Vailima Letters by Robert Louis StevensonBeing Correspondence addressed by Robert Louis Stevenson to Sidney Colvin (page 4)

dignified for him to steal a pig.

(The Amanuensis went to the TALOLO, as it is called, and saw something so very pleasing she begs to interrupt the letter to tell it. The different villagers came in in bands – led by the maid of the village, followed by the young warriors. It was a very fine sight, for some three thousand people are said to have assembled. The men wore nothing but magnificent head-dresses and a bunch of leaves, and were oiled and glistening in the sunlight. One band had no maid but was led by a tiny child of about five – a serious little creature clad in a ribbon of grass and a fine head-dress, who skipped with elaborate leaps in front of the warriors, like a little kid leading a band of lions. A.M.)

The A.M. being done, I go on again. All this made it very possible that even if none of our boys had stolen the pig, some of them might know the thief. Besides, the theft, as it was a theft of meat prepared for a guest, had something of the nature of an insult, and ‘my face,’ in native phrase, ‘was ashamed.’ Accordingly, we determined to hold a bed of justice. It was done last night after dinner. I sat at the head of the table, Graham on my right hand, Henry Simele at my left, Lloyd behind him. The house company sat on the floor around the walls – twelve all told. I am described as looking as like Braxfield as I could manage with my appearance; Graham, who is of a severe countenance, looked like Rhadamanthus; Lloyd was hideous to the view; and Simele had all the fine solemnity of a Samoan chief. The proceedings opened by my delivering a Samoan prayer, which may be translated thus – ‘Our God, look down upon us and shine into our hearts. Help us to be far from falsehood so that each one of us may stand before Thy Face in his integrity.’ – Then, beginning with Simele, every one came up to the table, laid his hand on the Bible, and repeated clause by clause after me the following oath – I fear it may sound even comic in English, but it is a very pretty piece of Samoan, and struck direct at the most lively superstitions of the race. ‘This is the Holy Bible here that I am touching. Behold me, O God! If I know who it was that took away the pig, or the place to which it was taken, or have heard anything relating to it, and shall not declare the same – be made an end of by God this life of mine!’ They all took it with so much seriousness and firmness that (as Graham said) if they were not innocent they would make invaluable witnesses. I was so far impressed by their bearing that I went no further, and the funny and yet strangely solemn scene came to an end.

SUNDAY, NO. 6th.

Here is a long story to go back upon, and I wonder if I have either time or patience for the task?

Wednesday I had a great idea of match-making, and proposed to Henry that Faale would make a good wife for him. I wish I had put this down when it was fresher in my mind, it was so interesting an interview. My gentleman would not tell if I were on or not. ‘I do not know yet; I will tell you next week. May I tell the sister of my father? No, better not, tell her when it is done.’ – ‘But will not your family be angry if you marry without asking them?’ – ‘My village? What does my village want? Mats!’ I said I thought the girl would grow up to have a great deal of sense, and my gentleman flew out upon me; she had sense now, he said.

Thursday, we were startled by the note of guns, and presently after heard it was an English war ship. Graham and I set off at once, and as soon as we met any townsfolk they began crying to me that I was to be arrested. It was the VOSSISCHE ZEITUNG article which had been quoted in a paper. Went on board and saw Captain Bourke; he did not even know – not even guess – why he was here; having been sent off by cablegram from Auckland. It is hoped the same ship that takes this off Europewards may bring his orders and our news. But which is it to be? Heads or tails? If it is to be German, I hope they will deport me; I should prefer it so; I do not think that I could bear a German officialdom, and should probably have to leave SPONTE MEA, which is only less picturesque and more expensive.

8TH.

Mail day. All well, not yet put in prison, whatever may be in store for me. No time even to sign this lame letter.

CHAPTER XXIV

DEC. 1ST.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Another grimy little odd and end of paper, for which you shall be this month repaid in kind, and serve you jolly well right. . . The new house is roofed; it will be a braw house, and what is better, I have my yearly bill in, and I find I can pay for it. For all which mercies, etc. I must have made close on 4,000 pounds this year all told; but, what is not so pleasant, I seem to have come near to spending them. I have been in great alarm, with this new house on the cards, all summer, and came very near to taking in sail, but I live here so entirely on credit, that I determined to hang on.

DEC. 1ST.

I was saying yesterday that my life was strange and did not think how well I spoke. Yesterday evening I was briefed to defend a political prisoner before the Deputy Commissioner. What do you think of that for a vicissitude?

DEC. 3RD.

Now for a confession. When I heard you and Cassells had decided to print THE BOTTLE IMP along with FALESA, I was too much disappointed to answer. THE BOTTLE IMP was the PIECE DE RESISTANCE for my volume, ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS. However, that volume might have never got done; and I send you two others in case they should be in time.

First have the BEACH OF FALESA.

Then a fresh false title: ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS; and then

THE BOTTLE IMP: a cue from an old melodrama.

THE ISLE OF VOICES.

THE WAIF WOMAN; a cue from a SAGA.

Of course these two others are not up to the mark of THE BOTTLE IMP; but they each have a certain merit, and they fit in style. By saying ‘a cue from an old melodrama’ after the B. I., you can get rid of my note. If this is in time, it will be splendid, and will make quite a volume.

Should you and Cassells prefer, you can call the whole volume I. N. E. – though the BEACH OF FALESA is the child of a quite different inspiration. They all have a queer realism, even the most extravagant, even the ISLE OF VOICES; the manners are exact.

Should they come too late, have them type-written, and return to me here the type-written copies.

SUNDAY, DEC. 4TH.

3rd start, – But now more humbly and with the aid of an Amanuensis. First one word about page 2. My wife protests against the Waif-woman and I am instructed to report the same to you. . . .

DEC. 5TH.

A horrid alarm rises that our October mail was burned crossing the Plains. If so, you lost a beautiful long letter – I am sure it was beautiful though I remember nothing about it – and I must say I think it serves you properly well. That I should continue writing to you at such length is simply a vicious habit for which I blush. At the same time, please communicate at once with Charles Baxter whether you have or have not received a letter posted here Oct 12th, as he is going to cable me the fate of my mail.

Now to conclude my news. The German Firm have taken my book like angels, and the result is that Lloyd and I were down there at dinner on Saturday, where we partook of fifteen several dishes and eight distinct forms of intoxicating drink. To the credit of Germany, I must say there was not a shadow of a headache the next morning. I seem to have done as well as my neighbours, for I hear one of the clerks expressed the next morning a gratified surprise that Mr. Stevenson stood his drink so well. It is a strange thing that any race can still find joy in such athletic exercises. I may remark in passing that the mail is due and you have had far more than you deserve.
R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXV

JANUARY 1893.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – You are properly paid at last, and it is like you will have but a shadow of a letter. I have been pretty thoroughly out of kilter; first a fever that would neither come on nor go off, then acute dyspepsia, in the weakening grasp of which I get wandering between the waking state and one of nightmare. Why the devil does no one send me ATALANTA? And why are there no proofs of D. Balfour? Sure I should have had the whole, at least the half, of them by now; and it would be all for the advantage of the Atalantans. I have written to Cassell & Co. (matter of FALESA) ‘you will please arrange with him’ (meaning you). ‘What he may decide I shall abide.’ So consider your hand free, and act for me without fear or favour. I am greatly pleased with the illustrations. It is very strange to a South-Seayer to see Hawaiian women dressed like Samoans, but I guess that’s all one to you in Middlesex. It’s about the same as if London city men were shown going to the Stock Exchange as PIFFERARI; but no matter, none will sleep worse for it. I have accepted Cassell’s proposal as an amendment to one of mine; that D. B. is to be brought out first under the title CATRIONA without pictures; and, when the hour strikes, KIDNAPPED and CATRIONA are to form vols. I. and II. of the heavily illustrated ‘Adventures of David Balfour’ at 7s. 6d. each, sold separately.

-‘s letter was vastly sly and dry and shy. I am not afraid now. Two attempts have been made, both have failed, and I imagine these failures strengthen me. Above all this is true of the last, where my weak point was attempted. On every other, I am strong. Only force can dislodge me, for public opinion is wholly on my side. All races and degrees are united in heartfelt opposition to the Men of Mulinuu. The news of the fighting was of no concern to mortal man; it was made much of because men love talk of battles, and because the Government pray God daily for some scandal not their own; but it was only a brisk episode in a clan fight which has grown apparently endemic in the west of Tutuila. At the best it was a twopenny affair, and never occupied my mind five minutes.

I am so weary of reports that are without foundation and threats that go without fulfilment, and so much occupied besides by the raging troubles of my own wame, that I have been very slack on politics, as I have been in literature. With incredible labour, I have rewritten the First Chapter of the Justice Clerk; it took me about ten days, and requires another athletic dressing after all. And that is my story for the month. The rest is grunting and grutching.

Consideranda for THE BEACH:-

I. Whether to add one or both the tales I sent you? II. Whether to call the whole volume ‘Island Nights Entertainments’?
III Whether, having waited so long, it would not be better to give me another mail, in case I could add another member to the volume and a little better justify the name?

If I possibly can draw up another story, I will. What annoyed me about the use of THE BOTTLE IMP was that I had always meant it for the centre-piece of a volume of MARCHEN which I was slowly to elaborate. You always had an idea that I depreciated the B. I; I can’t think wherefore; I always particularly liked it – one of my best works, and ill to equal; and that was why I loved to keep it in portfolio till I had time to grow up to some other fruit of the same VENUE. However, that is disposed of now, and we must just do the best we can.

I am not aware that there is anything to add; the weather is hellish, waterspouts, mists, chills, the foul fiend’s own weather, following on a week of expurgated heaven; so it goes at this bewildering season. I write in the upper floor of my new house, of which I will send you some day a plan to measure. ‘Tis an elegant structure, surely, and the proid of me oi. Was asked to pay for it just now, and genteelly refused, and then agreed, in view of general good-will, to pay a half of what is still due.

24TH JANUARY 1893.

This ought to have gone last mail and was forgotten. My best excuse is that I was engaged in starting an influenza, to which class of exploit our household has been since then entirely dedicated. We had eight cases, one of them very bad, and one – mine – complicated with my old friend Bluidy Jack. Luckily neither Fanny, Lloyd or Belle took the confounded thing, and they were able to run the household and nurse the sick to admiration.

Some of our boys behaved like real trumps. Perhaps the prettiest performance was that of our excellent Henry Simele, or, as we sometimes call him, Davy Balfour. Henry, I maun premeese, is a chief; the humblest Samoan recoils from emptying slops as you would from cheating at cards; now the last nights of our bad time when we had seven down together, it was enough to have made anybody laugh or cry to see Henry going the rounds with a slop-bucket and going inside the mosquito net of each of the sick, Protestant and Catholic alike, to pray with them.

I must tell you that in my sickness I had a huge alleviation and began a new story. This I am writing by dictation, and really think it is an art I can manage to acquire. The relief is beyond description; it is just like a school-treat to me and the amanuensis bears up extraordinar’. The story is to be called ST. IVES; I give you your choice whether or not it should bear the subtitle, ‘Experiences of a French prisoner in England.’ We were just getting on splendidly with it, when this cursed mail arrived and requires to be attended to. It looks to me very like as if St. Ives would be ready before any of the others, but you know me and how impossible it is I should predict. The Amanuensis has her head quite turned and believes herself to be the author of this novel (and IS to some extent) – and as the creature (!) has not been wholly useless in the matter (I told you so! A.M.) I propose to foster her vanity by a little commemoration gift! The name of the hero is Anne de St. Yves – he Englishes his name to St. Ives during his escape. It is my idea to get a ring made which shall either represent ANNE or A. S. Y. A., of course, would be Amethyst and S. Sapphire, which is my favourite stone anyway and was my father’s before me. But what would the ex-Slade professor do about the letter Y? Or suppose he took the other version, how would he meet the case, the two N.’s? These things are beyond my knowledge, which it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I place the matter in the meanwhile under your consideration and beg to hear your views. I shall tell you on some other occasion and when the A.M. is out of hearing how VERY much I propose to invest in this testimonial; but I may as well inform you at once that I intend it to be cheap, sir, damned cheap! My idea of running amanuenses is by praise, not pudding, flattery and not coins! I shall send you when the time is ripe a ring to measure by.

To resume our sad tale. After the other seven were almost wholly recovered Henry lay down to influenza on his own account. He is but just better and it looks as though Fanny were about to bring up the rear. As for me, I am all right, though I WAS reduced to dictating ANNE in the deaf and dumb alphabet, which I think you will admit is a COMBLE.

Politics leave me extraordinary cold. It seems that so much of my purpose has come off, and Cedarcrantz and Pilsach are sacked. The rest of it has all gone to water. The triple- headed ass at home, in his plenitude of ignorance, prefers to collect the taxes and scatter the Mataafas by force or the threat of force. It may succeed, and I suppose it will. It is none the less for that expensive, harsh, unpopular and unsettling. I am young enough to have been annoyed, and altogether eject and renegate the whole idea of political affairs. Success in that field appears to be the organisation of failure enlivened with defamation of character; and, much as I love pickles and hot water (in your true phrase) I shall take my pickles in future from Crosse and Blackwell and my hot water with a dose of good Glenlivat.

Do not bother at all about the wall-papers. We have had the whole of our new house varnished, and it looks beautiful. I wish you could see the hall; poor room, it had to begin life as an infirmary during our recent visitation; but it is really a handsome comely place, and when we get the furniture, and the pictures, and what is so very much more decorative, the picture frames, will look sublime.

JAN. 30TH.

I have written to Charles asking for Rowlandson’s Syntax and Dance of Death out of our house, and begging for anything about fashions and manners (fashions particularly) for 1814. Can you help? Both the Justice Clerk and St. Ives fall in that fated year. Indeed I got into St. Ives while going over the Annual Register for the other. There is a kind of fancy list of Chaps. of St. Ives. (It begins in Edinburgh Castle.) I. Story of a lion rampant (that was a toy he had made, and given to a girl visitor). II. Story of a pair of scissors. III. St. Ives receives a bundle of money. IV. St. Ives is shown a house. V. The Escape. VI. The Cottage (Swanston College). VII. The Hen-house. VIII. Three is company and four none. IX. The Drovers. X. The Great North Road. XI. Burchell Fenn. XII. The covered cart. XIII. The doctor. XIV. The Luddites. V. Set a thief to catch a thief. XXVI. M. le Comte de Keroualle (his uncle, the rich EMIGRE, whom he finds murdered). XVII. The cousins. XVIII. Mr. Sergeant Garrow. XIX. A meeting at the Ship, Dover. XX. Diane. XXI. The Duke’s Prejudices. XXII. The False Messenger. XXIII. The gardener’s ladder. XXIV. The officers. XXV. Trouble with the Duke. XXVI. Fouquet again. XXVII. The Aeronaut. XXVIII. The True-Blooded Yankee. XXIX. In France. I don’t know where to stop. Apropos, I want a book about Paris, and the FIRST RETURN of the EMIGRES and all up to the CENT JOURS: d’ye ken anything in my way? I want in particular to know about them and the Napoleonic functionaries and officers, and to get the colour and some vital details of the business of exchange of departments from one side to the other. Ten chapters are drafted, and VIII. re-copied by me, but will want another dressing for luck. It is merely a story of adventure, rambling along; but that is perhaps the guard that ‘sets my genius best,’ as Alan might have said. I wish I could feel as easy about the other! But there, all novels are a heavy burthen while they are doing, and a sensible disappointment when they are done.

For God’s sake, let me have a copy of the new German Samoa White book. R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXVI

AT SEA, S.S. & MARIPOSA,
FEB. 19th, ’93.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – You will see from this heading that I am not dead yet nor likely to be. I was pretty considerably out of sorts, and that is indeed one reason why Fanny, Belle, and I have started out for a month’s lark. To be quite exact, I think it will be about five weeks before we get home. We shall stay between two and three in Sydney. Already, though we only sailed yesterday, I am feeling as fit as a fiddle. Fanny ate a whole fowl for breakfast, to say nothing of a tower of hot cakes. Belle and I floored another hen betwixt the pair of us, and I shall be no sooner done with the present amanuensing racket than I shall put myself outside a pint of Guinness. If you think this looks like dying of consumption in Apia I can only say I differ from you. In the matter of David, I have never yet received my proofs at all, but shall certainly wait for your suggestions. Certainly, Chaps. 17 to 20 are the hitch, and I confess I hurried over them with both wings spread. This is doubtless what you complain of. Indeed, I placed my single reliance on Miss Grant. If she couldn’t ferry me over, I felt I had to stay there.

About ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS all you say is highly satisfactory. Go in and win.

The extracts from the TIMES I really cannot trust myself to comment upon. They were infernally satisfactory; so, and perhaps still more so, was a letter I had at the same time from Lord Pembroke. If I have time as I go through Auckland, I am going to see Sir George Grey.

Now I really think that’s all the business. I have been rather sick and have had two small hemorrhages, but the second I believe to have been accidental. No good denying that this annoys, because it do. However, you must expect influenza to leave some harm, and my spirits, appetite, peace on earth and goodwill to men are all on a rising market. During the last week the amanuensis was otherwise engaged, whereupon I took up, pitched into, and about one half demolished another tale, once intended to be called THE PEARL FISHER, but now razeed and called THE SCHOONER FARRALONE. We had a capital start, the steamer coming in at sunrise, and just giving us time to get our letters ere she sailed again. The manager of the German firm (O strange, changed days!) danced attendance upon us all morning; his boat conveyed us to and from the steamer.

FEB. 21ST.

All continues well. Amanuensis bowled over for a day, but afoot again and jolly; Fanny enormously bettered by the voyage; I have been as jolly as a sand-boy as usual at sea. The Amanuensis sits opposite to me writing to her offspring. Fanny is on deck. I have just supplied her with the Canadian Pacific Agent, and so left her in good hands. You should hear me at table with the Ulster purser and a little punning microscopist called Davis. Belle does some kind of abstruse Boswellising; after the first meal, having gauged the kind of jests that would pay here, I observed, ‘Boswell is Barred during this cruise.’

23RD

We approach Auckland and I must close my mail. All goes well with the trio. Both the ladies are hanging round a beau – the same – that I unearthed for them: I am general provider, and especially great in the beaux business. I corrected some proofs for Fanny yesterday afternoon, fell asleep over them in the saloon – and the whole ship seems to have been down beholding me. After I woke up, had a hot bath, a whiskey punch and a cigarette, and went to bed, and to sleep too, at 8.30; a recrudescence of Vailima hours. Awoke to-day, and had to go to the saloon clock for the hour – no sign of dawn – all heaven grey rainy fog. Have just had breakfast, written up one letter, register and close this.

CHAPTER XXVII

Bad pen, bad ink,
bad light, bad
blotting-paper.

S. S. MARIPOSA, AT SEA.
APIA DUE BY DAYBREAK TO-MORROW 9 P.M.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Have had an amusing but tragic holiday, from which we return in disarray. Fanny quite sick, but I think slowly and steadily mending; Belle in a terrific state of dentistry troubles which now seem calmed; and myself with a succession of gentle colds out of which I at last succeeded in cooking up a fine pleurisy. By stopping and stewing in a perfectly airless state-room I seem to have got rid of the pleurisy. Poor Fanny had very little fun of her visit, having been most of the time on a diet of maltine and slops – and this while the rest of us were rioting on oysters and mushrooms. Belle’s only devil in the hedge was the dentist. As for me, I was entertained at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, likewise at a sort of artistic club; made speeches at both, and may therefore be said to have been, like Saint Paul, all things to all men. I have an account of the latter racket which I meant to have enclosed in this. . . . Had some splendid photos taken, likewise a medallion by a French sculptor; met Graham, who returned with us as far as Auckland. Have seen a good deal too of Sir George Grey; what a wonderful old historic figure to be walking on your arm and recalling ancient events and instances! It makes a man small, and yet the extent to which he approved what I had done – or rather have tried to do – encouraged me. Sir George is an expert at least, he knows these races: he is not a small employe with an ink-pot and a Whittaker.

Take it for all in all, it was huge fun: even Fanny had some lively sport at the beginning; Belle and I all through. We got Fanny a dress on the sly, gaudy black velvet and Duchesse lace. And alas! she was only able to wear it once. But we’ll hope to see more of it at Samoa; it really is lovely. Both dames are royally outfitted in silk stockings, etc. We return, as from a raid, with our spoils and our wounded. I am now very dandy: I announced two years ago that I should change. Slovenly youth, all right – not slovenly age. So really now I am pretty spruce; always a white shirt, white necktie, fresh shave, silk, socks, O a great sight! – No more possible,
R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXVIII

APRIL, 1893.

1. SLIP 3. Davie would be ATTRACTED into a similar dialect, as he is later – e.g., with Doig, chapter XIX. This is truly Scottish.

4, TO LIGHTLY; correct; ‘to lightly’ is a good regular Scots verb.

15. See Allan Ramsay’s works.

15, 16. Ay, and that is one of the pigments with which I am trying to draw the character of Prestongrange. ‘Tis a most curious thing to render that kind, insignificant mask. To make anything precise is to risk my effect. And till the day he died, DAVIE was never sure of what P. was after. Not only so; very often P. didn’t know himself. There was an element of mere liking for Davie; there was an element of being determined, in case of accidents, to keep well with him. He hoped his Barbara would bring him to her feet, besides, and make him manageable. That was why he sent him to Hope Park with them. But Davie cannot KNOW; I give you the inside of Davie, and my method condemns me to give only the outside both of Prestongrange and his policy.

– I’ll give my mind to the technicalities. Yet to me they seem a part of the story, which is historical, after all.

– I think they wanted Alan to escape. But when or where to say so? I will try.

– 20, DEAN. I’ll try and make that plainer.

CHAP. XIII., I fear it has to go without blows. If I could get the pair – No, can’t be.

– XIV. All right, will abridge.

– XV. I’d have to put a note to every word; and he who can’t read Scots can NEVER enjoy Tod Lapraik.

– XVII. Quite right. I CAN make this plainer, and will.

– XVIII. I know, but I have to hurry here; this is the broken back of my story; some business briefly transacted, I am leaping for Barbara’s apron-strings.

SLIP 57. Quite right again; I shall make it plain.

CHAP. XX. I shall make all these points clear. About Lady Prestongrange (not LADY Grant, only MISS Grant, my dear, though LADY Prestongrange, quoth the dominie) I am taken with your idea of her death, and have a good mind to substitute a featureless aunt.

SLIP 78. I don’t see how to lessen this effect. There is really not much said of it; and I know Catriona did it. But I’ll try.

– 89. I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.’s dialect is not wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I’ll try for another expression.

THE END. I shall try to work it over. James was at Dunkirk ordering post-horses for his own retreat. Catriona did have her suspicions aroused by the letter, and, careless gentleman, I told you so – or she did at least. – Yes, the blood money, I am bothered about the portmanteau; it is the presence of Catriona that bothers me; the rape of the pockmantie is historic. . . .

To me, I own, it seems in the proof a very pretty piece of workmanship. David himself I refuse to discuss; he IS. The Lord Advocate I think a strong sketch of a very difficult character, James More, sufficient; and the two girls very pleasing creatures. But O dear me, I came near losing my heart to Barbara! I am not quite so constant as David, and even he – well, he didn’t know it, anyway! TOD LAPRAIK is a piece of living Scots: if I had never writ anything but that and THRAWN JANET, still I’d have been a writer. The defects of D.B. are inherent, I fear. But on the whole, I am far indeed from being displeased with the tailie. They want more Alan? Well, they can’t get it.

I found my fame much grown on this return to civilisation. DIGITO MONSTRARI is a new experience; people all looked at me in the streets in Sydney; and it was very queer. Here, of course, I am only the white chief in the Great House to the natives; and to the whites, either an ally or a foe. It is a much healthier state of matters. If I lived in an atmosphere of adulation, I should end by kicking against the pricks. O my beautiful forest, O my beautiful shining, windy house, what a joy it was to behold them again! No chance to take myself too seriously here.

The difficulty of the end is the mass of matter to be attended to, and the small time left to transact it in. I mean from Alan’s danger of arrest. But I have just seen my way out, I do believe.

EASTER SUNDAY.

I have now got as far as slip 28, and finished the chapter of the law technicalities. Well, these seemed to me always of the essence of the story, which is the story of a CAUSE CELEBRE; moreover, they are the justification of my inventions; if these men went so far (granting Davie sprung on them) would they not have gone so much further? But of course I knew they were a difficulty; determined to carry them through in a conversation; approached this (it seems) with cowardly anxiety; and filled it with gabble, sir, gabble. I have left all my facts, but have removed 42 lines. I should not wonder but what I’ll end by re-writing it. It is not the technicalities that shocked you, it was my bad art. It is very strange that X. should be so good a chapter and IX. and XI. so uncompromisingly bad. It looks as if XI. also would have to be re-formed. If X. had not cheered me up, I should be in doleful dumps, but X. is alive anyway, and life is all in all.

THURSDAY, APRIL 5TH.

Well, there’s no disguise possible; Fanny is not well, and we are miserably anxious. . . .

FRIDAY, 7TH.

I am thankful to say the new medicine relieved her at once. A crape has been removed from the day for all of us. To make things better, the morning is ah! such a morning as you have never seen; heaven upon earth for sweetness, freshness, depth upon depth of unimaginable colour, and a huge silence broken at this moment only by the far-away murmur of the Pacific and the rich piping of a single bird. You can’t conceive what a relief this is; it seems a new world. She has such extraordinary recuperative power that I do hope for the best. I am as tired as man can be. This is a great trial to a family, and I thank God it seems as if ours was going to bear it well. And O! if it only lets up, it will be but a pleasant memory. We are all seedy, bar Lloyd: Fanny, as per above; self nearly extinct; Belle, utterly overworked and bad toothache; Cook, down with a bad foot; Butler, prostrate with a bad leg. Eh, what a faim’ly!

SUNDAY.

Grey heaven, raining torrents of rain; occasional thunder and lightning. Everything to dispirit; but my invalids are really on the mend. The rain roars like the sea; in the sound of it there is a strange and ominous suggestion of an approaching tramp; something nameless and measureless seems to draw near, and strikes me cold, and yet is welcome. I lie quiet in bed to-day, and think of the universe with a good deal of equanimity. I have, at this moment, but the one objection to it; the FRACAS with which it proceeds. I do not love noise; I am like my grandfather in that; and so many years in these still islands has ingrained the sentiment perhaps. Here are no trains, only men pacing barefoot. No carts or carriages; at worst the rattle of a horse’s shoes among the rocks. Beautiful silence; and so soon as this robustious rain takes off, I am to drink of it again by oceanfuls.

APRIL 16TH.

Several pages of this letter destroyed as beneath scorn; the wailings of a crushed worm; matter in which neither you nor I can take stock. Fanny is distinctly better, I believe all right now; I too am mending, though I have suffered from crushed wormery, which is not good for the body, and damnation to the soul. I feel to-night a baseless anxiety to write a lovely poem A PROPOS DES BOTTES DE MA GRANDMERE. I see I am idiotic. I’ll try the poem.

17TH.

The poem did not get beyond plovers and lovers. I am still, however, harassed by the unauthentic Muse; if I cared to encourage her – but I have not the time, and anyway we are at the vernal equinox. It is funny enough, but my pottering verses are usually made (like the God-gifted organ voice’s) at the autumnal; and this seems to hold at the Antipodes. There is here some odd secret of Nature. I cannot speak of politics; we wait and wonder. It seems (this is partly a guess) Ide won’t take the C. J. ship, unless the islands are disarmed; and that England hesitates and holds off. By my own idea, strongly corroborated by Sir George, I am writing no more letters. But I have put as many irons in against this folly of the disarming as I could manage. It did not reach my ears till nearly too late. What a risk to take! What an expense to incur! And for how poor a gain! Apart from the treachery of it. My dear fellow, politics is a vile and a bungling business. I used to think meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the politician!

THURSDAY.

A general, steady advance; Fanny really quite chipper and jolly – self on the rapid mend, and with my eye on FORESTS that are to fall – and my finger on the axe, which wants stoning.

SATURDAY, 22.

Still all for the best; but I am having a heart-breaking time over DAVID. I have nearly all corrected. But have to consider THE HEATHER ON FIRE, THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS, and the last chapter. They all seem to me off colour; and I am not fit to better them yet. No proof has been sent of the title, contents, or dedication.

CHAPTER XXIX

25TH APRIL.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – To-day early I sent down to Maben (Secretary of State) an offer to bring up people from Malie, keep them in my house, and bring them down day by day for so long as the negotiation should last. I have a favourable answer so far. This I would not have tried, had not old Sir George Grey put me on my mettle; ‘Never despair,’ was his word; and ‘I am one of the few people who have lived long enough to see how true that is.’ Well, thereupon I plunged in; and the thing may do me great harm, but yet I do not think so – for I think jealousy will prevent the trial being made. And at any rate it is another chance for this distracted archipelago of children, sat upon by a clique of fools. If, by the gift of God, I can do – I am allowed to try to do – and succeed: but no, the prospect is too bright to be entertained.

To-day we had a ride down to Tanugamanono, and then by the new wood paths. One led us to a beautiful clearing, with four native houses; taro, yams, and the like, excellently planted, and old Folau – ‘the Samoan Jew’ – sitting and whistling there in his new-found and well-deserved well- being. It was a good sight to see a Samoan thus before the world. Further up, on our way home, we saw the world clear, and the wide die of the shadow lying broad; we came but a little further, and found in the borders of the bush a Banyan. It must have been 150 feet in height; the trunk, and its acolytes, occupied a great space; above that, in the peaks of the branches, quite a forest of ferns and orchids were set; and over all again the huge spread of the boughs rose against the bright west, and sent their shadow miles to the eastward. I have not often seen anything more satisfying than this vast vegetable.

SUNDAY.

A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when, from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the little wooden drum that beats to church. Scarce a leaf stirs; only now and again a great, cool gush of air that makes my papers fly, and is gone. – The King of Samoa has refused my intercession between him and Mataafa; and I do not deny this is a good riddance to me of a difficult business, in which I might very well have failed. What else is to be done for these silly folks?

MAY 12TH.

And this is where I had got to, before the mail arrives with, I must say, a real gentlemanly letter from yourself. Sir, that is the sort of letter I want! Now, I’ll make my little proposal. I will accept CHILD’S PLAY and PAN’S PIPES. Then I want PASTORAL, THE MANSE, THE ISLET, leaving out if you like all the prefacial matter and beginning at I. Then the portrait of Robert Hunter, beginning ‘Whether he was originally big or little,’ and ending ‘fearless and gentle.’ So much for MEM. AND PORTRAITS. BEGGARS, sections I. and II., RANDOM MEMORIES II., and LANTERN BEARERS; I’m agreeable. These are my selections. I don’t know about PULVIS ET UMBRA either, but must leave that to you. But just what you please.

About DAVIE I elaborately wrote last time, but still DAVIE is not done; I am grinding singly at THE EBB TIDE, as we now call the FARALLONE; the most of it will go this mail. About the following, let there be no mistake: I will not write the abstract of KIDNAPPED; write it who will, I will not. Boccaccio must have been a clever fellow to write both argument and story; I am not, ET JE ME RECUSE.

We call it THE EBB TIDE: A TRIO AND QUARTETTE; but that secondary name you may strike out if it seems dull to you. The book, however, falls in two halves, when the fourth character appears. I am on p. 82 if you want to know, and expect to finish on I suppose 110 or so; but it goes slowly, as you may judge from the fact that this three weeks past, I have only struggled from p. 58 to p. 82: twenty-four pages, ET ENCORE sure to be rewritten, in twenty-one days. This is no prize-taker; not much Waverley Novels about this!

MAY 16TH.

I believe it will be ten chapters of THE EBB TIDE that go to you; the whole thing should be completed in I fancy twelve; and the end will follow punctually next mail. It is my great wish that this might get into THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS for Gordon Browne to illustrate. For whom, in case he should get the job, I give you a few notes. A purao is a tree giving something like a fig with flowers. He will find some photographs of an old marine curiosity shop in my collection, which may help him. Attwater’s settlement is to be entirely overshadowed everywhere by tall palms; see photographs of Fakarava: the verandahs of the house are 12 ft. wide. Don’t let him forget the Figure Head, for which I have a great use in the last chapter. It stands just clear of the palms on the crest of the beach at the head of the pier; the flag- staff not far off; the pier he will understand is perhaps three feet above high water, not more at any price. The sailors of the FARALLONE are to be dressed like white sailors of course. For other things, I remit this excellent artist to my photographs.

I can’t think what to say about the tale, but it seems to me to go off with a considerable bang; in fact, to be an extraordinary work: but whether popular! Attwater is a no end of a courageous attempt, I think you will admit; how far successful is another affair. If my island ain’t a thing of beauty, I’ll be damned. Please observe Wiseman and Wishart; for incidental grimness, they strike me as in it. Also, kindly observe the Captain and ADAR; I think that knocks spots. In short, as you see, I’m a trifle vainglorious. But O, it has been such a grind! The devil himself would allow a man to brag a little after such a crucifixion! And indeed I’m only bragging for a change before I return to the darned thing lying waiting for me on p. 88, where I last broke down. I break down at every paragraph, I may observe; and lie here and sweat, till I can get one sentence wrung out after another. Strange doom; after having worked so easily for so long! Did ever anybody see such a story of four characters?

LATER, 2.30.

It may interest you to know that I am entirely TAPU, and live apart in my chambers like a caged beast. Lloyd has a bad cold, and Graham and Belle are getting it. Accordingly, I dwell here without the light of any human countenance or voice, and strap away at THE EBB TIDE until (as now) I can no more. Fanny can still come, but is gone to glory now, or to her garden. Page 88 is done, and must be done over again to- morrow, and I confess myself exhausted. Pity a man who can’t work on along when he has nothing else on earth to do! But I have ordered Jack, and am going for a ride in the bush presently to refresh the machine; then back to a lonely dinner and durance vile. I acquiesce in this hand of fate; for I think another cold just now would just about do for me. I have scarce yet recovered the two last.

MAY 18TH.

My progress is crabwise, and I fear only IX. chapters will be ready for the mail. I am on p. 88 again, and with half an idea of going back again to 85. We shall see when we come to read: I used to regard reading as a pleasure in my old light days. All the house are down with the influenza in a body, except Fanny and me. The influenza appears to become endemic here, but it has always been a scourge in the islands. Witness the beginning of THE EBB TIDE, which was observed long before the Iffle had distinguished himself at home by such Napoleonic conquests. I am now of course ‘quite a recluse,’ and it is very stale, and there is no amanuensis to carry me over my mail, to which I shall have to devote many hours that would have been more usefully devoted to THE EBB TIDE. For you know you can dictate at all hours of the day and at any odd moment; but to sit down and write with your red right hand is a very different matter.

MAY 20TH.

Well, I believe I’ve about finished the thing, I mean as far as the mail is to take it. Chapter X. is now in Lloyd’s hands for remarks, and extends in its present form to p. 93 incl. On the 12th of May, I see by looking back, I was on p. 82, not for the first time; so that I have made 11 pages in nine livelong days. Well! up a high hill he heaved a huge round stone. But this Flaubert business must be resisted in the premises. Or is it the result of influenza? God forbid. Fanny is down now, and the last link that bound me to my fellow men is severed. I sit up here, and write, and read Renan’s ORIGINES, which is certainly devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is very good, O, very good! But he is quite a Michelet; the general views, and such a piece of character painting, excellent; but his method sheer lunacy. You can see him take up the block which he had just rejected, and make of it the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities; and the result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wasting time. But the time is not wasted; the conspectus is always good, and the blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I have been enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations. And how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often, and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul! I remember when I was a child, and we came to the Four Beasts that were all over eyes, the sickening terror with which I was filled. If that was Heaven, what, in the name of Davy Jones and the aboriginal night-mare, could Hell be? Take it for all in all, L’ANTECHRIST is worth reading. The HISTOIRE D’ISRAEL did not surprise me much; I had read those Hebrew sources with more intelligence than the New Testament, and was quite prepared to admire Ahab and Jezebel, etc. Indeed, Ahab has always been rather a hero of mine; I mean since the years of discretion.

MAY 21ST.

And here I am back again on p. 85! the last chapter demanding an entire revision, which accordingly it is to get. And where my mail is to come in, God knows! This forced, violent, alembicated style is most abhorrent to me; it can’t be helped; the note was struck years ago on the JANET NICOLL, and has to be maintained somehow; and I can only hope the intrinsic horror and pathos, and a kind of fierce glow of colour there is to it, and the surely remarkable wealth of striking incident, may guide our little shallop into port. If Gordon Browne is to get it, he should see the Brassey photographs of Papeete. But mind, the three waifs were never in the town; only on the beach and in the calaboose. By George, but it’s a good thing to illustrate for a man like that! Fanny is all right again. False alarm! I was down yesterday afternoon at Paupata, and heard much growling of war, and the delightful news that the C. J. and the President are going to run away from Mulinuu and take refuge in the Tivoli hotel.

23RD. MAIL DAY.

And lots of pleasures before me, no doubt! Among others the attempt to extract an answer from – before mail time, which may succeed or may not.

THE EBB TIDE, all but (I take it) fifteen pages, is now in your hands – possibly only about eleven pp. It is hard to say. But there it is, and you can do your best with it. Personally, I believe I would in this case make even a sacrifice to get Gordon Browne and copious illustration. I guess in ten days I shall have finished with it; then I go next to D. BALFOUR, and get the proofs ready: a nasty job for me, as you know. And then? Well, perhaps I’ll take a go at the family history. I think that will be wise, as I am so much off work. And then, I suppose, WEIR OF HERMISTON, but it may be anything. I am discontented with THE EBB TIDE, naturally; there seems such a veil of words over it; and I like more and more naked writing; and yet sometimes one has a longing for full colour and there comes the veil again. THE YOUNG CHEVALIER is in very full colour, and I fear it for that reason. –
Ever,
R. L S.

CHAPTER XXX

29TH MAY.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Still grinding at Chap. XI. I began many days ago on p. 93, and am still on p. 93, which is exhilarating, but the thing takes shape all the same and should make a pretty lively chapter for an end of it. For XII. is only a footnote AD EXPLICANDUM.

JUNE THE 1ST.

Back on p. 93. I was on 100 yesterday, but read it over and condemned it.

10 A. M.

I have worked up again to 97, but how? The deuce fly away with literature, for the basest sport in creation. But it’s got to come straight! and if possible, so that I may finish D. BALFOUR in time for the same mail. What a getting upstairs! This is Flaubert outdone. Belle, Graham, and Lloyd leave to-day on a malaga down the coast; to be absent a week or so: this leaves Fanny, me, and -, who seems a nice, kindly fellow.

JUNE 2ND.

I am nearly dead with dyspepsia, over-smoking, and unremunerative overwork. Last night, I went to bed by seven; woke up again about ten for a minute to find myself light- headed and altogether off my legs; went to sleep again, and woke this morning fairly fit. I have crippled on to p. 101, but I haven’t read it yet, so do not boast. What kills me is the frame of mind of one of the characters; I cannot get it through. Of course that does not interfere with my total inability to write; so that yesterday I was a living half- hour upon a single clause and have a gallery of variants that would surprise you. And this sort of trouble (which I cannot avoid) unfortunately produces nothing when done but alembication and the far-fetched. Well, read it with mercy!

8 A.M.

Going to bed. Have read it, and believe the chapter practically done at last. But lord! it has been a business.

JULY 3RD, 8.15.

The draft is finished, the end of Chapter II. and the tale, and I have only eight pages WIEDERZUARBEITEN. This is just a cry of joy in passing.

10.30.

Knocked out of time. Did 101 and 102. Alas, no more to-day, as I have to go down town to a meeting. Just as well though, as my thumb is about done up.

SUNDAY, JUNE 4TH.

Now for a little snippet of my life. Yesterday, 12.30, in a heavenly day of sun and trade, I mounted my horse and set off. A boy opens my gate for me. ‘Sleep and long life! A blessing on your journey,’ says he. And I reply ‘Sleep, long life! A blessing on the house!’ Then on, down the lime lane, a rugged, narrow, winding way, that seems almost as if it was leading you into Lyonesse, and you might see the head and shoulders of a giant looking in. At the corner of the road I meet the inspector of taxes, and hold a diplomatic interview with him; he wants me to pay taxes on the new house; I am informed I should not till next year; and we part, RE INFECTA, he promising to bring me decisions, I assuring him that, if I find any favouritism, he will find me the most recalcitrant tax-payer on the island. Then I have a talk with an old servant by the wayside. A little further I pass two children coming up. ‘Love!’ say I; ‘are you two chiefly-proceeding inland?’ and they say, ‘Love! yes!’ and the interesting ceremony is finished. Down to the post office, where I find Vitrolles and (Heaven reward you!) the White Book, just arrived per UPOLU, having gone the wrong way round, by Australia; also six copies of ISLAND NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS. Some of Weatherall’s illustrations are very clever; but O Lord! the lagoon! I did say it was ‘shallow,’ but, O dear, not so shallow as that a man could stand up in it! I had still an hour to wait for my meeting, so Postmaster Davis let me sit down in his room and I had a bottle of beer in, and read A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Have you seen it coming out in LONGMAN’S? My dear Colvin! ’tis the most exquisite pleasure; a real chivalrous yarn, like the Dumas’ and yet unlike. Thereafter to the meeting of the five newspaper proprietors. Business transacted, I have to gallop home and find the boys waiting to be paid at the doorstep.

MONDAY, 5TH.

Yesterday, Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Browne, secretary to the Wesleyan Mission, and the man who made the war in the Western Islands and was tried for his life in Fiji, came up, and we had a long, important talk about Samoa. O, if I could only talk to the home men! But what would it matter? none of them know, none of them care. If we could only have Macgregor here with his schooner, you would hear of no more troubles in Samoa. That is what we want; a man that knows and likes the natives, QUI PAYE DE SA PERSONNE, AND is not afraid of hanging when necessary. We don’t want bland Swedish humbugs, and fussy, fostering German barons. That way the maelstrom lies, and we shall soon be in it.

I have to-day written 103 and 104, all perfectly wrong, and shall have to rewrite them. This tale is devilish, and Chapter XI. the worst of the lot. The truth is of course that I am wholly worked out; but it’s nearly done, and shall go somehow according to promise. I go against all my gods, and say it is NOT WORTH WHILE to massacre yourself over the last few pages of a rancid yarn, that the reviewers will quite justly tear to bits. As for D.B., no hope, I fear, this mail, but we’ll see what the afternoon does for me.

4.15.

Well, it’s done. Those tragic 16 pp. are at last finished, and I have put away thirty-two pages of chips, and have spent thirteen days about as nearly in Hell as a man could expect to live through. It’s done, and of course it ain’t worth while, and who cares? There it is, and about as grim a tale as was ever written, and as grimy, and as hateful.

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
J. L. HUISH,
BORN 1856, AT HACKNEY,
LONDON,
Accidentally killed upon this
Island,
10th September, 1889.

TUESDAY, 6.

I am exulting to do nothing. It pours with rain from the westward, very unusual kind of weather; I was standing out on the little verandah in front of my room this morning, and there went through me or over me a wave of extraordinary and apparently baseless emotion. I literally staggered. And then the explanation came, and I knew I had found a frame of mind and body that belonged to Scotland, and particularly to the neighbourhood of Callander. Very odd these identities of sensation, and the world of connotations implied; highland huts, and peat smoke, and the brown, swirling rivers, and wet clothes, and whiskey, and the romance of the past, and that indescribable bite of the whole thing at a man’s heart, which is – or rather lies at the bottom of – a story.

I don’t know if you are a Barbey d’Aurevilly-an. I am. I have a great delight in his Norman stories. Do you know the CHEVALIER DES TOUCHES and L’ENSORCELEE? They are admirable, they reek of the soil and the past. But I was rather thinking just now of LE RIDEAU CRAMOISI, and its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the home-going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without doubt, THERE was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions in life that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent his memory.

I wonder exceedingly if I have done anything at all good; and who can tell me? and why should I wish to know? In so little a while, I, and the English language, and the bones of my descendants, will have ceased to be a memory! And yet – and yet – one would like to leave an image for a few years upon men’s minds – for fun. This is a very dark frame of mind, consequent on overwork and the conclusion of the excruciating EBB TIDE. Adieu.

What do you suppose should be done with THE EBB TIDE? It would make a volume of 200 pp.; on the other hand, I might likely have some more stories soon: THE OWL, DEATH IN THE POT, THE SLEEPER AWAKENED; all these are possible. THE OWL might be half as long; THE SLEEPER AWAKENED, ditto; DEATH IN THE POT a deal shorter, I believe. Then there’s the GO- BETWEEN, which is not impossible altogether. THE OWL, THE SLEEPER AWAKENED, and the GO-BETWEEN end reasonably well; DEATH IN THE POT is an ungodly massacre. O, well, THE OWL only ends well in so far as some lovers come together, and nobody is killed at the moment, but you know they are all doomed, they are Chouan fellows.

FRIDAY, 9TH.

Well, the mail is in; no Blue-book, depressing letter from C.; a long, amusing ramble from my mother; vast masses of Romeike; they ARE going to war now; and what will that lead to? and what has driven, them to it but the persistent misconduct of these two officials? I know I ought to rewrite the end of this bluidy EBB TIDE: well, I can’t. CEST PLUS FORT QUE MOI; it has to go the way it is, and be jowned to it! From what I make out of the reviews, I think it would be better not to republish THE EBB TIDE: but keep it for other tales, if they should turn up. Very amusing how the reviews pick out one story and damn the rest I and it is always a different one. Be sure you send me the article from LE TEMPS.

SATURDAY, 17TH.

Since I wrote this last, I have written a whole chapter of my grandfather, and read it to-night; it was on the whole much appreciated, and I kind of hope it ain’t bad myself. ‘Tis a third writing, but it wants a fourth. By next mail, I believe I might send you 3 chapters. That is to say FAMILY ANNALS, THE SERVICE OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS, and THE BUILDING OF THE BELL ROCK. Possibly even 4 – A HOUSEFUL OF BOYS. I could finish my grandfather very easy now; my father and Uncle Alan stop the way. I propose to call the book: NORTHERN LIGHTS: MEMOIRS OF A FAMILY of ENGINEERS. I tell you, it is going to be a good book. My idea in sending Ms. would be to get it set up; two proofs to me, one to Professor Swan, Ardchapel, Helensburgh – mark it private and confidential – one to yourself; and come on with criticisms! But I’ll have to see. The total plan of the book is this –

i. Domestic Annals.
ii. The Service of the Northern Lights. iii. The Building of the Bell Rock.
iv. A Houseful of Boys (or, ‘The Family in Baxter’s Place). v. Education of an Engineer.
vi. The Grandfather.
vii. Alan Stevenson.
viii. Thomas Stevenson.

There will be an Introduction ‘The Surname of Stevenson’ which has proved a mighty queer subject of inquiry. But, Lord! if I were among libraries.

SUNDAY, 18TH.

I shall put in this envelope the end of the ever-to-be- execrated EBB TIDE, or Stevenson’s Blooming Error. Also, a paper apart for DAVID BALFOUR. The slips must go in another enclosure, I suspect, owing to their beastly bulk. Anyway, there are two pieces of work off my mind, and though I could wish I had rewritten a little more of DAVID, yet it was plainly to be seen it was impossible. All the points indicated by you have been brought out; but to rewrite the end, in my present state of over-exhaustion and fiction – phobia, would have been madness; and I let it go as it stood. My grandfather is good enough for me, these days. I do not work any less; on the whole, if anything, a little more. But it is different.

The slips go to you in four packets; I hope they are what they should be, but do not think so. I am at a pitch of discontent with fiction in all its form – or my forms – that prevents me being able to be even interested. I have had to stop all drink; smoking I am trying to stop also. It annoys me dreadfully: and yet if I take a glass of claret, – I have a headache the next day! O, and a good headache too; none of your trifles.

Well, sir, here’s to you, and farewell. – Yours ever. R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXXI

SATURDAY, 24TH (?) JUNE.

MY DEAR COLVIN – Yesterday morning, after a day of absolute temperance, I awoke to the worst headache I had had yet. Accordingly, temperance was said farewell to, quinine instituted, and I believe my pains are soon to be over. We wait, with a kind of sighing impatience, for war to be declared, or to blow finally off, living in the meanwhile in a kind of children’s hour of firelight and shadow and preposterous tales; the king seen at night galloping up our road upon unknown errands and covering his face as he passes our cook; Mataafa daily surrounded (when he awakes) with fresh ‘white man’s boxes’ (query, ammunition?) and professing to be quite ignorant of where they come from; marches of bodies of men across the island; concealment of ditto in the bush; the coming on and off of different chiefs; and such a mass of ravelment and rag-tag as the devil himself could not unwind.

WEDNESDAY, 28TH JUNE.

Yesterday it rained with but little intermission, but I was jealous of news. Graham and I got into the saddle about 1 o’clock and off down to town. In town, there was nothing but rumours going; in the night drums had been beat, the men had run to arms on Mulinuu from as far as Vaiala, and the alarm proved false. There were no signs of any gathering in Apia proper, and the Secretary of State had no news to give. I believed him, too, for we are brither Scots. Then the temptation came upon me strong to go on to the ford and see the Mataafa villages, where we heard there was more afoot. Off we rode. When we came to Vaimusu, the houses were very full of men, but all seemingly unarmed. Immediately beyond is that river over which we passed in our scamper with Lady Jersey; it was all solitary. Three hundred yards beyond is a second ford; and there – I came face to face with war. Under the trees on the further bank sat a picket of seven men with Winchesters; their faces bright, their eyes ardent. As we came up, they did not speak or move; only their eyes followed us. The horses drank, and we passed the ford. ‘Talofa!’ I said, and the commandant of the picket said ‘Talofa’; and then, when we were almost by, remembered himself and asked where we were going. ‘To Faamuina,’ I said, and we rode on. Every house by the wayside was crowded with armed men. There was the European house of a Chinaman on the right-hand side: a flag of truce flying over the gate – indeed we saw three of these in what little way we penetrated into Mataafa’s lines – all the foreigners trying to protect their goods; and the Chinaman’s verandah overflowed with men and girls and Winchesters. By the way we met a party of about ten or a dozen marching with their guns and cartridge-belts, and the cheerful alacrity and brightness of their looks set my head turning with envy and sympathy. Arrived at Vaiusu, the houses about the MALAE (village green) were thronged with men, all armed. On the outside of the council-house (which was all full within) there stood an orator; he had his back turned to his audience, and seemed to address the world at large; all the time we were there his strong voice continued unabated, and I heard snatches of political wisdom rising and falling.

The house of Faamuina stands on a knoll in the MALAE. Thither we mounted, a boy ran out and took our horses, and we went in. Faamuina was there himself, his wife Pelepa, three other chiefs, and some attendants; and here again was this exulting spectacle as of people on their marriage day. Faamuina (when I last saw him) was an elderly, limping gentleman, with much of the debility of age; it was a bright- eyed boy that greeted me; the lady was no less excited; all had cartridge-belts. We stayed but a little while to smoke a sului; I would not have kava made, as I thought my escapade was already dangerous (perhaps even blameworthy) enough. On the way back, we were much greeted, and on coming to the ford, the commandant came and asked me if there were many on the other side. ‘Very many,’ said I; not that I knew, but I would not lead them on the ice. ‘That is well!’ said he, and the little picket laughed aloud as we splashed into the river. We returned to Apia, through Apia, and out to windward as far as Vaiala, where the word went that the men of the Vaimauga had assembled. We met two boys carrying pigs, and saw six young men busy cooking in a cook-house; but no sign of an assembly; no arms, no blackened faces. I forgot! As we turned to leave Faamuina’s, there ran forward a man with his face blackened, and the back of his lava-lava girded up so as to show his tattooed hips naked; he leaped before us, cut a wonderful caper, and flung his knife high in the air, and caught it. It was strangely savage and fantastic and high-spirited. I have seen a child doing the same antics long before in a dance, so that it is plainly an ACCEPTED SOLEMNITY. I should say that for weeks the children have been playing with spears. Up by the plantation I took a short cut, which shall never be repeated, through grass and weeds over the horses’ heads and among rolling stones; I thought we should have left a horse there, but fortune favoured us. So home, a little before six, in a dashing squall of rain, to a bowl of kava and dinner. But the impression on our minds was extraordinary; the sight of that picket at the ford, and those ardent, happy faces whirls in my head; the old aboriginal awoke in both of us and knickered like a stallion.

It is dreadful to think that I must sit apart here and do nothing; I do not know if I can stand it out. But you see, I may be of use to these poor people, if I keep quiet, and if I threw myself in, I should have a bad job of it to save myself. There; I have written this to you; and it is still but 7.30 in the day, and the sun only about one hour up; can I go back to my old grandpapa, and men sitting with Winchesters in my mind’s eye? No; war is a huge ENTRAINEMENT; there is no other temptation to be compared to it, not one. We were all wet, we had been about five hours in the saddle, mostly riding hard; and we came home like schoolboys, with such a lightness of spirits, and I am sure such a brightness of eye, as you could have lit a candle at!

THURSDAY 29TH.

I had two priests to luncheon yesterday: the Bishop and Pere Remy. They were very pleasant, and quite clean too, which has been known sometimes not to be – even with bishops. Monseigneur is not unimposing; with his white beard and his violet girdle he looks splendidly episcopal, and when our three waiting lads came up one after another and kneeled before him in the big hall, and kissed his ring, it did me good for a piece of pageantry. Remy is very engaging; he is a little, nervous, eager man, like a governess, and brimful of laughter and small jokes. So is the bishop indeed, and our luncheon party went off merrily – far more merrily than many a German spread, though with so much less liquor. One trait was delicious. With a complete ignorance of the Protestant that I would scarce have imagined, he related to us (as news) little stories from the gospels, and got the names all wrong! His comments were delicious, and to our ears a thought irreverent. ‘AH! IL CONNAISSAIT SON MONDE, ALLEZ!’ ‘IL ETAIT FIN, NOTRE SEIGNEUR!’ etc.

FRIDAY.

Down with Fanny and Belle, to lunch at the International. Heard there about the huge folly of the hour, all the Mulinuu ammunition having been yesterday marched openly to vaults in Matafele; and this morning, on a cry of protest from the whites, openly and humiliatingly disinterred and marched back again. People spoke of it with a kind of shrill note that did not quite satisfy me. They seemed not quite well at ease. Luncheon over, we rode out on the Malie road. All was quiet in Vaiusu, and when we got to the second ford, alas! there was no picket – which was just what Belle had come to sketch. On through quite empty roads; the houses deserted, never a gun to be seen; and at last a drum and a penny whistle playing in Vaiusu, and a cricket match on the MALAE! Went up to Faamuina’s; he is a trifle uneasy, though he gives us kava. I cannot see what ails him, then it appears that he has an engagement with the Chief Justice at half-past two to sell a piece of land. Is this the reason why war has disappeared? We ride back, stopping to sketch here and there the fords, a flag of truce, etc. I ride on to Public Hall Committee and pass an hour with my committees very heavily. To the hotel to dinner, then to the ball, and home by eleven, very tired. At the ball I heard some news, of how the chief of Letonu said that I was the source of all this trouble, and should be punished, and my family as well. This, and the rudeness of the man at the ford of the Gase-gase, looks but ill; I should have said that Faamuina, as he approached the first ford, was spoken to by a girl, and immediately said goodbye and plunged into the bush; the girl had told him there was a war party out from Mulinuu; and a little further on, as we stopped to sketch a flag of truce, the beating of drums and the sound of a bugle from that direction startled us. But we saw nothing, and I believe Mulinuu is (at least at present) incapable of any act of offence. One good job, these threats to my home and family take away all my childish temptation to go out and fight. Our force must be here, to protect ourselves. I see panic rising among the whites; I hear the shrill note of it in their voices, and they talk already about a refuge on the war ships. There are two here, both German; and the ORLANDO is expected presently.

SUNDAY 9TH JULY.

Well, the war has at last begun. For four or five days, Apia has been filled by these poor children with their faces blacked, and the red handkerchief about their brows, that makes the Malietoa uniform, and the boats have been coming in from the windward, some of them 50 strong, with a drum and a bugle on board – the bugle always ill-played – and a sort of jester leaping and capering on the sparred nose of the boat, and the whole crew uttering from time to time a kind of menacing ululation. Friday they marched out to the bush; and yesterday morning we heard that some had returned to their houses for the night, as they found it ‘so uncomfortable.’ After dinner a messenger came up to me with a note, that the wounded were arriving at the Mission House. Fanny, Lloyd and I saddled and rode off with a lantern; it was a fine starry night, though pretty cold. We left the lantern at Tanuga- manono, and then down in the starlight. I found Apia, and myself, in a strange state of flusteration; my own excitement was gloomy and (I may say) truculent; others appeared imbecile; some sullen. The best place in the whole town was the hospital. A longish frame-house it was, with a big table in the middle for operations, and ten Samoans, each with an average of four sympathisers, stretched along the walls. Clarke was there, steady as a die; Miss Large, little spectacled angel, showed herself a real trump; the nice, clean, German orderlies in their white uniforms looked and meant business. (I hear a fine story of Miss Large – a cast- iron teetotaller – going to the public-house for a bottle of brandy.)

The doctors were not there when I arrived; but presently it was observed that one of the men was going cold. He was a magnificent Samoan, very dark, with a noble aquiline countenance, like an Arab, I suppose, and was surrounded by seven people, fondling his limbs as he lay: he was shot through both lungs. And an orderly was sent to the town for the (German naval) doctors, who were dining there. Meantime I found an errand of my own. Both Clarke and Miss Large expressed a wish to have the public hall, of which I am chairman, and I set off down town, and woke people out of their beds, and got a committee together, and (with a great deal of difficulty from one man, whom we finally overwhelmed) got the public hall for them. Bar the one man, the committee was splendid, and agreed in a moment to share the expense if the shareholders object. Back to the hospital about 11.30; found the German doctors there. Two men were going now, one that was shot in the bowels – he was dying rather hard, in a gloomy stupor of pain and laudanum, silent, with contorted face. The chief, shot through the lungs, was lying on one side, awaiting the last angel; his family held his hands and legs; they were all speechless, only one woman suddenly clasped his knee, and ‘keened’ for the inside of five seconds, and fell silent again. Went home, and to bed about two A.M. What actually passed seems undiscoverable; but the Mataafas were surely driven back out of Vaitele; that is a blow to them, and the resistance was far greater than had been anticipated – which is a blow to the Laupepas. All seems to indicate a long and bloody war.

Frank’s house in Mulinuu was likewise filled with wounded; many dead bodies were brought in; I hear with certainty of five, wrapped in mats; and a pastor goes to-morrow to the field to bring others. The Laupepas brought in eleven heads to Mulinuu, and to the great horror and consternation of the native mind, one proved to be a girl, and was identified as that of a Taupou – or Maid of the Village – from Savaii. I hear this morning, with great relief, that it has been returned to Malie, wrapped in the most costly silk handkerchiefs, and with an apologetic embassy. This could easily happen. The girl was of course attending on her father with ammunition, and got shot; her hair was cut short to make her father’s war head-dress – even as our own Sina’s is at this moment; and the decollator was probably, in his red flurry of fight, wholly unconscious of her sex. I am sorry for him in the future; he must make up his mind to many bitter jests – perhaps to vengeance. But what an end to one chosen for her beauty and, in the time of peace, watched over by trusty crones and hunchbacks!

EVENING.

Can I write or not? I played lawn tennis in the morning, and after lunch down with Graham to Apia. Ulu, he that was shot in the lungs, still lives; he that was shot in the bowels is gone to his fathers, poor, fierce child! I was able to be of some very small help, and in the way of helping myself to information, to prove myself a mere gazer at meteors. But there seems no doubt the Mataafas for the time are scattered; the most of our friends are involved in this disaster, and Mataafa himself – who might have swept the islands a few months ago – for him to fall so poorly, doubles my regret. They say the Taupou had a gun and fired; probably an excuse manufactured EX POST FACTO. I go down to-morrow at 12, to stay the afternoon, and help Miss Large. In the hospital to- day, when I first entered it, there were no attendants; only the wounded and their friends, all equally sleeping and their heads poised upon the wooden pillows. There is a pretty enough boy there, slightly wounded, whose fate is to be envied: two girls, and one of the most beautiful, with beaming eyes, tend him and sleep upon his pillow. In the other corner, another young man, very patient and brave, lies wholly deserted. Yet he seems to me far the better of the two; but not so pretty! Heavens, what a difference that makes; in our not very well proportioned bodies and our finely hideous faces, the 1-32nd – rather the 1-64th – this way or that! Sixteen heads in all at Mulinuu. I am so stiff I can scarce move without a howl.

MONDAY, 10TH.

Some news that Mataafa is gone to Savaii by way of Manono; this may mean a great deal more warfaring, and no great issue. (When Sosimo came in this morning with my breakfast he had to lift me up. It is no joke to play lawn tennis after carrying your right arm in a sling so many years.) What a hard, unjust business this is! On the 28th, if Mataafa had moved, he could have still swept Mulinuu. He waited, and I fear he is now only the stick of a rocket.

WEDNESDAY, 12TH.

No more political news; but many rumours. The government troops are off to Manono; no word of Mataafa. O, there is a passage in my mother’s letter which puzzles me as to a date. Is it next Christmas you are coming? or the Christmas after? This is most important, and must be understood at once. If it is next Christmas, I could not go to Ceylon, for lack of gold, and you would have to adopt one of the following alternatives: 1st, either come straight on here and pass a month with us; ’tis the rainy season, but we have often lovely weather. Or (2nd) come to Hawaii and I will meet you there. Hawaii is only a week’s sail from S. Francisco, making only about sixteen days on the heaving ocean; and the steamers run once a fortnight, so that you could turn round; and you could thus pass a day or two in the States – a fortnight even – and still see me. But I have sworn to take no further excursions till I have money saved to pay for them; and to go to Ceylon and back would be torture unless I had a lot. You must answer this at once, please; so that I may know what to do. We would dearly like you to come on here. I’ll tell you how it can be done; I can come up and meet you at Hawaii, and if you had at all got over your sea- sickness, I could just come on board and we could return together to Samoa, and you could have a month of our life here, which I believe you could not help liking. Our horses are the devil, of course, miserable screws, and some of them a little vicious. I had a dreadful fright – the passage in my mother’s letter is recrossed and I see it says the end of /94: so much the better, then; but I would like to submit to you my alternative plan. I could meet you at Hawaii, and reconduct you to Hawaii, so that we could have a full six weeks together and I believe a little over, and you would see this place of mine, and have a sniff of native life, native foods, native houses – and perhaps be in time to see the German flag raised, who knows? – and we could generally yarn for all we were worth. I should like you to see Vailima; and I should be curious to know how the climate affected you. It is quite hit or miss; it suits me, it suits Graham, it suits all our family; others it does not suit at all. It is either gold or poison. I rise at six, the rest at seven; lunch is at 12; at five we go to lawn tennis till dinner at six; and to roost early.

A man brought in a head to Mulinuu in great glory; they washed the black paint off, and behold! it was his brother. When I last heard he was sitting in his house, with the head upon his lap, and weeping. Barbarous war is an ugly business; but I believe the civilised is fully uglier; but Lord! what fun!

I should say we now have definite news that there are THREE women’s heads; it was difficult to get it out of the natives, who are all ashamed, and the women all in terror of reprisals. Nothing has been done to punish or disgrace these hateful innovators. It was a false report that the head had been returned.

THURSDAY, 13TH,

Mataafa driven away from Savaii. I cannot write about this, and do not know what should be the end of it.

MONDAY, 17TH.

Haggard and Ahrens (a German clerk) to lunch yesterday. There is no real certain news yet: I must say, no man could SWEAR to any result; but the sky looks horribly black for Mataafa and so many of our friends along with him. The thing has an abominable, a beastly, nightmare interest. But it’s wonderful generally how little one cares about the wounded; hospital sights, etc.; things that used to murder me. I was far more struck with the excellent way in which things were managed; as if it had been a peep-show; I held some of the things at an operation, and did not care a dump.

TUESDAY, 18TH.

Sunday came the KATOOMBA, Captain Bickford, C.M.G. Yesterday, Graham and I went down to call, and find he has orders to suppress Mataafa at once, and has to go down to-day before daybreak to Manono. He is a very capable, energetic man; if he had only come ten days ago, all this would have gone by; but now the questions are thick and difficult. (1) Will Mataafa surrender? (2) Will his people allow themselves to be disarmed? (3) What will happen to them if they do? (4) What will any of them believe after former deceptions? The three consuls were scampering on horseback to Leulumoega to the King; no Cusack-Smith, without whose accession I could not send a letter to Mataafa. I rode up here, wrote my letter in the sweat of the concordance and with the able- bodied help of Lloyd – and dined. Then down in continual showers and pitchy darkness, and to Cusack-Smith’s; not re- returned. Back to the inn for my horse, and to C.-S.’s, when I find him just returned and he accepts my letter. Thence home, by 12.30, jolly tired and wet. And to-day have been in a crispation of energy and ill-temper, raking my wretched mail together. It is a hateful business, waiting for the news; it may come to a fearful massacre yet. – Yours ever,

R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXXII

AUGUST, 1893.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Quite impossible to write. Your letter is due to-day; a nasty, rainy-like morning with huge blue clouds, and a huge indigo shadow on the sea, and my lamp still burning at near 7. Let me humbly give you news. Fanny seems on the whole the most, or the only, powerful member of the family; for some days she has been the Flower of the Flock. Belle is begging for quinine. Lloyd and Graham have both been down with ‘belly belong him’ (Black Boy speech). As for me, I have to lay aside my lawn tennis, having (as was to be expected) had a smart but eminently brief hemorrhage. I am also on the quinine flask. I have been re-casting the beginning of the HANGING JUDGE or WEIR OF HERMISTON; then I have been cobbling on my grandfather, whose last chapter (there are only to be four) is in the form of pieces of paper, a huge welter of inconsequence, and that glimmer of faith (or hope) which one learns at this trade, that somehow and some time, by perpetual staring and glowering and rewriting, order will emerge. It is indeed a queer hope; there is one piece for instance that I want in – I cannot put it one place for a good reason – I cannot put it another for a better – and every time I look at it, I turn sick and put the Ms. away.

Well, your letter hasn’t come, and a number of others are missing. It looks as if a mail-bag had gone on, so I’ll blame nobody, and proceed to business.

It looks as if I was going to send you the first three chapters of my Grandfather. . . . If they were set up, it would be that much anxiety off my mind. I have a strange feeling of responsibility, as if I had my ancestors’ SOULS in my charge, and might miscarry with them.

There’s a lot of work gone into it, and a lot more is needed. Still Chapter I. seems about right to me, and much of Chapter II. Chapter III. I know nothing of, as I told you. And Chapter IV. is at present all ends and beginnings; but it can be pulled together.

This is all I have been able to screw up to you for this month, and I may add that it is not only more than you deserve, but just about more than I was equal to. I have been and am entirely useless; just able to tinker at my Grandfather. The three chapters – perhaps also a little of the fourth – will come home to you next mail by the hand of my cousin Graham Balfour, a very nice fellow whom I recommend to you warmly – and whom I think you will like. This will give you time to consider my various and distracted schemes.

All our wars are over in the meantime, to begin again as soon as the war-ships leave. Adieu.

R. L. S.

CHAPTER XXXIII

23RD AUGUST.

MY DEAR COLVIN, – Your pleasing letter RE THE EBB TIDE, to hand. I propose, if it be not too late, to delete Lloyd’s name. He has nothing to do with the last half. The first we wrote together, as the beginning of a long yarn. The second is entirely mine; and I think it rather unfair on the young man to couple his name with so infamous a work. Above all, as you had not read the two last chapters, which seem to me the most ugly and cynical of all.

You will see that I am not in a good humour; and I am not. It is not because of your letter, but because of the complicated miseries that surround me and that I choose to say nothing of. Life is not all Beer and Skittles. The inherent tragedy of things works itself out from white to black and blacker, and the poor things of a day look ruefully on. Does it shake my cast-iron faith? I cannot say it does. I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it! But it is hard walking, and I can see my own share in the missteps, and can bow my head to the result, like an old, stern, unhappy devil of a Norseman, as my ultimate character is. . . .

Well, IL FAUT CULTIVER SON JARDIN. That last expression of poor, unhappy human wisdom I take to my heart and go to ST. IVES.

24th AUG.

And did, and worked about 2 hours and got to sleep ultimately and ‘a’ the clouds has blawn away.’ ‘Be sure we’ll have some pleisand weather, When a’ the clouds (storms?) has blawn (gone?) away.’ Verses that have a quite inexplicable attraction for me, and I believe had for Burns. They have no merit, but are somehow good. I am now in a most excellent humour.

I am deep in ST. IVES which, I believe, will be the next novel done. But it is to be clearly understood that I promise nothing, and may throw in your face the very last thing you expect – or I expect. ST. IVES will (to my mind) not be wholly bad. It is written in rather a funny style; a little stilted and left-handed; the style of St. Ives; also, to some extent, the style of R. L. S. dictating. ST. IVES is unintellectual and except as an adventure novel, dull. But the adventures seem to me sound and pretty probable; and it is a love story. Speed his wings!

SUNDAY NIGHT.

DE COEUR UN PEU PLUS DISPOS, MONSIEUR ET CHER CONFRERE, JE ME REMETS A VOUS ECRIRE. ST. IVES is now in the 5th chapter copying; in the 14th chapter of the dictated draft. I do not believe I shall end by disliking it.

MONDAY.

Well, here goes again for the news. Fanny is VERY WELL indeed, and in good spirits; I am in good spirits but not VERY well; Lloyd is in good spirits and very well; Belle has a real good fever which has put her pipe out wholly. Graham goes back this mail. He takes with him three chapters of THE FAMILY, and is to go to you as soon as he can. He cannot be much the master of his movements, but you grip him when you can and get all you can from him, as he has lived about six months with us and he can tell you just what is true and what is not – and not the dreams of dear old Ross. He is a good fellow, is he not?

Since you rather revise your views of THE EBB TIDE, I think Lloyd’s name might stick, but I’ll leave it to you. I’ll tell you just how it stands. Up to the discovery of the champagne, the tale was all planned between us and drafted by Lloyd; from that moment he has had nothing to do with it except talking it over. For we changed our plan, gave up the projected Monte Cristo, and cut it down for a short story. My jmpression – (I beg your pardon – this is a local joke – a firm here had on its beer labels, ‘sole jmporters’) – is that it will never be popular, but might make a little SUCCES DE SCANDALE. However, I’m done with it now, and not sorry, and the crowd may rave and mumble its bones for what I care.

Hole essential. I am sorry about the maps; but I want ’em for next edition, so see and have proofs sent. You are quite right about the bottle and the great Huish, I must try to make it clear. No, I will not write a play for Irving nor for the devil. Can you not see that the work of FALSIFICATION which a play demands is of all tasks the most ungrateful? And I have done it a long while – and nothing ever came of it.

Consider my new proposal, I mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I WOULD like you to, for it’s beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it’s a wrench not to be planted in Scotland – that I can never deny – if I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a man who wrote the STICKIT MINISTER, and dedicated it to me, in words that brought the tears to my eyes every time I looked at them, ‘Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying. HIS heart remembers how.’ Ah, by God, it does! Singular that I should fulfil the Scots destiny throughout, and live a voluntary exile, and have my head filled with the blessed, beastly place all the time!

And now a word as regards the delusions of the dear Ross, who remembers, I believe, my letters and Fanny’s when we were first installed, and were really hoeing a hard row. We have salad, beans, cabbages, tomatoes, asparagus, kohl-rabi, oranges, limes, barbadines, pine-apples, Cape gooseberries – galore; pints of milk and cream; fresh meat five days a week. It is the rarest thing for any of us to touch a tin; and the gnashing of teeth when it has to be done is dreadful – for no one who has not lived on them for six months knows what the Hatred of the Tin is. As for exposure, my weakness is certainly the reverse; I am sometimes a month without leaving the verandah – for my sins, be it said! Doubtless, when I go about and, as the Doctor says, ‘expose myself to malaria,’ I am in far better health; and I would do so more too – for I do not mean to be silly – but the difficulties are great. However, you see how much the dear Doctor knows of my diet and habits! Malaria practically does not exist in these islands; it is a negligeable quantity. What really bothers us a little is the mosquito affair – the so-called elephantiasis – ask Ross about it. A real romance of natural history, QUOI!

Hi! stop! you say THE EBB TIDE is the ‘working out of an artistic problem of a kind.’ Well, I should just bet it was! You don’t like Attwater. But look at my three rogues; they’re all there, I’ll go bail. Three types of the bad man, the weak man, and the strong man with a weakness, that are gone through and lived out.

Yes, of course I was sorry for Mataafa, but a good deal sorrier and angrier about the mismanagement of all the white officials. I cannot bear to write about that. Manono all destroyed, one house standing in Apolima, the women stripped, the prisoners beaten with whips – and the women’s heads taken – all under white auspices. And for upshot and result of so much shame to the white powers – Tamasese already conspiring! as I knew and preached in vain must be the case! Well, well, it is no fun to meddle in politics!