Chapter VIII: Part 8

We passed the morning in such talk. Then we sailed out to the little island of Nuu Tele opposite, an old crater, and waited a while, while Atamo explored it, thinking to find out matters which might affect present theories. He found raised beaches, stratified, and shells and pebbles in the rock, so that it was mud once, and forced up and not submerged, all to the greater confusion and defeat of Mr. Darwin. But as these triumphs are out of my line of momentary record, I have only to say that I found in the little savage girl-wife of our momentary host the type of little Sifa of Tutuila, which had almost been lost to us. The usual Samoan face is heavy and not wild, suggests good nature and practical views; poetry is not in them but from them. It is we who put it there, because their bodies mean to us possibilities of expression which we associate with intentions that have not yet been developed in them. Nerves they have not; it is only occasionally that one recognizes any permanent tendency to emotion, often by some trifle that is not always pleasant, as in the sadder face of some dwarf or joker, or as in our host’s face, over which great sorrow has passed--or perhaps again in such a “chevalier” as Mataafa, whose character is rare the world over.

Our day passed pleasantly, and as I write, the other end of the room is filled with all these good people lying in a jumble together; Maua and the _taupo_ who is pulling at him and lying on him in part; another girl’s head under hers, while all their feet run up on the posts. Others yet, lying flat, continue the circle, singing together, and sometimes, without rising, beating a _siva_ movement on their own breasts or on each other’s. Four of our men, of the biggest, sit far away in the dark, with crossed legs, upright, immovable, like Egyptian statues: or, as

I close my letter, like sphinxes, have bent down to the ground from their hips, all lost in the dark, with large heads and shoulders and outstretched arms.

Lepa, Thursday, Dec. 4th.

We were out to sea, in the sun and rain, between nine and eleven o’clock, and passed the two islands, large blocks of green and brown on the green and blue water. We came here first, pulling through the reef, straight to the enormous beach, where our eyes were at once charmed by the theatrical, or should I say geological absurdity which divided it, cutting it right down from the steep hills behind, to the water’s edge. This was a little waterfall of three cascades tumbling over some small rocks projecting far across the beach, so that the water had, as it were, a stone conduit upon which it was carried from the mountain to the sea. It was an absolute set piece, quite practicable, and if ever I have to design for scenery, here is a little natural object all ready to hand. The copy could be supplied with real water, just as this one is, and the palm trees growing upon it would conceal the machinery as they do here, only--if ever I do it, I shall be told that it is unnatural--just as it looks here. Why does the water run on knife edges, instead of taking the easier lines of depth, and tearing up the sand for a bed? I might explain how, for Atamo is full of geology, and it is not as mysterious, of course, as it looks. But I give it up, and content myself with sketching the little girl between the posts opposite me.

We are in the _faletele_ (guest-house) quite near the water. Some thirty feet off from us cocoanuts hang over the beach and the sea. Right behind us are rocks upon which is perched a new and handsome Samoan house, half-hidden in the green of trees. A promontory, finished by a little island with palms, cuts off the further end of that long beach which is divided by the cascade with its rocks and palms. Toward us, on one side, falls the column of water, which ploughs a little canal into the sea. There our men are bathing, standing up under the falling water, and later I shall be there too. The other end of our bay, near us, rounds away behind trees, and a mound, upon which is a fishing hut under palms. In our house the central beams that support the roof, come together like a V. All the posts and beams are decorated with flowers and leaves, and in the centre, near the great branching post, stands a table covered with _siapu_ (bark cloth) and with flowers in pots, as on an altar, say a Buddhist table altar. Some of our men are dragging up the boats, but I am too lazy to turn to see them place them under the shelter of the cocoanuts. The _taupo_, is looking at me while I am writing, or at Atamo similarly occupied. She is bored, but I can’t help it. I could not entertain her if anything depended upon it. It ought to be cool, but the beach sends up hot waves of air, and my _taupo’s_ cocoanut oil melts into it languidly. The name of the place is “A Break Between Waves,” and the name of the _taupo’s_ brother, that heavy youngster, who is talking to Seu at the boats, is Break Love. There is a connection that I feel, but you had better make it out yourself. If the chief is heavy, the _taupo_ is clever, and makes herself agreeable. Her sister helps her in every attempt. They are not as dignified as one can remember, and perhaps had we kept to another line of travel, and visited higher types of aristocracy, it might have been different. But they are easily amused and talk much, and are great beggars--and gently, are willing in the same way to marry us, one of them proposing to marry us both herself, and even asking at the last moment, “Are you going away? I thought you would have married me this morning.” All this is joke, with perhaps a look to possibilities: for do I not remember how two little _taupos_ very missionary, far back in Savaii, changed their little easy manners to seriousness, and almost aggressiveness, when some madcap hinted that we were on a wife-hunt, and had come all this way for it. Those two little pieces would not allow the liberties of five minutes before, nor would they let me go without having catechised me seriously as to these chances--to which they were willing to submit; but they wished beforehand to know whether there was anything in it.

We had a _siva_ at night, in which our young lady figured with the great grenadier’s cap that looks so savage and soldierly, and which is really becoming, the heavy faces growing gentle and refined under this heavy contrast. But it is painful to wear, being bound on tight, and how our _taupo_ could stand it for three hours, as she did, I know not. She danced and sat down alongside of us alternately for nearly four mortal hours. Through all the dances there was a great display of pantomime, mostly comic, made none the less by the gravity of some of the performers who acted in reality as a dancing chorus; so that right through the crowd of delirious young men and women passed in and out a fine old Roman senator--I cannot better define him, who never smiled and who wore his drapery as do the antique statues, and whose mind evidently saw other meanings in the steps than did the other dancers. I could almost have wished that there had been some meaning in this accident, some deep, deep thought in this tragedy woven into the cloth of the fun, but I believe that it was merely the pleasure taken by the old man in feeling that his limbs were as vigorous and as supple as long ago. And we went to bed, the entire company remaining alive and interested for several hours after our succumbing to sleep. I could hear late in the night Charley and the _taupo_ crunching sugar-cane and whispering while Charley, during the whole evening, had lain sound asleep. But sitting up late in the moonlight is Samoan. Before I fell asleep, my mind went over some of the historical developments of the theatre. I have certainly been instructed that at the beginning complete realistic performance is impossible. And yet I had been listening to a play in which every possible combination of a _fin de siècle_ manner of looking at things had been slowly and elaborately combined. Was it then that this society in which I am now living, savage as it seems to us, is really a very modified form of an ancient structure of life? Or did these good people, when they sailed from the dim Havaiki, bring already, in their habits of mind, modified trainings of earlier civilization? Any similar views would please me, but I should be better pleased to consider that the rules have not been accurately defined and that we don’t yet really know enough about it.

* * * * *

This story of nothing I conclude to-day at Falealili, as we get further on. We were overwhelmed with gifts at parting, so much so as to make us feel as if perhaps the only fair thing would be to marry one of the girls, as an adequate return. Then with the return gifts we might have run away.

A wife brings mats usually, and gives much support, as is well known by one young gentleman I hear of, a captain of some schooner, who has wives in different places. Each of them in turn supports him when he appears, and as long as his visits are regular, and there is no preponderance or excess or skimping in his remainings, everything goes well, and there seem to be no jealousies. In fact, I think that the having to provide would be a great reducer of those sentiments that flourish most where there is idleness and pampering. Let us say that the subject is too complicated, for I feel already as if I had carried over too much of this letter into the next one. I am concluding now twenty-four hours later, at Falealili, while waiting for letters, and appearing to listen to the complimentary speeches of a _tulafale_ who rejoices in the name of “Tuiloma, King of Rome.” He has a good deal of style, but not enough for such a name, while the chief of Lepa, who drops in to explain his reasons for being absent during our visit, has a fine head and makes a pretty good picture. He has fought against Seu, and they talk over old times. I am told that he fought well, and he looks martial, as I have tried to hint above. Otherwise there is nothing to speak of, at least for me, for I am miserable. It is very hot, and I feel the want of air. I have tried to sketch two little girls making wreaths near by, and they have been driven away to let some _tulafale_ come in and make the ordinary speeches, to which Seu listens with his usual impassive manner. If he is bored no one would know it. Much laughter goes on after the ceremonies. But nothing can restore the little girls. One is a half-breed--very light, her already fair hair bleached with Samoan liming, and she has grey eyes and a very Samoan face. Her father is dead and she lives absolutely like a Samoan. I follow her movements, trying to detect some differences in this little creature, whose fate might have been just as much the other way. All that I can notice is that while I sketch she moves less than the others, and is content with fewer gestures. The fluidity of the pure brown blood is not quite there. I have told you, I suppose, often enough, how difficult it is to catch them in a drawing, unless they are asleep. I have never been able to get a whole minute for any position. Seu sometimes remains quiet for a few minutes, and some of the greater people or men of character are disposed to be steady. But usually it is perpetual movement skilfully disguised under an appearance of quiet. The half-breed was, as I said, more quiet and steady than her darker companions: our little half-breed Charley--sometimes referred to by the old joke of Charley Yow, the Boy Fiend--who serves as interpreter and boy-of-all-work, being a boy, is still more restless than any of our boys. He will lie asleep absolutely as if dead, but if awake he must wriggle. He bends over in true Samoan way, but as he has neither Samoan grace nor strength, I half expect to see him put his head between his legs, dog-fashion, so as to be able to take a convenient look up his back. He plays with his toes and rubs his fingers meditatively, with the European side of his mind, on the rims of our glasses and saucers. Even the rainwater gets a taste of cocoanut oil when he has been about. Yet he is clearly “Faá Samoa,” and lazy as he is and pleased at playing with his fingers on a string tied round his nose, or trying the edge of a knife, he is serviceable as a Samoan. When we put him to the task of interpreting a little Samoan poem a few days ago, he showed an unwilling capacity of mind not unlike what I could remember of schooldays when we had to put Chaucer into modern English, and when we bent all our energy into avoidance. The future of the half-breed is an interesting question here, but too much for my present dreaming.

December 6th.

Later, last evening, during which I was absolutely idle like Charley, and unlike Charley, because I was not well, we had a sort of abbreviated domestic _siva_. We were politely asked if we should like one, and as politely we explained that we were determined to go to bed early, but that we should dislike to interfere, and would look on as long as we were not too sleepy. The little daughter of the _tulafale_, herself the _tulafale_ (spokeswoman) of the chief’s daughter, who is the _taupo_, explained to us that being “Misionali,” she could not figure in it nor be present, and if she were Misionali I think she did as well. The _siva_ was sung sotto voce, and danced softly by three or four women, probably with reference to not disturbing while we looked on--in some curious confusion of meaning. The _taupo_, who is very stolid, with the expression of a judge of the Supreme Court, danced with nothing on but her _tipuka_ or upper garment, put about her waist, so that the hole through which the head is put in this variety of “poncho” exposed the least polite parts of her back. And as I referred to her gravity of expression, or want of expression, by an allusion to the expressionless look of a judge on the bench, I might slip in here a pretty anecedote of the bright little daughter of one of our celebrities, from whom you will see that she inherits. Last winter her father gave her a chance to see the cabinet officers together, and on her return she was asked, “Well, were they nice?”

“Not nice, but funny!” she said.

Well, so with the dance; and danced by the virgin of the village and her chaperon it had a curious side. And it was funny enough, with the fun underscored and interlined and underlined, as it were, by verbal comment. Apparently the true dances that are not played are innocent as well as beautiful, but when the drama comes in, the dance follows the usual history of the drama.

This is a great missionary centre, and to-morrow will be Sunday, a day on which we shall have to rest because the people here are sabbatarians of a very strict kind, and do not approve of travelling on the Sabbath. Our men tell us things of the habits of travelling; they are all, Seu’s men and ours, except our two _tulafales_, whose behaviour is all that one could ask for, young gentlemen whose glory consists in the constant and sometimes successful assault of feminine virtue. As they explain it, they would be laughed at at home, if they could boast of no conquests during the trip; but owing to this being an “European malaga,” because we are European, they are on relative good behaviour; so that they lead in prayer and sing hymns, and are in other matters quite good boys. I have no doubt also that besides the fact that Saturday night and Sunday will give them plenty of feminine society, they also do not think that it’s quite the proper thing to travel on Sunday.

So you see that one can go far and see the same thing, and that, as I told you in Japan, the world is fairly round. Expressions vary, but the meaning is the same.

I am writing now from the next station called Vao Vai, “Between Waters,” a queer little place looking like some African possibility. Little houses are bunched together near a little river close by us, and in front of us, seen through trees, far out, is a little island full of palms, which the _taupo_ tells me, is used as a resort for sick people who go out to get fresher air. She herself explains that we shall have no _siva_ because they are sad for the loss of a young man, a half-brother of hers, brother of the _taupo_ whose dance and dress I described above, and who was the _taupo_ of the preceding village. Our good girl is missionary besides, which will secure us the greater rest from _sivas_. Her brother’s death was explained to us last night. He had gone over to Malua, where is the theological school, on a trip, with only one attendant, and fell ill and died here on his return, having, they assured me, been beaten to death by devils. So he said himself before death, and in proof of it, his body was sore. Moreover, just before his death, he ran out into the woods, in the dark. But being caught by the leg, by some _tulafale_ or person of importance, and asked who he was, he gave his father’s name, thus proving beyond a doubt that he was possessed by his father’s ghost, I have not yet been able to get the connection between his father’s spirit and those who beat the son to death. But that may turn up yet, for the subject is in everybody’s mouth. I ought, perhaps, to add that the young chief had had a cold before, with inflictions of pneumonia, and had been somewhat relieved by medicine from the Catholic priest at some adjoining station, but the devils were too much for him.

* * * * *

To this little hut, looking out toward the enormous space of the sea, nothing growing in front of us but two half-cut-down bread-fruit trees, on the line of the horizon and the little island just outside of the reef, and the long line of breakers extending right and left and as far as one can see--have just come your letters carried to me across the mountains, in a great rain. I have been in some anxiety for them, for I had had only partial news since September 5th, which was three months ago. Newspapers have also come from San Francisco and from Auckland, giving telegraphic news as far as November 17th, from San Francisco to November 6th; so that our evening is full of incident. There has been a political change through the elections at home that alters the positions of persons, and gives one a sort of feeling that all is not Samoan peace. And the financial news affects us with doubt as to long delays, for drafts on the Barings, or on any one, indeed, will not be quite as easy to use in these little communities. So that this event is a turning point to me out of the world, as well as to the great people in it. To increase the resemblance to home, where

little habitual matters accompany great ones, we find in this little far out-of-the-way place fresh butter for the first time in many months, and milk. So that with Awoki’s cooking, we interrupt for this evening and to-morrow morning, the course of our Samoan food. It is amusing to notice what importance this event has assumed, and to realize that to-morrow, Sunday, will be so much more pleasant for this little change.

Sunday.

This morning I watched from behind my mosquito-bar, where I was pretending to sleep, the procession of people going to church for the second time. I had been waked at dawn by the little bell, which sounded like a steamboat call for all aboard. Against the background of the sea filed continuously the parishoners, grown people and children, most of the women with the hats that belong to their idea of church. But among them were some women with “fine mats” around their waists, that contrasted with the queer European headdress apparently made only for this and similar markets. These contrasting individuals were, I was told, the watchers upon the dead man of whom I spoke, he who was killed by devils in the woods. These fine mats were their guerdon--for he was a chief’s son. Had he been the chief, my informant said, mourning would have been general; the people would have had half their hair cut, and this would be done perforce to such as neglected it. With this information I woke up officially, just as I saw our men filing away to church. Later they came back to ask for canned salmon for their girls. Nothing has occurred. I have sketched most of the time. Atamo has been over to see the little islands, for the pleasure of paddling in a canoe. The _taupo_ did not go, whether from missionary sabbatical feeling, or whether she was afraid, or whether the men would not let her, for they said that a woman did not know how to take care of a boat over a surf; rather an ungallant way of looking at it, for the women we have known, pretty generally paddled about well enough inside the reef. Our little _taupo_, who was very nice and quiet, spent most of the evening playing with the men. I have spent the day in intellectual idleness, as I told you, as the place is very small, being half surrounded by a little river, and crowded with small houses. I have moralized in a depressed way, and in this direction: would we at home, if things were clean enough about us to deceive us, find it amusing to sit in an Irish shanty, as we do now in this one? We should have pigs about and occasional dogs, and kind, ugly old women and some politics. And the resemblance grows more and more as I look at it from the dirty point of view. Things are thrown out of doors to the pigs, who are so convenient to put things into you wish to get rid of, as Mrs. Bell used to say. And the ducks wander about everywhere, and I watch the way the pigs eat cocoanuts, etc.

The chief and the others, the _tulafales_, have made speeches and drunk _kava_ over and over again, all day, in an unofficial manner. And I am so sleepy, so sleepy that I almost fell off my chair, for I have a chair or camp stool--during evening prayers.

December 8th. Saagapu.

Anagapu is the name of the chief.

We are a little further along the coast, having passed through a dangerous reef, and waiting for a better tide, which we shall have to-morrow. The village is large, laid out handsomely in length, a little tedious in its regularity, well planted with trees, and with swamps behind and on the two sides that confine it. We have had the longest _tulafale_ talk that I have ever suffered from, and I am prostrated with weariness and with sultriness of the air. We had feared heavy rain and looked with anxiety at two great water-spouts circling in the hills as we sailed along. There is an arrangement of mountains just behind us, probably some ancient crater, that looked as if it must be always in a boil of rain. There is nothing to do, fatigued as I am, but to go to sleep, and try to brighten up for a _siva_ that I foresee. The people are many. There are lots of children, and girls who strut about careless of their lava-lavas, for this is a place unfrequented by foreigners and by the elegant people of Apia. I see two blacks, or Solomon islanders, dressed in lava-lavas in the Samoan way, who have taken refuge here, having escaped from the German plantation further on, which we hope to reach to-morrow evening. The chief tells me that they are quiet and well-behaved, and that they go to school like the others about them. All these blacks work harder than the Polynesians, and even their anxiety of look, as they come with hesitation toward us has a sort of possibility of action that I do not find in the browns of a similar class. I need not have suffered so much from the conventional speeches. Our host, on my waking from an attempt at sleep, stretches himself against the post nearest to me, and breaks out in most vernacular English, stating that he has been a little everywhere, and has been away from home for some twenty years. He has been as far as New York, which he says is not a good place for a sailor; in China many times, in Japan, in India, in France, in England, etc. He has conversed with the American Indians and states that he can understand their “lingo,” as he names it, from its similarity to the Pacific tongues spoken by the Polynesian. He has theories on these subjects, and believes

that there is a connection of race between the Hawaiians and the Samoans and Tahitians, and he extends it to the Malays in the west, and the American Indians in the east. And as I listen to him, I keep thinking that the story of the entire Pacific is probably the only explanation of the Polynesian. I should like to hear more, but personages of importance again come in and more talk of the society kind recurs. Later we are asked if we wish a _siva_. We hesitate for every reason. First, we hear rumours of a _siva_ being prepared for us further back in some place already passed, owing to some letters of Tofae that announced us. Secondly, we are not impressed by our _taupo_, who besides want of beauty has also a discontented look which in some grotesque way reminds me of modern English high-art pictures--something grumpy. Then I have made up my mind to have a good sleep if possible; so that we say yes, if only the _siva_ can be in another house; then we add that if we are too tired we propose to leave. We find, as usual, our boat crew extremely interested in the subject and in the performers, and the neat little house where we go in the dark is absolutely filled with spectators. A place has been set apart for us, filled by our two camp stools, and we are in time. The performers are full of anxiety to begin, and suddenly enters our _taupo_. In the dim light her sullenness looks like calm, her big headdress covers enough of her face to make the lines look delicate; and she comes in with a sort of hop of assurance, and throws herself down an entirely different person. She has authority and grace, and the “I don’t know what” that belongs to any one completely sure of a good professional standard. And she smiles with excitement, her smile widening with the cocoanut oil upon her face. And so the _siva_ was full of fire, and danced in splendid time. Then we were able to leave and managed to get a good night’s rest. The floor when it is well covered with mats makes an excellent bed, and when one is sure and protected from mosquitoes everything else fades easily into sleep. In the morning we had a short talk with our host, who complained that he could not get away again to his wanderings. Samoa might be a good place enough, but he was bored. He had to submit, however, to the head of the family, who refused to give him leave. The old man, as he called him, using our phrase, kept him confined to his chiefdom. Family authority was thus vested in his uncle, our friend Seu, _who had the name_, and though the chief’s authority was his own for his chiefdom, outside of that the head of the family was master. This was the Roman law in its integrity; our chief personally was as a son, and only free when exercising a function. Even were he required to leave and come to his uncle in Apia, he should have to do so, just as he was bound not to go off as a sailor again.

Our conversation was interrupted by loud shouts, and the sound of much trampling--and then by shrill cries of women and of children, apparently in derision, for there was much laughter. A girl was running away under the fire of sarcasm, and dodging from one house to another, which she would again leave, probably from finding more trouble inside. And we were connected with it. One of our crew had been too much taken with the charms of one of the _siva_ dancers, or she had felt his eloquence too deeply. She had run off with him after the dance, and he had made promises; among others she believed that he would take her with him in our boat, and there she was on time--ready to go--only to find that it could not be--and that he must have known it. In fact, the women kept repeating to her that she must have lost her senses, that she must be an impertinent fool to think of sitting in a boat with such high chiefs. Siamau, our man, was slightly downcast, but not too much so--he was still a conqueror, but the poor girl was--well--she was to be pitied. Her trial and humiliation lasted all the time that we remained, and I was glad when we pulled away. The tide served us, and the wind, and we made a long pull to the place where I am now writing, Satapuala, only some twenty-five miles from home.

Satapuala was as we had seen it before, on our last malaga; but its young chief, whose dancing I had hoped to see again, was away--to visit Tamasese, the former king set up by the Germans--at the other end of the island--at Lufilufi, which we had passed without calling, in our anxiety to remain outside of the war of politics.

The guest-house was decorated as before, with palm branches on ceilings and posts and central pillars, and flowers everywhere--a most beautiful greenhouse. And the big _taupo_, the sister of the chief, was there, as amiable and dignified as before. In the evening she danced again, this time without the support of her brother. She did not seem as good a dancer. I noticed, however, that more than any one else, she used her hands and fingers to carry out the motion, and that she finished, as it were, the movements begun more rudely and vigorously by the men. She had the same enchanting style and manner, and even at the end, when a standing dance was given more outrageous than ever, she retained, with her smile, a look of not knowing what it was all about, that was as good form as I suppose an official virgin could assume in such a plight.

That was the end. I take it, that as Maua said, this being an European malaga, things were made more formal and mitigated on our account.

We are waiting for the tide with which we shall row straight to Apia, in about five hours--over the well-known sea.

Evening.

We rowed back in true Samoan way, our rowers making a show of pulling and singing a great deal, with an energy that had been better thrown into the oars. In fact, they danced a _siva_ of return. The worst and laziest of the lot, an amiable fellow with a persistent smile always on his face, actually rose and fell on his seat with excitement. The other boat, our own, with Samau and our own four men, kept up well with our ten rowers. On boards placed to let them squat Samoan way, under the awning, sat a chief we had taken with us, who wore a great white turban and kept fingering his beard, and a young woman, a cousin of Seu’s--so that they looked Oriental enough. In Seu’s boat, Tamaseu, the _tulafale_, the strokeoar, alone rowed vigorously, though the oldest and least strong. He gave out the chant and pulled to it, while Seumanu, standing in the bow, guided us over the shallow water, and Atamo steered. As we turned round the last point, in the light of the sunset, we crossed a large boat manned and paddled by girls, all of them dressed in red, with green garlands around their heads, and for a figurehead a little girl sitting upon the bows, her crossed legs hanging over in front. Two black figures in the stern were the nuns of the convent to which the girls belonged, and they were all returning from a holiday. It was a pretty sight--nothing is more beautiful than the united movement of paddles and of heads thrown back in chanting, for of course some hymn carried them on, undistinguishable for us from a pagan tune.

December 24th.

Nothing new, except social and political news: the excitement at the Chief Justice’s coming, and the innumerable Samoan reports thereupon; and Fanua’s engagement to an Australian business man, and her marriage for the last of the year. There are many “cancans” thereupon the question of marriage in due form, or of a Samoan marriage which does not bind the white man who leaves, being much discussed. It was even proposed that she should marry first some Samoan--why exactly would be too complicated to explain.

Meanwhile I am trying to work a little and recover from the dissipation of the malaga. The days have drifted along, and here we are upon Christmas, the weather very hot, and not recalling what you have at home except by contrast.

Yesterday we had a great storm, the wind blowing the tortured branches of the palm in great gestures against the sky. Few were out except the boys, who played cricket all day in the rain, and conveniently dropped their clothes. At night, the rooms were filled near the lamps with small flies that crusted them, and covered the tables in thousands, so that we could neither work nor read. Through the crevice of doors and windows a fine dust was blown, the broken fragments of dead vegetation. We are only six feet above the sea, and during the night the dash of rain against our wall sounded in my dreams like the lashing of the surf. In the morning the flies that had lain in heaps of thousands had disappeared. I saw the last carried away by the laggards of an army of ants, which had pounced upon them during the night or early dawn.

I have been watching some three girls and a boy who have been sitting or playing about near me. Strictly speaking, only one, a grown-up girl, has been sitting. The others have placed themselves occasionally on the high bench to which the neighbourhood resort at night for a lazy stretch and infinite talk. But these children were never quiet, for the two hours I watched them. Most of the time has been taken up by wrestling. The boy, who is the smallest, was at first thrown by the girls, but as they taught him, he managed to keep his own fairly--until the elder girl was enlisted in the sport, and kept throwing him and the others, according to rule, for she carefully showed them the proper grip and some first movements. All this is a type of the manner by which constant exercise rounds them out, and I could not but appreciate how the little girl (of eight perhaps), when she was not wrestling herself, danced up and down continuously, in an involuntary impatience at having nothing to do in the way of _siva_.

Vaiala, Near Apia.

Upolu, Dec. 25, ’90.

This is Christmas Day. I am seventeen hours, I think, ahead of you in that fact; so that at this moment you are only running about for the presents and the Christmas tree, but I cannot wait for you. It is such a Christmas as they have here; they call it _Kilimasi_, and do not quite make the joy and fuss over it that we do, having been christianized by the Wesleyans. And I have not told you the whole truth; when the missionaries came, they miscalculated the time, so that in many islands they run a day ahead, not having dared to acknowledge a mistake that might have imperilled their other teachings, for Christianity was inextricably entangled with cotton goods, gunpowder, etc.

So you see, these people were like ourselves, and could not separate one kind of truth from another, a deficiency which must have troubled you in New York, as it does me both in New York and elsewhere.

But it is legally Christmas to-day, as I began to say, and a holiday, which I can only distinguish from other days, because there seem to be fewer people idling and lying about. The convict also is not at work, he who labours near us, weeding and cutting down twigs, when he is not sitting and talking to his admirers, who decorate him with flowers and make wreaths for him.

But even this would not be an infallible guide, for the day before yesterday the wife of the very chief who had brought this man before the consuls for punishment (he had stolen the consular flag halyards--why, no one knows), and who had pined in court for thirty lashes and six months’ imprisonment--which were not given--the wife of the chief, I say, came to ask us, as great chiefs ourselves, if we thought that the consuls would let the prisoner have a few days off for fishing. And we strongly urged her to ask for it, as a reasonable request--at least, in the comic opera. The other convict, who is a great fraud, has been occupied in ferrying people over the main river (the bridge having gone down in the last storm, and we people who wear trousers and petticoats not liking to wade over). But he also is variable as an index, for he usually employs a small boy of his tribe to do the work, while he lies in a little hut that he has built, and sleeps or eats, crowned with flowers, like a jubilator. I was telling Mr. Stevenson of these details, upon his last call, and he interrupted a description of the tyrannical conduct of the French in Tahiti and the Marquesas, by the story of a visit he had paid to the prisons there with the inspector. There was no one in the prison for men:

“Monsieur,” explained the gendarme, “c’est jour de fête, et j’ai cru bien faire de les envoyer à la campagne.” Visit then to the women’s prison. “Mais où sont vos bonnes femmes? Monsieur, je ne sais pas au juste, mais, je crois, qu’elles sont en visite.”

He tells me that though French rule is of course wrong in principle, therein differing from English or German, the gendarmes are a good lot, whom it is a privilege to know. I have run on into this because I have been thinking while writing of my having told you that I intended to go to the Marquesas and see Typee.

I am slowly drifting that way, but my enthusiasm is dashed somewhat by what I hear. I am told that there are scarcely any more Typeeans--and they are clothed to-day, as indeed, I fear, are most islanders who are handsome, except the good people here, who still preserve the real decencies to some extent.

And that is why I am lingering here, as I see for the first time, and probably for the last, a rustic and Bœotian antiquity, and if I live to paint subjects of the “nude,” and “drapery,” I shall know how they look in reality. As I write in our Samoan house, which is only raised a few inches from the ground, I see passing against the background of sea, figures which at a little distance and in shifting light are nearer to the little terra cottas that you like than anything one could find elsewhere. Young men naked to the waist, with large draperies folded like the Greek orator’s mantle, garlanded, with flowers in their hair, pass and repass, or lie upon the grass. Young women--and alas! old women--more covered, though occasionally draped like the men, or with girdles of leaves, walk about, carrying leaf-made baskets or cocoanut water-bottles--or they sit and lounge with the young men. An old man, with his drapery partly over one shoulder has just stalked past, holding a long staff that he puts out to full arm’s length--for they use their limbs with a great spread and roundness of action. Four girls of different ages (from eighteen to eight) have been wrestling under the trees, practising some grip--and have been teaching a boy how it is done. A friendly hunch-backed dwarf has called to pay a Christmas visit, and to get a friendly nap. Like the girls, he wears nothing but a dark-blue drapery around his waist, and a great garland of fruit and flowers that hangs about his neck. His hair has been dressed and curled in Samoan fashion--that is to say, it has been stiffened into shape with coral lime (which, when washed off, has reddened it) so that he has the hair of a blonde on his dark head. Japeta, as he is called (Japhet), who by the by is rather “missionary,” but believes in witches and devils, and has lived in the woods--and is really very intelligent--is certainly more handsome in this way of costume than if he were to dress in the fashion of Sixth Avenue--or even of Fifth Avenue--for he is of a chief’s family. It is true that he has powerful arms and legs that would look well anywhere else than here, where their dancing and jumping and their mode of sitting seems to have influenced the size of the lower limbs, and to have given a roundness to the entire body, that reminds one again of the Greek statues and terra cottas. For the girl form passes into the young man’s and his to the older without break. Their dances do a great deal for this result. They all dance a little from the very earliest age. Last night, as I walked home, I found a crowd of little mites practising the figures of the _sitting_ dance, in which the entire body is moved, from the ends of the fingers to the tips of the toes. And beautiful they are, these dances. If only I could paint them--but that is almost impossible; some of the gestures could be given, but not the _rhythm_. And they “sit” badly to a painter, and, notwithstanding their idleness, are rarely quiet. Sketching is formidable. They will jump up to see what you have been doing and everybody troops all

around. Still, I have sent and shall send some sketches home.

One of their dancers has just passed--an official dancer--the official “virgin” of the next “village,” but one whose duty it is to entertain guests, and see to their comfort, and dance for them, as also in war to go out dancing with the combatants, as you will see in some of my sketches. She was crowned with flowers, and had a garland around her waist, one around her neck, and her waist was stiffened out triumphantly by the folds of fine thin _mats_, worn as drapery. Behind her (for she is of rank), at a far, respectful distance, has passed, also her attendant, an old woman, who is responsible for her, and a tall, big fellow, also an attendant, with a great drapery, also of yellow mats, fastened by a narrow girdle of white bark cloth. We know her very well, and did she not abuse her prerogative of anointment with cocoanut oil, I should see more of her.

I have wandered away from my intention of wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year; _our_ Christmas is a hot one (86 to-day), but yesterday was cold and stormy, and the thermometer went down to 78 degrees for a time. The wind blew the palms into all sorts of distressed shapes, and sent amid a deluge of rain so much fine dust of broken foliage through the crevices of our doors as to remind me of Tenth Street in sultry summer, when they are building.

I wrote to you from the steamer in the first days of October. Since that I have learned that my letter was long delayed. The letters are given to the small cutter or schooner, manned by natives, that meets the steamer, so as to bring letters here. Then she has to beat out for the upgoing steamer to San Francisco to give letters to her. It so happened (and, alas, I know all about it, for I was there), that the schooner was three days at sea, owing to calms, so that she could not return in time, and my letter which was aboard with me was delayed a whole month. It was a queer, an uncomfortable, but a startling experience, this being dropped into the boat--for we landed once and saw things in an, informal way, tasted the sensations of all this faraway rustic classicality with minds unprepared. We spent our first day and night with native hospitality in a little out-of-the-way village, and saw, abbreviated, all the innumerable pictures that I have had leisure to watch since then: The dances and the _kava_-drinking and the village life, and the boats; all preceded by our putting into “the little cove with a queer swell running on the beach,” just as in the old story books; and twenty-four hours of calm in a small sailboat under the tropical heat was also a new experience.

So this is why my last letter was so delayed. I did not know of it until long after. Should I get as far as the Marquesas, I shall write to you again, and tell you if anything be left of Typee, but I fear that that is all over. Still, I hear reports of some private cannibalism to which the benighted French object, so that there may still be hopes. But I am told also, as I said before, that they wear European clothing and that is worse than any immoral diet.

There are no Gérômes here and little French in the figures. Of the moderns, Millet and Delacroix _alone_ give the look of the nude alive and out of the studio. Also the Venetians and the older men are not out of the facts. And, praise be to the Maker of all (art included), I have not seen any _black_ except at night--and even then, “si peu, si peu.” Rembrandt would be happy here, especially in the evenings, when the cocoanut fire--that is so bright as to look bright in the day--makes a centre of light strong enough to turn the brown skins to silver and to gold, and then passes by every gradation of the prism into nameless depths that black paint will never give. My dear old painters, even to Van Eyck and Memling, how well they “carry” over the globe!

I should write to you about Stevenson, but I suppose that you can hear more directly through his letters to his friend. We have seen something of him and have been pleased. He is hard at work, so that visiting him is not a favour to him, even though he may like it, as reminding him of that real world of civilization which he thinks he has left for good.

Nor have I written to you about politics, that are really impressive here, for we have saved these people from a hell of slavery under the Germans. A little gentleness on their part, and they would have had the islands--for these people are gentle enough, and desire rule, but, as they said, “death would be better”--and fortunately we interfered.

I am impressed here, as I have been before, by the force that America could have for good, and by the careful calculation on the part of those who know us best, the Germans and English, upon our weakness of action and irresponsibility, and our not knowing our enormous power.

The Pacific should be ours, and it must be.

Vaiala, Jan. 19th.

This afternoon another little incident of everyday life brings up again my wish that I could set all this world about me to the music of a comic opera--a great _siva_. If only I could understand all that they say, and yet see it as people do who do not understand so that for them the ways of other races seem perpetually funny to the eye. What a charming subject I have now for a third act--or perhaps might I bring it into the first one--or should we perhaps make it an interlude, with the _siva_ ballet interspersed? Perhaps, after all, it makes a little opera bouffé for itself.

This afternoon, as I was telling you, I noticed some agitation on and about the malae, and around Tofae’s house, which is next to mine. This annoyed me exceedingly. Siva,[12] our first pet from Tutuila, had come to Apia on a visit, and the little silly darling had stumbled upon Awoki and claimed him with all the enthusiasm these people have for him, for his small size, his good nature, and his brown skin.

Our servants and dependents are the only ones who get the truest affection and good-will; we are too far up and too white, and cannot play. I have no doubt that notwithstanding the kindly offers we have had, Atamo especially, from maidens who were looking out for an establishment--I have no doubt, I say, that in their gentle minds was some confusion, some wish for rank and position, and that their real hearts went out to those with us like my little Japanese attendant. Indeed did not Faauli, the _taupo_ of Sapotulafai, the daughter of the great _tulafale_, intimate that she wished to keep Awoki with her, and did she not say that if he tried to run off she would put him in her father’s jail until we were out of sight and out of reach? Well, Siva recognized and claimed Awoki, and so we obtained her again. I made her sit for me, and found, to my great pride and delight, that I had never been mistaken, and that her rustic movements in the dance were finer far than those of the girls of the great places. We had seen the best first, and had known it. Siva was ill at ease here; she knew that she was considered provincial, or as Charley explains, “the Apia girls think that these Tutuila girls are fools.” The same little ways, the same condescension, the same disdainful or inquiring look, that we see used elsewhere, were given by the maidens of our place to the little stranger. And this afternoon, when I had got her out of the way to our house, to try to get a photograph of her with my hawk-eye camera, that never works, I was disgusted at seeing the surrounding green covered with people. The younger ones singled out Siva at once, and with the sincerity of purpose that belongs to youth, said to her what they thought; that her dress was this or that, that her hair was quite wrongly cut, like a goat’s, they said, literally, with many such amenities. All this Siva bore as maidens with us would bear, with a distant air and an occasional smile of pity. She was a sort of relative of Tofae’s, being herself a chief’s daughter, and could not, I suppose, be absolutely extinguished.