Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life Part 22

Tamasese, when he entered the house, proved to be the finest native whom we had yet seen, with the square head and broad limbs of a Roman emperor.

In addition to the lava-lava both men and women loved to decorate themselves and their guests with garlands of flowers worn either on their heads or hung round their necks. I have a vivid recollection of my brother seated on a box in Tamasese's hospitable house with a wreath of flowers on his head, surrounded by an admiring crowd of young women, including the handsome Viti, a young cousin or adopted daughter, and the Taupau or Maid of the Village, a girl selected for her beauty and charm to represent the community in the receptions and merry-makings which are a prominent feature in Samoan life.

[Sidenote: A NATIVE DANCE]

Later in the day we were present at a native dance, if dance it can be called, when the performers sat for the most part on the ground, and the action took place by girls swinging their arms and bodies while the men contributed the music. The girls did not confine themselves to rhythmic movements, but also gave a kind of comic dramatic performance, mimicking amongst other things the manners and customs of white people with much laughter and enjoyment. They threw bunches of leaves about by way of cricket b.a.l.l.s--got up and walked in peculiar manners, with explanations which were translated to us as "German style," "English style," and so on; and when they sang a kind of song or recitative, concerning a college for native girls about to be established by the missionaries, they made the very sensible suggestion that one or two of them should go and try what the life was like before they entered in any number.

Tamasese paid us a return visit at Apia. It was curious to see him seated on a chair having luncheon with us, dressed solely in a white lava-lava and a large garland of leaves and flowers or berries. He also attended an evening party at Ruge's Buildings; on that occasion he added a white linen coat to his costume at Haggard's request, simply because the cocoa-nut oil with which natives anoint their bodies might have come off on the ladies'

dresses in a crowd.

The truth is that a lava-lava and a coating of oil are much the most healthy and practical costume in a tropical climate. When a shower of rain comes on it does so with such force that any ordinary garment is soaked through in a few minutes. It is impossible for natives to be always running home to change their clothes even if their wardrobes permitted, and remaining in these wet garments is surely provocative of the consumption which so often carries them off.

Shirley Baker in Tonga made it a law that everyone should wear an upper and a nether garment; in Samoa it was not a legal question, but the missionaries made doubtless well-intentioned efforts to enforce the addition of white shirts to the male, and overalls to the female costume, which really seemed unnecessary with their nice brown skins.

It is difficult for a casual visitor to judge fairly the influence of missionaries on natives, but on the whole, as far as I have seen missions in different lands, despite mistakes and narrow-mindedness, it seems to be for good. There is an enormous difference between missions to ancient civilisations such as those of India and China, and to children of nature such as the population of the Pacific. I do not forget the command "Go ye and teach all nations," an authority which no Christian can dispute; I am thinking only of _how_ this has been done, and with what effect on the "nations."

It is pretty evident that when the nations have an elaborate ritual of their own, and when the educated cla.s.ses among them have a decided tendency to metaphysics, a ritual such as that of the Roman Catholics is apt to appeal to them, and the men sent to teach them must be prepared to enter into their difficulties and discussions. When, however, the populations to be approached are merely inclined to deify the forces of nature, and to believe in the power of spirits, if a man of some education comes among them, helps them in illness, and proves his superiority in agriculture and in the arts of daily life, they are very ready to accept his authority and obey his injunctions.

[Sidenote: MISSIONARIES]

In the case of the South Sea Islanders there is no doubt that the missionaries have afforded them protection against the tyranny and vices introduced by many of the low-cla.s.s traders and beachcombers who exploited them in every possible way. The missionaries have done their best to stop their drinking the horrible spirits received from such men, in return for forced labour and the produce of their land. They have done much to eradicate cannibalism and other evil customs. Their error seems to have been the attempt to put down dances and festivities of all kinds on the plea that these were connected with heathen rites, instead of encouraging them under proper restrictions. Even when we were in the Islands, however, many of the more enlightened missionaries had already realised that human nature must have play, and that, as St. John told the huntsman who found him playing with a partridge, you cannot keep the bow always bent.

Probably by now the Christian Churches in the Pacific have learnt much wisdom by experience.

As before remarked, there were, in 1892, three sets of missionaries in Samoa. Apart from the Roman Catholics, the most important were the London Missionaries, whose founders had been men of high education and who had settled in the Islands about the time of Queen Victoria's accession. The Wesleyans had also made many converts.

Some years before our visit a sort of concordat had been arranged between the various Anglican and Protestant Churches working in the Pacific. The Church of England clergy were to work in the Islands commonly called Melanesia; the Wesleyans, whose great achievements had been in Fiji, were to take that group, Tonga, and other offshoots of their special missions; the London missionaries were to have Samoa and other fields of labour where their converts predominated. Under this agreement the Wesleyan missionaries left Samoa, but alas! after a time they came back, to the not unnatural indignation of the London missionaries. Their plea was that their flock begged them to return. An outsider cannot p.r.o.nounce on the rights and wrongs of the question, but the feeling engendered was evident to the most casual observer.

As for the Roman Catholics, we were sitting one evening with a London missionary, when a native servant ran in to inform him that the R.C.

priest was showing a magic-lantern in which our host and one of his colleagues were represented in h.e.l.l!

I should add that I noticed that in a course of lectures given to their students by the London missionaries was one "on the errors of the Roman Church," but that was not as drastic, nor, I presume, so exciting, as the ocular argument offered by the priest.

[Sidenote: SAMOAN MYTHOLOGY]

The mythology of the Samoans was much like that of other primitive nations, and as in similar cases their G.o.ds and heroes were closely connected. The chief deity was a certain Tangoloalangi or "G.o.d-of-heaven." He had a son called Pilibuu, who came down to earth, settled in Samoa, and planted kava and sugar-cane. He also made a fishing-net and selected as his place of abode a spot on Upolu large enough to enable him to spread it out. Pilibuu had four sons to whom he allotted various offices; one was to look after the plantations, another to carry the walking-stick and fly-whisk to "do the talking," a third as warrior carried the spear and club, while the youngest had charge of the canoes. To all he gave the excellent advice, "When you wish to work, work; when you wish to talk, talk; when you wish to fight, fight." The second injunction struck me as that most congenial to his descendants.

The Samoans had legends connected with their mats, those of fine texture being valued as jewels are in Western lands. One was told me at great length about a mat made by a woman who was a spirit, who worked at different times under the vines, under a canoe, and on the sea-sh.o.r.e.

Either her personal charms or her industry captivated Tangoloalangi, and he took her up to heaven and made her his wife. Her first child, a daughter, was endowed with the mat, and looking down from heaven she was fascinated by the appearance of a fine man attired in a lava-lava of red bird-of-paradise feathers. She descended in a shower of rain, but her Endymion, mistaking her mode of transit for an ordinary storm, took off his plumes for fear they should get wet. Arrived on earth she went up to him and said, "Where is the man I saw from heaven wearing a fine lava-lava?" "I am he," replied the swain. Incredulous, she retorted, "I saw a man not so ugly as you." "I am the same as before, but you saw me from a distance with a red lava-lava on." In vain he resumed his adornment; the charm was broken and she would none of him. Instead of returning to the skies she wandered to another village and had further adventures with the mat, which she gave to her daughter by the earthly husband whom she ultimately selected. She told the girl that on any day on which she took the mat out to dry in the sun there would be darkness, rain, and hurricane. The mat was still preserved in the family of the man who told me the story, and was never taken out to dry in the sun.

The Samoans, like other races, had a story of the Flood, and one derivation (there are several) of the name of the Group is Sa = sacred or preserved, Moa = fowl, as they say that one of their G.o.ds preserved his fowls on these islands during the deluge.

They had sacred symbols, such as sticks, leaves, and stones, and a general belief in spirits, but I never heard of any special ritual, nor were there any traces of temples on the Islands. They seemed a gentle, amiable people, not fierce like the natives of New Ireland, the New Hebrides, and others of negroid type.

The constant joy of the natives is to go for a malanga or boat expedition to visit neighbouring villages, and we quite realised the fascination of this mode of progress when we were rowed through the quiet lagoons in early morning or late evening, the rising or setting sun striking colours from the barrier reefs, and our boatmen chanting native songs as they bent to their oars. Once a little girl was thrown into our boat to attend us when we were going to sleep in a native teacher's house. She lay down at the bottom with a tappa cloth covering her from the sun. We were amused, when the men began to sing, to hear her little voice from under the cloth joining in the melody.

[Sidenote: DESIRE FOR ENGLISH PROTECTION]

On this occasion we visited one or two stations of the London missionaries and inspected a number of young chief students. I noticed one youth who seemed particularly pleased by something said to him by the missionary. I asked what had gratified him, and Mr. Hills said that he had told him that the Island from which he came (I think one of the Ellice Islands) had just been annexed by the British, and they were so afraid of being taken by the Germans! That well represented the general feeling.

Once as we were rowing in our boat a large native canoe pa.s.sed us, and the men in it shouted some earnest supplication. I asked what it was, and was told that they were imploring "by Jesus Christ" that we should beg the British Government to take the Island.

Poor things, not long after we left, the agreement was made by which England a.s.sumed the Protectorate of Tonga and Germany that of Upolu and Savaii of the Samoan group. Since the war New Zealand has the "mandate" to govern them, and I hope they are happy. I never heard that they were ill-treated by the Germans during their protectorate, but they had certainly seen enough of the forced labour on German plantations to make them terribly afraid of their possible fate.

The London missionaries had stations not only on the main Island, but also on the outlying islets of Manono and Apolima which they were anxious that we should visit. The latter was a small but romantic spot. The only practicable landing-place was between two high projecting rocks, and we were told that any party of natives taking refuge there could guarantee themselves against pursuit by tying a rope across from rock to rock and upsetting any hostile canoe into the sea.

Ocean itself, not the inhabitants, expressed an objection to our presence on this occasion. There was no sheltering lagoon to receive us, the sea was so rough and the surf so violent that our crew a.s.sured us that it was impossible to land, and we had to retreat to Manono. Mr. Haggard sent a message thence to the Apolima chiefs a.s.suring them of our great regret, and promising that I would send my portrait to hang in their village guest-house. I told this to the head missionary's wife when I saw her again, and she exclaimed with much earnestness, "Oh, do send the photograph or they will all turn Wesleyans!" To avert this catastrophe a large, elaborately framed photograph was duly sent from Sydney and formally presented by Mr. Haggard. I trust that it kept the score or so of Islanders in the true faith. A subsequent visitor found it hanging upside down in the guest-house, and the last I heard of it was that the chiefs had fled with it to the hills after some fighting in which they were defeated. I seem to have been an inefficient fetish, but I do not know whose quarrel they had embraced.

We had one delightful picnic, not by boat, but riding inland to a waterfall some twenty or thirty feet high. Our meal was spread on rocks in the little river into which it fell, and after our luncheon the native girls who accompanied us sat on the top of the fall and let themselves be carried by the water into the deep pool below. My daughter and I envied, though we could not emulate them, but my brother divested himself of his outer garments and clad in pyjamas let two girls take him by either arm and shot with them down into the clear cool water. One girl who joined the entertainment was said to be a spirit, but there was no outward sign to show wherein she differed from a mortal. Mortals or spirits, they were a cheery, light-hearted race.

[Sidenote: VISIT FROM TAMASESE]

I must mention Tamasese's farewell visit to us accompanied by one or two followers. Mr. Haggard donned his uniform for the occasion, and as usual we English sat in a row on chairs, while the Samoans squatted on the floor in front. We had as interpreter a half-caste called Yandall, who had some shadowy claim to the royal blood of England in his veins. How or why I never understood, but he was held in vague esteem on that account.

At this visit, after various polite phrases had been interchanged, Haggard premised his oration by enjoining on Yandall to interpret his words exactly. He first dilated in flowery language on the importance of my presence in Samoa, on which our guests interjected murmurs of pleased a.s.sent. He then went on to foreshadow our imminent departure--mournful "yahs" came in here--and then wound up with words to this effect: "Partings must always occur on earth; there is but one place where there will be no more partings, and that is the Kingdom of heaven, _where Lady Jersey will be very pleased to see all present_"! Imagine the joy of the Stevenson family when this gem of rhetoric was reported to them.

I have already referred to the story, _An Object of Pity, or the Man Haggard_, which was written by my brother and myself in collaboration with the Stevensons. The idea was that each author should describe his or her own character, that Haggard should be the hero of a romance running through the whole, and that we should all imitate the style of Ouida, to whom the booklet was inscribed in a delightful dedication afterwards written by Stevenson, from which I venture to cull a few extracts:

"Lady Ouida,--Many besides yourself have exulted to collect Olympian polysyllables and to sling ink not Wisely but too Well. They are forgotten, you endure. Many have made it their goal and object to Exceed; and who else has been so Excessive?... It is therefore, with a becoming diffidence that we profit by an unusual circ.u.mstance to approach and to address you.

"We, undersigned, all persons of ability and good character, were suddenly startled to find ourselves walking in broad day in the halls of one of your romances. We looked about us with embarra.s.sment, we instinctively spoke low; and you were good enough not to perceive the intrusion or to affect unconsciousness. But we were there; we have inhabited your tropical imagination; we have lived in the reality that which you have but dreamed of in your studio. And the Man Haggard above all. The house he dwells in was not built by any carpenter, you wrote it with your pen; the friends with which he has surrounded himself are the mere spirit of your nostrils; and those who look on at his career are kept in a continual twitter lest he should fall out of the volume; in which case, I suppose he must infallibly injure himself beyond repair; and the characters in the same novel, what would become of them?... The present volume has been written slavishly from your own gorgeous but peculiar point of view. Your touch of complaisance in observation, your genial excess of epithet, and the grace of your antiquarian allusions, have been cultivated like the virtues. Could we do otherwise? When nature and life had caught the lyre from your burning hands who were we to affect a sterner independence?"

There follow humorous comments on the contents of the chapters, and the Dedication ends with the signatures of "Your fond admirers" in Samoan with English translations. Mrs. Stevenson, for instance, was "O Le Fafine Mamana O I Le Maunga, The Witch-Woman of the Mountain"; and the rest of us bore like fanciful designations. It was of course absurd daring on the part of Rupert and myself to write the initial chapters, which dealt with an imaginary conspiracy typical of the jealousies among various inhabitants of the Islands, and with our expedition to Malie (Mataafa's Camp); but we were honoured by the addition of four amusing chapters written by Stevenson, Mrs. Stevenson, Mrs. Strong, and their cousin Graham (now Sir Graham) Balfour. The Stevensons gave a lurid account of Haggard's evening party at Ruge's Buildings, and Mr. Balfour projected himself into the future and imagined Haggard old and historic surrounded by friends and evolving memories of the past.

[Sidenote: "AN OBJECT OF PITY"]

We had kept him in ignorance of what was on foot, but when all was complete the Stevensons gave us luncheon at Vailima with the best of native dishes, Lloyd Osbourne, adorned with leaves and flowers in native fashion, officiating as butler. When the banquet was over a garland of flowers was hung round Haggard's neck, a tankard of ale was placed before him, and Stevenson read aloud the MSS. replete with allusions to, and jokes about, his various innocent idiosyncrasies. So far from being annoyed, the good-natured hero was quite delighted, and kept on saying, "What a compliment all you people are paying me!" In the end we posed as a group, Mrs. Strong lying on the ground and holding up an apple while the rest of us knelt or bent in various att.i.tudes of adoration round the erect form and smiling countenance of Haggard. The photograph taken did not come out very well, but sufficiently for my mother later on to make a coloured sketch for me to keep as a frontispiece for my special copy of _An Object of Pity_. It was indeed a happy party--looking back it is sad to think how few of those present now survive, but it was pleasure unalloyed while it lasted.

As for the booklet, with general agreement of the authors I had it privately printed at Sydney, the copies being distributed amongst us. Some years after Stevenson's death Mr. Blaikie asked leave to print twenty-five presentation copies in the same form as the Edinburgh edition, to which Mrs. Stevenson consented. I wrote an explanatory Preface, and lent for reproduction the clever little book of coloured sketches by Mrs. Strong, with Stevenson's verses underneath to which I have already alluded.

We had arranged to return to Australia by the American mail-ship, the _Mariposa_, so after three of the happiest weeks of my life we had to embark on board her on the evening of September 2nd, when she entered the harbour of Apia.

Regret at leaving Samoa was, however, much allayed by meeting my son, Villiers, who had come across America from England in the charge of Sir George Dibbs, our New South Wales Premier, whose visit to the mother-land I have already described. Villiers had grown very tall since we parted, he had finished his Eton career and joined us to spend some months in Australia before going to Oxford. We were amused by an "interview" with him and Dibbs in one of the American papers, in which he was described as son of the Governor of New South Wales, but more like a young Englishman than a young Australian, which was hardly surprising considering that he had at that time never set foot in Australia. This reminds me of some French people who seeing a Maharajah in Paris at the time of Lord Minto's appointment to India, thought that the dignified and turbaned Indian must be the new Viceroy--the Earl of Minto.

[Sidenote: COURAGE OF R. L. STEVENSON]

Poor Robert Louis Stevenson--he died not long after our visit; his life, death, and funeral have been recorded in many books and by many able pens.

His life, with all its struggles and despite constant ill-health, was, I hope and believe, a happy one. Perhaps we most of us fail to weigh fairly the compensating joy of overcoming when confronted with adversity of any kind. He told me once how he had had a MS. refused just at the time when he had undertaken the cares of a family represented by a wife and her children, but I am sure that the pleasure of the success which he won was greater to his buoyant nature than any depression caused by temporary failure.

He loved his Island home, though he had from time to time a sense of isolation. He let this appear once when he said how he should feel our departure, and how sorry he should be when he should also lose the companionship of Haggard.

There has lately been some correspondence in the papers about misprints in his books. This may be due in part to the necessity of leaving the correction of his proofs to others when he was residing or travelling in distant climes. When we were in Samoa, _Una, or the Beach of Falesa_, was appearing as a serial in an ill.u.s.trated paper of which I received a copy.

Stevenson had not seen it in print until I showed it to him, and was much vexed to find that some verbal alteration had been made in the text. At his request when we left the Island I took a cable to send off from Auckland, where our ship touched, with strict injunctions to "follow Una line by line." There was no cable then direct from Samoa, and apparently no arrangement had been made to let the author see his own work while in progress.

CHAPTER XIV

DEPARTURE FROM AUSTRALIA--CHINA AND j.a.pAN