The morning looked rainy with the contrary northwest wind that we had carried with us below the equator, when the shape of the little cutter that was to take us showed between the outstanding rocks of the coast of Tutuila. As the big steamer slowed up, a few native boats came out to meet it, manned with men paddling and singing in concert, some of them crowned with leaves, and wearing garlands about their necks, their naked bodies and arms making an indescribable red colour against the blue of the sea, which was as deep under this cloudy sky, but not so brilliant as under yesterday’s sun. They came on board, some plunging right into the sea on their way to the companion ladder, bringing fruit and curiosities for sale. But our time had come; and we could only give a glance at the splendid nakedness of the savages adorned by fine tattooing that looked like silk, and with waist drapery of brilliant patterns. We dropped into the dancing boat that waited for us and scrambled into the little cutter or schooner some thirty feet long, not very skilfully managed, that was to

take us sixty miles against the wind to Apia. A few minutes, and the steamer was far away; and we saw the boats of the savages make a red fringe of men on the waves that outlined the horizon—a new and strange sensation, a realizing of the old pictures in books of travel and the child traditions of Robinson Crusoe.

Our crew was made up of the captain, a brown man from other and far-away islands, and two blacks, former cannibals from Solomon Islands, with gentle faces and manners, and rings of ivory in their noses. Our captain spoke of hurry, and used strange words not clear to understand in his curious lingo; but after an hour or so of heavy rain he announced his intention to beat in again and wait for some change of wind. And so we ran into a little harbour high with mountains, all wooded as if with green plumage, cornered by a high rock standing far out, on which stood out, like great feathers, a few cocoa-palms. Palms fringed the shore with shade. A blue-green sea ran into a thin line of breakers—like one of the places we have always read of in “Robinson Crusoe” and similar travellers: “A little cove with the surf running in, and a great swell on the shore.” Our cutter was anchored; then, as we declined to remain on board, either in the rain or in the impossible little cabin about eight feet long, we were taken into the boat, which was skilfully piloted through an opening in the inside reef; and, the surf being high, we were carried to shore on the backs of two handsome fellows whose canoe had come alongside. We walked up to the church, a curious long, low building behind the cocoa-palms; all empty, with thatched roofs and walls of coral cement; the doorway open, with two stones to block out casual straying pigs, I suppose. Inside I saw a long wooden trough, blocked out of a tree. I did not know that this was the old war-drum of pagan times, now used for the Christian bell.

Behind the church, a few yards off, was our destination—a Samoan “grass-house,” the guest-house of the village, as I know now. It was thatched with sugar-cane leaves, was elliptical, with a turtle-backed roof, supported by pillars all around, and by three central pillars that were connected by curved beams, from which hung cocoanut cups and water-bottles, or which supported rolls of painted bark cloth. The pebble floor showed at places not covered with the mats, as well as near the centre pillars, where a fire still smoked. Most of the screens of matting, which make the only wall between the pillars, were down, making a gentle shade, in which one woman was sleeping; another, on the opposite side to us, her back turned and naked to the waist, was working at large folds of bark cloth. The women rose from this occupation, and offered their hands, saying, “alofa!”[1] A younger woman was lying sick, her wrapped-up head on the Samoan pillow of a long bamboo, supported at either end, so as to free it from the ground.

With the same “alofa” came an elegant young creature, perhaps some sixteen years old, wearing a gay waist drapery of flowered pattern, red, yellow, and purple—with a loose upper garment or chemise of red and violet—open at the sides. Then another, short and strong, with heavy but handsome arms and legs, and with bleared eyes. And we sat down on the mats, the girls cross-legged, and looked at each other while the captain talked, I know not what of.

As I changed my seat and sat near the entrance with my back against the pillars, which is the Samoan fashion, though I did not know it, another tall creature entered, and giving us her hand with the “alofa” sat down against another pillar—also the proper dignified Samoan way. We did not notice her much; she was quieter, less pretty than the pretty one, with a longer face, a nose more curved at the end, a longer upper lip, and more quietly dressed in the same way. Then entered another with a disk-shaped face, her hair all plastered white with the coral lime they use to redden the hair, and dressed as the others, with the same bare arms and legs. She was heavy and strong below, and less developed above, with the same splendid walk and swing, the same beauty of the setting of the head on the neck.

And we drank cocoanut milk, while kava was being prepared for us in an enchantment of movement and gesture, that I had just begun to feel, as if these people had cultivated art in movement and personal gesture, because they had no other plastic expression.

The movements of the two girls preparing the stuff would have made Carmencita’s swaying appear conventional; so, perhaps, angels and divinities, when they helped mortals in the kitchen and household. As the uglier girl scraped the root into the four-legged wooden bowl set between the two, in front of us, and before the central pillars, she moved her hand and body to a rhythm distinctly timed; and when her exquisite companion took it up, and, wetting the scraped root from double cocoanut shells, that hung behind her, moved her arms around in the bowl and wiped its rim, and frothed the mass with a long wisp of leafy filaments, she tossed the wet bunch to her companion, as if finishing some long cadence of a music that we could not hear, too slow to be played or sung, too long for anything but the muscles of the body to render. And she who received it, squeezed it out with a gesture fine enough for Mrs. Siddons or Mademoiselle Georges. I use these names of the stage, of which I have no fixed idea; those that I have seen could never have given, even in inspired moments of passion, such a sinuous long line to arm and hand. Then in a similar repetition of conventional attitudes the cups were presented to us, one after the other, with a great under-sweep of the full-stretched arm, and we drank the curious drink, which leaves the taste filled with an aroma not unlike the general aromatic odour of all around us, of flowers and of shrubs. For all was clean and dry about us, house and surroundings and crowded people, at least to the senses that smell.

In the slow hypnotism produced by mutual curiosity, by gazing with attention all centred on movement, while pretending to notice all the social matters as they went on about us, I could not disentangle myself from the girl who had bewitched us; and as she sat clasping her elbows, with her legs crossed in her lap, like the images of Japanese Kwannon and of Indian goddesses, I tried to copy a few lines. But the original ones flowed out again like water, before I could fix them. My model was conscious of the attention she called up, and from that moment her eyes always met ours, with a flirting smile, half of encouragement, half of shyness.

And now the tall girl that sat beside me, with the quiet face and unquiet eyebrows, put out her hand languidly to reach for my sketch-book. She was the “virgin of the village”—doubly important by being the old chief’s daughter, and elected to this representative position, which entails, at least, the inconvenience of her being always watched, guided, and intimately investigated by the matrons appointed thereto. The lines of my sketch, that would have puzzled the ordinary amateur, were clear to her: “See,” she said, “here is Sifá, clasping her elbows, but her face is not made. Draw me,” and she moved away the hanging mats that obscured the light. The sketch I made was bad, representing to my mind a European with strange features. I don’t know what she thought of it, but she recognized the chemise with ruffles on edges, that covered her shoulders, and made the motion of lifting it away, which I was slow to understand. Her eyebrows moved with some question for which I had no English in my mind. At last the word misonari? as she looked toward Adams, explained what was meant; I said “no,” and looked approval. She rose, passed into the shade, and sat again before me, her upper garment replaced by a long, heavy garland of leaves and the aromatic square-sided fruit of the pandanus, that partly covered her firm young breast, and lay in her lap against the folds of the bent waist. But my drawing was scarcely better for all this, and I gave it to her, with the feeling that what made it bad for me, its resemblance to a European, might give it value for her. All the time the temptation was strong to treat this child of another civilization as a little princess. She had the slow manner, the slightly disdainful look, the appearance of knowing the value of her sayings and doings that make our necessary ideal of responsibility. What though the Princess puffed at my pipe, meanwhile having secured a cigar, less cared for, behind her pretty ear; what though she pressed two long, slender fingers against her lips, and spat through them, according to some native elegance, she knew that she was a personage and never was familiar, even when she pressed my arm and shoulder, and said, “alofa oi,” “I like you.” Her forehead was high and gently sloping, her eyebrows thin and movable, the eye looked gently and firmly and directly; the nose was a little curved at the heavy end, the upper lip a little long (and pulling on the pipe, if she used it, would lengthen it later yet more), the neck and back of the head had the same beauty of line and setting that I had seen in Hawaii, and her shoulders, and breast, and strong, lithe arms would have delighted a sculptor. She wore her hair gathered up by a European comb, and in front a forelock reddened to the tone of her face, with the coral lime they used. Her legs were strong and fine and her feet only as large as one could expect, with the soles hardened by use over stones and coral.

But she was not the pretty one; her sister, Sifá, was that. The charm of the older one, “the virgin of the village,” was in this incomparable savage dignity, that gave a formality to our visit. What to us was an amusement was to her evidently one of the necessities of hospitality, while Sifá could not move about or look without a ripple of laughter that undulated through her entire person. Occasionally, however, our “chiefess” looked at me with a gentle smile, and said “alofa!” and by and by, after showing me that she could write, and doing so in my album, (where she dated her inscription Oketopa, our October), she gave me a ring with her name Uatea—or Watea as she wrote it. She partook of lunch, eating after us (along with the captain who appeared again on time), and she refused to taste of some apples we had until we had some of her own fruit, all I suppose according to some proprieties well defined. Then Sifá, her sister, met with a little adventure in unpacking our food for us. The captain of the steamer had given us a block of ice on our leaving, telling us that it was the last we should see in this part of the world, and that it might comfort us during our long, hot sail under the tropical sun. In unrolling it, and taking it up, Sifá dropped it with a cry of “afi!”—“fire!” and for a few moments we struggled in an unknown tongue to explain what it might be. But I took it for granted that she must have had some Bible explanation of the places where the Bible comes from—that is to say, England and Scotland; hence about winter and bad weather, and perhaps snow and ice.

While the family arranged for their meal we took a walk, “now and again,” as our captain expressed it—almost all the words he knew. We walked across what appeared to be the village green—a space of grass neatly cared for—edged by huts and trees, the palms thickening in the distance and hiding the sudden and close slope of the mountain right above us. Bread-fruit trees were planted here and there near the houses, the large leaves making a heavy green pattern against the innumerable shades of green, the spotted trunks were dark; even the cocoanut trees were only white by the sea. We passed a tomb, of a moundlike shape, one lengthened cube placed upon another, and the upper surfaces sloping to an edge like some of the early sarcophagi or Italian tombs—a shape as simple and elegant as one could wish in such an ideal landscape. I shall have to find out if this most typical shape has originated with them, or has come from some foreign influence. However that may be, it made another classical note. Had Ulysses in his wanderings left some companion here, some such monument might have well marked the tomb of a Greek. There it was, all covered with lichen; and another newer one, made also of coral mortar, still white, near trees, and by former homes, in this little shady “agora.” As we passed into the path that seemed to run up the hill, young men went by with wreaths on their heads, draped to the waist, like the statues of the gods of the family of Jove; their wide shoulders and strong, smooth arms, and long back-muscles or great pectorals shining like red bronze. All this strength was smooth; the muscles of the younger men softened and passed into one another as in the modelling of a Greek statue. As with the girls we had just left, no rudeness of hair marred the ruddy surfaces, recalling all the more the ideal statues. Occasionally the hair reddened or whitened, and the drapery of the native bark cloth, of a brown ochre colour, not unlike the flesh, recalled still more the look of a Greek clay image with its colour and gilding broken by time. Never in any case was there a bit of colour that might rightly be called barbaric; the patterns might be European, but no one could have chosen them better, for use with great surfaces of flesh. If all this does not tell you that there was no nakedness—that we only had the nude before us—I shall not have given you these details properly. Evidently all was according to order and custom; the proportion of covering, the manner of catching the drapery, and the arrangement of folds according to some meaning well defined by ancient usage.

Children played about in the open space; they were then at a game of marbles; when we returned, this had turned to some kind of blind-man’s-buff; there was no roughness, only a good deal of soft laughter; one youngster, draped to the chest like a Greek orator, too big for the children, too young for the men, leaned upon a long staff and looked on gravely, exactly like the figures on the Greek vases, or the frieze of the Parthenon.

We walked along into the forest, in the silence of noonday, but the abruptness and slipperiness of the path as it rose rapidly to walls of wet rock, stopped our feet. From the intricate tangle of green, we saw the amethyst sea, and the white line of sounding surf cutting through the sloping pillars of the cocoanuts, that made a mall along the shore; and over on the other side of the narrow harbour, the great high green wall of the mountain, warm in the sun, and its fringe of cocoanut grove, and the few huts hidden within it, all softened below by the haze blown up from the breakers. All made a picture, not too large to be taken in at a glance; the reality of the pictures of savage lands, in our school books, filled in with infinite details. From dark interiors of huts, as we returned, came gentle greetings of “alofa.” Awoki, our Japanese servant, had remained with our hosts, had been fed with bread-fruit and cocoanut milk, and was busy writing out, under the direction of the black mate, certain names and words of the language; for the mate could be understood, while the captain

had only one certain phrase, “now and again” with which he punctuated everything loudly, so that I could barely understand him. The mate had his own punctuation of frightful oaths and damnatory epithets, evidently mere adornments of speech, for he was most gentle, a kindly and good-natured cannibal, contrariwise to the surly captain; so that I was glad that he had ventured up from the cutter. The girls had taken kindly to the other brown skin, my servant, and were busy helping him make up his list of words, whose sounds he wrote in Japanese, to my later confusion, when he passed his dictionary to me. (Yet curiously enough, in this first half day, we learned full a hundred words—almost all that I have retained.) So we sat down and rested; the flies, attracted by the bread-fruit, and occasional mosquitoes hovered about the openings; ants crawled about on us—my princess had occasionally on her feet a black bunch of flies, which she brushed away slowly—evidently she did not feel them much—their skins are hard—“now and again,” as the captain might say, a woman passed the openings of the hut, bare to the waist, holding a child against her hip. Soon one of the girls, tired of cross-leggedness, stretched her feet politely under a mat, pulled up for the purpose (for it is not polite to sit otherwise than cross-legged).

The older women slept on the Samoan pillows at the further side, closed in by palm curtains. All but one—who had worked all the time, her great brown back turned toward us—engaged in smoothing and finishing a piece of what we white men call tappa. “Siapu” I think they call it—the inner bark of the paper mulberry, hammered out with a mallet, which in so many of the islands has been long their cloth. She never stirred from her work; as long as the light held, I saw before me this upright form, strong as a man’s, smooth and round, and the quiet motion of the arms in the shadow, made deeper by the sunlight on our side. Later, another shower made us shut down more curtains, but we were safe and comfortable, protected from sun and rain alike, in this most comfortable and airy housing. Then Sifá began beating her thighs and moving her shoulders coquettishly to her humming of a tune, and I thought that I recognized the siva, the seated dance of the Samoans, about which I had been told in Hawaii. Such a graceful creature could do nothing that was not a picture, but there was a promise of something more, so that we applauded and said lelei, “beautiful,” with the hope of a full performance.

But the Princess said nothing; she smoked more and more, as every one joined her, so that I foresaw that our small supply of cigars and tobacco was doomed, especially as other damsels entered, and made more ravages; girls more or less good looking, mostly heavier, one of them called “Tuvale,” who knew bits and parcels of English such as pilisi du na iti mi, pilisi esikusi mi, “Please do not eat me,” “Please excuse me.” And one of the largest, leaning affectionately against my shoulder, absorbed my silk handkerchief, and tied it around her neck—saying to me, in her language, “Look how pretty it is!” Our matches and match-boxes had long ago disappeared—most little things had left my pockets, but had been replaced. In every way my fair and strong companions seemed inclined to dispute an apparent preference for Uatea and Sifá. Good-natured girls all (but one—the thief of handerchiefs—who seemed to me jealous)—and we were certainly beamed upon, as I never expect to be again. More rain outside brought on the evening, as we took our last meal; the “chiefess” and the captain, who again appeared sullenly out of the dark, eating after us; the captain now, with an apology to us, appeared naked to the waist, a big heavy mass of bronze, covered below with a gorgeous drapery of purple, and yellow, and red. We lay more and more at ease, stretched out, the girls prone, and occasionally giving one of us an affectionate pat; all but Uatea who still preserved her usual reserve, and even tried hard to substitute another ring for the one she had given me—as if her name on it was too much for a first acquaintance. And occasionally in following her face, the only one that seemed capable of complicated ideas, I asked myself whether she was asking herself what equivalents her hospitality would receive: for instinct told me that through her our gifts or our payments should be made; even if it were all to go to others according to barbaric custom. So seeing her rather laden with things, and having had one experience of the excellence of a white silk handkerchief, I offered her another, and wrote her name in the corner, to see her thank me in her usual condescending way, and then toss it over to the old woman who appeared occasionally—to my mind, her adviser and guardian, for from time to time, “now and again,” she crept up, between us, like a chaperon or duenna, to see that all was proper.

Then many of our girls disappeared with Sifá, whom we missed at the moment and asked for over and over again. A light was brought and set down upon the matting. Uatea slipped out between the hanging screens and the pillar behind me, and slipped back again, rid of her upper garment with a sort of poncho or strip of cloth with opening for head, patterned in lozenges of black, white, and red, that hung down her back and chest, leaving arms and shoulders bare, and the sides of her body, so that as she bent, the soft line that joins the breast to the underarm, showed under the heavy folds. Then, in came our missing pet, Sifá, with Tuvále and two others, into the penumbra of the lamp. They were naked to the waist; over their tucked-up drapery hung brilliant leaf-strips of light green, streaked with red; a few leaves girdled the ankle; around Sifá’s neck, over her beautiful bosom, hung a long, narrow garland of leaves, and on the others garlands of red fruit or long rows of beads interlaced: every head was wreathed with green and red leaves, and all and everything, leaves, brown flesh, glistened with perfumed oil. From the small focus of the lamp, the light struck on the surface of the leaves as upon some delicate fairy tinsel, and upon the forms of the girls as if upon red bronze waxed. But no bronze has ever been movable, and the perpetual ripple of light over every fold, muscle, and dimple was the most complete theatrical lighting I have ever seen. Even in the dark, streaks of light lit up the forms and revealed every delicacy of motion.

So those lovers of form, the Greeks, must have looked, anointed and crowned with garlands, and the so-called dance that we saw might not have been misplaced far back in some classical antiquity. The girls sat in a row before us, grave and collected, their beautiful legs curled upon the lap as in East

Indian sculptures; and Sifá began a curious chant. As all sang with her together, they moved their arms in various ways to the cadence and in explanation of the song; and with the arms, now the waist and shoulders, now the entire body, even to the feet, rising apparently upon the thighs to the time of the music. Indeed, Sifá spoke with her whole tremulous body undulating to the fingers—all in a rhythm, as the sea runs up and down on the beach, and is never at rest, but seems to obey one general line of curve. So she, and the others, turned to one side and stretched out their arms, or crossed them, and passed them under the armpit and pressed each other’s shoulders, and lifted fingers in some sort of tale, and made gestures evident of meaning, or obscure, and swayed and turned; and, most beautiful of all, stretched out long arms upon the mats, as if swimming upon their sides, while all the time the slender waist swayed, and the legs and thighs followed the rhythm through their muscles, without being displaced.

I cannot describe it any better; of what use is it to say that it was beautiful, and extraordinary, and that no motion of a western dancer but would seem stiff beside such an ownership of the body? Merely as motion, it must have been beautiful, for the fourth woman was old and not beautiful, but she melted into the others, so that one only saw, as it were, the lovely form of Sifá repeated by poorer reflections of her motion in lesser light.

Meanwhile Uatea sat to one side of them, near me, and in front, one leg stretched out, the other tucked under, beating time with a stick, disdainful of it all, as poorly done, perhaps incorrectly, “lelei,” “beautiful,” I said—“leanga,” she replied, with a curl of her lip, hardly looking at the girls. Perhaps she should have led in person, as the official maiden—and I still felt that something was not right. The girls rose and came to sit beside us, while Uatea disappeared in the darkness, behind the three masts crossed with curved beams, that supported the centre of the roof. These, with the shining, polished cocoanut bottles, filled with water, that hung from the beams, and the rolls of mats and bark cloth which were placed upon them as upon shelves, had served as a background or scenery to our theatre. Along all the edges of the big house, in the darkness, were other visitors, and guests, small children, boys and girls, neighbours, and even the two gentle blackies, from Cannibal and Head Hunting isles, with white rings in their noses, that made our crew. But I saw none of the splendid young men, who, crowned with garlands, girdled with leaves like the Fauns and Sylvans of the Greek play, had startled me over and over again, during the day, with a great wonder that no one had told me of a rustic Greece still alive somewhere, and still to be looked at. So that the old statues and frescoes were no conventionality—and the

sailor, the missionary, and the beachcomber, were witnesses of things that they did not see, because they had not read. And if one reads, does he care to-day? Had I only known, years ago. Even now, when it is too late, the memory of all that beauty which we call Greece, the one beauty which is to outlast all that is alive, comes over me like a wave of mist, softening and putting far away into fairyland all that I have been looking at. From out of the darkness, as if from out of the shade of antiquity, Uatea stepped out before us, naked to the waist, crowned with leafage, garlands around her hips, a long staff like a sceptre in her hand, and danced some heroic dance, against another girl, smaller than she, as her adversary; it looked a mimicry of combat; the tall form, the commanding gestures, the disdainful virginity of the village Diana, challenging her companion to battle; something as beautiful and more heroic than the Bacchanals that are enrolled on the Greek vases. The girl was in her true element and meaning, more than she could have been in the previous sivá dance; only an occasional touching of the knees together detracted from the beauty of the movements. I could scarcely notice the other dancer, nor the third one, an old woman (who represented, apparently, a suppliant), for fear of losing a parcel of a picture that I shall never see again, certainly never with such freshness of impression.

And when Uatea reappeared, clad again, and puffed at my pipe before passing it to me, she much less disdainfully assured me that all her dancing was leanga (bad). And she softened a little, and seemed distressed about our quarrel about her ring, taking off all her rings and throwing them away to her guardian matron, perhaps for fear of being reproved for giving too much for too little, for we had given as yet but little—only cigars, tobacco, and trifles; and I asked myself whether the dramatic artist was counting up her possible gains, as others do. Meanwhile, the other girls lay close to us, in the confidence of good-nature; all anxious to make the best impression, a curious example of the wilful charming of woman—and Sifá talked and smiled, and moved, or rather floated, in her place like a maiden siren flirting. Many confidences were exchanged without either side understanding one word said. Each girl wrote something in Awoki’s note-book, or helped our making a dictionary. Sifá even summing up figures to prove her possession of the three R’s, a confusing addition of accomplishments to the dancing and conventionalities we had seen. But I am told that all read and write, with no book but the Bible. Then between the curtains of mats Uatea disappeared contrary to what I supposed etiquette, but, of course, I knew nothing. The others bade us good-night, not without begging one of us to share their hut, and we slipped out into the dark, while the mats were arranged for our rest. The storm clouds still covered the sky—only a few stems of the cocoanut glistened, and the white bar of the surf made a hard line in the shadow. Some vague, light forms were those of sitters beneath the trees whispering, or talking low, for all through our day there had been no voices raised except our own, or the surly growl of the captain—or the chant that had accompanied the dances; all other talk had been soft and flowing, with low voices, almost inaudible to us when distant, adding again to the peace and softening charm.

We lay down on the mats with our heads toward the centrepost; a large mosquito bar of thin bark cloth, big enough for a small room, was let down upon us, the light of the lamp shining through it, and draped in my Japanese kimono, I fell asleep, in spite of the few mosquitoes imprisoned with us. No noise from the rest of the house had arisen, all was still; we were as much isolated as if we had been in a built-up room. Late or early, I think I heard the snore of the captain, but all is empty in my mind until I recollect feeling the morning light and saw some shadows pass. As I stepped out, I saw Sifá move out, stretching her arms, as she moved toward a little path. Then issued the captain, with a formidable yawn, and looked at the sky for presages of weather, and took the same little path, I suppose toward the bathing pool, or spring, or rivulet of fresh water, that might be in the hollow.

And there came up to the house Uatea, the “Chiefess,” looking just the same, and appeared to understand that we were for a bath, as she made the motions of washing her chest. We went to the sea, finding no good place for a bath—it was evidently far off—and I take it that they bathe in fresh water—the luxury of hot climates. For they all seemed to be extremely clean and neat, from the men whom I had first seen at sea, to the girls with limbs rubbed with cocoanut-oil and smelling of the aromatic fruit (the pandanus) that their garlands were made of. Our bath was not a full success—we dared not go out into the surf that rolled turbid waves upon the deep, black volcanic sand of the beach; but the water was warm and soothing, and as I began putting on my clothes, a tall girl of the preceding night came up and sat down beside me on the rock, with an evident seeking for an interview. Notwithstanding my unaccustomed embarrassment, I managed to make out that she was uncertain and perplexed as to the legality of her capture of my handkerchief the night before, and though I told her to keep it, she was still doubtful. Uatea had had one; was she to have the same as Uatea? At last she left me, reassured—I had no more interest—and I saw her go along the shore passing far off the better bathing

spot of fresh water, and then disappearing behind distant palms. Breakfast was ready when we reappeared; after us Uatea ate and drank our tea, and wondered at our use of “tea-balls.” The captain explained that there might be wind enough “now and again,” and that any moment ought to see us off. Sifá and Tuvále gathered about Adams; I smoked my last cigar, for all with our other tobacco were gone—while Uatea asked coldly what I had done with the ring she gave me, as it was no longer on my finger. More and more she withdrew into herself, more and more the “Chiefess” looked as if expecting or anxious or troubled, as to whether an equivalent would be serious enough. But we gave the largest sum that the captain dared to hint at—anything would have seemed cheap. The night before I could understand the throwing of jewels; of money, of any reward to express thankful admiration. The “Chiefess” extended a languid hand—her eyebrows rose, a short “f’tai” dropped, as if obligatory from her lips—(the proper form I knew already was “faafe’tai”)—she gave us her hand with a frigid “alofa,” and with Sifá and Tuvále lingering, we walked to our boat. Long after we had set sail we could see them wave their drapery as good-bye. Far off, along the beach, from the hut of the tall girl-thief, my own handkerchief was waved—but even with the glass I saw no more of Uatea.

Peace to thee, O soul of the “virgin of the village,” if I have made thee but a thrifty prima donna, or like the King Solomon of Djami, the Persian poet, caring only for realities that pay—it is the part of those born to be rulers.

And now we had pulled out of the breakers, through the narrowest of openings, and were on board the little schooner; the great blue sapphire waves lifted us and sank us, and came up against the blue horizon, or against the tall green cliffs; and once more we saw, in the hollow of the sea, or lifted against the sky, the native boat pushed on by rhythmic paddles, making a red line of naked men against the blue of the sea or the blue of the sky. We have been four hours and a half beating out of this little cove, and have just rounded the isolated rock of the cape, of which I send you a sketch. If I could only send you the colour!—blue and green—a little red and black in the rocks—the white and violet haze of the surf; all as if elementary, but in a tone that no painter has yet attempted, and that no painter that I know of would be sure of; the blue and green that belongs to the classics; that is painted in lines of Homer; that Titian guessed at, once, under a darker sky; and far off the long sway and cadence of the surf like the movement of ancient verse—the music of the Odyssey. We are off some little village on the shore; the boat has gone to get other passengers, while I try to finish this account of our first day on land in the South Seas, and to make it live for you by long accumulation of detail. If, through it all, you can gather my impression, can see something of an old beauty, always known, in these new pictures, you will understand why the Greek Homer is in my mind; all Greece, the poetry of form and colour that comes from her, as well as her habits; just as the Samoan youngster who rose shining from the sea to meet us, all brown and red, with a red hibiscus fastened in his hair by a grass knot as beautiful as any carved ornament, was the Bacchus of Tintoretto’s picture, making offering to Ariadne. The good people of the steamer may not have seen it, nor the big white English girl who bought some trifle from him—but it is all here for me—and there will soon come a day when even for those who care, it will be no more; when nowhere on earth or at sea will there be any living proof that Greek art is not all the invention of the poet—the mere refuge of the artist in his disdain of the ugly in life. What I have just seen is already to me almost a dream. So I turn to my Japanese, Awoki, and ask him—“It was like the studio, Awoki, was it not? but all fine; no need of posing?” And Awoki says “Yes,” whether he understands me or not, and I think of you and of the enclosed studio life that tries to make a little momentary visitation of this reality.

The fitness and close relation of all I have seen makes a something like what we strive to get through art, and my mind turns toward the old question, “How does what we call art begin?” These people make little; the house, the elementary patches upon their bark cloth, the choice of a fine form for tombs, is all the art that is exterior of themselves and of their movements, into which last they have put the feeling for completeness and relation, that makes the love of art.

Is it necessary for going further that some one should be born, to whom, gradually, an unwillingness to assume the responsibility of action, which the ruler and the priest take willingly, should grow into a dislike of the injustice of power, and a distrust of the truthfulness of creeds, so that he must make a world for himself, unstained and free from guilt or guile? I have begun to imagine for myself some such soul, born in early communities, who might have lived long ago anywhere and have been the hero of some such primitive obscure conflict; but I can see tossing on blue waves, the boat that brings from the shore our new companions, Lieutenant Parker and Consul-General Sewall, who have been on a visit to the harbour of Pango Pango—and in a few minutes they and their white coats will be aboard.

You will by this time wish to know how we are living. We are settled definitely, for headquarters, at Vaiala, a little way from Apia, from which a little river separates our part of the land. Further on, another small river closes out the territory, and separates us from Apia.

The small river that separates us from the beginnings of the village capital, Apia, is spanned by a little bridge—little because consisting of a few planks, and a handrail to one side, but otherwise a very long gangway. This I believe is kept in repair by the municipality of Apia, and is probably the cause of much discussion in the way of spending money. Occasionally it is washed away, and then we swim our horses across, to the discomfort of my best yellow boots, which I feel are a distinctive mark in my visits to people in Apia. At times the municipality provides a ferry-boat. This so far has been manned by one of those convicts who are puzzles in South Sea economics. He had been taken away from some other chores of supposed hard work. After the first day of ferrying, which was productive of various small trips, this criminal had fallen back on the customs of his country, and on that essential communism which is the basis of their actions and of much of their thinking. He had a hut erected for him, so as to rest in the shade, and there he spent most of his time consuming bananas or accidental gifts of food, and courted and caressed by village maidens, who adorned him with flowers and anointed him with cocoanut oil. Meanwhile the smaller and less important members of his family did the work of ferrying in the sun. It was all the same, he was vicariously being punished. This is the keynote of all I shall ever tell you here. There is the tendency to let not only property remain undivided, but also injury or gain. A little anecdote told me by a clergyman, who had it from a friend in Fiji, where things are still more so, gives this intellectual position. The Fiji clergyman had been shocked at a horror perpetrated by some of his parishioners. The dog of some person in a neighbouring village had been killed; some of the aggrieved had sallied forth, and meeting some person who belonged to the village guilty of holding the dog murderer, had thereupon incontinently killed him. An “old hand,” that is to say, a white man conversant with South Sea habits, explained to the clergyman the naturalness of the deed. He said—forgive the vernacular—“See here; if Jim and me gets into a fight, and Jim plunks me in the head, I don’t wait till I can get in a blow at Jim’s head: I hit him where I can.” One community had lost a dog and the other had lost a man. This is a dreadful example of the idea, and I almost regret introducing it into my description of this idyllic passage of my life. But we are on the road to Apia, which, like all white men’s places in such countries, has a taint of brutality remaining from the day of the beachcomber.

It is an orderly little place strung along what might be called a street or two, the main one of which is on the beach, and goes by that name. There are stores, a few hotels and drinking places, warehouses and residences of the consuls, and further on native residences, etc. There are churches too, and a Catholic cathedral of somewhat imposing dimensions; but the churches are those of an ugly village, and no longer have that natural look of the church by our own village of Vaiala, for instance, which has really a character not contradictory to its surroundings.

Further back and right and left all is Samoan and native. We are just by the shore, here fringed with trees and palms, and only some six feet above the inland sea of the reef that spreads right and left before us. In the few great storms that have come upon us in the night, it was not difficult to imagine the beating of the rain against the door of our sleeping house to be the first splashing of some great waves passing over with the roar of the surf outside.

From under the shadows of trees, I see canoes pass close to the shore, visible at intervals between the trees that border it; they seem, like all that happens about us, part of a theatre scene: red bodies glisten in white or coloured drapery, adorned by flowers and leafage; and songs are carried along with the stroke of the paddles, as in an ideal opera. Blue sea outside; green inside.

The little village stretches along a very short distance, apparently not made of more than a couple of dozen of huts or Samoan houses, with a double village green, here and there planted with trees and broken into and backed on the shore side by plantations of bananas.

Further back the mysterious “bush,” into which I have not yet wandered. Just outside, near the shore, and with a little garden, the Consul has built a new and commodious southern house, with enormous verandas, dropped like a piece of Europe among the native forms; there we breakfast and dine; while in the village a few yards off we have borrowed a large, comfortable hut,[2] in which we spend the day, receiving visitors, writing, or painting,[3] and at night we occupy a little building of our own European kind, with just place for our two rooms and beds. It is next to Tofae, the chief’s hut; so that we are both physically and morally under Tofae’s protection. This we insist upon; we are no strangers gadding about, we are chiefs on a visit, and we appeal to the care of our fellows responsible for us. So that doors and trunks and boxes are all open; every one is free to inspect and responsible to the

chief. Even very lately, when the criminal—the prisoner condemned for stealing the consular flag halyards—who is imprisoned by being detained within the half mile of the village, and who is under Tofae’s wardship—even when this confirmed bad man is found looking through all my property, from sketch-books to night pajamas, I feel quite safe that nothing will be missed through him. Only two silk handerchiefs have disappeared since I have been on the island, and I can’t be sure whether they were lost here or in some of our long trips by sea and land. But Tofae takes the fact to heart, and will, I know, make me some present many times more valuable, to wipe out this possible blot upon the escutcheon.

At the earliest dawn there is motion in the village that I do not hear. The soft grass, cleanly trimmed, which covers all the village space, brings no echo from bare feet. But from the very first morning on the small verandah, no bigger than a large table, I hear a patter of feet that wakens me. If I look out, one or more of the girls of the village, our nearest neighbours, is seated there in a corner, ready to bid good morning, and looking occasionally into the open window, to see if I am still abed! Sometimes their shadows, as they pass, break the half light which keeps me in a doze.

When I rise I have to get accustomed to the mild curiosity that inquires after my mode of dressing. Still, as days go on, I become less the fashion, and can go out to my bath, in my Japanese gown, without stepping over a côterie of gentle maidens. If I get up with the dawn, that slowly lights up the great spaces above the trees, I can see first some figures pushing back the mats that form the only walls of the surrounding huts, stretching their arms, then perhaps, in their simplest wraps, fading away in the uncertain light! They are going to the obligatory bath; not to the salt water in front of us, which they do not look upon as cleansing, but to pools back in the bush, or the little river further off.

With the first half-sleepy motion begins the weeding around the huts, a perpetual task carried on at all odd times. For among these savages, so far as they are not spoiled by the European, the lawn and greenery about the village are tended with extreme care. Many a time, in places that are far away and more strictly barbarous, I have been reminded of the neatest Newport lawns. This is one of the unexpected charms, one of the many things that give everything a look difficult to explain, a look of elegance in the wildness. But we must remember that these good people have always been here, that from immemorial time they have tended what seems to us accidental nature; culture and care and the tropical wild growths are constantly interchanged. That is the South Sea note.

Later on I see some of the men return from their short hour’s work at their wet patches of the taro plant, which, with the bread-fruit, represents the staples of bread and cereals both. In this kindly nature, such culture is no more than a gentle exercise. I see even the great Mataafa, the rival of the King Malietoa, and the greatest personage of all islands, returning from his daily task like any commoner, often stripped to the waist, wearing nothing but the wrap along the loins and legs, which they call the lava-lava.

After our morning coffee, made of the island bean whenever we are fortunate enough to get it, for we find it better than any brought from Java, we adjourn with the first heat of the early morning to our big Samoan hut. This is next to Mataafa’s, in the centre of the village. By this time most of our neighbours have begun to rest, and will keep steadily quiet for a large part of the day; unless they visit, or unless some special duty calls.

If we are very early, we may still find in our Samoan hut our pretty friend Fangalo, who lives with our neighbours nearer Apia, and whose simple task it is to place flowers about the tables upon which we write or paint, or upon the shelf that connects the great centre posts of the hut, where hang the cocoanut water bottles, and are placed the rolls of native cloth, or extra mats for softer resting.

Taēlē, which means bath, the gentle sister of our landlord, if I can so call him, has already seen that everything is in order, and all the mats that cover the pebble floor are properly disposed. Taēlē wishes good morning, and leaves fruit as presents and hangs the great branches of yellow or green bananas. She stays but little, even when pressed, though she is curious as to why we write so much and what we mean in general. She does not quite approve of us; we ask strange questions: we are not preachers—we are seen writing on Sundays: we are not looking for wives. We may be aitu—spirits in disguise.

Taēlē’s sweet face is always sad—exceptionally so here where good nature marks most young faces. In that she is not Samoan nor properly Polynesian. But she has gone through much. She was the Samoan wife of the former British consul, Churchward, who left her with her little boy when he was promoted to other appointments. Not that she would have gone with him, I think: the Polynesian rarely understands living anywhere else than in his islands—his own island makes the world. Here Taēlē sits on some rock-edge by the water, and looks out to the far-off sea. I see her so almost every evening.

According to true Polynesian habits, the little child has been adopted by our chief, Tofae, who is devoted to him and allows him great liberties. So that Taēlē has no practical trouble about little George, who lives Samoan way, and, a son of chiefs by birth and adoption, bullies the less important babies.

The other girls, who come in often to see us, and who are occasionally encouraged by little amenities and presents, are not at all sad. Otaota, the daughter of the preacher, who is himself of sacred descent, if I may so explain it, is not even over-bashful, to the great scandal of Taēlē, who is nothing if not Sunday school. She is willing to pose for her portrait without her upper wraps, though she is no longer the exquisite brown statue that she must have been two years ago. But Otaota is a young woman of the world, and who knows?—perhaps these strangers may be serious in their attentions.

Important people, of course, come in to see us, but more frequently in the afternoon. Of chiefs there are many about us, and Patu, Tofae’s brother, is a great chief and has been a great warrior; so that I am not surprised at his curious resemblance to General Sherman.

From all these good people my companion, and I also in a small way, obtain slowly, by driblets, the explanation of what they really are. Slowly they unfold the extraordinary differences which make their ways always misfit ours! Their social words have really no equivalent in ours; their ideas remain a puzzle to whomsoever insists upon our having a common basis to start from.

I have forgotten to describe what the Samoan hut, called the Samoan house, is like. Ours is a handsome one, not exactly the finest, but still very well built. Its plan is a long oval. Its length is not far from fifty feet; its greatest height something like twenty. It is set upon a foundation of stones, and its flooring of fine pebbles is only raised a few inches above the ground, which slopes in all directions from it. It is made of a series of high posts placed at considerable distances from each other, in the shape of an ellipse. They are connected at the top by a series of double beams, which receive great rafters running from every set of posts to the peaked centre. These rafters are connected by other great rafters and tie beams. At the centre they are supported by two or more great pillars, which at intervals are braced together. Beside these pillars, in the direction of each end of the house, are two holes in the ground; made to receive the cocoanut fire used for lighting, or for the slight warmth that is occasionally needed. Walls there are none in the true Samoan house. Mats of the cocoanut leaf hang from the cross-beams, between the posts, to the floor, or rather to the edge of large stones that make a sort of rim to the building, and serve to steady the posts and keep off the wash of the rain. In certain very elegant buildings some of these openings, instead of being filled with these movable mats that are pulled up or down for protection from light or rain, are enclosed by a fine wattling. It is a manner of limiting the numbers of entrances, which otherwise, you see, would be a little everywhere.

In such a residence as that of Mataafa, a great man, a sovereign prince and sacred personage, no one would think of entering otherwise than at some defined place.

For the furniture of our residence and that of other people, mats of different degrees of fineness are spread upon the small fine pebbles that make the floor. If we want great elegance and great comfort, we put on more and finer mats. Some of the furniture lies about; some of it consists in the Samoan pillow, a long bamboo, supported at the ends by four little sticks. There are also boxes in which clothes are put away. There are large rolls of native cloth called tappa. Some of it is made up into curtains to be used as screens and partitions. Sometimes, but not in our hut, these curtains are made into indoor tents for keeping off the mosquitoes, and, otherwise, increasing privacy. All these things are stowed away among the rafters, or upon the sticks curved like tusks, which project beyond the centre posts and serve to brace them.

For our European habits we have two tables and three chairs. Most of the day when we are idle we sit on the mats with our guests. But working is better done at the accustomed table.

Toward noontime we hear violent and savage shouts, and see through the square opening of the lifted mats three or four brown savages, with big girdles of green leaves and crowns of verdure, come running and dancing to us from Mataafa’s house, which is only a few yards away. They carry a big wooden bowl, partly filled with crushed cocoanut and arrowroot, and some big bread-fruits. They sit down on the edge of our outside stones, and proceed to break the bread-fruit, steaming hot, with great force and violence, holding it by the stem, pounding it and mashing it into the cocoanut milk. This quivering pudding, palusami, is then neatly dropped upon banana leaves, made into little packages, and tendered to us with the respects of Mataafa. Sometimes we eat, sometimes we distribute to more Samoan-minded people; but for the first few times it is very nice. I like it better than the raw fish and salt water, which is pleasant also occasionally, though apparently more suited to the habits of that ancestral totem, the shark. But tastes and habits differ, and the Samoan language, extraordinarily rich in words that describe physical sensations, has a special word for that state of weakness and languor wherein such a dish as raw fish is all that the invalid can tolerate.

Mataafa sometimes calls at this hour, sometimes a little earlier, on his return from church, if it be a holy day: for Mataafa is very strict in religious duty. But usually he has chosen the afternoon. He speaks no English, and we have varying interpreters; but still, owing in part to his kindness and courtesy, we have learned a great deal from him. He is not so easily questioned as an inferior might be. When Tofae’s tall daughter is called in hurriedly to help out, because we have not had sufficient warning (Tofae’s daughter, who fears no man, whose neck carries her head as a column does a capital), she interprets with extreme respect and reticence, as it were, “by your leave,” bending her head, looking only sidewise at the great chief, holding her breath when she speaks to him, and almost whispering. Every phrase is prefaced with “The King says,” all of which gives us the measure of proper respect, but does not hasten the conversation.

Mataafa is not interested in facts as mere curiosities. I doubt if he would approve of my interest in most things, if he could guess it. Information with regard to the world abroad he cares for only as it affects Samoa—that is to say, in conversation with us. He would like to know that we have some messages of advantage to his country. It has taken a long time to make him sympathize with our questionings about Samoan ways and manners and their origins, which involve, of course, history and social law. And yet if he could appreciate it, in that way we get at an understanding of what he is, and of the difficulties that beset him!

With such talk, much desultoriness, sketching, writing, smoking, and eating of bananas, a length of which hangs from a beam above, the heat of the afternoon passes away. The shadows begin to fall across the malae or village green. The villagers come out and wander about socially, attend to little matters, or sit here and there in favourite corners. Weeding goes on with the more orderly housewives, who keep an eye meanwhile upon the children wandering about. A good many domestic interests receive attention. Sometimes, under the bananas and orange trees behind my house, I see hair-dressing, a serious and difficult operation. The pleasure of the Samoans in turning their beautiful black hair to brown or yellow or auburn, necessitates a peculiar process which is also extremely curious to the eye. For this they use coral lime, plastered upon the hair and remaining there a couple of days or more; so that they go about with white hair, like people of the last century.

Tofae’s daughter is charming, with her hair all of this silver-grey and big crimson flowers in it. It sets out a certain nobility of feature, and is, like powder, aristocratic in its very nature. The rather heavy faces become either stronger or more refined. Each young man has some female who especially understands just how to fashion his hair into certain curls and twists, which are retained during a week or so; for the operation answers all the purposes of curling besides, and of cleaning absolutely. When this application is brushed away the curls will remain; but meanwhile, as he sits with his head bent way down and the lady lathering it, he has that woebegone, submissive look that we see in the barber shop.

Our good people are passionately fond of adorning their persons with flowers and leafage: flowers about the waist, flowers about the neck, flowers and leaves in the hair. Every little while I see rearrangements which make, as it were, a form of conversation. The steps of my house offer a convenient seat for just the proper number of persons. So that as soon as the shade comes down, some girl is seated there with some youngster, and they rearrange each other’s flowers. A flower behind the ear means a “going of courting” or readiness that way.

In little separate houses the cooking for the evening meal begins. This separation of the household work from the residence or living apartments is a little elegance and refinement which does a great deal to keep up the charm and holiday look of life about us. When, however, great meals are to be prepared, I hear considerable noise on the outskirts of the village, the chasing of hens, whose eggs, by the by, are, as you may imagine, difficult to obtain, as the hens have the surrounding tropical scenery of the bush to lay in. Owing to the scurry after the hens, the only place that seemed safe to them was my apartment; and my open trunks were very good places to look into for possible eggs.

The cooking of any importance, as you probably know, is a method of baking in the earth: stones heated by fire, in a trench upon which leaves are placed, and then the food, wrapped in more leaves, is placed upon them and covered up with twigs, branches and earth. After a skilfully prolonged residence in the earth, the mound is opened, and the food is found cooked. With fish the results are certainly excellent; but vegetables and meats are often a little raw.

It seems marvellous that the brown Polynesian, apparently a member of the great “Aryan” race, intelligent, often adventurous, has never been willing, when his race was pure, to invent such a thing as a pot to hold hot water, even when clay was all about him. He knew that in far-off islands, from which occasionally came invaders or returning adventurers, there was such a thing as pottery; yet he preferred, as he does to-day, to import a few specimens, rather than spend a few moments in starting this, to us, necessary beginning of what