Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Volume 2 Part 22

PART VI. THE GILBERTS.

XX. The Group. ii. Position of Woman. iii. The Missions. iv.

Devilwork. v. Republics.

XXI. Rule and Misrule on Makin. i. Butaritari, its King and Court.

ii. History of Three Kings. iii. The Drink Question.

XXII. A Butaritarian Festival.

XXIII. The King of Apemama. i. First Impressions. ii. Equator Town and the Palace. iii. The Three Corselets.

PART VII. SAMOA.

which I have not yet reached.

Even as so sketched it makes sixty chapters, not less than 300 CORNHILL pages; and I suspect not much under 500. Samoa has yet to be accounted for: I think it will be all history, and I shall work in observations on Samoan manners, under the similar heads in other Polynesian islands. It is still possible, though unlikely, that I may add a pa.s.sing visit to Fiji or Tonga, or even both; but I am growing impatient to see yourself, and I do not want to be later than June of coming to England. Anyway, you see it will be a large work, and as it will be copiously ill.u.s.trated, the Lord knows what it will cost. We shall return, G.o.d willing, by Sydney, Ceylon, Suez and, I guess, Ma.r.s.eilles the many-masted (copyright epithet).

I shall likely pause a day or two in Paris, but all that is too far ahead - although now it begins to look near - so near, and I can hear the rattle of the hansom up Endell Street, and see the gates swing back, and feel myself jump out upon the Monument steps - Hosanna! - home again. My dear fellow, now that my father is done with his troubles, and 17 Heriot Row no more than a mere sh.e.l.l, you and that gaunt old Monument in Bloomsbury are all that I have in view when I use the word home; some pa.s.sing thoughts there may be of the rooms at Skerryvore, and the black-birds in the chine on a May morning; but the essence is S. C. and the Museum. Suppose, by some d.a.m.ned accident, you were no more: well, I should return just the same, because of my mother and Lloyd, whom I now think to send to Cambridge; but all the spring would have gone out of me, and ninety per cent. of the attraction lost. I will copy for you here a copy of verses made in Apemama.

I heard the pulse of the besieging sea Throb far away all night. I heard the wind Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms.

I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, And flailing fans and shadows of the palm: The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault - The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept.

The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives, Slept in the precinct of the palisade: Where single, in the wind, under the moon, Among the slumbering cabins, blazed a fire, Sole street-lamp and the only sentinel.

To other lands and nights my fancy turned, To London first, and chiefly to your house, The many-pillared and the well-beloved.

There yearning fancy lighted; there again In the upper room I lay and heard far off The unsleeping city murmur like a sh.e.l.l; The m.u.f.fled tramp of the Museum guard Once more went by me; I beheld again Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; Again I longed for the returning morn, The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, The consentaneous trill of tiny song That weaves round monumental cornices A pa.s.sing charm of beauty: most of all, For your light foot I wearied, and your knock That was the glad reveille of my day.

Lo, now, when to your task in the great house At morning through the portico you pa.s.s, One moment glance where, by the pillared wall, Far-voyaging island G.o.ds, begrimed with smoke, Sit now unwors.h.i.+pped, the rude monument Of faiths forgot and races undivined; Sit now disconsolate, remembering well The priest, the victim, and the songful crowd, The blaze of the blue noon, and that huge voice Incessant, of the breakers on the sh.o.r.e.

As far as these from their ancestral shrine, So far, so foreign, your divided friends Wander, estranged in body, not in mind.

R. L. S.

Letter: TO E. L. BURLINGAME

SCHOONER 'EQUATOR,' AT SEA, WEDNESDAY, 4TH DECEMBER 1889.

MY DEAR BURLINGAME, - We are now about to rise, like whales, from this long dive, and I make ready a communication which is to go to you by the first mail from Samoa. How long we shall stay in that group I cannot forecast; but it will be best still to address at Sydney, where I trust, when I shall arrive, perhaps in one month from now, more probably in two or three, to find all news.

BUSINESS. - Will you be likely to have a s.p.a.ce in the Magazine for a serial story, which should be, ready, I believe, by April, at latest by autumn? It is called THE WRECKER; and in book form will appear as number 1 of South Sea Yarns by R. L. S. and Lloyd Osbourne. Here is the table as far as fully conceived, and indeed executed. ...

The story is founded on fact, the mystery I really believe to be insoluble; the purchase of a wreck has never been handled before, no more has San Francisco. These seem all elements of success.

There is, besides, a character, Jim Pinkerton, of the advertising American, on whom we build a good deal; and some sketches of the American merchant marine, opium smuggling in Honolulu, etc. It should run to (about) three hundred pages of my MS. I would like to know if this tale smiles upon you, if you will have a vacancy, and what you will be willing to pay. It will of course be copyright in both the States and England. I am a little anxious to have it tried serially, as it tests the interest of the mystery.

PLEASURE. - We have had a fine time in the Gilbert group, though four months on low islands, which involves low diet, is a largish order; and my wife is rather down. I am myself, up to now, a pillar of health, though our long and vile voyage of calms, squalls, cataracts of rain, sails carried away, foretopmast lost, boats cleared and packets made on the approach of a p. d. reef, etc., has cured me of salt brine, and filled me with a longing for beef steak and mangoes not to be depicted. The interest has been immense. Old King Tembinoka of Apemama, the Napoleon of the group, poet, tyrant, altogether a man of mark, gave me the woven corselets of his grandfather, his father and his uncle, and, what pleased me more, told me their singular story, then all manner of strange tales, facts and experiences for my South Sea book, which should be a Tearer, Mr. Burlingame: no one at least has had such stuff.

We are now engaged in the h.e.l.l of a dead calm, the heat is cruel - it is the only time when I suffer from heat: I have nothing on but a pair of serge trousers, and a singlet without sleeves of Oxford gauze - O, yes, and a red sash about my waist; and yet as I sit here in the cabin, sweat streams from me. The rest are on deck under a bit of awning; we are not much above a hundred miles from port, and we might as well be in Kamschatka. However, I should be honest: this is the first calm I have endured without the added bane of a heavy swell, and the intoxicated blue-bottle wallowings and knockings of the helpless s.h.i.+p.

I wonder how you liked the end of THE MASTER; that was the hardest job I ever had to do; did I do it?

My wife begs to be remembered to yourself and Mrs. Burlingame.

Remember all of us to all friends, particularly Low, in case I don't get a word through for him. - I am, yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER

SAMOA, [DECEMBER 1889].

MY DEAR BAXTER, - . . . I cannot return until I have seen either Tonga or Fiji or both: and I must not leave here till I have finished my collections on the war - a very interesting bit of history, the truth often very hard to come at, and the search (for me) much complicated by the German tongue, from the use of which I have desisted (I suppose) these fifteen years. The last two days I have been mugging with a dictionary from five to six hours a day; besides this, I have to call upon, keep sweet, and judiciously interview all sorts of persons - English, American, German, and Samoan. It makes a hard life; above all, as after every interview I have to come and get my notes straight on the nail. I believe I should have got my facts before the end of January, when I shall make our Tonga or Fiji. I am down right in the hurricane season; but they had so bad a one last year, I don't imagine there will be much of an edition this. Say that I get to Sydney some time in April, and I shall have done well, and be in a position to write a very singular and interesting book, or rather two; for I shall begin, I think, with a separate opuscule on the Samoan Trouble, about as long as KIDNAPPED, not very interesting, but valuable - and a thing proper to be done. And then, hey! for the big South Sea Book: a devil of a big one, and full of the finest sport.

This morning as I was going along to my breakfast a little before seven, reading a number of BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, I was startled by a soft TALOFA, ALII (note for my mother: they are quite courteous here in the European style, quite unlike Tahiti), right in my ear: it was Mataafa coming from early ma.s.s in his white coat and white linen kilt, with three fellows behind him. Mataafa is the nearest thing to a hero in my history, and really a fine fellow; plenty sense, and the most dignified, quiet, gentle manners. Talking of BLACKWOOD - a file of which I was lucky enough to find here in the lawyer's - Mrs. Oliphant seems in a staggering state: from the WRONG BOX to THE MASTER I scarce recognise either my critic or myself. I gather that THE MASTER should do well, and at least that notice is agreeable reading. I expect to be home in June: you will have gathered that I am pretty well. In addition to my labours, I suppose I walk five or six miles a day, and almost every day I ride up and see f.a.n.n.y and Lloyd, who are in a house in the bush with Ah Fu. I live in Apia for history's sake with Moors, an American trader. Day before yesterday I was arrested and fined for riding fast in the street, which made my blood bitter, as the wife of the manager of the German Firm has twice almost ridden me down, and there seems none to say her nay. The Germans have behaved pretty badly here, but not in all ways so ill as you may have gathered: they were doubtless much provoked; and if the insane Knappe had not appeared upon the scene, might have got out of the muddle with dignity. I write along without rhyme or reason, as things occur to me.

I hope from my outcries about printing you do not think I want you to keep my news or letters in a Blue Beard closet. I like all friends to hear of me; they all should if I had ninety hours in the day, and strength for all of them; but you must have gathered how hard worked I am, and you will understand I go to bed a pretty tired man.

29TH DECEMBER, [1889].

To-morrow (Monday, I won't swear to my day of the month; this is the Sunday between Christmas and New Year) I go up the coast with Mr. Clarke, one of the London Society missionaries, in a boat to examine schools, see Tamasese, etc. Lloyd comes to photograph.

Pray Heaven we have good weather; this is the rainy season; we shall be gone four or five days; and if the rain keep off, I shall be glad of the change; if it rain, it will be beastly. This explains still further how hard pressed I am, as the mail will be gone ere I return, and I have thus lost the days I meant to write in. I have a boy, Henry, who interprets and copies for me, and is a great nuisance. He said he wished to come to me in order to learn 'long expressions.' Henry goes up along with us; and as I am not fond of him, he may before the trip is over hear some 'strong expressions.' I am writing this on the back balcony at Moors', palms and a hill like the hill of Kinnoull looking in at me; myself lying on the floor, and (like the parties in Handel's song) 'clad in robes of virgin white'; the ink is dreadful, the heat delicious, a fine going breeze in the palms, and from the other side of the house the sudden angry splash and roar of the Pacific on the reef, where the wars.h.i.+ps are still piled from last year's hurricane, some under water, one high and dry upon her side, the strangest figure of a s.h.i.+p was ever witnessed; the narrow bay there is full of s.h.i.+ps; the men-of-war covered with sail after the rains, and (especially the German s.h.i.+p, which is fearfully and awfully top heavy) rolling almost yards in, in what appears to be calm water.

Samoa, Apia at least, is far less beautiful than the Marquesas or Tahiti: a more gentle scene, gentler acclivities, a tamer face of nature; and this much aided, for the wanderer, by the great German plantations with their countless regular avenues of palms. The island has beautiful rivers, of about the bigness of our waters in the Lothians, with pleasant pools and waterfalls and overhanging verdure, and often a great volume of sound, so that once I thought I was pa.s.sing near a mill, and it was only the voice of the river.

I am not specially attracted by the people; but they are courteous; the women very attractive, and dress lovely; the men purposelike, well set up, tall, lean, and dignified. As I write the breeze is brisking up, doors are beginning to slam: and shutters; a strong draught sweeps round the balcony; it looks doubtful for to-morrow.

Here I shut up. - Ever your affectionate,

R. L. STEVENSON.

Letter: TO DR. SCOTT

APIA, SAMOA, JANUARY 20TH, 1890.

MY DEAR SCOTT, - Shameful indeed that you should not have heard of me before! I have now been some twenty months in the South Seas, and am (up to date) a person whom you would scarce know. I think nothing of long walks and rides: I was four hours and a half gone the other day, partly riding, partly climbing up a steep ravine. I have stood a six months' voyage on a copra schooner with about three months ash.o.r.e on coral atolls, which means (except for cocoanuts to drink) no change whatever from s.h.i.+p's food. My wife suffered badly - it was too rough a business altogether - Lloyd suffered - and, in short, I was the only one of the party who 'kept my end up.'

I am so pleased with this climate that I have decided to settle; have even purchased a piece of land from three to four hundred acres, I know not which till the survey is completed, and shall only return next summer to wind up my affairs in England; thenceforth I mean to be a subject of the High Commissioner.

Now you would have gone longer yet without news of your truant patient, but that I have a medical discovery to communicate. I find I can (almost immediately) fight off a cold with liquid extract of coca; two or (if obstinate) three teaspoonfuls in the day for a variable period of from one to five days sees the cold generally to the door. I find it at once produces a glow, stops rigour, and though it makes one very uncomfortable, prevents the advance of the disease. Hearing of this influenza, it occurred to me that this might prove remedial; and perhaps a stronger exhibition - injections of cocaine, for instance - still better.

If on my return I find myself let in for this epidemic, which seems highly calculated to nip me in the bud, I shall feel very much inclined to make the experiment. See what a gulf you may save me from if you shall have previously made it on ANIMA VILI, on some less important sufferer, and shall have found it worse than useless.

How is Miss Boodle and her family? Greeting to your brother and all friends in Bournemouth, yours very sincerely,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.