Читать книгу The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol" Among the South Sea Islands: A Diary - Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson - Страница 7

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The Janet Nichol was an iron-screw cargo boat, topsail schooner rigged, of some six hundred tons gross. Her large, airy saloon and cabins were placed amidship on the main deck, with ports opening forward, the "trade room" being at the extreme aft. There was a comfortable bathroom and space enough on deck for exercise; but, for that matter, we might walk, sit, or sleep where we would. I have slept in the chart room and on the platform of the captain's bridge; though the after hatch, over which a great awning was spread, was the place chosen by the most of us for permanent night quarters. Here some swung in hammocks, some lay on mats, while the more luxurious carried blankets and pillows back and forth each night and morning. For me four mats were hung in a square; the mats, being loosely woven, did not cut off the current of air that usually swept over the hatch nor, unfortunately, the terrible groans of one of the mates who slept near me and was subject to nightmares.

Our mess consisted of Mr. Henderson, a member of the company that owned the vessel; Captain Henry, sailing-master; Mr. Hird, supercargo; Mr. Stoddard, engineer; Mr. Buckland, commonly called Tin Jack (Tin being the island equivalent for Mr.), a trader of the company returning to his station, my husband, my son Lloyd, and myself. The Janet carried a crew of about nine white men and some forty-odd black boys from the different islands of the Solomons and the New Hebrides.

We left Sydney on the 11th of April with a head wind and heavy seas until we arrived at Auckland, making seven days from port to port.

April 18th, 1890.—At Auckland in time for dinner. Went on shore and dined at a hotel with the supercargo and Tin Jack. Louis and I slept at the hotel with the understanding that Tin Jack and Lloyd should meet us in the morning with a shopping list. Immediately on our arrival in Auckland a strange cat jumped through a port-hole and now remains on board.

Outside of the great dance-house, Butaritari, during the competition between the dancers of Butaritari and those of Little Makin. Robert Louis Stevenson can be seen near the centre, just bending over to enter

19th.—Bought a broadcloth coat for Maka and a good black silk dress for Mary. As the Janet was bound for "the South Seas" and nothing more definite, we thought it better to carry presents in case we found ourselves in the neighbourhood of Butaritari.[1] I came back to the hotel in advance of Tin Jack and Lloyd, who stopped to buy fireworks for the entertainment of Tin Jack's native retainers. Besides the fireworks, which included ten pounds of "calcium fire," Tin Jack has also purchased cartridges, grease-paints, a false nose, and a wig.

Maka and Mary Maka, Kanoa and Mrs. Maria Kanoa, Hawaiian missionaries of the American Board of Missions, Honolulu, on the Island of Butaritari, one of the Gilbert Islands

Lloyd was a little doubtful about the calcium fire and questioned the man at the chemist shop rather closely, particularly as to its inflammability, explaining that it was to be carried on board ship. The man declared that it was perfectly safe, "as safe," said he, "as a packet of sugar," adding that fire from a match would not be sufficient to ignite it. "Will you have it with or without fumes?" he asked as he turned to make up the parcel. The thrifty trader thought that he might as well get all he could for the money expended, therefore took it with fumes.

Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson in company with Nan Tok and Natakanti on Butaritari Island

On Board in the Afternoon.—A little trouble with the trades-union, but nothing serious. Mr. W——, a bookseller, who had recognised Louis from a published portrait, called in the evening. He kindly offered to get pistol cartridges for us, and after a few minutes' conversation ran away after them, returning just as we were about to leave, with a couple hundred or thereabouts. The fireworks were sent aboard with other parcels, and, having no distinguishing marks, Lloyd put them all, along with our cartridges, on his bunk until Tin Jack, whose cabin he shared, should come below and sort them out. Among them should be a pistol Tin Jack had taken to have mended, belonging to Louis.

20th.—We left Auckland last evening at about eight, the streaming lights from the town following us a long way. A small, half-grown dog has joined the ship's company.

Between ten and eleven Louis was lying in his cabin very tired and glad to rest. Tin Jack and Lloyd were in Mr. Henderson's cabin drinking coffee and discussing "land booms." I sat at the saloon table eating brown bread and butter. Suddenly, from the cabin occupied by Tin Jack and Lloyd, came a spitting puff, almost immediately followed by gorgeous flames and the most horrible chemical stench. The calcium fire that was as safe as a packet of sugar had gone off and ignited the rest of the fireworks. Only Lloyd and I knew of the cartridges in their midst, but we discreetly held our tongues, though every moment we expected to hear the ping of flying bullets. I ran into our cabin and snatched a heavy red blanket. At the same time Mr. Henderson was fetching a large, handsome woollen rug from his cabin. I felt for a hand to put the blanket in, for the place was so full of suffocating vapour that one could see nothing but the many-hued flames darting through it. Fortunately, it was the captain's hand I delivered my blanket into. Rid of my blanket, I ran back and thrust my head out of a port to get a breath of air; the ports, although they were the means of fanning the flames, could not be shut on account of the strangling fumes. Here Mr. Henderson, who had been for some minutes lying on the stairs quite insensible, came to fetch me out; so, catching his hand, I ran through the saloon to the companionway and up to the deck.

Louis, who knew nothing of the fireworks having been brought on board, was thunderstruck by the vivid changing colours of the spouts of flame, and stood for some time gazing at the extraordinary scene and inhaling the poisonous vapours. "Why," he thought with wonder, "should a fire at sea look like a Christmas pantomime?" His amazement was so great that he was hardly conscious of the fumes.

The captain, from the bridge, had seen heavy vapour pouring upward and was both puzzled and angry, thinking the engineer was letting off steam for purposes of his own. The stuff must, therefore, have been smouldering for a considerable time before it burst into flames, the draught carrying the smoke out of the open port instead of into the saloon, so that our first knowledge of anything amiss came from the bursting of rockets into the saloon. As the captain was looking at the supposed column of steam there suddenly shot through it, rising high into the air, a shaft of blue, green, and red fire. Ordering the donkey-engine to pump water and the hose to be put on, he ran below and crawled into the very centre of the fire with the blanket, rug, and hose, and succeeded in smothering the flames none too soon for the safety of the ship; he said afterward that had the wind come from a different quarter, or had the cartridges exploded, nothing could have saved us.

There was no panic among our black boys, who worked swiftly and obediently; I rather suspect they enjoyed the excitement of the affair. Talking it over, the captain said how lucky it was that he had a man at the wheel that he could trust. Lloyd and I said nothing, but we both knew there had been no man at the wheel; the trusted one ran below with the rest. It was a rather dangerous moment to leave the ship drifting, for we were not nearly out of the harbour, being just opposite the lighthouse when the fire broke out. A steamer passed us quite closely when the scene was at its wildest. Coloured fire and thick white vapour belching from our ports must have given us a very strange and alarming aspect. Lloyd looked over the opposite side of our ship and saw the ports there, also, vomiting vapour like a factory.

To our surprise the cartridge-boxes were only slightly scorched. Our personal loss, however, has been very severe. About ninety photographs were destroyed and all of Lloyd's clothes except those on his back. Neither he nor I have even a tooth-brush left. The annoying thing is that Tin Jack has lost nothing whatever. Lloyd is very bitter about the discrimination shown in the matter of trousers by the fire. I stopped a couple of black boys just in time to prevent them throwing overboard a blazing valise containing four large boxes of Louis' papers. A black bag, its contents at present unknown, is burned, and innumerable small necessaries that conduce to comfort on shipboard are lost. I have ever since been in a tremor lest Louis have a hæmorrhage. If he does I shall feel inclined to do something very desperate to the chemist, who, for the sake of a few shillings, put us all in such deadly peril. A horrid smell still hangs about the place and every one feels ill. Though I hardly breathed in the room, I have a heavy oppression on my chest, and my throat and lungs burn as though I were inhaling pepper. From the time we left Auckland the water has been as smooth as glass, and there has been no jarring or knocking about; the stuff must have gone off by simple spontaneous combustion. Had it taken place a very little later, Tin Jack must have been sleeping in the berth above, and should undoubtedly have been suffocated.

2lst.—Still drying the remains of Lloyd's clothes, burned and wet in the fire, and discovering more and more losses. Fortunately, the flag I had made for King Tembinoka was not injured at all (a royal standard I invented for him). The flag for the island I had already sent, and the cartridge-belt Lloyd is taking to him for a present is only a little smudged.[2] Both our cameras escaped as by magic.

Louis has been playing chess with the captain, who has not played before for many years. I have been making wreaths of artificial flowers for presents to the natives. I bought in Sydney several large boxes of old-fashioned artificial flowers, perfectly fresh and pretty, also green leaves unwired. For one pound and three shillings I got enough for twenty full wreaths and eighteen more to be worked up with coloured feathers. I do not think the natives will enjoy getting the wreaths any more than I enjoy making them.[3] (One of our sailors appeared on duty in a garland and necklace of orange-peel.) The sea is smooth and the weather perfect.

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.

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.

The "Janet Nichol" with ship's company

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!"

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.

After an inordinate luncheon I opened some boxes we had left here and took out various articles suitable for presents. At the main store we found our bush friend and his little daughter waiting for us with a large basket of oranges. Louis gave the child a shilling and told her to choose from the shelves a piece of cotton print. She was dazzled by the magnificence of the offer, and after long deliberation chose the ugliest piece of the lot. I gave an old woman a print gown, upon which she purred like a cat and kissed my hands. Our old friend Sitione (wounded in the late war) came up and spoke to us, looking very ill, his arm bandaged and in a sling. The doctor tells Louis he thinks very badly of the arm and fears he must amputate it.[6] There was also something wrong with Sitione's eye which was bandaged.

A little boy brought a basket of chilli peppers I wanted to carry on board with me. There were no vegetables to be had, as the Chinaman's garden, the only one in Samoa, had been washed away by a freshet. At half past three we returned to the Janet, where Doctor Steubel, the German consul-general, Baron von Pritzfritz, captain of the German man-of-war lying in Apia harbour, and another German whose name I forget paid us a visit. We talked a few moments and drank a glass of champagne; then the whistle sounded, our friends bade us good-bye, and at about four we steamed out. Our little house in the bush was visible to the naked eye from the deck of the steamer.

3d.—At about three o'clock we sighted an island known by various names—Swayne's Island, Quiros, or Olesenga—a small, round, low island surrounding a triangular brackish lagoon like an ornamental lake in a park. It is inhabited by a half-caste man known as King Jennings, his family, and about eighty people from different islands. The original Jennings was an American who married a Samoan wife. He left Samoa in a huff after having built a man-of-war for the government, for which payment was refused. As the motive power of the ship came from wooden paddle-wheels, turned with a crank by hand, it is hardly surprising that the complaint of her extreme slowness and the great labour involved in working her should have been brought forward as reasons for non-payment. She had a complete armament of great guns and all the equipments of a proper man-of-war. Jennings, in a fury of indignation and disappointment, shook the dust of Samoa off his feet, and with his wife and family set up a little kingdom of his own in Quiros. Here he blew out a passage through the reef, built two schooners of island wood, floated them off with barrels, and sold them to the German firm at Samoa.

A flag was hoisted on Quiros, the stars and stripes, with what appeared to be a dove in the field. We asked with some curiosity what the dove indicated. They told us that a night-bird came and cried about the settlement for months; this was supposed to bode sickness; so to propitiate the ill-omened bird it was added to the flag.

There is a good road on the island, excellent houses, a church, and a schoolhouse containing an imported half-caste schoolmaster. From a tall building used for storing copra men were already laying a temporary wooden track down to the landing for the copra trucks to run upon. This busy scene was brought to an end by Mr. Henderson's information that he would not take in cargo until our return voyage. This is a rich, low island with plenty of soil, and is said to bring in a very comfortable revenue, which might be still larger did King Jennings care to make it so.

Mr. Henderson and Louis went on shore; while they were away I tried to make a Mexican sauce, called salsa, with the chillis from Samoa and the onions from the Nuieue graves. The chillis burned my hands dreadfully, and the sauce turned out to be too hot to be used except as a flavouring for soups, for which it was excellent.

Mr. Henderson and Louis came back with some return labour boys for Danger Island. One who had signed to serve five years had been waiting another three for a vessel to take him home. He was once disappointed, and nearly died of it. I am thankful he had this opportunity.[7] I can see a horse eating grass on the island, and Louis has seen a carriage.

4th.—Ran through a light squall in the night and sighted Danger Island at four in the morning. At the first landing is a place in the reef where people upset in boats are sucked under, never to be seen again. Our Quiros passengers are in a wild state of excitement; ladies on the after hatch slipping on their clean shifts, and the comb going from hand to hand. The eight-year exile clutched Louis's hand, and in a voice trembling with emotion ejaculated "coco nuk." As we drew nearer the three islands of the group began to detach themselves. Danger Island, or Pukapuka, is the only one inhabited. It is governed by a king who allows none of his subjects to gather cocoanuts without his royal permission, and as he seldom lets any one have more than is sufficient for his food, very little copra is made. Here the nuts, contrary to the usual custom, are dried in the shell to prevent cockroaches from devouring the meat, and consequently the copra is very fine and white; but the quantity made is so small that it does not pay to keep a trader on the island.

We could see the natives gathering on the beach in great force. They seemed thunderstruck at the sight of a vessel with furled sails moving so rapidly against a strong head wind, the Janet being the first steamer that had touched at Pukapuka. As soon as our passengers were recognised, a joyful shout ran up and down the beach, and, canoes were launched and paddled out to meet us. When they were just abreast of us Captain Henry blew the steam-whistle. The natives were appalled; every paddle stopped short, and the crowds on the beach seemed stricken to stone. Our Pukapuka passengers tried to encourage the people in the canoes to come nearer, calling to them from the deck of the ship, but it was some time before they took heart and resumed their paddling. The King, a shabbily clad man of rather mean appearance, was among them.

The meeting between the long-parted friends was very pretty and touching. I like their mode of showing affection better than ours. They took hands and pressed their faces together lightly with a delicate sniff, as I have often seen a white mother caress her baby. One elderly woman, I was sorry to see, had bad news; she looked very sorrowful, and when a young boy came up to greet her she threw her arms round him and wept aloud. All the rest, however, were sparkling with excitement and joy. The sheep, which the strangers saw for the first time, were studied with much interest. A group of middle-aged, respectable men stood off at some distance and whistled to the sheep as though they were dogs; getting no response, they ventured a little nearer, when one of the sheep happened to move. The crowd fell back in dire confusion, and one man who had been in the van, but now occupied a rear position, asked in a trembling voice if the bite of those animals was very dangerous.

Before our passengers left us, each shook hands with all on board and bade us farewell; they said "good-bye, sir," to Louis and "good-bye, mister," to me. As they paddled away I took out my handkerchief and waved it. One woman, the proud possessor of a handkerchief of her own, waved hers in reply and kept it up until I, at least, was tired. I like to think of the pleasant evening at Pukapuka, the gossip, the news, the passing of presents, and the exhibition of treasures and foreign curiosities.

6th.—Sighted Manihiki at half past twelve, an outlying, low coral island with enclosed lagoon, very thinly wooded with cocoa-palms and pandanus trees.

Quiros, the first Spanish navigator of the Pacific, gave to an island the name "Gente Hermosa" (Beautiful People), which has always been ascribed to Olesenga or Quiros Island; but since the memory of man Quiros has been uninhabited until the advent of the American Jennings. It is very possible that the navigator meant Manihiki, or its neighbouring island Rakahoa, as the isle of beautiful people. It is significant that Manihiki is always conspicuously marked on even the smallest maps of the world, no doubt from the fact that its delightful people have attracted so much attention from seamen that the place has acquired an artificial importance out of all proportion to its few square miles of reef.

The regular diet of the Manihikians is composed almost entirely of cocoanuts. The pandanus seeds are boiled and chewed, but never made into foodstuff as is done in the Gilberts. There are pigs and fowls in abundance, but these are only killed on great occasions, such as marriages or deaths. Sucking pigs are not killed, but only large ones, the larger the better. There are no white women on Manihiki, and but three white men—an absconding produce-merchant, a runaway marine, and a young Englishman who was wrecked on a neighbouring island. These men live on the bounty of the natives, and though they dislike eating copra, or "cocoanut steak," as it is called, they seem to thrive very well upon it.

We landed on the beach as there was no entrance to the lagoon. The aspect of the reef was not very reassuring as we rowed toward it, but our men took us through a narrow, tortuous passage, and in a few minutes we were shaking hands and exchanging salutations with the natives, a pleasant, smiling crowd with many beautiful children. We were delighted to find that we had arrived at a most interesting period, that of the yearly jubilee. No one could tell us how this institution, which is known in other islands besides Manihiki, first arose. For one week out of every year all laws are held in abeyance, and the island gives itself up to hilarious enjoyment without fear of consequences, singing, beating the cocoanut-wood drum, and dancing according to the old heathen customs. At any other time the punishment for heathen dances is most severe.