Part 12

Two of them had fine voices; their songs were old folk-lore chants telling of South Sea heroes. I would get them to sing to me and so learnt them off by heart and played them on the violin, but the melodies all seemed to lose their wild atmosphere when played as simple strains and divided into bars, unwedded to the Samoan words and the intonation of the wild childlike voices of the Islanders. Most of the South Sea strains are in minor keys; I give you here as near as possible my own impression of the melodies as I heard them sung.

[Music: _Andante._ _Chant Style._ Composed by A.S.M. _mp_ Lais (Drums) _ff_ lais ... lais ... COPYRIGHT.]

When we arrived at Viti-Levu, I went ashore and stayed for several days and had the pleasure of hearing a Fijian princess sing native songs. She was a granddaughter of King Thakambau, and resided in one of the best houses in Suva, was a good hand at playing the guitar and took an interest in me, as I was a musician; her husband, a Fijian chief, had a deep mellow voice which was astonishingly musical for a Fijian, and they sang together to me in their native home, squatting on their mats side by side. The princess was a beautiful-looking woman for a full-blooded native, and I spent a good deal of time with them, and really appreciated her songs and playing. Some of the melodies she sang had the Western note in them. As near as I can I reproduce here one of my own impressions of a characteristic Samoan song’s note.

[Music: SAMOAN LOVE SONG[6] MINOR. _Moderato._ _mp_ Words and Music by A.S.M. Mia Ta - lo - fa, The chiefs are sleep - ing, the seas in moon - light sing. The REFRAIN, _Moderato_. _con expressione_. night-winds are sing - ing my Ma - la - boo maid Un - der the co - - - co - palms. COPYRIGHT. ]

Footnote 6:

“Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also for orchestra and military band. Published in London.

I could not stand the skipper of the boat which we had come across by (I think the name of the schooner was the _Nelson_) and so I left, and my friend Holders with me. We got into pretty low water in about a week, and both eventually secured a berth on another ship, a small barque, which was going to the Marquesas Islands. The mate was ill, and went into hospital at Suva, and I secured the berth. She was not sailing for two or three days, and so we were still stranded, beachcombers and cashless, but I met a Mr Fisher, who was a wealthy trader and had settled on the Islands. I went up to his house with my comrade and took the violin for an evening’s pleasure. We arrived a few minutes before the dining hour (in the true poet and musician style of the South Seas and Western Seas) because we had not a cent between us and on the Islands it was a great breach of etiquette not to treat the host before the meal hour. Mr and Mrs Fisher were on the look-out for us and our programme went off well, for we sat down to dinner almost immediately. We had a splendid time, received some cash in hand, warmly shook our host’s hand, and departed late at night in a misty dream, for we were not used to the strong wine which our host was so liberal with, and seemed to walk on air as our legs went up the white moonlit forest track as we tramped along together merrily singing years ago.

Next morning we were aboard the boat and stopped on her till she sailed, and I think we put in about six weeks of cruising, calling at Samoa and then going to the Marquesas Islands. I went ashore at nearly all the old places. In Hiva-oa, my comrade and I saw the old cannibal courts wherein the grand “Long Pig” feasts had taken place as the natives ate the bodies of their dead who had been slain in battle. It was sunset as we stood by the big banyans gazing on the terrible arena and the sacrificial altar, whereon the mortally wounded, still lingering, received the last club smash, that sent their souls to Eternity and their bodies to the stomachs of mortality, and as I watched the natives, who with childlike eyes stood by us cadging for money, sunset blazed on the primeval ruins of that terrible amphitheatre and before my eyes the vision of the dying sun-fused twilight lay over everything. I saw the tiers of long-ago cannibal guests arise in the mist, with their hideous faces aglow with hunger as the mangled victims fizzed on the cannibalistic spits. I heard the sounds of the long-dead laughter as the coco-palms and banyans around sighed into silence as a gust of wind came in from the sea, and with the horror of what must have been, I kicked the native and pushed him away as he clambered, begging for money all the time that I was watching and dreaming.

We then went to the native village, and became acquainted with a half-caste Marquesan. He was a convivial old fellow and followed us wherever we went. We could not get rid of him; we gave him many hints, and even told him at last that we wanted to kneel and pray together and would he please depart and leave us to our devotion; but no, he was as relentless as Fate and immovable, and so, not being able to kill him, we put up with him. He took us miles away to show us another old arena where the Marquesans had in the past fought their historic duels, till the victim fell and was eaten.

Tired out we slept in a little stone house till daybreak; it was a snug little room, with stone shelves in it. On one of these I slept, out of the reach of tropical lizards and other odious insects. In the morning I asked our “old man of the sea” what the house was, and found that it was an old dead-house, a kind of cooling place where the bodies had been kept before they were cooked. I had slept soundly on that shelf. I didn’t even dream! And how many thousands of dead men, dead girls, dead mothers and children had slept their last cold sleep on the spot whereon I had innocently lay, breathing and warm? I had a cold chill on me the whole morning as I thought of the dead of the past, and how I had warmed that last bed. At last we were rid of the half-caste and rambled about on our own, and saw hundreds of natives at a village near Taapauku. It was a beautiful spot by the mountain. Banyans, tropic palms, coco-nuts and gorgeous-coloured flowers swarmed everywhere, as between the patches of trees, across tracks passed the natives, almost naked, singing and carrying loads of fruit, etc., as they stooped and went into their native dens that stood in the cleared spaces.

That night we saw two Marquesans fighting with clubs. They were jealous over a woman; there were no other whites (excepting some Chinamen) near at the time, and we could do nothing. The fight did not last long. They held their clubs in a firm grip, and swayed and ran round each other seeking a weak spot. They were swarthy men, and very powerful-looking, and as we watched under the verandah of a native house, down came the club on the head of the smaller man and the blood and brain matter splashed all over the place as the skull flattened like an egg-shell: I will say no more, excepting that I felt sick for some days. On the way back we met our “old man of the sea” again, but managed to give him the slip as we ran down a side forest track as fast as we could go.

Telling you of him reminds me of an experience I had in Sydney once. I had met by chance, in a saloon in George Street, an old man who had been a sailor. He had been drinking, and I treated him, as he kept imploring me to do so, and at length he became very confidential. I gathered from all he said that he was a social outcast; but nevertheless I liked him. He was really a most queer character and in the end became an intolerable nuisance. He managed to know where I lived, and wherever I would go he would go, and if I got ahead of him, and was remorsefully pleased that I was at last rid of him, up he would come! He had the instinct of a bloodhound, I think.

I lived in a little two-roomed wooden house near the bush beyond Leichardt, off the Paramatta Road, Sydney. He was homeless, and so I took him in and gave him a bed on the floor, but I was down on him if he was drunk. His name was Naylor and I think he was a Welshman; he had a beautiful voice, and though he was an old villain, he would sing most pathetically as I played the violin by night in our little home. He was so drunk repeatedly, and caused me such sorrow, that at last I turned him out. I thought I had got rid of him, but as I lay asleep at midnight I was suddenly awakened by hearing the sound of singing coming toward my home, down the road—it was Naylor! for I recognised the voice. He was singing “Barney, take me Home again!” and, notwithstanding my stern resolution to have no more to do with him, my heart was touched and made me follow my impulses as the silence of the night was broken by the song of appeal. I crept to my window and peeped through a chink; there he stood white bearded and drunk in the moonlight, appealing to me with his song over and over again. Of course I let him in, and night after night I was disturbed by that old song.

One night the crisis arrived. I was suddenly awakened by a terrible crash at my front door, and the old “Barney Dear” was being sung with ferocious energy. I had overslept; he was outside terribly drunk, imploring to be let in. I was obdurate; and would not stir. At last his voice as he shouted, “Dear old Middy, let me in, I’ve got a roasted fowl here for you,” woke my curiosity, so anguish-stricken and appealing was his voice that I jumped up at once and looked out of the window. A large fire was blazing in my yard, and over it, spluttering and fizzling on an extemporised spit, was a fowl cooking! Unplucked, entrails and all, there it steamed, just as he had stolen it off the roost of my neighbour’s fowl-house, a hundred yards off.

As I opened the door I gazed sternly at him. He seemed surprised that I was not as pleased as he was with himself. I positively refused to eat of the fowl, and at this he got into a fearful rage, and kicked it as it hung on the spit. Well, I even forgave him for that night’s work. He’s dead now, and I always feel a bit sad when anyone sings, “Barney, take me Home again.” I remember years after, when in England, I sat by the fire telling my mother and sisters of old Naylor, and how relieved they seemed when I told them I had let the old man in, when he had sung, “Barney, take me Home again.”

It is strange how secretly in our hearts we have a world of sympathy for the villain, especially old ones, and had Naylor been a good pious old man he would have never been heard of.

A very strange thing happened some years after, when I was mate on a Clipper boat. A Welsh sailor by the name of Naylor, a member of my crew, showed a strong resemblance to the old Naylor of my Sydney experience, so much so that, one night while I was on the poop, I called him up and said, “Are you any relation to a Lloyd Naylor, an old man whom I had the pleasure of knowing in Australia?”

“That must have been my father,” he said, and he was delighted to know that I had known his father. I did not tell him of my experiences with his father, but said, “Naylor, your father was a fine man, a great friend of mine,” and sneaking the fellow into my cabin, I opened a bottle of whisky, poured him out a tumbler full to the brim, and by the way he smacked his lips I perceived that he was a real chip of the old block.

XVIII

Back in Apia—Robert Louis Stevenson—Chief Mate Herberts lost Overboard—Savage Island—Thoughts of the Workman’s Train to London and back to the Suburbs

FROM Hiva-oa we went to Fatou Hiva, then to the Paumotu group that sparkled like Isles of Eden in the vast shining water-tracks of the Pacific; for miles and miles there are islands dotted, and I felt some of the enthusiasm that R.L.S. felt when he visited the same Islands, and he did not exaggerate about the beauty and novelty of the Marquesas and Paumotus group. I heard him telling some friends of his experiences at Hiva-oa and elsewhere as he delightedly told them anecdotes of Marquesan etiquette, and I daresay I saw him writing some of the experiences which he gave to the world in his books, for one day in Apia, while I was having some dinner in the German Hotel, I sauntered around and, gazing through one of the doors, saw Stevenson quite alone, sitting at a little table with a bundle of paper by him, writing; he stooped very much while he was writing, which must have been very bad for anyone who suffered from chest complaint.

By his side was a glass of something; he was quite oblivious to all around him, and did not notice anything. I think he often went to that silent hotel room so as to get away from everyone and write.

A gentleman came into the bar while I was there, and walking towards the door of the room wherein Stevenson was writing he was spotted by the hotel manager, who shouted to him that the room was engaged, and I believe Stevenson tipped the manager of the hotel so as to be left to himself.

After calling at Society Islands we left for Samoa, where once again I met the incorrigible Hornecastle. He had been away to the Solomon Group, and as I strolled out the next morning after my arrival, I met him on the beach in a hot argument with two Samoan sailors, who were demanding their wages.

“Not a God-damned cent,” Hornecastle was shouting, as I came up. It appeared they had contracted to do a week’s job and had done one day of it and then demanded the full week’s money. That was real Samoan all over, especially those who were Christianised; they were terrible hypocrites; would do you by tricks, and then go off to the mission class and shout “Me good Samoan mans, all good, no steal. Halee, hal-ee ju-ja!” rolling their eyes skyward terrifically the whole time. Some of them are really serious in their belief and they are then very dangerous. I met a fierce-looking fellow one night and he started to try and reform me. I was sitting talking to Hornecastle and two Americans at the time, and they had been giving him a drink or two and then they started to chaff him about the missionaries, and I laughed at something Hornecastle said about a missionary who had married; in a moment he lifted a knife, and if I had not dodged swiftly I should have had it in my ribs up to the hilt.

He was not a full-blooded Samoan. I have never seen a Samoan who had once accepted your friendship turn traitor afterwards. But even the true Samoans are not so trustworthy when they have got the religious mania on them; they are a superstitious people, and the solemn-voiced missionaries chanting into their childish ears create extraordinary illusions in their minds. Some go raving mad and others go off to the other Isles and live a life of isolation and devote all their remaining days to begging the one great white God to save them from hell fire. I have seen them myself in this miserable state, deserted by all their relatives, and when they become dangerous they often suddenly disappear, for the Samoans quietly finish them off on dark nights! They club them and bury them with sorrow in their hearts, just the same as Europeans do, only our methods are perhaps the unkindest—we bury our insane in an asylum and they bury them under the forest earth and flowers. They do have lunatic asylums in the Islands, but they are for the milder cases, and the Government found that the incarcerating principle was very much abused, for the Samoans soon got to know of the free food, lodgings and comforts of the asylums of the South Seas, and drastic measures had to be taken to end the numerous cases of mild madness that kept seizing Samoans and Fijians who were down on their luck and wanted a rest. I do not know what the South Sea Islands are like now, but when I was there penal servitude was one of the greatest honours that could be conferred on the middle-class Fijians, Tongans, and Samoans, for they got food in the prisons that they only smelt outside, also warm comfortable beds, and when the discharge day arrived they could be seen leaving the prison gate wailing bitterly over the cruel flight of time! Nor is this an attempt of mine to be funny. I have seen the natives deliberately come on to a schooner’s deck, and right in front of my eyes start to unscrew the cabin skylight to steal it, so that they could get, as they say, “in pison place.”

Again I fell in with a “new chum” who had just arrived and cleared from a schooner. Together we secured positions as superintendent post-diggers for the German Commissioners.

We had several natives under us. It was a look-out job; we had to watch and see that they toiled without cessation. At first we were kind to them, but it did not pay; the natives were very much like children, they soon took advantage, and so we soon changed our manner, looked stern as charity organisation officials, and once more obtained the approval of Van Haustein, the head overseer.

We had been extremely short of cash. The storekeepers required the wherewithal down (as elsewhere) before parting with necessaries which we had not got, and which we anxiously needed to make us respectable Samoan citizens. We did not stick the job more than two weeks. It was squally weather the whole time, and my eyes often inclined seaward as longing thoughts came to me of home and England.

About this time I once more met Stevenson. It was a wild night. I had just returned from a short cruise to one of the off Isles of the main Samoan group; rain was falling heavily, in true South Sea style. I had taken refuge in a native bungalow by Apia beach. Close by lived my friend the Samoan shell-seller, whom I have before mentioned. We were almost drenched to the skin, and were talking with some natives and an old shell-back who also had taken shelter, when out of the darkness, across the open track, came hurrying Stevenson. He was dressed in a large extemporised hood of sail-canvas to protect him from the torrent of rain, probably lent to him by some friendly trading skipper. Breathless he stood beside us, was quite chummy with the natives, and seemed in a most amiable mood; he was smoking, talking to the natives one side in Samoan and joking with the shell-back, who “sir-ed” him, the other side. It was a terrible night. As we stood there we could hear the seas thundering against the barrier-reefs as they rebounded heavily and threw their manes of spray shoreward, where lay the wrecked warship _Adler_ with a broken back, high and dry, thrown up by the hurricane of some time back. Overhead moaned the bending coco-palms that stood scattered about amongst the native bungalows. Soon the roof of our shelter started to badly leak, whereupon we all decided to make a dive for the old shell-seller’s home, hard by. Stevenson led the way, enjoying the venture, laughing and running like a schoolboy. Though the distance was only a hundred yards or so, we all received a good soaking, Stevenson excepted, who held his canvas sail-sheet with arms outstretched as he ran, making a sheltering roof over his head. The shell-seller was asleep on his mat, but upon our arrival at once got up. He slept “all standing,” in the middle-class South Sea style, and was not overburdened with clothes. Lighting his candles, he did his best to welcome and entertain us. As I have before said, the walls, indeed his home itself, seemed composed of shining shells, all the varieties of the South Seas, pearl, red, white and glittering rows, small ones and some weighing half-a-hundredweight, made up the length and breadth of his walls, beautiful shapes and curves, glittering as they reflected the candle gleams. As we all stood gazing in the gloom, Stevenson forgot the late hour and the rain, and with enthusiasm went off into natural history as the old fellow, who was an enthusiast in his art, got very delighted to be able to expatiate over the various specimens, the depths and dangers he had encountered whilst gathering together his vast shell tribe. He was overjoyed when Stevenson bargained with him for a quantity, and salaamed in a ridiculous way, till Stevenson’s mouth curved with humour as he strove to be polite to the old chap every time that his garment, a torn sailor’s shirt, touched the ground in front as he bowed! I do not know if that particular shell-house has been described by visitors to Apia of that time; if not, it should certainly have been numbered amongst the curio sights, both for its ingenious construction and for the combined artistic and commercial instinct of the Polynesians that it revealed. As we stood smoking in the doorway that faced inland, we could hear the songs and laughter of traders and sailors who drank deeply in the small grog shanty not far off. I have no doubt that Stevenson did not seek its shelter because of its extra gloomy side rooms kept by dubious Samoan women, and to be seen going in or out on a dark night would not enhance the reputation of anyone. It must have then been close on midnight; the rain suddenly ceased sufficiently to encourage us all to go out and venture on a run for it. Between the squalls we all made headway, tacking from bungalow to bungalow; some of the inhabitants we found awake, squatting just inside the door-hole. As we dodged from shelter to shelter Stevenson seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as a boy on a truant night out. Of course, we all were familiar enough with native homes, but the late hour, the rain-dodging, the jovial receptions we had as we suddenly all scrambled into them without ceremony, was an experience that had a deal of novelty in it, and at times whilst we were on flight strikingly weird, for as the moon overhead burst through the flying scud, Stevenson with his oilskin canvas sail stretched out by his extended arms flapping looked like some forest fiend running, only his long tight-breeched legs revealed as he flew ahead of us all across the moonlit track to the next shelter. As I write it seems like a dream to me that the lively boyish-mannered man of that stormy night in Apia years ago was the now idealised poet and author, Robert Louis Stevenson.