Part 2

[3] Very few flowers are found in the atolls, wherefore the natives, who use wreaths for every festive occasion, are forced to devise all sorts of makeshifts for the garlands that are considered almost necessities. I have seen only two flowers that seem indigenous to the true atoll, one quite insignificant, that looked like the blossom of the male _papaia_, the other a sort of "spider lily"; both these were of a whitish colour, and, as far as I could see, were worn only by people of position, and not by the common herd, who contented themselves with imitations made from some part of the cocoanut-tree. I wish those artistic souls, who so scorned my purchases at the milliner's, could have seen with what frantic joy they were received. Many times staid matrons burst into sudden hysterical weeping when I offered them my wreaths, while kings, chiefs, and even white traders intrigued to gain one of these coveted possessions.

_22d._--The weather still lovely. Saw a small island called Curtis Island, and at half past ten sighted Sunday Island. The captain kindly took us very close in that we might get a good photograph. A puff of smoke appeared on the horizon, supposed to be a steamer; great excitement. I ran to write letters and found Mr. Henderson doing the same; but alas, the ship, which looked like a man-of-war, moved away from us nearer to the island, and it was too late to venture to chase her, so our letters must wait. Sunday is the island where an American family once took up their residence, remaining until it began to blow up. Some settlers have lately gone there. Lloyd reminds me that this was the place Louis and he once proposed to try and get possession of, and I refused to hear of the plan because of the volcano and the hordes of rats that infest the place. I repented when I saw it, and my heart is now set upon owning an island. It grows warmer daily, and I hope soon to be able to put away my shoes and stockings.[4] Mr. Henderson is looking for an island about the existence of which there is some doubt. Lloyd tells me that Mr. Low, the artist in New York, once said that he had a friend who had actually been upon this very island.

[4] As all mine and most of Louis's were burned, except what I had on my feet, I wished to preserve these for such times as it might seem necessary to make a civilised appearance.

_26th._--I have not been able to put away my shoes and stockings, for the sun disappeared soon after my last entry; for several days we have been knocking about in a gale of wind with almost continuous rain. The air is thick and breathless, hot, and at the same time chill. To my discomfort, I caught a cold and developed a smart attack of rheumatism. The captain has also been unfortunate; he, too, took cold, and in addition had a heavy door slam upon one of his fingers, crushing the nail. Some time ago a cinder blew into one of his eyes, causing an inflammation, and now the other is as bad in consequence of the poisonous fumes of our involuntary firework display.

To-day we came to anchor off Savage Island, or Nuieue, having on board some eight natives of the place who were being returned home by the company. It was pleasant to see the happy, excited faces of the "boys" as we drew near their native land. They were all dressed for the occasion in new clothes, every man with a pair of strong new boots on his feet. A couple of dandies wore velvet smoking-caps with tassels, and red sashes. It is a smaller and lighter-coloured race than we have been accustomed to, their features and expression reminding one of pretty, sweet-faced Chinamen. Before we had anchored, neatly made outriggers were circling round the ship and cries of greeting arose from all sides. When the steam-whistle sounded a joyful answering shout ran along the beach. No women came out to us. To them a ship is tapu, but numbers of small boys accompanied the men. Soon they were all wandering over the ship, marvelling at the strange sights, but also cannily ready to make an honest or dishonest penny. I bought a couple of sticks of sugar-cane for a stick of tobacco and ordered a hat from a man for which I am to pay two shillings. The man had a hat with him but charged four shillings for it on account of its trimming, a small bit of red flannel laid round the crown. I also bought a couple of little model canoes (one for Tin Jack) for two shillings.

Our sailors are "black fellows," some from the New Hebrides, some from the Solomons and various other places. They seem to find it easier to speak to one another in English than in their own tongues; I heard one say: "I wouldn't like to go across that water in that fellow's canoe." The men from Nuieue looked at those black fellows with great curiosity and asked in what island did they find men like that. One of these black sailors has his name signed as Sally Day. To-day I heard one of the others politely call him Sarah. Savage Island is a high-low island; that is, it is a coral atoll with a soil, raised more or less unevenly, some two hundred feet above the sea-level. It produces copra, bananas, cotton, breadfruit, _bêche-de-mer_, and fungus, and is governed by a king with the assistance of four chiefs and four sub-chiefs. Food trees and plants are carefully cultivated, and the people have the reputation of being industrious and willing to work. Captain Henry wished to take a little girl home to his wife, but was not allowed, it being against the law that a female should leave the island.

In at least one of the villages of Nuieue a singular custom prevails. One day in the year is fixed as a day of judgment. Every soul, man, woman, and child, gathers together on the village green. Votes are cast for a whipper, and a jury, composed of half Christians and half heathens, is chosen. One by one the people come forward and publicly confess their sins, while the jury fixes the punishment, which is whipping or an equivalent fine. The fines may be paid in goods of any sort, the value of the article offered being rated at the price originally paid for it. For instance, a man fined a dollar may bring the unwearable remains of a tattered hat that cost him a dollar the year before. The elected officials do not escape punishment by virtue of their position. After the jury has confessed and fixed its own punishment, the whipper must do the same, and, if whipping is his doom, must proceed to whip himself. So, next day, every soul starts afresh with consciences sponged clean, ready for a new record of sins. The confessions seem to be genuine and sometimes cause the utmost surprise and consternation to those who have been sinned against.

The desire to own an island is still burning in my breast. In this neighbourhood, nearer Samoa, is just the island I want, owned, unfortunately, by a man in Tahiti. It is called Nassau and is said to be uninhabited.

Last night an immense rat ran over me in bed, and Mr. Henderson had the same unpleasant experience. In the hold of the _Janet_ are a number of pure white rats with red eyes, which appeared of themselves quite mysteriously. The captain will not allow them to be harmed, which I think is very nice and sentimental of him. It was amusing to see our dog's perplexity when we came to anchor, and he put his head out of a port-hole to have a look at Auckland. His very tail expressed alarmed surprise. Our second steward (a white man) is in a state of wild delight. He took his "billet" under the head steward from a romantic hope of seeing Samoa, of which he had once read a description in a newspaper. Every little while I hear his voice, quivering with excitement: "What do you think of it, Mrs. Stevens?" One moment he is thrusting sugar-cane into my hand: "Taste it, Mrs. Stevens, it's sugar stick! I never saw it before!" and the next is: "_Cocoanut! cocoanut!_ It's _green cocoanut_, Mrs. Stevens; I never saw it before in my life!" It is of no use to tell him that it is all an old story to me; he hears nothing but babbles on with shining eyes. I have just overheard this from a white stoker who had also never been in the tropics before: "He's been and swindled me, that native! There's nothing inside this green cocoanut but some kind of water."

Mr. Henderson has just told us as a secret that our next island will be Upolu, Samoa, and we are now as wildly excited as the second steward. On Wednesday afternoon, at four o'clock, we shall arrive at Apia, and the next morning, at break of day, off we fly to Vailima. As we were discussing the subject, the captain called out that there was a white rat in his cabin and he wished to catch and tame it, so I ran to help him. It was under his bed, he said, and the loveliest rat in the world. As he was dilating on its beauty, out it flashed, jumping on him and rebounding against my breast like a fluff of white cotton wool. The captain laughed and screamed with shrill, hysterical cries, in which I joined, while the loveliest rat in the world scurried away.

_27th._--The weather really abominable, so cold that I have had to put on a flannel bodice. Tin Jack and Lloyd went to the station last night and returned with the white trader, a thin, pallid man, with a large, hooked nose and soft, frightened brown eyes. For very dullness I was about to go to sleep, when Mr. Henderson ran up, crying: "Sail ho!" Sure enough, there was a large vessel wallowing in the great seas. Captain Henry thought her an American driven in by the heavy weather. Round the point of the island the breakers were rising, he said, some forty feet high. While we were watching the strange craft she turned about and sailed away, to our great disappointment, no doubt having only come up to take her bearings. After I had closed my diary last night Mr. Henderson got out the chart and showed us his own islands and the supposed location of Victoria Island which he is looking for. I offered to toss him for the latter, to which he agreed. Louis threw up a piece of money and I won. I have yet, however, to find Victoria.

Nuieue has not yet recovered from the effects of last year's hurricane, and we shall not get many delicacies here. There are no ripe cocoanuts, few bananas, and no breadfruit. Some one said that I could get spring onions. "How do they grow them?" I asked; meaning did they sow seeds or plant sets. "On the graves," was the rather startling answer.

Last night Mr. Henderson pulled off a rat's tail. He thought to pull the rat from a hole from which the tail protruded, but the tail came off, and the rat ran away. The captain tells me that there is generally a plague of flies in Nuieue. It is too cold for them now, but usually when the natives come out in their canoes their backs, especially, are black with flies. Some one has sent me a basket of bananas almost too sweet and rich; also some excellent oranges. I have mended the bellows of our camera, where it has been eaten by cockroaches, with sticking-plaster.

_28th._--Steamed round to the other side of the island to the missionary station, carrying with us the trader and a young Irishman named Hicks; also a native woman and a boy. Here, to our surprise, we saw the vessel we had sighted and lost; she proved to be the _John Williams_.

We watched her plunging to and fro, now close under the cliffs, now skirting the _Janet_, now fetching our hearts in our mouths as she stayed, and forereached in staying, till you would have thought she had leaves on her jib-boom. We actually got up the camera to take a photograph of the expected shipwreck. We were told afterward that it was only Captain Turpie showing off his seamanship.

The _John Williams_ is a missionary ship on her way to Samoa with an English missionary and his family and a German lady who is going to open a school for Samoan girls. Mr. Lawes is the Nuieue missionary, a dark, foreign-looking man. We heard nothing but good of him from traders and natives.

We landed and climbed up the part path, part stairs of the cliff, our boys already trailing down it with copra sacks, the ship's boat slamming away at the jetty with a couple of black fellows holding on to it like grim death. The missionary natives were ranged in bodies on the path to meet us. First the men pressed forward, giggling, and shook hands; then the women, whose many-coloured garments we had remarked even from the ship, glowing on the cliff like a bank of flowers. The children who followed after pretended alarm and fled, but laughed as they ran. I was some distance from Louis, who has written the following in my diary[5] "They closed in on me like a sea; I was in the close embrace of half a dozen outstretched hands, with smiling faces all round me, and a perfect song of salutation going up. From the sirens I escaped by means of a present of tobacco, which was the cause of my ruin, later on, when Lloyd and I went out to photograph. A bevy of girls followed, hugging and embracing me, and going through my pockets. It was the nearest thing to an ugly sight, and still it was pretty; there was no jeering, no roughness, they fawned upon and robbed me like well-behaved and healthy children with a favourite uncle. My own cut tobacco and my papers they respected; but a little while after, on making a cigarette, I found my match-box gone. There was small doubt in my mind as to the culprit; a certain plump little maid, more like a Hawaiian, with a coquettish cast of face and carriage of the head, and conspicuous by a splendid red flower stuck in her ear, had visited me with a particular thoroughness. I demanded my matches. She shook her head at first; and then from some unknown receptacle produced my box, drew out a single match, replaced the box, and with a subtle smile and considerable grace of demeanour, something like a courtly hostess, passed me on the match!"

[5] He used this afterward, but as it seems to belong to my diary I thought I might let it stand.

Tin Jack was shown some spies who were taking names of women who had, against rules, been aboard ship. They will all be fined to-morrow. Levity of conduct, they tell us, is not allowed and is met by fines. I should imagine the public funds to be in a plethoric condition.

Before I knew where I was the trader had swept me up to the mission house, well built of coral, with a high, wide roof of cocoanut thatch beautifully braided together and tied with cocoanut sennit. In an inner room we found the passengers from the _John Williams_, Mr. and Mrs. Marriott and the German teacher. The Marriotts had with them the loveliest little twins imaginable, two years old, and almost exactly alike. Louis and Lloyd disappeared at once in search of photographs. The king, who seems to be liked and respected, was off in the bush, so they were disappointed in his likeness. After a reasonable time of worship before the twins, I started to follow the photographers, the trader conducting me, the _John Williams_ party and Mr. Lawes (the resident missionary) following. We passed a cow, a bull, and two horses, strange sights for these latitudes. There were a great many flowers blooming in the underbrush--jasmine, the flamboyant, and a yellow blossom like a "four-o'clock"--and where a space had been cleared grass was growing. There is no running water, but through small fissures in the rock brackish water is found at the depth of seven fathoms. I was told of one great fissure, into which stone steps had been cut, where a subterranean stream gushes out in a waterfall.

The trader, who had already sold us three tappa (native bark-cloth) table-cloths at an exorbitant price, clung to me pertinaciously, taking me into his house, where he showed me a mat he wished a pound for, whereas it was worth but a couple of dollars. I refused to buy it, whereupon he presented me with two small rather pretty mats. I thought he owed them to me, so I accepted them without compunction. The young Irishman, who had followed us in, opened his box and took out an immense yellow shell necklace, a cocoa-shell basket, and a strange, very heavy, carefully shaped stone, which the natives use in fighting. All these articles he insisted on my accepting. I was greatly pleased with the fighting stone. The trader promised to get me a couple of "peace sticks" when we return to his side of the island. These are used by the women when they think a fight has lasted long enough. They rush between the combatants, waving their "peace sticks," and the affair ends. These peace sticks are made of dark, almost black ironwood, are about three feet long, shaped like spears, and ornamented, where the hand naturally holds them, with cocoa-fibre sennit and yellow bird feathers. The feathers looked to be the same as were used in Hawaii for the royal cloaks. As I write Tin Jack appears in a hat of Nuieue manufacture, braided pandanus, in shape an exact reproduction of the civilised high silk hat, and indescribably comic.

Returning to the mission house, we stopped at the king's newly built palace for a piece of ironwood that I wanted to mend the camera stand. The queen, a pretty, smiling, young woman, stood in the doorway directing us where to look. Arriving at the house, I examined the house dog's ear, and found he was suffering from canker. Louis and I, together, remembered the remedy for him, and told it to Mr. Lawes. I begged that Louis and Lloyd might see the twins. The little fairies were heavy-eyed from the knocking about and the close air of the _John Williams_. Each had had a convulsion during the last two days. I thought they looked rather too much like little angels. I tried, without success, to make our party refuse Mrs. Lawes's invitation to high tea. It did seem very hard; month after month passes in the most deadly monotony. Suddenly here are two ships at her door, each, incredible fact, with white women on board, and she has almost no time to speak to either, and in an hour or two they are gone. Poor Mrs. Lawes had wild eyes when the two sets of passengers and most of the officers gathered in a great circle round her board. It was an excellent meal, which I should have thoroughly enjoyed had I not felt like a cannibal and that I was eating Mrs. Lawes. But this it is to be a missionary's wife. I am sure she must have had a nervous fever after we were gone. She found a moment to bewail her fate to Louis; if only we had come piecemeal, as it were, and not all at once, like a waterspout, she would have been so happy. We shall leave behind us only a memory of hurry and flurry and confusion worse confounded. While we were at table the _John Williams_ ran so close inshore that we were frightened, and Mr. Marriott very anxious, as all his worldly goods were on board. The _John Williams_ left Sydney on Friday the 11th, the same day we did, and now we meet here and possibly may meet again in Samoa. We had just finished our meal when the steam-whistle blew for us, and away we all trooped to the boat. The _John Williams_ was leaving also.

We had some trade stuff to be landed at the other side of the island. There Lloyd went ashore and got my peace sticks for which he paid two shillings the pair. A great many natives came aboard, among the rest the handsome sister and daughter of a chief. I gave them both a wreath, to their great pride and joy. Tin Jack dressed up in his wig and whiskers and false nose. The natives at first were much alarmed and some of the women inclined to cry.

_29th._--Squally all night, but this morning the sun has come out and it really looks hopeful. The captain has been working all day until four o'clock at my device for mending the camera with Nuieue ironwood. I hardly slept last night for the heavy rolling and pitching of the _Janet_. A black cat has appeared, brought on board from Nuieue. It was proposed to have a rat hunt with the Auckland dog. I meanly intended to inform the captain, but I need not have troubled myself, for when a rat was shown to the dog he nearly went into a fit with terror. I have all my things ready packed to go on shore at Samoa.

_30th._--Passed Tutuila in the morning. Almost despair of reaching Upolu before to-morrow, owing to an adverse current, but make it just after sundown. We ran along Upolu for a couple of hours, the scenery enchanting; abrupt mountains, not so high as in Tahiti or Hawaii, nor so strangely awful as the Marquesan highlands, but with a great beauty of outline and colour, the thick jungle looking from the deck of the ship like soft green moss. Through the glass I could see a high, narrow waterfall drop into the sea. Breaths of the land breeze began to come out to us, intoxicating with the odours of the earth, of growing trees, sweet flowers and fruits, and dominating all, the clean, wholesome smell of breadfruit baking in hot stones. Soon masts of ships began to show, and the smoke of Apia. The signal-flag was carried up to the foretopmast and laboriously tied on by a black boy, when the pilot came quickly on board. It was not quite dark, but we thought it better to dine on the _Janet_, though we were burning to get on shore. While we were eating, people began to arrive in boats to offer their welcome to Samoa. Louis and I started off, leaving Lloyd to follow in the ship's boat. It was a dream-like thing to find oneself walking along Apia beach, shaking hands and passing _talofas_ on every side. We spent the evening on shore and, after ordering horses for the early morning, went to bed tired out.

_May 1st._--Woke at six to hear the horses coming for us. When last we rode out to Vailima the road was but a bridle-path almost closed in by the bush. We can now ride two abreast, or even three, if we like. Tin Jack was much delighted to see pineapples growing wild, and bewailed his mistake in having settled on a low island. Lloyd rode ahead to a native village on the road with a packet of sweeties for some little girls who used to dance for us when we lived in the bush near by. We found Lloyd waiting for us; only one of the little girls was about. After we left the village the road plunged into the forest. The tall, liana-draped trees, carrying ferns in the forks of their branches, cast a grateful shade, and we rode slowly, to enjoy all to the utmost.

There was a crowd of black boys at Vailima cutting down and burning trees and brush. I believe they are runaways from the German plantations. There are a good many noble trees, of great height and girth, left standing. A little, wooden house has been run up, from the balcony of which we could see the masts of the _Janet_ as she lay at anchor and past her far out over the sea.

It is odd how little is known of Samoa, even by its inhabitants. In Sydney I asked particulars concerning a turbine wheel in case I should want one in Vailima. The man I consulted assured me it would be quite useless to attempt such a thing, as a friend of his just from Samoa, who had lived there a long time, told him there was not a tree of any size in Upolu, and none whatever of hardwood. On the contrary, in the bush are numbers of magnificent timber-trees, very hard and beautiful in colour. One in particular, a light yellow, is very like satinwood and another seems to be a sort of mahogany. We took photographs, and after a couple of hours reluctantly tore ourselves away.

A native man, an old friend, stopped us on the way back to Apia, holding the bridles of our horses that we should not escape him. A woman we were acquainted with passed; she turned and stopped, cooing like a dove, every limb and feature expressing surprise and delight.