Stevenson's Shrine Part 1

Stevenson's Shrine.

by Laura Stubbs.

CHAPTER I

"The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Island, are memories apart and touch a virginity of sense."

"My soul went down with these moorings whence no windla.s.s may extract nor any diver fish it up."

_Robert Louis Stevenson._

I, a lover of the man, personally unknown to me, save through the potency of his pen, journeyed across the world in order to visit his grave, and to get into direct touch with his surroundings.

The voyage to the Antipodes does not come within the compa.s.s of this little book; enough that in September, 1892, I left Auckland (New Zealand) in the Union Company's Steamship Manipouri, for a cruise among the South Sea Islands, and that our first port of call was Nukualofa, one of the Tongan group.

Here I stood on a little gra.s.s-covered wharf, and, looking down through the translucent water, made my first acquaintance with a coral garden. Oh!

that wonderful water world with its wealth of sprays, flowers, and madrepores, amongst which the tiny rainbow-coloured fishes darted in and out like submarine humming-birds--wingless, but brilliant--living flecks of colour, flashing through a fairy region. The unreality of the scene took hold of me. If this were real I must be enchanted, looking downwards with enchanted eyes.

As one who dreams I walked inland, following a most fascinating green turf path soft as velvet to the tread. There are no roads in Nukualofa, green turf paths serve instead; indeed the whole of the little island, with its long stately avenues of coconut palms, its sheltering bowers of banyan trees, its groups of bananas, and groves of orange and other tropical trees too numerous and too varied to describe, seems one beautiful and universal park. Every few minutes I came across a vivid patch of scarlet, yellow, or white hibiscus; great trailing lengths of blue convolvulus, many tendrilled and giant blossomed, garlanded the trees, and not unfrequently flung an almost impenetrable barrier across the path. These paths are separated from the universal park by--a fencing of barbed wire! But the little tram line, which terminates at the wharf, was bordered with turf of a moss-like softness, and even between its rails the gra.s.s grew thickly.[1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CORAL GARDEN

_To face page 6_]]

The whole island was encircled by a giant fringe of coral, white and glistening, at one side of which was a natural opening leading to the little harbour. The light at sunset upon this reef was like the refraction of some hidden prism, shimmering opalescent, a suffusion of vague and unspeakably lovely hues.

After walking for some time I suddenly came within sight of a palm-fringed lagoon. Upon its unruffled blue surface two native girls were paddling a small canoe. Their attire was slight, and their polished skins, gleaming with coconut oil, shone like mahogany. They stared for a moment at the new arrival with all the _navete_ of children, then with a rippling laugh they paddled to the bank and began to talk. As I listened to the unknown accents of their musical tongue I was filled with bitterness to think that though so near, we were nevertheless so far apart. A smile however is always current coin, and before we parted many a one had been exchanged.

In slight relief, amid the brilliant-hued orange-trees, the tall feathery-topped coconut palms, the dark green spreading bread-fruit trees, and the broad-leaved _panda.n.u.s_ or screw-pines, the brown huts of the natives showed up at intervals. Flung down at random on the verdant carpet, which flourished up to their very doors, thatched with long screw-pine leaves and lashed together with coconut fibre, with never an angle between them, I have been a.s.sured, by more than one resident of authority, that they stand the brunt of a hurricane better than the best houses built by Europeans. Outside these huts, sitting or standing, or lounging about in indolent inaction, were native men, women, and children--dear little brown-skinned babies, innocent of any attire save their original "birthday suit," rolled and tumbled on the gra.s.s. As I pa.s.sed on my way the women and girls nodded and smiled, and gave me their musical greeting of "Mehola lelai," and before I was out of sight called after me "Nofa, Nofa"--the native "Good-bye," which means literally "Stay, stay." And everywhere could be heard the tap tap of the kava stones, and the rhythmic beating out of the "tapa."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TONGA VILLAGE, WITH ROUND HOUSES

_To face page 8_]]

This "Tapa" (or "Ngata") cloth is very pretty. It is made from the bleached and beaten out bark of a tree, and is decorated with rude designs which the natives trace with a piece of charred stick, and which represent squares, circles, angles, stars, even at times the outline of the flying fox. The colouring matter used to complete the patterns is of a black or brown tint, and is made from a decoction of bark; a piece of cloth, or hibiscus fibre is employed as a brush, and when the work is finished the effect is charming.

I tasted a green coconut plucked direct from the palm by a native, who, bribed by a shilling, scaled the long, straight stem at my request. The milk contained in the sh.e.l.l (though perhaps a trifle sickly) was deliciously cool, and on a hot day most refreshing.

The attire of the natives of the Tongan group is extremely picturesque and harmonises admirably with their surroundings. Holy Tonga and indeed all the islands of this group are subject to a curious law which enacts that all cla.s.ses of natives, whether male or female, must wear an upper as well as a lower garment. Both men and women adorn themselves with flowers, garlands about their necks, wreaths of flowers in their hair. The air was heavy with the scent of orange blossom, cape jasmine, and frangipani.

I sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and watched the little sheeny blue-tailed lizards flicker to and fro, and indeed it was delicious to feel no fear of poisonous reptiles, for in these delectable isles there are none, no snakes--save the beautiful and harmless water snakes--no scorpions, no centipedes, not even the death-dealing spider of New Zealand.

Our steamer left Nukualofa that evening, and we took on board a number of natives bound for Samoa. The entire population of the island seemed to have gathered together in a picturesque group on the sh.o.r.e to bid them farewell; and this group formed a brilliant foreground to our parting view of Tonga, with its green esplanade, its villa palace, its church and its white Government Offices, the latter of which stood boldly out against the groves of bananas and long feathery vistas of coconut palms.[2]

We steamed out of the harbour of Nukualofa by a different pa.s.sage to that by which we had entered, and before we pa.s.sed the reef we had to make our way through a perfect network of little islands, all alike, palm-fringed and scattered about at random like flowers in a meadow.

Like beasts of prey the white waves leapt against the coral barrier, and to right and left of us for a brief s.p.a.ce showed white gleams of reef, but a moment later we had left the treacherous surf behind us and were steaming across a deep purple fathomless ocean. As I stood on the deck still gazing sh.o.r.eward, the foam of the waves became azure under my eyes, whilst delicately-coloured flying-fish, denizens of two elements, skimmed like gigantic sea-b.u.t.terflies over the surface of the water, flitting to and fro in the uncontrolled enjoyment of life and motion.

That night the native pa.s.sengers, rolled up in Tapa, their heads resting on hollow wooden pillows, camped on deck; the scent of the coconut oil with which they anointed their sleek smooth bodies was quite overpowering, especially when blended with the fragrance of the cissies (or flower girdles) worn around their waists, and with that of the garlands of flowers and berries hung so lavishly about their necks.

A tropic night, and the moon at the full! The pure white radiance threw everything into strong relief. The natives slept at intervals and danced at intervals, crooning a strange weird chant to the accompaniment of much beating of hands.

By daylight next morning we anch.o.r.ed in the roadstead of Lef.u.ka, the princ.i.p.al island in the Haapai group. A long low sh.o.r.e, a foreground of white sand, a fringe of coconut palms with thicker vegetation beyond, brown thatched roofs of native houses, and white ones of Europeans! Such was Pangai town as seen from the deck of our steamer. Seaward, on the other hand, there was the already familiar line of coral reef and a score of "Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAAMUNGA OR TRILITHON IN TONGA

_To face page 13_]]

The whole of our pa.s.sengers, just six in number, landed for a tour of inspection. In front of nearly every native house, a horse was hobbled, but in spite of the abundance of green pasturage the unfortunate animals looked half starved, and their thin legs were so weak that I wondered how they could do any work at all. On quitting the town, however, we left the houses behind, and strolled away into the bush, where we again had only the green turf under our feet, and again saw round us an absolutely level country. Meanwhile, huge fronds of coconut palms did their best to shield us from the sun, and the broad leaves of the banana cast cool shadows across our path. Before we had gone far, the most wonderful lean, lank, long-legged, reddish-brown pigs went scudding across our track, and disappeared amongst the trees. They were the direct descendants, I was told, of the pigs left here by Captain Cook. It did not take us more than an hour to walk right across Lef.u.ka, until we reached its eastern sh.o.r.e. The tide was dead low, and we could see the outlines of the dry coral reefs, which connect all these islands as with a chain. On the way, one of our party related how, not so long ago, the coast was bodily raised twenty feet higher by an earthquake, and how the earthquake was followed by a great tidal wave. A halt was called, and while we rested on the coral beach and ate our fill of "mummy" apples[3]--one of our company amused us with the account of a wonderful Haamunga or Trilithon in Tonga, which, alas, we had no chance of visiting. This Trilithon, which is about sixteen miles inland from Tongatabu, seems to afford evidence of the former existence, in Tonga, of an ancient civilisation, that of some bygone people who, in common with the Maories, were possessed of religious instincts far in advance of the conquering Polynesians, who succeeded them. It consists of two enormous upright blocks of stone with a ma.s.sive slab on the top, the latter being curiously countersunk into the two uprights. The whole structure is strongly reminiscent of our cromlechs at Stonehenge and elsewhere, recalling the theory of a universal sun worship. We talked this subject out as we sat, under the shade of the palms, on the sun-warmed beach, then we returned to the landing stage by another route.

On these low-lying islands the coconut palms thrive well and bear abundantly, for there is nothing to impede the pa.s.sage of the strong salt breeze right across the level surface of the Haapaian group, and without this strong salt air the coconut cannot thrive.

From Lef.u.ka we steamed to Vavau, but as our arrival in Vavau marks the second stage in my pilgrimage, I will reserve it for a fresh chapter.

Henceforth, we were to be confronted by an entirely new type of landscape; the reign of the level surface was ended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARBOUR OF VAVAU

_To face page 15_]]

CHAPTER II

"The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man departs."

_From an old Tahitian proverb._

We entered the land-locked harbour of Vavau in all the glory of a moon scarcely past the full. And what a contrast to the islands from which we had just parted! On every side of us towered mountains, broken, rugged, height upon height, peak above peak. In every crevice of the mountain the forest harboured, and everywhere flourished the feathery palm, that Giraffe of Vegetables, as Stevenson so humorously describes it, nestling, crowding, climbing to the summit.

It was midnight before we anch.o.r.ed alongside the jetty. The morning light showed us all the varied beauty of the port of Neiaufu. In place of the level sh.o.r.es, rising only a few feet above high-water mark, bold and rugged headlands jutted seawards, and every islet in the Archipelago was clear and definite. Let Stevenson, however, here speak in person, for though he is not dealing with this particular island, yet his description might have been written for it. "The land heaved up in peaks and rising vales; it fell in cliffs and b.u.t.tresses; its colour ran through fifty modulations in a scale of pearl, rose and olive; and it was crowned above by opalescent clouds. The suffusion of vague hues deceived the eye; the shadows of clouds were confounded with the articulations of the mountain, and the isle and its unsubstantial canopy rose and shimmered before us like a single ma.s.s."

Wooded hills, which spring from the water's edge, surround what seems to be a beautiful lagoon, some four miles long and two wide. At the eastern end there is a very narrow boat-pa.s.sage. Our entrance was effected by the western pa.s.sage, which is also narrow but has deep water at the point. On either side were white signal beacons, such as I have seen at the mouth of the Brisbane. The great wharf to which we were moored was approached by a road of coral, white to the point of dazzlement in the tropic sunshine.

The foresh.o.r.e was being reclaimed by prison labour; the prisoners, men as well as women, looked sleek and well favoured, they chanted songs as they worked, and showed no signs about them whatever of ill-usage or over-strain.

There is no beach at Vavau. On the sloping banks, which are green to the water's edge, thatched houses peep through the orange-trees; indeed the whole island seems one delightful orange grove, the sward was everywhere littered with the freshly fallen fruit, the air was fragrant with the subtle essence of blossom and fruit combined. With the exception of the coral road leading to the jetty, all the paths at Nieaufu (as at Nukualofa) are simply long stretches of green sward, overspread with orange-trees. We climbed a steep hill, and while we rested on the top, feasted our eyes upon a sight which was one to dream of. Everywhere little cone-shaped islands outlined with big-fronded palms, everywhere that wonderful violet sea, and between the golden gleam of the oranges we saw the deep blue of the sky. It was an ecstasy in colour, a vision rather than a prospect. From henceforth my standard of the beautiful was lifted to a higher plane, and the words "The eye hath not seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive," had, for me, acquired a deeper and intenser significance.