MALAGA in TUTUILA

Samoa 1891

Of this article, Graham Balfour says in his *Life* of Stevenson, where he has printed much of the text, "Stevenson then accompanied Mr. Harold Sewall, the American Consul-General, upon a visit to Tutuila.... Here they spent three weeks, partly by the shores of the great harbour of Pagopago, partly on an attempt to reach the islands of Manu'a.... and partly in circumnavigating Tutuila...." The manuscript is written on 18 ruled leaves-- a section of a bound record book with marble boards and morocco spine; it contains 24 unused leaves, also. On the front cover are 2 labels written either by Isobel Strong or Graham Balfour, such as were pasted on all Stevenson material sold at the Isobel Strong Sale, where this item appeared as no.394. The manuscript is written on the recto of each leaf, the author using the verso of the preceding page for additions to be included in the text. In the following transcript these additions have been enclosed within red brackets in the body of the text, with the exception six subject headings opposite page 1, which are put on a separate sheet.

On the first loose end-paper Graham Balfour has written the title of the article, etc., as follows:--

Malaga in Tutuila Samoa March-April 1891

Original M.S.

In the corner are several of R.L.S.'s own words dotted down to refresh his memory. On the lower margin of the same page, apparently R.L.S. has tried out a brush or soft quill pen wet with sepia ink; he may have been making sketches of the scenes visited, on other paper, several such pictorial records of his voyaging are in the Beinecke library.

While Balfour only partially published this ms., the Bibliophile Society privately printed it fully (with many errors due to misreading Stevenson's handwriting), save for the author's own scorings. This text was published in the Vailima Edition of Stevenson's *Works*, 1922 (pp.383-- v.25).

The island at its highest point is nearly severed in two by this long elbowed
harbour. About half a mile in width, encased in abrupt mountainsides and clothed
in forest from the waters-edge to the tongue of water sleeps here in perfect quiet,
and laps around its continent with the flapping wavlets of a lake. The wind passes
overhead; overhead all day and night overhead, the scroll of trade wind clouds is unroll-
ed across the sky, and in vast sculptured masses, now in a thin drift of debris, from
beasts-and-trees-and-ets
changing, fainting singular shapes of things, elongated protracted and deformed beasts
and trees, and heads and torsos of old marbles, changing, fainting and vanishing even as
they flee. Below, meanwhile the harbour lies unshaken, and laps idly on its margin;
at its colour is green like a forest pool, bright in the shallows, dark in the midst with
the reflected sides of woody mountains; at times a flight flicker of silver breaks the
flashing to see it
uniformity, miniature whitecaps heaving and disappearing on the sombre ground; and you
the harbour
might think the wind was treading on and tossing the flat water; but not so, it lies
unshaken, and the flickering is that of fishes. From these tall sides an infinity of
and right athwart the dawn
rain-flews these end and thereon the
Right in the wind's eye, a conspicuous sea moun-
tain stands, whose sides here and there with some fare cliffy designed like an old fort
naked
or castle, with bare cliffy sides, and a green head. In the peep of the day, the
mass is outlined dimly as the east fires, the sharpness of the silhouette heaf grows
and
definite; and at the same time, through all the chinks of the high wood, the red looks
through, like coals through a grate, so that have a measure for some moment of the-
before the head of this hilly Pico, 1500 feet high
From end
It the other bay of the harbour
and at the other extreme of the bay the same mountain when the sun is down and the night
beginning and the colours and shapes at the sea level are already compounded in the gray-
ness of the dusk, the same peak retains a tinge of phantom rose. The so-called hur-
ricane that recently made Samoa famous and bestrewed the shores of Apia with the bodies
of white seamen, although it spared Pango-pango, raged about the summit of Pico; the
woods were stripped in one night of all their foliage, and the summit on the morrow
stood as if struck by a sudden Autumn. Thus this hill, although not more than under
1600 feet by measurement, not only marks the eye by its conspicuous design, but stands,
like a centerpiece to its surroundings, and is the stage and herald of changes in the

3

by
falling on a tin close to my head. All night the squalls continued at brief
tempestuous intervals. Morning came, and showed mists on all the mountain tops, a gray and
yellow dawn behind, a fresh accumulation of rain bringing imminent on the surface
summit of Pioa. And the whole harbour scene stripped of its tropic colouring, and
wearing the appearance of a Scottish loch. Frequently some of that-oame And not
long after, as I was writing on this page, sure enough from the far side shore a bell
indeed began to ring; end-with-the-sound-of-the-bell It has but just ceased, boats have been
passing the harbour in the showers, the congregation is within now, and the mass begun;
and-I-cannot-but-refleet-on How many different stories are told by that drum of temper-
ed iron. To the natives, a new strange outlandish theory; to us of Europe, redolent
of home, in the ears of the priests calling up memories of French and Flemish cities,
and (page 2 of the mansucript ends here) and perhaps some carved cathedral, and the
pomp of celebration; in mine, talking of the gray metropolis of the north, of
of remote churches, rustic congregations on the moors
of vanished faces and silent tongues.

Long ago (say the natives) the houses were continuous around the harbour; they
are now shrunk into some half a dozen isolated hamlets; and at night, it is only here
and there around the shore that a light twinkles. The main village is at the head of
girdles
the harbour and looks straight up the greatest length to Pioa. But a path goes
waterside, a rude enough causeway, which falls down if you sit upon its margin, yet makes
passage easy. Through a more---This The hill ascends abruptly and makes a rough edge
of forest in the aky; the path, as it follows on by forest promontory and recess, now
plunges you in breathless heat, now brings you forth into a broad draught of air; from
the hottest corner of a sun patch of sugar cane, you may look but a little way up the
hill and see a whirling fans of palms; from the bottom of some sandy cove, where the path
is overhung with rocks and embowered in overhanging trees, you may look but a little
forth, and see the bushes-blow-toss-on-the leaves toss in the breeze on the next cape.
This perpetual out and in, and change of scene and climate, entertains the mind; at
besides and you
times-a At times, you the mountain opens, one may look up the devious narrow
cleft of a stream, to-where-some until it winds from sight; sometimes you at times, on
or
the long flat sands, you will see women fishing, they may wade ashore, singing-as-they
to
eem, their wear raiment clinging tight-about their stalwart figures, and as you pass
canoe
on the narrow causeway, stand knee deep and pass you a salutation; or else a beat
burdened
goes by with some gay dresses, or a-wh two or three whaleboats with their lint white

4

sails go skimming by upon a race. The last cape of the main harbour is at Goat Island, when you turn it, you see the heads, the white surf flying, and the open ocean open lying blue between. A long beach runs here by-somefrom scattered houses, one of them falling in ruins, marks the site of a decayed village. In-one-house-we-can-see-some pref- Two streams here run into the sea; the inconsiderable mounds, easy to be over-leapt, such as can form frow up in an isle so narrow, steep and crooked. Here upon the beach we met a boy, an old friend and satellite who loves to sit with us on the bal-cony; he joins himself to us, and presently he is carrying my wet lavalala and towel; at the far end of the beach, beyond the houses, we sat on the sand and with the common instinct of all ages and races of man, elderly (page 3 of the manuscript ends here) white folk and eight year old Samoan boy began to dig in-theaway the sand. Mana is the boy's name; he-is a rather sickly shrewd, gentlemanly creature, whose pleasant manners have engaged us heretofore. He-is-first The design of a ship is nothing new to us; as-we and on the same walk we had already passed an elaborate section of a ship of war, showing the screw and the smoke stack descedngin to the keel. But Mana's ship is par-ticularly intended to be ours, and his representation is recommended to our notice by portraits of ourselves; here is the Faamasia the judge, here is the land surveyor, here the Writer of Tales-- and where is Mana? Mana was immediately added at the mast-head-- "at work," the artist added proudly. Such pictures and such talk are common to all races at that age. But now Mana begins to model the human figure in relief, and it was not long before the precocious youth had left us speechless, or leaves me rather without words to tell of what he drew and what he said. Not so much that he proved him-self an indecent designer, is remarkable, but that he had no shame or fear before his elders. I have seen the like done by children of little older in what is called can exhibited God-fearing England; but I do not remember that they would have called--shown their works to passers with any confidence.

(The overhanging rock and tree, the strong smell of brine, as you turn it, the louder sound not of the wind only but of the sea. At morning, the birds form either hand of the harbour)

The Taupo. Cleopatria, such was the name we gave her, was-I-think as her face and bearing claimed for her, next-us-en-the-beach was not by right a Taupo, for she was married and the leader in the village dance must be a maid. But the Taupo elect was young, and a church member and not suffered to join in the dances, so that the reason

5

of her election seemed to me far from obvious, and Cleop continued to officiate. A nobler woman it is scarce possible to conceive, being shaped like a divinity upon high lines, and with a countenance of an Egyptian cast and with an expression of dignity and even scorn that well became her head and her strange flattened profile. For the dance she wore in her head a sort of coronet that gave her the air of a drawing room at home, and vastly set off her beauty. The rest of her costume, the red neoklaces, the kilt of of fine mat, the little tabard of transparent net that hung back and front upon her shoulders, leaving her great bare arms and legs, were at pure Samoan, and rather contrasted with the effect of the drawing room coronet. She sat in the midst, two girls on one side of her (page 4 of the manuscript ends here) five on the other. The six were all trained exquisitely, their movements graceful in themselves and exquisitely timed. The reaching of arms I never saw so happily significant. And the strange trick of Cleop to sing with her eyes shut and a curious arrogant smile upon her face added a note of mystery to the accustomed business. The house was full of Samoan spectators, children of all ages among others; who soon began to join in the singing and beat time. When the indecent part came, it was singular to look about on all these ohaven heads of children wagging and little hands clapping the tattoo to such an unsuitable and ugly business. I was sorry to have Cleop taking part in such a show, though her part was the more decent though the principal. No sense of shame in this race is the word of the supercial, but the point of the indecent danse is to trifle with the sense of shame; and that very particularly that the chief actor should be a maid further discloses the corrupt element which has created and so much loves this diversion; for it is useless to speak, the Samoan loves the business like pie. In such an atmosphere our young companion had grown up.

Thursday about nine on board the Nukunono. The judge, Tusitala, Lloyd. Swedish Captain, Nova Scotian mate (with Nova Scotian stories), Chinese cook, black French cook from Bourbon, one hireling, one Taugan half cast, one Samoan half cast interpreter, one Selem black boy? Hard work to get under way, beating to and fro under Pica, in-the-teeth-of the great, cool, languid gush of sea air through harbour mouth and vast, oily backed swells. As-we-now The sruf on the end made wonderful waterworks; as we made one bound just inside of it, we made a breach on Whale Rock. It-was The head of it toppled and fell, the green sides of the harbour echoed with the report, and the sea rose all about the rock like the sides of a bowl. When we got outside at last, the

6

blow holes of-the along the coast were spouting high, and the spray of the surf hung in
it was a senseless languorous anima-
air and blew up the mountains; the Nukunono soared/up and down like a seabird, but the
the spirit of heaven the air that animates ships and guides and sailors was
breeze fell dead.

Pioa and the harbour had been making a little intricate belt of weather for
themselves; half a mile outside, stagnation ruled and deepened. The clouds burdened
towards-afternoon & standing around the horizon in long cold rows of pillars, hills and
statues, without motion, the sohooner slumbered, or kept the skipper awake by threatning
to go on the other tack. Long ere we came out of the harbour, the cook, the (page 5 of
the manuscript ends here). gallant diplomatic, reclined, lay prostrate, his-animation
like a broken doll, and lifted not his face no longer; the interpreter collapsed in turn
not wholly, but to a state of genteel silence and weeelessness muddlement, in which he was
useless as a gnome; the judge-- but let us respect his ermine. Night fell; Pioa and
Mirtie Peak stood crowned with clouds; which were lit up at times in the night, like the
fantastic electric bowls; the moon rose late, a ragged end of a moon leak brown upon one
side like burned paper; she-shewed-us-the-long-island-and-the-heaving-sea;-- and pre-
sently the day began to follow her and there was Tutuila all blurred with a succession of
and the mouth of Pago-pago seeming like a chamber of full smoke
fine rain showers, / but the sea being under an unmitigated blaze of day, and surrounded
along all the he invisible horizon, with the same long drawn series of frozen windless
cloud peaks. There is thought to be an easterly set; we saw little of it; steadi-
ly we drew westward; the mouth of P.P closed, Mitre Cape Peak moved past us, past us
the low shores landmarked with blow holes; we were tossing at last off the cliffy lee
end of the isle; and it was near noon, when we decided to try back for P.P. About
eighth--
In the afternoon, this too dwindled out of the sphere of practical politics;
we tossed overboard the little ship's boat, a couple of men were put into her; by common
consent the cook (for whose life we began to entertain fears) was helped after, when he
fell in the stern sheets helpless; and they pulled away for the jarbour mouth.

We lay and watched the sun go down, an alleviation anxiously expected. It
sank with strange pomp of colour, in a world of peaked cloud. Long after it was down,
arrows of blue radiated upwards, faded one by one; until at a last one only lingered and
grew more darkly blue upon -- against a heaven of deeper rose; the sea meanwhile heaved
multicoloured, here splashed flaked with fire and azure, there fallen in a blinding palor.
The sharp peaks of the isle were prioked stood out against the fading heavens in; they
tried vainly find a
were of a colour deep as black, and rish as crimson, for which we laboured-long to name;
isolated cardboard characters
above them every here and there, tall clouds stood, like Punch and Judy puppets, tall

7

isolated cardboard characters
clouds stood, like Punch and Judy puppets, tall double-faced Januses, dogs begging,
Bears with the rugged staves, perforated minarets; these a singular array, designed
it will appear for mirth (p.6 of ms. ends here)

as we beheld them from our heaving ship
P.7 of ms: yet rather striking/awe. The dusk slowly deepened; we ran a light up
in the fore rigging; it was our malangu lantern, the schooner (true to the S. S. charac-
ter) had none. Presently after, the sound of oars were heard; it was a boat going shark-
ing, and from them we had the welcome intelligence, that our moribund cook was got ashore
alive, and the consular boat was even now upon the way to rescue us. It was black night,
on there was nothing visible but stars and the sharp mountains, when the sound of sing-
ning up in the midst of the sea. It was not very tuneful, but the
ing/ hereled the approach of the rescue party.
We-get-the-way We were
on board with our goods, and had got the boat clear of the dangerous and lively neighbor-
hood of the schooner; she showed for a moment looking highly picturesque, then vanished
as
from-the by enchantment; and we heaved there solitary. A long way in; steering for
the priests light by west Pioa; a long while in silence, broken only by one song in which
our boatmen in the reiterative native style proclaimed their view that it was a bad thing
for whites to lie with Samoans, and vice versa. Then suddenly the voice of the island
rose; a sullen clamour of surf sinking again to silence, rising again louder and longer,
till it became permanent. And This solemn greeting moved us all extremely; and-the-bus
these Yet a long while before we were fairly in the jaws of the harbour, of a sudden the
sweet clean smell of the sea was gone, then fell upon the boat instead a flat, acrid,
rather stifling odour of damp; it had been raining much of the day, the woods were all
quite moist, fever. The starlight was very bright, but it shed not far; the immediate
sea beamed plain, the hills and the hills and father waters (save where they trenched
along the sky) hung indecipherable, and the harbour itself yawned before us like the mouth
of a cave. The priest's light was which had vanished for a while hid by the higher sur-
ges in the harbour mouth, now reappeared, and we began to strain our eyes and interrogate
speaking low in the and-the-silence-of-the
our memories. Where was the reef? We were discussing/ in-that dark boat, when of a
might
sudden, not two hundred yards away, the reef itself gave tongue, a wave broke, the moun-
tain answered and the silence returned. It was about nine when we got ashore again from
the voyage to Maun's, to find the cook already much revived, to see the judge return at a
bound to his customary appetite and gaiety (p.7 of ms. ends here).

P.8 of ms.: Annuu. The low end of the island, all village and elaborately managed plantations; 2 souls, sixteen tons of copra a year, abundance of food. The sea breaks

8

low in front, only from the opposite side of the channel, the reverberation of the surf about Tutuila comes back. On the seaward end of the isle, the amphitheatre of low hills incloses some third part of its surface; the amphitheatre has much the air of an old crater, very wide and low, the midmost occupied by flat green marsh, and the midmost by a blue mere; crowds of wild duck inhabit this; and the water of the lake is said to be red and to redden bathers. We covered the western summit of this basin by a low place whelmed in wood: our way was still in the midmost of woods, so that we had little idea of the nature of the country, only walked in airless heat among cocoanuts, and great ipis dar, as ivy and rugges as chestnuts. From a little in front a, sudden crepitations of surf began to strike at intervals upon our ear; then came a draught of air shaking the foliage; and next moment we had parted and we stepped forth into the wind and the view of the sea. In the circuit of the hills is broken this place the sides of the amphitheatre are violently burst, the march empties itself by a low ditch, the fresh water is spread in a shallow pools along the top of seaside walks, where the splashing of the surf maked it brackish. On either hand the broken circuit of the hills impends in cliffs; upon-the-right, the edge-is-weeded-over-by-some-weeve-palms and-a-ten-tree. Right in front, the cove which is full of mighty whirl and sudden sounds of the surge, looks sixty miles in the wind's eye, to where Maun'a lies. From-here-on-the sea-edge--Little-more-was-visible-than-the-line-of-the-land-and-the On the left hand, two flat stones, like great lizards couchant, lie-on-the parallel along the top of the a flat rock; their mouths mi (to an ardent fancy) might seem open; their eyes are fixed upon the distant islands. Taia told us they were watching the boats; / they were left behind, they were crying aloud for that desired destination. They When they found their raft was broken they said, "They would not die and get rotten; let us turn into stones here so that we may look forever at Manuau. Down the slope coasting on cocoanut ribs. The two Heads of Families is what they are called; and from immemorial times they had been adorned with offerings of food. It is perhaps these that give its original sanctity to this bold piece of coast; why that should all be tuned to love; why this should be a kind of island Cyprus, I dont quite see. On the top of the sheer opposite cliff, a stack of cocoa palms and a single toa hang imminent; if a man desired, or a woman, and-get he decoyed her towards this place; and here, if she were coy (p.8 of ms. ends here)

P.9 of ms.:

Thunder heard from Tutuila.

she would refuse to go father. He led her to the margin of that cliff, and hung her over, "Will you go with me to the Puataunofo-- the place of Mary Puas? If you will not over you go." Fear would triumph, it seems she must then be true to her word, and the pair

9

continued their journey. Up the steep bowl like flank of the cliff above the Heads of
Families, the way lay; again some thirty feet in height
presently it came near the margin, a great rampart,/seems here
for a blaustrade; it is broken here and there by wide embrasures, commanding the sea and
sky, and giddy slide of falling rock, and the breach of the surf. Over Across one of
these-- here-is-a-view there was a man, Vasa, who used to leap; none other durst at-
tempt the feat, and Vasa has been dead these thirty years. Here then was an old friend
the Smuggler's leap; but the object was quite new; the leap not made to escape pursuit;
amuse and But
but to dazzle the lady who was accompanying him, and perhaps with half a heart. The time
of her unwillingness was however nearly over; a little beyond, on the immediate brow of
the cliff, there grows a mass of the white flowered pua; so soon as man and woman came to-
gether here, the scent of this random garden overpowered resistance. A little further
forth the path lay among these flowers, the sea beating close below, a long front of cliff
making a giddy foreground, and far off across the flat sea, the eastern end of Tutuila
shows beyond. It is indeed a giddy piece of path; vertigo siezed on one of my party, and
he was much laughed at and told his mind ran upon Venery (Perhaps this is the reason?).
Below unseen there is somewhere the mouth of a cave full of birds, and here was the next
station of this pilgrimage of love, the lover standing close on the edge utters high and
musical cries, and immediately from beneath float up and up, and wheel awhile below, and
float higher, and wheel overhead, a flock of broadwinged seabirds black and white. The
path turns direct over the top of the hill, a grove of cocoanuts grows close; and we
were planted, all
drink their nuts; all these/all bear the name of former visitors: two for each party,
the man and the woman. Yet a little further, skirting the inner glacis of the bowl of
hills, with the green march, and the blue pool beneath, and the sea shining through the
opposite brush, and the palms and the toa printed on the sky, they reach the last stage
and veritable temple of the goddess. Hugh old ipis stand in a grove, beneath them a ring
of stones upon the ground; once there was a house which has been suffered to fall down;
but the ring of stones is maintained, the ground cleared, the sacred ipis watched, and I
believe the (p.9 of ms. ends here)

at $2 per mensem
P.10 of ms.: long path kept open by two old men. Sic itur ad. The whole custom
practise is now much declined and thought of as disgraceful. What makes it the more
strange, no excuse flows from this vain pilgrimage; the guilty couple are more blamed
than if they had remained at home; and I could receive no excuse explanations but it was
a custom from of old.

two pillows, one a short one marked with the names of the heads of the house TAIA

10

with a legend
and Lilia; the other a long one, / "this pillow is forbidden to all bad women," signed
with the names of some of the girls.

The Dutch lowlands, ditches, dykes, fields of small taro interlaid with straw,
palms, playing poplars; no bush anywhere, all the bowl of the hill weeded and cleared
and planted. You come out on the cove through a thicket of gray paudauns unhealthy;
on the rocks, red dragon flies; red as lacquer, flitted; in the rockside pools, some
active little fish kept up a perpetual bustle; leaping from one to another, and (salmon-
like) making them a ladder to and from the sea.

Monday.

Set out about 3.30 in the Fongatonga boat, Laila steering. The-east-ee
All the way we passed one cove after another, where a man might have gone ashore (did
the surf permit) and settle down for life. The eastern end of the island runs sharp
as a wedge into the sea, as you turn it and the north side is suddenly visible running
out in tall cliffy islets, with the back of Pioa overhead. The sun was down long ago,
and the dusk thickening in the bay where we were bound. I think it was still day on
the high seas. Groves of cocoanut run high on the hills, stand thick along the sandy
shore. In the midst of the sweep of beach, a single black rock breaks the sound and
partly dams the mouth of a little shallow river that-here-rune-in, coming slantwise,
gurgling-into-a-small-song
smooth and silent through the palms, and when the tide is low b-chatter/breaking into
song and quickly-descending-rooky-stairways about the rock. Here the hamlet lies, a
place-of-95-seconds, presenting the usual appearance of ruined church, a little open
space in the palms where the chief's houses are, a few scattering breadfruit, and a-
bout and behind the depths of mountain forest. A great crew of children followed us
with shouts of laughter from the beach; the writer of tales whom they declared to be a
woman, and to lack essential bones of the human frame. The house of the avatar to
whom
which we were directed, was already dark, but there was light enough to show us a pla-
gue of flies and a woman in a rosary hastily laying out mats. The acatar Aloma was at
work in the bush; and his absence and the presence of the flies decided us (in an ill
hour) to try the great house of the village. Thither we returned, still followed by
the laughing children. It was (p.10 of ms. finishes here)

P.11 of ms.:

High up on the centre pillar a notice was hung: Sivas are forbidden in this house

11

lighter here; for the house stood in the midst of the open place of the village, and
round extremely
stood besides on a raised flat frame of stones, and its pillars were so high. This
in particular pleased us; and we began to think we were in good quarters. A woman
received us, not with much alacrity, and word was sent for the chief. As we sat wait-
ing him, the house was gradually filled and surrounded by the curious crowds of the vil-
lage; and a curious scene they were certainly destined to enjoy. The chief was seen
at last to issue from a closed house some distance back, a tall, sickly, solemn figure
of a man, attired in green and with a rosary; slowly he approached, bid us a stiff wel-
come, and sat down, and the palaver commenced. He began by saying we might stay the
night, and our boys who were only waiting for the signal set out at once for the beach
to bring up our possessions. Next he was to asked why we had passed his house by, and
gone to another. He was told we had an introduction from a friend. Then he told us
he was sorry he could give us no food as it was night. We Responsum est, that we had
plenty food of our own and a man to cook it. Thereupon (as by an interlude) we were
offered Kava, which we never saw; and then he annoyed us by inquiring if we had money,
and offering to sell fowls. This was the last blow; Laila being by, we consulted him
if there was another village we could still reach. The village was distant, the land-
ing dangerous, the night falling, the boys longing for kava, food and a talk with the
girls, but Laila, having heard something of our usage, offered to try it on. There
upon Sewall began: He told our host we had travelled all over Samoa, and had nowhere
met such a reception; but it was un-Samoan, and that he desired to know why we were so
used. The host made some excuses, and repeated that we had passed his house. Sewall
took up the wondrous tale once more, told him what big chiefs we were, how we had come
here glowing with Alofa and laden with presents, how he, Sewall had to do with the war
ships and the malo, and what a bad day's work the chief had done for himself. The
chief once more made many excuses, and vowed he had a been "a fool" in so many words,
and begged us to stay. Sewall turned to me. I said I had not been received by this
person, as a gentleman should, that I did not regard him as a gentleman, should not
as a gentleman but as the landlord
treat him (if I stayed) of a dirty inn; which being the case I
thought it neither for his soul's health nor mine (p.11 of ms. ends here)

P.12 of ms.:

that we should stop longer in that house, and for my part I preferred to spend the
night at sea. This was translated (like all the rest, in a very emasculated form, by

12

the timid Charlie); and Sewall gave our boys the order to begin returning the goods;
and the Chief began his " afioga's." Already those in the house and around
it were much stirred, but now came the cream. The great man was yet talking, when we
three rose, Sewall bade him hold his tongue, I made him a socornful gesture of farewell,
and we passed out. The village of Ana boiled like a kettle. Our boys with an excell-
ent affectation of alacrity (for they approved of our attitude, though they disliked the
business) were running to the boat with all our truck, and the public place was black
with the entire inhabitants whispering and nodding to each other. The disgrace was pub-
lic and so felt. Sewall was great as he stood on the terrace of the house we had just
left, our his back to the man in green, and directed his boys for the removal. In the
midst up came Alomoa, who-had now returned from the bush; up came a Hawaiian who keeps a
store in the village; up came the chief, and all these offered us accomodations. We
decided, after some discussion to accept the offer of Alomoa; and to the hugh joy of
our boys returned to the house of flies.

It was a reward for all these sorrows, when I strolled to the beach at night and looked forward over the pale river and pale sea, to where the northern sky was still pallid with the evening, or back to the pillared homes of the village, lit up from within by the red light of the cooking fire and the brighter star of the paraffin lamp.

After a long discussion of the isles, our boys set off to a pali tele; not long after for their entertainment the clapping of hands told us the kava was ready, / and presently the strong sound of their singing ran in the night. [I lay awake but a moment in the , frieze of dogs and puppies in the lamplight like grotesque shadows on the net, during fading sound of voices by my side and of the song of the crew far off] I may say I was asleep from the moment I lay down; woke in the night but twice, and once was when a shower came and the blinds had to be lowered; the the first streaks of day called me. I was awake before the village; nothing stirred but multitudes of pigs black and grey, who trotted to and fro and grunted to each other as they went; and as I bathed in the river, in the thin no bigger than minnows twilight, a grey sow watched me jealously grunting; some little fishes/ leaped the while on the surface of the water and actually struck me as they leaped. A little after the life woke. Alomona and his wife strummed their Rianamu and set forth from the house; on all sides people wrapped in their unfolded lavalavas, like Eastern mantles, were to be (p.12 of ms. ends here)

P.13 of ms.:

seen making their way to the beach. ♀ Four tall young men set off together robed

13

in white, in blue, and in blue with a pattern of white; presently they returned and sitting in a row in the open gallery of their house, chanted a brief song. A drum was beat, like last night, not the pati but the war drum. Women began to go round the houses with a basket, playing scavenger. And here came Ah Sun with a cup of tea, and I must turn to my diary with what appetite I may might. Hard is the lot of Tusitala.

[The plenty of dogs is for hunting the wild pig in the mountains; why not the Black Boys; they do not come to this side, and besides if we went after them we might get hurt ourselves]

less than ninty odd.

The population of Ana used to be 200, it is not 97. War and sickness were named among the causes; and this also that the men took wives from Maun'a, and the return went afterwards to their mother's houses: Why?

8 oarsmen, a cox, Laila, Ah Sun, Charlie, Sewall, Lloyd and me; fourteen souls in all.

Wednesday. Sailed a little before high water, and came skirting for some while along a coast of classical landscapes, cliffy promontaries, far long sandy coves divided by semi-independent islets, far with-drawing sides of the mountain rich with every shape and shade of verdure. Nothing lacked but temples and galleys, and our own long whaleboat sped (to song) by six nude oarsmen figuered a piece of antiquity better than thought perhaps we imagine. No road leads along this coast; we scarce saw a house; these delectable inlets lay quite desert, inviting siezure; and there was none, like Keats' Endymion to hear our snow light cadences. harbour opened suddenly like a Scots loch the back of Pioa, to whose rear we had now worked roung, filling it at the end; and to this, by a pardonable tongafiti, our boatsmen sought to bend the course. The far isle to which we were bound they assured us was unscalable, waterless, nutless; we but insisted the more, and after the usual Samoan period of opposition our coxswain smilingly gave way, and we pursued our ascent of the coast. Not very far. Upon a sudden, we began to open the bay of Oa. At the first sight, my heart mind was made up; the bay of Oa was the place for me; we could not enter it we were assured, and being entered we could not land; both statements plainly fictive, both easily resolved into the fact that here was no guest house, and no girls to make the kava for them and admire their singing. A little gentle insistence once again produced a smiling acquiescence, and the eight oars began to speed urge us slowly into a bay of the Aeneid. Right over-

14

head a conical hill arises; its top is all sheer cliff of a (p.13 of ms. ends here)

P.14 of ms.:

Out of the high green island, there arose a sugar loaf of hill, sharp as a rosy yellow, stained with orange and purple, and bristled and ivied with individual climbing trees; lower down the woods are massed, oaves-of-verdure, under flakes of foliage, oaves of verdure, hugh individual trees standing to the neck in forest. Lower again the pock preps out in a steep buttress which divides the sweep of the beach into two oaves. We-knew-not-where-to-turn, a perplexity-of-pleasure. The western arc was the smaller, on the eastern is the forefront of the beach. I spied, to my sorrow, figures moving and a little smoke. The boat was eased in, we landed, and turned this way and that like in a perplexity of pleasures but now some way into the wood toward the oenial spire, until the woods had some strangled path, in the Samoan phrase, the way was dead, and we began to flounder in impenetrable brush, still far from the foot of the ascent, although already the greater trees began to throw out arms dripping with liannas and to accept us in the margin of their shadows. Now along the beach, it was grown upon with crooked thick leaved trees down to the water edge; immediately behind, there had once been a clearing, it was all choked with the mummy apple which in this country springs up at once at the heels of the axemen; and among this was intermingled cocoa palm and the banana. Our landing, and the bay itself had nearly turned my head. "Here are the works of the poets passim," I said. And just then my companion stopped "Behold an omen," said he, and pointed. It was a sight I had heard of before in the islands, but not seen: a little tree such as grows sometimes on infinitesimal islets on the reef, almost stripped of its leaves, and feasting covered with butterflies. These, as we drew near, rose and hovered in a cloud of silver, blue and gray. Later on I found the scene repeated in another place; but here the butterflies were of a different species, glossy borwn and black, with arabesques of white. The figures we had seen were those of an old woman and her daughter, and two in little boys; they came from the village under the other side of V and I am the coals at their feet, a cuttlefish was cooking. Our boys, with the two knives and the hatchet strolled up, sat down, forgot their errand, and without any invitation that I could hear, divided among themselves the cuttlefish; they may have left an arrow; and the old lady highly delighted invited them over to her house that night to sleep with her daughter. Doubtless a high pleasantry in the island fashion.

The sun was still shining on the eastern hill, and the birds were piping in all the bosky sides of our inlet, when I was able to sit down to my diary in the open front

15

of our new home; the smoke of the rekindled fire drifting before me, the smell of roasting pig for strong in my nostrils; the boat pulled up; the men seated about smoking their banana keaf cigarettes; and—night our boxes piled in disorder on the shore, and right in front of me (where our Chinaman had placed it out of the way of harm) our brass lantern glittering in a niche of a shore-side tree. As I wrote, the (p.14 of ms. ends here)

P.15 of ms.:

snails of the beach climbed upon my ink pot.

As we came in, high above us in the honey-combed woods, flying foxes and some white gulls were flying.

We ate in the front of our shed,

We-had pig, palusamis, miki, and roasted taro, mere native food, washed down with a historic wine: white California from Admiral Kimberley's wreeked ship the Trenton: It appeared that even in the lot of Admirals there was a crook. It was curious meanwhile, as the boys sat about our big Futu tree before us, to see them upon their side, eating tinned salmon from home: but how often it is so that the common food of one race should be the delicacy of the other: and the consuls excellent tea, which Ah Sun brews for me at sunrise and which I was one day so unwordly as to praise, the travelled Chinaman identified as "poor man's tea." A little after our boys began suddenly to sing; it-was-a-fine grave-measure They sat all about the tree, some in their sheds, some on the far side by the sea; in the dusk, and by the light of the dying fire, it was just possible to see the nearest, their bare shoulders polished in the glow. It-was One raised the song; the rest from different sides and distances joined in with—strange It was a fine grave measure; I thought it had some European base; but the Samoans so transpoxe their borrowed music that I had no guess it was a hymn, and applauded in the usual phrase. I was still appluding when I was aware of a—high sustained sound of a voice from the far side of the tree, and of the artificial tones, and the exclusive plural, knew it was a prayer, and that I had burst with music hall applause into the midst of the even-ing worship. A sharp file-firing "Amin" from the sdattered worshippers marked the con-clusion of the exercise. By that time it was fully night. The lantern was set before us in the front of our tent. Four of the boys sat in a row on their hams. Behind them in a turban of particoloured towelling the cox beat the measure on a biscuit case; the lantern threw them out brightly, behind it sparkled on the fat leaves and crooked bran-ches of the Futu, behind again, but for some occasional glimmer of the sea, mere night-ceneluded enclosed us. It-was-under-such-conditions,—in-thie-mentie at such an

16

hour, by such a light, in this desert and romantic cove, I saw for the first time the
male dancers of Tutuila. They gave us their songs; a boat voyage, with paddling and
looking about
sitting under the hand; a song of exercise and skirmishing with the Winchester rifle;
and another of the same with the old Samoan war club. Change of tempo: hugh effect.
When the dances were (p.15 of the ms. ends here)

p.16 of ms.:

over, they lay on the ground and sang the lament for the deportation of Maunga, and
then the concert feed degenerated into a long talk; in which we discussed Maunga's
and the
exile, and Malietoa and Tamasese feuds, and the case of the dancers whom Cunningame had
taken to Europe, and the story of the two who had escaped from him and by the help of a
kind German lady, returned to their beloved islands; and we gave them excellent ad-
the usual
was
in return
vice, and chaffed them, and were chaffed handsomely back, for he who spars with
Samoans must look to receive counters: And then came the word of part dissolution, Fia-
moe, and It was Tofa here Tofa there; and our boys scattered to their roosting places,
the nets were triced up in the shed, we took our places, and the lantern was turned out.
in-a-moment-the-walls It was like the removal of a cataract; in the twinkling of an
eye, the walls of darkness that contained us burst, and there was the heaven bright with
stars, and there was the sea and the hillsides clear in the starlight.
the crickets sang
the sea filled the hollow of the bay
All night with a clear trill of silver; All night with varying utterance;
sounding

now rearing continuous like a mill weir; now (perhaps from further off with a-pointed-
swells and silences. I went wandering on the beach where the tide was low. The-oex
swain-in-the-morning I went round the tree before our boys had stirred; it was the
first clear gray of the morning; and I could see them each lie in his place enmeshed
from head to foot in his unfolded kilt. The highlandere, with his belted plaid, the
Samoan with his lavalava, each sleep in their one vesture unfolded. One boy, who slept
under the trees
in the open, had made his pillow of a smouldering brand, doubtless for the convenience of
a midnight cigarette; all night the flame had crept nearer, and as he lay there wrapped
like an Oriental woman and still plunged in sleep, the redness was within two hands
breadths of his frizzled hair. I had acarce bathed, had acarce begun to enjoy the fair-
ness and the precious colours of the morning, the reey golden glow along the edge of the
high eastern woods, the clear light on the sugar laof of Maugalai, the woven blue and
emerald of the cove, the chuckle of the morning bird song that filled the whole valley of
thewoods, when, upon a sudden a draught of wind came from the leeward and the highlands
of the isle, a-olatter-the-sea-starting-a-olatter-of-drope rain rattled on the tossing

17

and
woods, a-e sudden-grey-veil-and-the-long-slanting, the pride of the morning had come
early and from an unlooked for side. We-all I fled for refuge in the shed; but
such of our boys as were awake stirred not in the least; they sat where they were
perched
among the scattered boxes of our camp, and puffed at their stubborn cigarettes, and
crouched a little in the slanting shower. So good a thing it is to wear few clothes; I
(p.16 ms. ends here)

P.17 of ms.:

and-somewhat

who was largely unclad-- a pair of serge trousers, a singlet, a woolen socks and
canvas shoes-- envied them their light array.

**Thursday.** The Suaese and Loia withdrew to the next village which they found in
the nick of the next bay, an exceptionally wind-swept, cherry, and bemedalled place of
dwelling: Pioa clear overhead, and a thin hen's path across the narrow isle to go to
Pago
Pago and return. Meanwhile, I had Virgil's bay all morning to myself, The-tide-drew-
and feasted on solitude and overhanging woods, and the retiring sea. The quiet was
only broken by the hoarse wooding of wild pigeons up the valley, and certain inroads of
capricious winds that find a way from-hither hence and thence down the hillside and set
spotted
the palms clattering; the my enjoyment only disturbed by clouds of dull, voracious,
and not very particularly welcomed mosquitoes. I-kept- When I was still, I kept Bubach
burning by me on a stone under the shed, and read Live, and compared today and two
thousand years ago, and wondered in which of these epochs I was flourishing that moment,
and them I would stroll out, and see the rocks and the woods, and the-ite arcs of
ancient
beaches, curved like a whorl in a fiar woman's ear, and high old trees jutting high
hanging
overhead out of the ordinary forest, great as mountains, and feel the place at least
was belonged to the age of fable. and awaited Aeneas and his battered fleets. All day
or
All day there snow white birds wheeled above and settled on our fatu; show white as in
or their minds untutored
Poes hyperbolical story, the tail split like a swallows, the courage certainly high, for I
saw (from across the bay) two of these bright shining fowl perched in the top of our
smoke
fatu, while all the business and laughter of our camp rose all about them.

two

rudely

Sometime in the afternoon, three for a guess, we had no watch in our party and
compute by the rising and setting of the sun, we were aware of a bustle, and the boys
running here and there wity our effects, "What is it?" "A great rain." No sooner
said than realized; down came the rain in a brief waterspout, the boys clustered sadly
through
under the fatu, the roof of our shed became transpierced at every joint and crevice

18

with fine drills of cold water, and we sat dripping amid our drenched possessions.
"Evil is this house that you have built us," we cried to our boys, "Evil are the
trees in this place" was the reply from the clustered herd under the futu. But the
in
evilness was on our own neglect; for the Samoan must be watched and managed, one-were
the night before we had been
too much pleased with our boy fine bay to mind the builders. By good luck, the
shower was as (p.17 of ms. ends here)

P.18 of ms.:

short as it was sharp, and we had made a busy job of it to draw our books and
clothes and bedding, on the coral gravel in the retiring sun.

 returning

Thursday. The new house held water. Showers fell often in the night; some
sounding from far off like a cataract, some striking the house; but not a drop came in.
(The flowers of the Futu lie scattered about it, tassels of fine sprays, snow white, warm-
ing through rose to crimson, and each tipped with a golden star; this drawing room fin-
ery looks strangely out of place on the rude shingle. At night a cry of a wild catlike
 creature in the bush. Far up the hill, one golden tree, they say it is a wild cocoanut:
I know it is not, they must know so too; and this leaves me free to think it sprung
from the gold bough of Proserpine.

blue in shore upon the shallows, only the
Earl The morning was all in blue: the sea blue, the horizon clouds a blue of-the
blue was nameless like fine porcelain,
meat-delicate / the sky behind them a pale lemon faintly warmed
with orange. Much that one sees in the tropics is in water-colours; but this sunrise
was in water colours by a young lady. All our camp still slept: the cox and the inter-
preter in their separate shed, the crew in the three others, and the lame man in the hol-
low of the tree. None stirred; and behold, the tide was full, the moment waited. I
shook up the cox, and he with a long pole beat on the green roofs of the sheds and called
his crew together. It was still early when we stole out of our bay. Pola, when we
came there was but a wall of rock, divided from the mainland by a bubbling channel of
about two boats' lengths; trees clustered on its narrow top, a few olung on its side
which was in one place buttressed with a natural arch. Thousands of seabirds wheeled
silently above or sat close in crannies, or snow besnowed the clinging trees. To look
at the strange place was to understand the irony of our boat's crew, when they smil-
ingly consented to come there and camp. Again they proposed it. Through the gate,