champagne, to say nothing of all the materials for mixed drinks. We have almost starved for want of provisions until yesterday, when Ben killed a couple of fowls, a large piece of meat came from town, Paul shot two pigeons, and Mr. Blacklock came with fresh tomatoes. Afterwards Ben came with palusami,[41]and now to-day comes a young native girl from Mrs. Blacklock with enormous bananas, long green beans, a dozen eggs, and a bunchof flowers, and Ben has come in with eight little parrots. It seems either a feast or a famine with us.
"October 7.Last night it rained heavily, which was good for my plants, but, as our kitchen is some six or eight yards from the house, cooking became a series of adventures. I had set a sponge for bread last night, and was most anxious to bake the dough early in the day. A black boy was sent to the carpenter for a moulding board, and, placing it on a chair on the back veranda, I knelt on the floor with a shawl over my head to keep the rain off and made up the loaves. In making the dough I was successful, but the attempt to bake it almost sent me into hysterics. With an umbrella over my head I ran to the kitchen, but found, to my dismay, that all the wood was soaked, and the wind drove the smoke back into the stove, which thereupon belched forth acrid clouds from every opening. Paul ran down to where the carpenter had been working, and returned with a boxful of chips which we dried on top of the stove, swallowing volumes of smoke as we did so. Then I called Ben and showed him how to nail up the half of a tin kerosene can over the opening of the pipe to screen it from the wind. That helped a little, but the rain beat in on the stove, and, though we consumed immense quantities of chips, it still remained cold. Finally I made a barrier of boxes around the stove, and that brought a measure of success, so that in about a couple of hours I was able to half bake, half dry a fowl for luncheon. By that time the bread was done for, and I very nearly so. Paul and I held a council of war, and decided to send the boys down tothe pavilion to live, while we took their room for a kitchen and dining-room, one end serving for the one and the other end for the other, somewhat after the fashion of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's room inOur Mutual Friend.
"There were two mango trees among the plants sent up by Mr. Caruthers, and I was surprised to see among them also a shrub that is the pest of Tahiti and will become so here if it is planted. In the afternoon, the rain being then only a high mist, Simile and I began to set out the things. While busy at this I saw three or four beautiful young men, followed by a troop of dogs, pass along our road towards the bush. I have seldom seen more graceful, elegant creatures than these fellows. They carried large knives and axes, wore hats of fresh green banana leaves, and also carried large banana leaves as umbrellas to keep off the rain. With a friendlytofa[farewell] on either side, they went their way. After we had planted all the roots and taken a little rest, Simile and I took a hoe and pickaxe and finished the afternoon sowing Indian corn. I asked Simile while we were planting which was the best season for such work, meaning the wet, dry, or intermediate time. 'We Samoans,' he answered, 'always go by the moon. Unless we plant in the time of the big round moon we expect no fruit.'
"I thought one of my yellow hens wanted to sit, and that it would be the proper thing to provide her with eggs. To identify the eggs from fresh ones I made a black pencil mark around each one. After all was finished I retired from the henhouse andpeeped through the palings. Madam hen clucked up to the nest, as I had always seen hens do, but at the sight of the marked eggs she started back in a sort of surprise and alarm. 'What's the matter?' cried the two cocks, stretching wide legs as they hastened to the spot. They, too, started back, just as the hen had done, held a hurried consultation and finally ventured to touch the eggs with their beaks. By this time all the five yellow hens had gathered round the nest, and pretty soon all the others were craning their necks to gaze at the marvel. After the cocks had poked the eggs about a little with their beaks the hens went nearer and tried to peck off the black marks. All the time there was a great hubbub of anxious conversation. The next morning more than half the eggs had been destroyed, and to save those that were left I had to remove them."
Exploring their new estate was one of their most exciting and at the same time laborious occupations, for most of the land was so densely overgrown that it was necessary to carry a bush knife with which to cut a path as they went, and, moreover, unexpected dangers lurked in the beautiful ferny depths. "Louis and I went up to see the banana patch," says the diary, "Louis carrying a knife to clear the road. For a little way we followed a fairly open path that had previously been cleared by Louis, but by and by it began to close up and become treacherously boggy underfoot. Several times we were ankle-deep in mud and water, and Louis had to slash down the tall vegetation that obstructed our way. Before long he cried out: 'Behold your banana patch!' And thereit was, sure enough—a great number of sturdy, thickset young plants, many with bunches of fruit hanging above the strange purple flower of the plant, choked with a rank undergrowth and set with the roots in sluggishly running water. Here and there the gigantic leaves of the greattaro[42]spread out—a dark, shining green. It was too much for Louis, who fell to clearing on the spot, while I went on to the end of the plantation. Once or twice I was nearly stuck in the bog, but managed to drag myself from the ooze by clinging to a strong plant. After a while Louis called out to me as though in answer, and I hurried back to him. When I came up he said he had mistaken the cry of a bird for my voice and supposed I had lost the path. I helped him a little while pulling up the smaller weeds, but was in mortal terror of touching a poisonous creeper whose acquaintance I had already made and whose marks I still bear. It went to my heart to dig up and destroy the most lovely specimens of ferns I have ever seen, but I did it bravely, though I determined to return some day and make a collection of them. Some of the more delicate climbing ferns were magnificent. Occasionally as I drew out a plant the air around me was filled with the perfume of its bruised leaves. It was entrancing work, though we were soaked with mud and water, but before very long my head began to swim, and I proposed to go back to the house and see about some sort of food. I just managed to get a meal prepared and then gave out utterly, for my beautiful banana swamp had given me a fever with a mostalarming promptitude. I could not sleep all night, but kept waking with a start, my heart and pulses bounding, and my head aching miserably. This morning Louis gave me a dose of quinine, which soon helped me.
"The pigs had to be watered when we came back from the perfidious swamp, but how to manage it I could not see. Paul was ill, Simile was gone, and I feared it might be dangerous for Louis to lift pails of water. I walked round and round the stone wall of their fortification, but it seemed unclimbable and impenetrable. I might have got over myself, but could not manage the pailful, also. Finally I thought of a boy, the son of a neighbor, who had come to visit Paul, and persuaded him to undertake the task of watering the pigs. The next day I discovered that he had simply poured the water over the wall upon the ground, and my poor pigs had gone thirsty all night. I cannot think that is the sort of son to help a pioneer.
"In the midst of all this Louis wished to go down to Apia. It took all six of the boys to catch the pony, and in the meantime Louis was having a desperate struggle to find his clothes and dress. I was in a dazed state with fever and quinine and could not help him at all. At last he got away, in what sort of garb I tremble to think, and he was hardly out of sight before I discovered all the things he had been in search of—in their right places, naturally."
Eternal vigilance was the price of any progress made in her gardening, for the moment her eyes were taken off the workmen they committed some provokingblunder that often undid the work of weeks. "As all the men were off with the cart," she writes, "I thought I might as well let Ben plant corn, which he assured me he understood perfectly, for had he not planted all the first lot which had failed through the depredations of the rats? At about three Simile and I went down to put in some pumpkin seeds among the corn, and, to my disgust, I saw why the first lot of corn had failed. Ben's idea of planting was to scrape a couple of inches off the ground, drop in a handful of corn, and then kick a few leaves over the grains. It is really wonderful that any at all should have germinated.
"While we were working Sitioni[43]came up with some pineapple plants. He said the people were fighting in Tutuila, but he did not think it would come to war here. He showed me a large pistol fastened round his waist by a cartridge belt, and tried to shoot a flying bat with it, but failed. Simile told me that the vampire bat, or flying fox, as they call it here, is good to eat, but I do not think I could eat bat. My lady pig from Sydney is at Apia, but as she only cost thirty-seven shillings I feel doubts as to her quality. Still, in Samoa a pig's a pig.
"Next day.The pig is a very small, very common pig, but nevertheless I had the boys make a special sty for her. The old cock is really too bad. Every time an egg is laid he strikes his bill into it, and, throwing it on the ground, calls his harem to a cannibal feast. Something, either the rats or a wild hen, has destroyed all our corn."
Perhaps no other part of their life in Samoa was so full of happiness for them as these first days—just those two alone, for the presence of their childlike native helpers counted as naught—with all the surroundings yet in a primitive state and little to remind them of the sophisticated world from which they had been glad to escape. Both were natural-born children of the wild. In the brief tropical twilight they often walked together and talked of the beautiful future they thought they saw stretching out before them.
"Last night," so runs the diary, "Louis and I walked up and down the path behind the house. The air was soft and warm, but not too warm, and filled with the most delicious fragrance. These perfumes of the tropic forest are wonderful. When I am pulling weeds it often happens that a puff of the sweetest scent blows back to me as I cast away a handful of wild plants. I believe I have discovered the ylang-ylang tree, about which there has been so much mystery. Simile tells me that one of the priests distils perfume from the same tree. It does not grow very large and has a delicate leaf of a tender shade of green, with the flowers, of a greenish white, in racemes. The natives often use these flowers to mix in their wreaths."
Every paradise has its drawbacks, and though ferocious wild beasts and poisonous snakes are absent from that fortunate island, yet there were many small creatures dwelling in the neighbouring jungle that sometimes made their presence known in disconcerting ways. Of one of these she writes: "We were driven out of the house by a tree frog of stentorian voice, which was hidden in a tree near thefront veranda and made a noise like a saw being filed, only fifty times louder. It actually shook the drums of my ears.... I had to stop just here to show Paul how to tie a knot that would not slip. The last time Mr. Caruthers was here he found his horse at the point of strangulation from a slip noose round its neck as Paul had tethered it out in the grass.... To return to the tree frog. When we settled ourselves at the table for the evening what was our horror to hear a second tree frog piping up just over our heads in the eaves of the house. We poked at him for some time with sticks and brooms, and I had a guilty feeling that I had done him a mortal injury; but when, after we were in bed and half asleep, he started saw-filing again, I wished I had."
The hurricane season now came on, and wild tropic storms, of a violence of which they had never before dreamed, beat on the little house in the clearing with terrifying fury. "We had a very heavy rainstorm," the diary records, "with thunder and lightning. At night the rain fell so noisily that we could not hear each other speak, and it seemed as though the house must be crushed in by the weight of water falling on it. In the middle of the night Louis arose, made a light, and fell to writing verses. I was troubled about the taller corn—lest it be broken down and spoiled. Yet all went well, for the verses turned out not badly and the corn stood as straight as I could have wished it to do.
"The banana patch is pretty well cleared, but it is difficult to keep men at work there. 'Too many devils, me 'fraid,' explained Lafaele when he cameback sooner than I had anticipated. There are devils everywhere in the bush, it is said; creatures that take on the semblance of man and kill those with whom they converse, but our banana patch seems to be exceptionally cursed with the presence of these demons."
Indeed, to be alone in the jungle is a solemn thing, even for people of stronger mentality than the superstitious natives. The vegetation is so dense that there are no shadows, and, the location of the sun being an unsolvable mystery, one becomes affected by a strange lost feeling. The loneliness, the silence, the impossibility of seeing far into the surrounding wall of foliage, all oppress the soul, and strange alarms attack the most hardy. Then at night, when there is no moon and the darkness is thick, a phosphorescent light, due to decaying wood, shines fearsomely all about on the ground, so that it seems, as Louis said, "like picking one's way over the mouth of hell." "We ourselves," writes Mrs. Stevenson, "have become infected with the native fear of the spirits. Louis has been cutting a path in the bush, and he confesses that the sight of anything like a human figure would send him flying like the wind with his heart in his mouth. One night the world seemed full of strange supernatural noises. When Louis whispered 'Listen! What's that?' I felt as though cold water had been poured down my back, but it was only the hissing of a fire in the clearing. The same night we were waked by sounds of terror in the henhouse. Paul, Louis, and I ran out with one accord, but could see nothing. In the morning we found thebody of a pullet with its heart torn out. Simile says that the murderer is a certain small and beautiful bird, but we were quite in the mood to believe it anaitu."
Notwithstanding the slow progress caused by inefficient help and the difficulty of getting materials up the steep road to their plantation, they could see their home gradually growing around them. Mr. Stevenson's health was better than it had been since their marriage, and a deep content settled gently upon their long-harassed spirits. Something of this is reflected in an entry made in her diary on a certain beautiful, still evening: "It is now half-past eight and very dark, for the moon is not yet up and the sky is overcast. The air is fresh and sweetly damp and redolent of many scented leaves and flowers. I can hear the sea on Apia beach; the sound of it is regular, like hoarse breathing, or even more like the rhythmic purring of a gigantic cat. Crickets and tree frogs and innumerable other insects and small beasts are chirping and pecking with various noises that mingle harmoniously. Occasionally a bird calls with a startling cry—perhaps the very bird that murdered my poor pullet. When I stood in the doorway and looked in, the room seemed to be glowing with color, glowing and melting, and yet there is nothing to go upon but thetapaon the walls, the coral, the pink and maroon window curtains of the coarsest cotton print, a ragged old ink-spotted table-cover, a few print-covered pillows, and the pandanus mats on the floor. Louis's books, with their bindings of blue and green, to say nothing of gold lettering, helpgreatly on the six shelves, and the twokavabowls that I have worked as hard to color as a young man with his first meerschaum have taken on a fine opalescent coating." This, of course, was when they were living in the temporary quarters while the main house was being built.
The entry of November 15 gives us an amusing tale of the horses: "The cart horses, a couple of large, mild-eyed, gentle, dappled grays, have arrived from Auckland. It was pleasant to see them fall upon the grass after their tedious sea voyage. Just as we were thinking about going to bed, an alarming noise was heard from the direction of the stable. It had been raining hard all day and was still drizzling. The weeds on the way to the stable were up to my waist and dripping with water. The prospect was not inviting, but we nobly marched out with the lantern and an umbrella. As we entered the enclosure where the stable stands, or rather stood, we became aware of two large white objects showing indistinctly through the darkness. A little nearer and our two horses were looking us in the face. They had eaten the sides and ends of their house quite away. They must have thought it odd to be housed in an edible stable.[44]When we entered they received us with every sign of welcome, but we were dismayed to find them tangled with each other and the wreck of the partition. Louis crawled in under the big hairy feet, and, after much labor, got one wet knot untangled, the horses meanwhile smelling and nosingabout the top of his head. He said he expected at every moment to have it bitten off, for, he argued, if the horses found a stable edible, in these outlandish parts, they might easily conceive the idea of sampling the hostler.... I am interrupted at this moment by Simile at the door to ask a question. I wish I could take a photograph as he stands at the door, with the steady eyes of a capable man of affairs, but the dress of a houri; about his loins he has twisted a piece of white cotton; a broad garland of drooping ferns passes over his forehead, crosses at the back of his head, and coming forward round his neck is fastened in a knot of greenery on his breast. He is rather a plain young man, but he looks really lovely just now, and the incongruous expression of his eyes heightens the effect.
"Yesterday we had a terrific storm, quite alarming to people living in such a vulnerable abode. Even when the weather is fair the house shakes as though it would fall if any one comes upstairs rapidly, and the slight iron roof is entirely open at the eaves to catch any wind that blows. We could not keep a lamp burning, and the lantern kept for such emergencies having been broken by Paul, we were in semi-darkness. Late in the afternoon a cloud enveloped us so that we could see no farther than in a London fog. From that time the gale increased, lashing the branches of the trees together, and sometimes twisting their trunks and throwing them to the ground. We could see the rain through the windows driving in layers, one sheet above another. Occasionally there was an ominous thrashing on theiron roof as though the great hardwood tree alongside of the house meant to do us an injury. Water poured in under our ill-fitting doors, the matches were too damp to light, and the general discomfort and sloppiness gave one quite the feeling of being at sea. I wished we might reef in some of our green tree sails, which reminded me of Ah Fu's terror of the land and longing to be at sea in bad weather. Simile and his boys are building or, rather, excavating, a hurricane refuge. I went to see it yesterday and found it a big mudhole with immense boulders heaving up from the bottom. I advised the instant digging of a ditch unless they wished to use it for a bathing pool. The hole must be pretty well filled up by to-day, for last night the rain came down in awful torrents. For the last two days the evening light has been very strange and disquieting—a whitish glare in the sky, the trees and bare ground a burnt-sienna red, and the vegetation a strong crude green with a delicate white bloom. The rain is still pouring and the whole world is damp and uncomfortable."
The hurricanes were varied now and then by earthquakes, of which they felt two distinct shocks on January 13. To add to these discomforts, tiny visitors from the jungle gave them many pin-pricks of annoyance. "It is strange," says the diary, "that each night has its separate plague of insects. The mosquitoes, of course, are always with us, and Simile's hurricane cellar has become a fine breeding place for them. But on one night moths are our torment, while perhaps the very next night it will be myriads of small black beetles. At another time the creaturesmay be of a large cockshafer sort, or a dreadful square-tailed thing that is especially ominous. To-night I have had for the first time two sets of tormentors, the first being small burnished beetles of the most lovely colors imaginable. A pinkish-bronze fellow lies on my paper as I write; he kept standing on his head until he died in a fit. It seems a color night, for I now have small silver moths, all of a size but with different beautiful markings. There are also large salmon-colored moths that Louis cannot bear the sight of because they are marked like a skeleton. Perhaps they are a variety of the death's head moth. They are almost as large as a humming-bird, and have beautiful eyes that glow in the dark like fire."
Enough order had now come out of the first chaos to encourage them to write for the elder Mrs. Stevenson. Her son went to Sydney to meet her, but was there taken very ill and returned in that condition with his mother as nurse. During his absence his wife remained in sole charge, and, judging by the entries in her diary, she had her hands full every moment of the time. Everybody—white, brown, or black—went to her with apparently full confidence that she was able to cure any wound or disease. "One day," she says, "I heard a loud weeping as of some one in great pain; a man had just had two fingers dreadfully crushed. I really didn't know what to do except to go to a doctor, but as the wound was bleeding a good deal I mixed up some crystals of iron in water and washed his hand in that. To my surprise his cries instantly ceased, and he declares hehas had no pain since. It was only for the effect on his mind that I gave the iron, which so far as I know is a styptic only; I always think it best to give something—perhaps on the principle of the doctors when they give bread pills. I have cured both Paul and the carpenter of violent lumbago, but there I had a little knowledge to go upon. To-day a man came to us with the sole of his foot very much inflamed from having run a nail into it the day before yesterday. I bound a bit of fat bacon on the foot—an old Negro remedy which was the only one I could think of. It is even more difficult when they bring me their domestic troubles to settle, in which they seem to think I am as great an expert as in curing their physical ills."
In the effort to keep things from being lost or improperly used she fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood trunk which serves as my dressing-table, beside my comb and toothbrush, a collection of tools—chisels, pincers, and the like—is spread out. Leather straps and parts of harness hang from the walls, as well as a long carved spear, a pistol, strings of teeth—of fish, beasts, and human beings—necklaces of shells, and several hats. Fine mats andtapasare piled up in heaps. My little cot bed seems to have got into its place by mistake. Besides the above mentioned articles there are an easel and two cameras stowed in one corner. A strange lady's chamber indeed."
On March 28 there was a stiff blow, during whichthe little cottage rocked and groaned in the most alarming way, and with one gust of wind it swung over so far that its terrified occupants thought it was gone. All, including Mrs. Stevenson, then took refuge in the stable, which was rather more solidly constructed. The hurricane, the most violent they had yet experienced, lasted several days, during which they remained in the stable, sleeping in the stalls in wet beds, having to sweep out the water without ceasing and suffering severely from clouds of mosquitoes. When at last the storm abated and they could return to the house, they found everything wet and mildewed and the cottage leaning with a decided cant to one side. Worst of all, one of the horses had become entangled in the barbed-wire fence that had been blown down by the wind, and was dreadfully injured. Thus they discovered that life in the tropics has its drawbacks as well as its delights.
These were the primitive conditions that greeted the elder Mrs. Stevenson on her arrival, and the poor lady's surprise and consternation were increased by the appearance of the good-hearted Paul while waiting on table—a plump little German with a bald head, clothed in a flannel shirt open at the neck, a pair of ragged trousers, particularly dilapidated in the seat and held up by a leather strap round the waist, a sheath-knife stuck in the belt, barefoot, and most likely offering the information that "the meat is tough, by God." Having no pioneer ancestry to sustain her she was unable to endure the discomforts of the place and only remained over the stay of theLubeck, after which she fled to Sydney, there to awaitthe time when civilization should have been established on the plantation.
By the end of April the new house was ready for them to move in, and by July the whole family, including the Strongs,[45]were established on the place.
The conditions of their lives were now vastly more comfortable. Mrs. Stevenson no longer had to share the evening lamp with death's-head moths and piping tree-frogs, for gauze doors and windows had been put in to keep out the flying things. Nor did she have to take refuge in the stable when the hurricane season came around, for the new house was staunchly built and stout storm-shutters stood against the fury of the wind and rain.
Of Vailima in its finished aspect I need not speak in detail, since it has been fully and elaborately described by Graham Balfour in hisLife of Robert Louis Stevenson. With its band of "house boys" and "out boys"—a fine-looking lot of fellows of whom their master was very proud—the household grew to be almost like that of a feudal chief, or Scotch laird of the old days, and Mrs. Stevenson took her place as its mistress as though "to the manner born." The place became the centre of social life in the island and was the scene of frequent balls and parties, dinners with twenty-five or thirty guests, Christmas parties with the guests staying for three days, and tennis nearly every day with officers from the men-of-war in the harbour and ladies from the mission. Over these entertainments Mrs. Stevenson presided—a gracious and beautiful hostess. Once when hergrandson, Austin Strong, came home for a holiday from school, she gave a ball in his honour. There were torches all along the road to light the way up, boys in uniform to receive and take care of the guests and their horses, and a band to play for dancing. For weeks beforehand the dressmakers of Apia had to work overtime. But it is not to be supposed that this comfortable state was brought about without great efforts on the part of the whole family. Mrs. Strong took over the housekeeping, management of supplies and training of servants, leaving her mother free to devote her energies to the outdoor work she loved best. Writing to Miss Jane Balfour, Mrs. Stevenson says: "Never were people so full of affairs. We have to start a plantation in the solid bush, manage all our complicated business, receive furniture and guests—and all the while trying madly to get the house in order and feed our family. We must have horses to ride or we can go nowhere. The land must be cleared and grass to feed horses and cows must be planted. Men have to be taught, also, how to take care of the animals and must be watched every moment. I am glad to say that the gossip among the natives is that I have eyes all around my head and am in fifty places at once, and that I am a person to be feared and obeyed."
The fertile soil and kindly climate of the island encouraged her to experiment, not only with the plants native to the place, but also with exotics brought from other lands. In importing these foreign plants she exercised the greatest care not to introduce any pest, for she knew that when the lantanawas taken to Hawaii and the sweetbrier to New Zealand these foreigners showed such a destructive fondness for their adopted homes that they came near choking out everything else. Before introducing any plant she consulted the heads of the botanical gardens at Kew and Colombo and the grass expert at Washington, D. C. She even had the soil that came around her plants burned, for fear it might bring in insects or disease. The lawn was an accomplishment in itself, for after she had had the soil sifted to a depth of eighteen inches to clear it of roots and stones, she levelled it herself by the simple means of a spirit-level and a string.
It is not to be supposed that all these things grew without immense difficulty. As an instance, after she had carefully instructed Lafaele, her gardener, how to plant a patch of vanilla, she was disgusted to find that he had planted them all upside down. After giving him a thorough scolding, she dismissed him and replanted them all herself, right side up. What were her feelings to find the next day that Lafaele, chagrined by his stupidity, had risen in the night and planted them all upside down again! This Lafaele was a huge mutton-headed Hercules, an out-islander, who spoke no English, and as Mrs. Stevenson never learned Samoan, the two had perforce to invent a sort of pidgin dialect of their own, in which they jabbered away successfully but which no one else could understand. She later found an intelligent Samoan named Leuelu who understood her pidgin Samoan perfectly and learned to carry out all her orders. He was small and not strong, but with thehelp of the dull but faithful Lafaele he soon had a wonderful garden.
One week her special task was to superintend the boys in putting a culvert into the new road to carry off the rain in the wet season. She also devised and carried out a scheme of water-works for the place which was a great boon and comfort to all the family, and enabled them to sprinkle their lawn in civilized fashion. A large cemented reservoir was built at a spring on the mountain and the water carried down from it in pipes and distributed through the house and grounds.