In return for our call the great chief has called many times upon us. He apologizes almost for his position of something sacred, for his being obliged to drink out of his own cup, for instance, and, as I told you, has yielded very slowly to the investigations of Atamo[9] concerning the rights of law, of property, of kinship, which must at first have appeared to him irrelevant and indiscreet. Even Seumanu, with whom we are so familiar that we threaten to take away his name occasionally (Samoan legal deposition from office), even Seumanu was obliged to say once, “Years ago I would have killed a man who asked me that question!” I believe it was some inquiry as to his exact descent and consequent claims from his grandmother. But one of these visits of Mataafa brought about a meeting with Stevenson which I had thought might not take place for some time. It is always difficult for those of us who have the cosmopolitan instinct to realize how fundamental are the views of the Britisher. Mr. Stevenson had been explaining to us a difficulty I could hardly appreciate, and that was the question of whether he should call on Mataafa or wait until Mataafa called on him. I know how that would be settled in England. No one would expect the Queen or the Prince of Wales to call first, even though they cannot have for themselves the sense of dignity and sacredness which must envelop Mataafa. The Queen is the head of the church and defender of the faith; but she is not so by blood, whether there be a church or not. It is this peculiar element of something sacred, as it were of the son of a demigod, the natural intermediary between this world and the next, which is gently latent in the original idea of the aristocracy of these people. Even to Roman Paula, the spiritual daughter of St. Jerome, it must have been something beyond our ken to be a descendant of, let us say, Agamemnon or Achilles or other sons of demigods. In this state of mind Mr. Stevenson came in upon us during one of Mataafa’s visits, and succumbed at once to the delicate courtesy of the great chief. He managed so prettily to express his knowledge of Stevenson’s distinction, of his being a writer of stories, and a wish to know him limited by the difficulties of his position.

Meanwhile, I say, Mataafa bides his time. He waits patiently, en évidence, but doing nothing. This will irritate his enemies, but I seem to see that for him there can be no more legal course. As long as he does nothing, and makes only a mute appeal to justice, he is entirely in the right. He is not supposed to accede to the protocol which excluded him. I think I understand somewhat of the absurdly complicated position which his friends or his enemies hold—position based on hereditary rights; long internecine wars; ancient privileges of small places which have rights of election, but which are too weak to enforce them; and, above all, on both sides questions of complicated descent. Even if I were correct, and made no mistakes, which could hardly be, I would not dare to go into a lengthy explanation of the claims on both sides.

One great enmity Mataafa has: more intense than that of the Germans, because partly unconscious and founded on the worst passion of humanity—theological hatred. That enmity is the dislike of the foreign Protestant missionary, who moreover is absolutely English in his ideas, his wishes, his intentions, and has a perpetual political bias. Mataafa is a Catholic, like many of the chiefs. Naturally he has Catholic advisers, and some of them may be—though I don’t know it for sure—tainted by the same politico-religious ideas as their opponents. They probably supply the great chief with information of what the great outside world would do in his favour; opinions based on their wishes, and not on the meanness of mankind, which is the only logical basis of politics.

As a proof of the atrocities to which the religious mind can consent, listen to this charming detail. It belongs to a time when I was no longer in Samoa. I have mentioned in my other journals and letters the names of the Rev. Mr. Claxton of the London Missionary Society; and I can add to what I said that was pleasant that he seemed to be the usual gentle clergyman, with side-whiskers, and sufficiently modern, and that he spoke very nicely, as I thought, of the religious state of the Samoans, and evinced a sense of a certain steadfastness of theirs, which distinguishes them from many of the other varieties of South Sea people. Mr. Claxton also pleased us by recognizing the Samoan dances as not being sinful, by being present at one of them, with Mrs. Claxton. You know that poor Faatulia was excommunicated for attending the Fourth of July dance, which was of course attended by the wives or daughters or aunts of the English or American consuls. The action of our reverend friend was all the more graceful because the dance was in honour of Faatulia’s niece, if I remember. Mrs. Claxton also we hear all sorts of nice things about. She is “Misi Talatoni,” and Meli Hamilton gets a great deal of fun out of her, pretending that we admire her dress much more than Meli’s. Never would you suspect these gentle associations connected with the ideas of mediæval assassination. But in August, our Consul, coming down to Australia, and meeting us on the way to Java, told me the following story because he wished me to take a hand myself. Mataafa’s habits were, as might be expected from his character, particularly steady as belonging to a war chief, a king, and a devout churchman. He went to mass every day, by the same path, and did not flinch or change his track when the Germans fired at him. Somehow or other, as happens to generals and to people who make a good mark, he was never hit. On this peculiarity of Mataafa’s was based a proposition made by the Rev. Mr. Claxton to the Consul. There was now absolute peace; and Mataafa and myself, or you would have a perfect right to walk along the road to church without being fired at. But German discipline has characteristics quite as distinct as Mataafa’s. Might it not be possible, if any German marines were landed by chance, to place some sentries on Mataafa’s road, presumably if he went to evening service? He would suspect no harm, and even if he did, would not move from his path. The German sentinel would by duty be obliged to fire, and consequently no one would be to blame, and Mataafa would be out of the way. This the reverend clergyman thought could be managed. What Consul Sewall wished of me was that I should warn a friend of Mataafa’s, Father Gavet, who lived somewhere along the coast, but whose long acquaintance with Samoan manners would find some way of avoiding the possibility of this little incident. I wrote to Father Gavet, who answered me, at some distance of time, of course, that the plot was understood; for, as Mataafa said to me, “There are no secrets in Samoa,” and the friends of Mataafa had taken necessary precautions. I never heard anything more about it, but I believe that the Reverend Claxton has been withdrawn.

Of course as long as the waters are so disturbed, each party may hope to fish for their advantage; that is to say, the German for politico-commercial reasons, and the English for the same; and this all the more that the English government recognizes what is called spheres of influence, and that it is inclined to concede to Germany such an influence here, even if its representatives be not officially ordered to do so. We, who do not recognize these spheres of influence, are, however, prone to assist all Protestant missionary tendencies, right or wrong. Votes are votes. Besides, not only do we not recognize spheres of influence, but we are uncertain of any political tradition, and we are easily handled by England, to whom we are still intellectually subject. We are also more or less out of the game. We have no Heligoland or Hinterland in Africa, to trade off against influence in Samoa or New Guinea. We are still in the dark as to our fortune; we don’t know the importance of the Pacific Ocean to us, nor the immensity of future eastern trade. As the Germans here impertinently remark, we would trade an empire against the votes of a town in New Jersey, or the honour of dining with a countess.

Brandés, the German dictator, that is to say the German official who controlled Samoa for a time, representing both Germany and Samoa, said of us: “A nation, which in all decisions of foreign policy must take into its councils the senate and sixty million of people, can never have a foreign policy worthy of the name.” We might easily withdraw, even temporarily; then for the protection of German property, German forces could be landed in Samoa, the imperial flag be hoisted, and whoever would dare to haul it down? Bismarck, acting through his son Herbert, has apparently well arranged our agreements so that events might turn easily that way. On Mataafa these conditions hinge. As he acts, or is kept from acting, the possible possession of this key of the Pacific will be determined.

And yet the Pacific is our natural property. Our great coast borders it for a quarter of the world. We must either give up Hawaii, which will inevitably then go over to England, or take it willingly, if we need to keep the passage open to eastern Asia, the future battleground of commerce.

You can see how reasonable it is then that Mataafa should take an interest in us as Americans, and hold on to a hope that we might, however faintly, help the cause of his people, and keep them, as he says, from slavery. Moreover, as his men it was who rescued our sailors in the great calamity of 1889, even though they also rescued the Germans, with whom they were at war, he feels that kindness of obligation which comes to those who have tried to benefit others.

All this is politics, and you are probably, like the United States, more or less indifferent to anything that has not the name that you are accustomed to. To me, on the contrary, my real and absorbing delight is the sense of looking at the world in a little nutshell, and of seeing everything reduced to such a small scale, and to so few people, that I can take, as it were, my first lessons in history. I don’t know that I should put it all into the form that Mr. Stevenson uses, in which I do not quite agree with him: that here, at length, we were free from the pressure of Roman civilization. I own of course, that all comes to us through Rome, and that the dago has had the making of us. The words which I use of course imply that. I can’t talk of politics, of civilization, of culture, of education, of chivalry, of any of the aspirations of the western world, without using the words implanted with the ideas in our barbarous ancestors; but before the culture and development of Rome was a something which had some analogies to what I see here. I am continually thinking how it may have been with my most remote ancestry, whenever I understand any better the ideas and habits of our good people here. As also they have passed from some still earlier or more remote stages, their ideas are easier to understand than those for instance of the Australian or even of the Fijian. A tendency to the commonplace, to a certain evening up of ideas, seems to belong to them, and makes them easier to understand because in so far they are not unlike us. They dislike excesses in thinking, and too logical extensions of what might be called political ideas. About all this social difference of organization, I have written to you, I should say continually. I must have given you most of the details, even if I have not made a summary of the form of early civilization.

I am troubled also at writing about things and ideas, and using words which have grown out of things and ideas extremely different and often contradictory. As the Christian terminology, the very language of the Gospels, was perforce made up of pagan forms and terms, so to-day, I shall have to describe what might be called pagan forms and ideas in a terminology now influenced by Christianity, and saturated with problems connected with it, so that probably Greek or Latin would be more natural, though even they, you know, are read by us with a bias that their authors never dreamed of.

But as long as I do not write, it is pleasant to see the ideas without words, and perhaps descriptions may not have been the worst way to give them.

A MALAGA IN SEUMANU’S BOAT

25th Oct., 1890.

Malanga, written malaga, is a trip, a voyage where one puts up with friends, etc.; one of the fundamental social institutions of Samoa.

WHAT SEUMANU’s BOAT WAS

The accompanying extract tells you the story of the boat in which we are making a malaga to some of the places near us—to the northwest end of our island of Upolu, to this little Manono, with an old reputation for war; to the ancient sunken volcano crater of Apolima; and to Savaii, the big island important in politics, and important in name, and important in history.[10]

Seumanu takes us along in his boat, and as it were under his protection, a convenience certainly, but also perhaps not an unencumbered blessing, for there will certainly be a colour of politics in our trip. All the more that our own boat goes along also with our own rowers, and the consular flag, for the Consul is with us, and is in (I fear) for many speeches which he will have to acknowledge, and we shall suffer all the more. For already there has been much speech-making; the tulafales, the village orators, and occasionally rulers, or balances of power with the chiefs, and who as far as I can make out keep this place by inheritance—the tulafales have been in force. Seu has repeated their speeches ahead of them in a grumbling way, evidently not quite pleased. Perhaps the paucity of gifts in this poor little place helps to annoy him, and yet we gave them short notices of our coming and we are many to provide for, over twenty-five in all; or perhaps, nay certainly, their political complexion is not of the right shade and he remembers too well that they were but figure-heads in the last war, not withstanding their military renown. What annoys him as a chief “qui se respecte,” gives us infinite pleasure. All comes down to the small scale that befits the place and its rusticity. It is rustic, as I need not assure you, but it has also a look of make-believe that gives it a look of landscape gardening—the look of a fit place wherein to give a small operetta in the open air.

The village is on a small promontory, beyond which juts the outline of some rocks crowned by a chief’s tomb that is shadowed by trees. The water within the bay reef is of a marvellous green-blue, whether it rains or whether it shines, and not far off, perhaps only a mile or so, Upolu is blue or violet or black or grey in mist; and the sea outside always makes some colour contrast with the sea inside the reef. The village is just high enough upon the shore to conceal the actors on the beach, except where in two or three places the clean sand sweeps down under the trees or next to heavy rocks, so as to allow the tenor and the diva of my supposed opera, to go down and throw out a great song. This is striking enough in the day but in the evening afterglow or the shine of moonlight, themselves apparently made on purpose, it is deceptive; people step down little rocks on coming out of small huts, a few real canoes are placed under the trees whose outline in the shade has been arranged by nature in rivalry of art.

Subsidiary pictures painted by a Greater Rembrandt with centres of light and prismatic gradations of gloom fill the cottages placed on the little elevations, and only a few people gracefully move about—just enough in number: and all with a classic action that comes of not frequenting foreigners. Snatches of song, and cadences come alternately from different corners or from under trees, and as I said all this is lit with a mysterious glow.

Besides, in the day there have been few people; some little girls only in our guest-home and the chief who with his whitened hair, strong jaw, and sloping forehead has a fair look of the “Father of our Country.”

In the presentation of food, a necessary ceremony, only a dozen men have appeared, nobodies in particular: and before them has capered a naked being in green leaves, as to his hips and head, who has danced with his back toward us, keeping the line in order, and who looks at a distance like the Faun of the Greek play in the Pompeian pictures. Then they have all rushed forth and cast down their small presents, taro and bread-fruit and cocoanuts, in palm baskets and as suddenly disappeared; while the tulafale, an old gentleman of the old school, making, according to old fashion, a great curve of pace that shook out his stiff bark cloth drapery, has slipped out and taken his place, leaning on a staff, his official fly-flapper balanced on his shoulders. These people of importance, and one I think of great dignity, have squatted down on the grass, and another has seated himself on the great war drum under the bread-fruit trees. Then a long speech has been made, with praise of us and of our country that has rescued Samoa, and thanks to God and prayers for our good health, etc., etc., all in a clear voice, not loud at all, just enough to reach us, no more; and with a Samoan accent upon the end of each phrase where some important word is skilfully placed.

All this we listen to and witness from our little house, whose posts are garlanded with great bunches of red hibiscus flowers and white gardenia and many leaves, and the effect is partly that of some living fresco in imitation of the antique, partly that of an opera in the open air. But if this is real, then the modern painted pictures of open-air life with the nude and with drapery are false. Our French and English and German brethren do not know what it is.

Apart from the light and its peculiar clearness, Delacroix alone, and sometimes Millet, have understood it; and no one of the regular schools of to-day. Back of these, of course, all the classics are recalled from Watteau and Rubens and the Spaniards to the furthest Greek.

So that the little episode that worries Seumanu is full of fun and of charm and of instruction to us. Its scale is so small that we can grasp it. There are but half a dozen actors, and a small set scene. In front of us, sitting so close to our house, on its pebble slope, that his figure is cut partly off, sits one of the crew, who, when all is over, and the speech has been duly acknowledged by Seu as our spokesman, will count over the presents, and in a loud voice will announce their number and their origin: So many cocoanuts from so and so—so many chickens from so and so—etc.

Two mornings ago we left Vaiala, and rowed westward within the reefs, along the north coast of our island of Upolu, off which, within a couple of miles, lies the little Manono from which I write. Twice we stopped in this enemy’s country, that is to say, among adherents of the former king or head chief set up by the Germans. There was all the charm that belongs to the near coasting of land in smooth waters: the rise and fall of the great green reflections in the blue satin of the sea inside of the reef; the sharp blue outside of the white line of reef all iridescent with the breaking of the surf; the patches of coral, white or yellow or purple, wavering below the crystal swell, so transparent as to recall the texture of uncut topaz or amethyst; the shoals of brilliant fish, blue and gold-green, as bright and flickering as tropical hummingbirds; the contrast of great shadows upon the mountain, black with an inkiness that I have never seen elsewhere; the fringes of golden or green palms upon the shores, sometimes inviting, sometimes dreary. And our rowers in their brightest waist cloths, with great backs and arms and legs, red and glistening in the sun that wet them even as much as the cocoanut oil with which they were anointed. And when tired with sitting, they lie stretched out and confidently rest against the giant Seumanu’s great thigh and hip, while he occasionally patted his sleepy weaker brother, La Taēlē.

Still, beauty of nature, and plenty of soft air do not prevent fatigue, even if they soothe it, and I was glad when in the afternoon we had reached Leulumoenga—our final halt—a village type of Samoa, spread all over the sandy flat of the back beach, and half hidden in trees. As we came up the shelving beach, children and women came down to meet us, and watched us curiously. Among them, in their new dignity of fresh tattooing, a few youngsters eyed us from further off, moving little owing to the pain of the continued operations—haggard and fevered looking, and brushing away nervously, with bunches of leaves or fly-flaps, the insects that increased their nervousness. For tattooing is no pleasant matter. The entire surface from hip to knee is punctured with fine needlework. The patient stands what he can, rests awhile and recovers from his fevered condition; then submits again, until slowly he has received the full share. Nor does he shirk it—it is his usual entry into manhood; without it the girls are doubtful about him, and he is somewhat looked down upon. The present king, brought up by missionaries, and accepting many of their prejudices, had not been tattooed in his youth.

During the few hours of our stopping we returned the call of Father Gavet, one of the French missionaries, and saw his new church that is to replace an older one destroyed by the great hurricane. It is of coral cement, like most South Sea churches, a beautiful material when it blackens with time. I hope they will transfer some of the old carvings from the earlier church; which, made by early converts, have a faint look of good barbaric art—so good—oh, so good—compared to what the good missionaries get from those centres of civilization called Paris, London and Berlin!

In the latest afternoon, with coolness and rays of heat and light, we rowed further along the coast to Satapuala, where we were to rest in the great guest-house, under the protection of the chief’s sister, the taupo.[11] It was all like little Nua on a great scale, and with more elaborate preparations. We had soft mats to lie upon and later more again to be beds. Nor did our hostess abandon us until the last moment, when we were apparently satisfied with our lair, and according to far-off western habits had officially “retired.”

Her decoration of the guest-house, for which she duly apologized as poor and unworthy of our visit, was really beautiful. Palm branches all green and fresh and glistening covered the entire roof and its supports, even the great curved posts of the centre being wrapped in the great leaves, which curved with new lines around the simpler circle of the big tree trunks. Here and there great bunches of white gardenia and of the red hibiscus were fastened into the folds and interstices of the leaves and stems.

At night when her brother, the young chief, a famous dancer, had arrived, the dream of Robinson Crusoe which had begun enveloping me in the afterglow, as I wandered about in the sandy spaces among the palms and bread-fruit, became more and more complete. The dances were all pictures of savage life. There were dances of the hammer and of gathering the cocoanuts by climbing, and then breaking them; and of the war canoes, with the urging of the steersman and the anxious paddling of the crew; and a dance of the Bath, in which the woman splashed water over her pursuer, as she moved with great stretching of arms as of swimming. The beating of time on the mats gave, in its precision of cadence and the sharpness of its sound, an illusion that seemed to make real the great blows struck by the dancers, whose muscles played in an ebb and tide, under the brilliant light of the cocoanut fire made in the pit near the centre post.

In these and in others our hostess scarcely took part. Most of the time she sat by us—a tall and big chiefess, elegant at a distance, grave and disdainful—but we were in an enemy’s country and the slight scorn seemed quite refined. Still more becoming to an evening with Robinson Crusoe’s friends were the costumes worn in the wild dances: the great girdles of purple and green and red leaves, the red fruit of the necklaces, the silver shells of red flower in the hair of the women; the fierce military headdresses of the men; the bark-cloth drapery moving in stiff folds, and more than all the oiled limbs and bodies glancing against that wild background of green leaves (spotted with red and white), whose reflections glittered like molten silver as they turned around posts and central pillars. Outside, the moonlight was of milky whiteness increased by the whiteness of the sandy beach mixed with a firm white clay. Upon this the sea made a faint wash of no colour, in which floated our white boats and the reflections of the silvery clouds that deepened all the sky to seaward outside of the white reef.

Late in the evening of our arrival we crossed over the little village green, which is studded with houses and groups of trees, each house, each mass of foliage set apart, either high on some mound to which steps may lead, or upon a slightly swelling rise, as if in some park, some pleasure garden where all had been thought of and gradually arranged. And so, I suppose, it has been here in all the centuries that have been spent in moulding this littlest village into a shape to suit its people, their needs, their comforts or their likings. And that must be partly the cause of the recall of artistic success and perfection in this rustic scene. All has taken as much time

and attention as the most complicated European mass of buildings, be they cathedrals or palaces—only the art has little shape but what nature gives it. All the more has nature caressed and embellished and favoured this elemental, unconscious attempt of man.

In the end of the long twilight, with the rose colour still floating in the upper sky, the little place looked more coquettishly refined than ever. Here and there the lights within the huts, often rising and falling in intensity with the blaze of the cocoanut fire, modelled the steps outside or the posts, touched trees and branches far away or near, and made pictures of family groups within, garlanded and flower adorned.

The larger house to which we went was adorned with flowers and all lit up. More people were crowded in it than the little village contained; for the island had sent visitors and performers for the dances which were to entertain us. I shall not describe them. But they were of course interesting, not only for what one liked but for what one did not like, and for our being with others who looked on. The spectators are inevitably part of yourself, as of the show, and in so far, the very way in which I looked on was a new charm.

There was among the dancers a young chief, serious as an Indian prince, who danced gymnastics, and ended with primitive buffoonery that seemed to delight his hearers. At the other end of the scale was a hunchback dwarf, who played realistic scenes so well as to be repulsive. But all this was a lesson. I shall certainly see all about me, in this form of civilization necessitating health and strength, or their appearance, a great line drawn between those who suffer or are weak, and those who are not—a visible line. As yet there is no place for my hunchback’s intelligence, except this buffoonery.

Later we left the dancers and wandered in wide moonlit paths among banana trees. There we came across our young chief looking now as if such a person never could have so demeaned himself, even from political reasons.

We exchanged alofas and compliments, and he placed his garlands in sympathy around my neck. He is a beauty, and his father is one of the tallest and biggest, as was his sister, who was once taupo.

This morning I have wandered with Seumanu for a few miles, to show ourselves. We pass other villages where we are greeted, and where at one time our yesterday’s friend, the old tulafale, canters out of his house in a circle, according to ancient fashion.

We see a great war canoe under its shed, and the remains of a high wall that encircles the island and was an old protection in war.

Much should I like to remain, but we shall have to go at once, for—as I feared—we are not here really for pleasure, but we are entangled in the quasi-necessary political advantages of being seen where there is “influence.” But this, I feel, is the kind of place I want to see—out of the way—out of use—where usages linger, and where the landscape is influenced by man so as to become a frame; as it was in little Nua on the island of Tutuila where we first landed upon our first morning in the South Seas.

For a thousand years, probably two thousand, perhaps three—for an indefinite period—these people of this smallest island have lived here and modified nature, while its agencies have as steadily and gently covered again their work. So that everything is natural, and everywhere one is vaguely conscious of man. Hence, of any place that I have seen, this is the nearest to the idyllic pastoral; it is not so beautiful as it is complete.

Iva in Savaii, Oct. 26, ’90.

I am writing in early afternoon, a hot afternoon, after a morning at sea. Opposite me in the circular Samoan house are a couple of persons of importance, a local governor, some four or five chiefs, all ranged against the pillars of the building, as I too am leaning against one. Seumanu and some of our acquaintances are to one side; opposite me, a grave young girl is moving her hands in the great kava bowl from which she hands the strainer of bark filaments to a reddened haired young man whose head flames in the sun outside, against the background of green banana leaves. Next her a big fellow keeps grating more kava; and another fills the big bowl with water, making big red spaces in the reflection of the sunlight, that streams in on that side. Small parcels of presents of food have been brought in and lie about on their side. Much kava has already been drunk and more is being prepared as more and more chiefs come in. Everything except the picture before me is in shade. Conversation, probably politics, is going on slowly, in the usual low tones, with an occasional high-voiced interjection from some less important member. The village orator, with his fly-brush over his shoulder, has long ago made his lengthy speech of welcome, and as we are told to do as we please I write to you, in the interval of watching the faces of the men, or the circular movement of the girl’s hands dipping in the big bowl, or running around its wide rim, when she wipes it, before passing the strainer to be squeezed out. The orator watches me suspiciously occasionally, but there is general confidence and peace, that we much need, for the heat is great and our sea trip was rough and hot. As I write, I hear my name La Faelé called out, and the kava bearer comes to me with the usual swing. But I fear the kava, and merely accept the bowl and return it undrunk according to form. Then many of the circle disappear—to church—the bell is ringing and little children half-naked, small creatures toddling along are already in the doorway; apparently all the neighbourhood are beginning to file toward it gravely, most of the women with hats that do not become them. Even a little girl-child, with nothing but a band around her little fat waist for a drapery, steps along with difficulty, a big hat on her head. This is Sunday conventionality: all the congregation are dressed, even the half-naked chiefs, who had left us, reappear from their huts, with white jackets, and pass on gravely in the procession at a distance. And the Sunday hymns add to the drowsiness of the Sunday afternoon.

This morning when we left the little island of Manono, some five or six miles away, people were going to church but to a different call from that of this absurd little bell. A big war drum, a long cylinder of tree cut lengthwise, was beaten in the oldest, most primitive manner, some way as ancient as man himself. A man bent down over this big wooden trough, that lay like an old log in the grass, and beat it from the inside, with one of the big hard stones that lay in it. The sound was unearthly, I ought to say uncanny, and nothing more savage, more a type of the war of the savage could be imagined; and it seemed fitting that this war usage, turned now to the call of Divine Peace, should still remain in the warlike little island, once the petty tyrant of the little group. Right alongside, near the great wall built for war, whose remains surround the island, marks of destruction recalled the exploits of the German warship Adler, that now lies stranded by the great hurricane, in Apia harbour, and whose crew were saved in part by the people they were killing, and especially by the brave giant, in whose boat we have been travelling. Indeed, there was an element of comedy quite Polynesian, even if atrocious, in the danger the Samoan rescuers ran of being fired at from the beach while they saved their enemies in the sea. But we made the first part of our trip to-day, in a native boat, for Seumanu’s was rather too fine, and too heavy to be risked in the entering of the curious harbour that we first made. This was Apolima, “the open hand”—a small, very small island about a mile out from Manono; the upper part of a submerged volcano cone, broken down on one side, so that there is an entrance. We soon reached the great wall of soft brown rock, which crowned with cocoanut palms and half covered with vegetation opens suddenly, leaving a small passage through rocks, just wide enough for our boat, skilfully paddled in the great blue wave that swung us in. Then jumping out, half of our men caught the side of the boat, to prevent our being dragged back by the returning swell, and we were pushed and dragged around a corner inside of the rocks. The tide was low and we were carried ashore on the men’s backs, through coral rocks that spotted the floor of the small lagoon inside.

The place was just what you might imagine; a little amphitheatre of green, the high reddish rocks standing on each side at the entrance, and between them, a great bank of rock, over which the surf broke so as to hide the little break through which we had come.

As we looked, three great palms stood up against this distance, planted on the higher ground that is all green, and leaning toward the sea as is their (loving) habit. Huts stood about with bread-fruit trees, and further back we were led to a little pool that supplied the place with scant water. Further back yet, the slope was all covered with trees, and after walking a little way, slipping along the greasy banks, and walking up the sloping timber notched with cuts to make stairs, and returning by another that made a level bridge across an empty channel, I sat down to wait for Mr. Sewall, who had walked up to the ridge, and I had time to make a sketch. All this took us a little more than a couple of hours while Seumanu’s boat was beating outside, in a fair N. E. wind. At last we were paddled out in the great wave that washed in and out, and with the swing that belongs to the balancing of a boat in a narrow tide-way. And we kept in the dance until we reached Seumanu’s boat, invisible for some minutes behind the blue waves. Then we ran alongside, and we scrambled in, exchanging good-byes—tofa—with the chief of the lost hand, who had taken us thus far. Within the next hour Seumanu’s boat had come to the outer reef off Savaii, in front of the landing of Iva. But there we had to wait at anchor. The water was too low inside the reef, so that we remained in the thin blue-green tide, that seemed to show everything in it, until a smaller boat came out to us, with Selu, the chief, and we were taken in. We landed among black rocks, within a few feet of a little scanty road, and clambering over a stile of rocks, at some part of the long black fence of stones in front of us, we found a village, which spread higher up and far back behind the trees, with spaces between houses; banana, palm and bread-fruit trees, dispersed as if for ornament or making little patches of plantation. There was a big church of the usual formless kind, not as handsome as the thatched ones with circular ends, that are certainly the types one would prefer. And so we walked up to the house, where we were to listen to speeches and the Consul to make one. Since I have begun to write, all has become more quiet, and I shall merely use my afternoon to make a few notes; we shall sleep in another house belonging to the Governor and be near, I think, to the chief, whose name is or was Selu, for lately he tells me that he has had the name of Anai given him, and we try to make out together just how near these changes come to the forms of the Western world. This is not a title properly, but as it were a name embodying rights that go to descent; for these men with titles apparently elective are noblemen who form an aristocracy of government and are usually to be distinguished externally by their size or manner as well as by little symbols or expressions of superiority. Anai tells me that of the many chiefs here, whom we have seen or will see, he and another, alone are the “political” superiors, as he expresses it; that is to say, he goes on, that they alone talk in public about such matters (I suppose in the way of decision), and that others would be checked if moving. Thus, that to him and to his mate alone the making of war, or as he expresses it, the allowing the “shedding of blood” is devolved. This chief is a most interesting and sympathetic person, speaking English very well, though apparently a little wanting in practice, with a pleasant, handsome face, resembling some Japanese types, interested in missionary matters, a strict church member, and showing much interest in foreign matters throughout the world; we talked of the civil war, and of the prospects of the republic in France, and of the universal “striking” now going on, as we might anywhere; and I am sure that Anai was “posted” to a later date than we, for the Consul had handed to him the files of the Herald for the last few months, while we had almost entirely abstained from that indigestive form of reading. Anai has explained to us that this being Sunday we shall have no reception, but that to-morrow there will be a formal reception, called talolo, and giving of presents, and that there will be dances. So that we shall spend this evening quietly, with a bath in the pool of fresh water, that is open to the sea, and try to rest.

On Savaii, Oct. 30, 1890.

We are settled here for an uncertain time, perhaps three days. This is the political capital of Samoa, and we are occupying the house of the great orator of the islands, important by his influence, though not so great a chief as several others by descent or by control, or even by physical superiority, that great proof of eminence in communities like these, where the chiefs seem to have reserved for themselves a size and weight that recall the idea of heroic days. Certainly the first time that I saw a well-chosen dozen together, as I did two days ago at our last resting place, all sitting spaced out, as if for a decoration on a frieze, silent and indifferent, or speaking occasionally without raising their voices, with heavy arms resting on great thighs, and with the movement of neck and shoulders of men conscious of importance, the recall of Homeric story made me ask myself which one might be Ajax, and which the other, and if such a one might do for Agamemnon. Fine too, as some of the heads were, they were only relatively important, as with the Greek statues that we have, and that we know quite well and intimately, even though their heads be missing. The whole body has had an external meaning, has been used as ours is no longer, to express a feeling or to maintain a reserve which we only look for in a face.

And as I am writing, while the household is enjoying its evening relaxation and preparing for the night, everything about me repeats to me this theme of all being done with the whole body. About an hour ago prayers were said and all sat around while the regular form was repeated, and then our young hostess prayed an extempore prayer commending us all to the care of God. Some words I can catch, but the intonation is sufficient. It is a prayer cadenced as well as the most consummate of clergymen could manage, and repeated without the slightest hesitation. Then she stretched herself out, with her head on the Samoan pillow, and talked with some young male acquaintance outside the hut whose head just appears over the barrier that runs between the pillars, for our house is placed higher than usual. She talked with Adams who is lying by her, and occasionally she criticises the game that is going on near her at that end of the house. I have only followed the little things happening by fits and starts, as I have made some sketches and have been writing letters, but I make out that the household is playing some game in which some motion or gesture has to be duplicated or matched, and that the beaten side, for there are two rows of players, is to dance as a forfeit. I say that this is the household, I mean that I take it for granted, though I see that one of our boatmen is among them, and that a couple of children have dropped in. The duenna of our young lady is also there. Sometimes I see her and sometimes I do not, but I know she is there on watch. But a siva has been organized slowly, a household unofficial siva, begun in little patches—somebody humming something and several beating hands. Tunes or songs are taken up and discarded, and sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, stands up to sketch some motions. At last they appear to have got under way, and I see them swing and dance, with little clothing and much clapping of hands, at the other end of the house. And everybody joins in: even the children beat time and take up the words—and the two elder women are the most enthusiastic and full of energy. Occasionally a burst of laughter salutes what I take to be a mistake or some wild caper that seems funny to them. Faauli, at last, after having pretended to sleep or to talk, so as to appear to herself to have done something, sits up and takes more interest. By and by she sketches out some steps in an indolent manner—soon she begins in earnest, and with one of the performers goes through an energetic dance, slipping her upper clothing for greater ease. The clapping and beating time comes fast and furious from every one, and laughter and small shrieks replace the gentle monotone and seriousness of the evening prayer. At last she sits down suddenly, her face rather overcast: (her name means “Black Cloud that Comes up Suddenly”). She has hurt her foot apparently, for turning round to see why all has stopped, I see her bent over and looking at a toe. Note that she does this as easily as a baby with us—her face comes down on her foot raised halfway to meet it. As I come up, she shows me that she has torn off the larger part of a nail, and is paring off the remainder evenly against the exposed surface of flesh. I offer her scissors which she uses with indifference, as we might cut off superfluous hair; and apparently more from politeness and obedience than from necessity, she accepts my court-plaster. Then being properly mended, she sits down to play cards while I resume my writing. Now here has been something that explains some sides of these good people; an absence of nervousness and insensibility to pain—for to most of us such a small accident would have been very painful and sickening. Before this the dance had been merely an outlet for action, as natural and unpremeditated as any other motion. The entire body has been called into play: from the ends of the fingers to the toes of the feet, all the exterior muscles have been playing gently for some two hours, with almost every person present, whether they sat or stood. This constant gentle exercise must go far toward giving the smooth even fullness that marks them. And meanwhile, too, they have decorated themselves; some one has brought out garlands, and they have been worn: flowers have been put in the hair, as if to mark that this is not work but play.

And now that all is quiet, I shall try to resume my itinerary, and recall small matters that are fading away, and becoming so confused from repetition that it requires an effort for me to distinguish this siva from that siva, and to remember what taupo it was who danced well, and what one it was who danced ill.

I was writing last in Iva, on our first day there, Sunday. It is now Thursday night.

Monday morning at Iva we were up early, before the sunrise, waked by the red glow of the dawn that calls one up easily from the hard bed of double mats laid on the floor of small stones. Every one was up, people were moving about, probably most had had their early bath, for they were returning with wet clothes, or with their garments spread over them like a veil. So that we scrambled over the stone wall that seems so anomalous and unreasonable here. But they not only divide village from village, but also prevent the straying of that roaming property, the pig, that wanders about the village and the forest also, picking up everything of course. To see a pig picking out the flesh of the cocoanut has been one of the small amusements of this afternoon, and last night, besides the invariable dog, pigs came into our house and snuffled at the faces of Charlie and Awoki, who lay outside of the mosquito netting. The path over the fences brought us to the bathing pool opening to the sea on one side only, where among black rocks the fresh water runs up to meet the tide, filling in the pool. There we went in and swam about, watched by many of the smaller villagers, girls and boys who were curious about the manners of the white people. And I was able to admire the skill, though unable to rival it, with which the native bathers draped themselves as they rose from the water, so that man or woman was clothed as he or she stepped on shore.

By the time we returned, our mosquito nettings had been put aside, the mats swept out, and Awoki was bringing us the tea and brown bread, which, with such native food as we liked, made our meals. Fish there was and yam and taro, and some preparations of cocoanut. And there were cocoanuts for their milk for which I do not care, but there was no water yet, the water in the two pools near the sea, edged with black stones, being blackish until the change of tide should leave the spring to fill up by itself.

Then our host came in and told us that we might rest that morning: that in the afternoon there would be a reception, a sort of review or “fantasia,” and presents of food would be given and speeches made, and songs and dances, the whole apparently included under the general title of the talolo which was to be given us. So we waited peacefully; I sketched the girls in the neighbouring house, who were at work making the wreaths, the garlands, the complicated flower girdles that should be worn later in the day, and perhaps at night, for there were murmurs of a night siva. But I knew that our host was a church member, and that the siva is not encouraged, neither the siva, “fa Samoa,” Samoan way, the Samoan siva, nor the siva of the Europeans, which we call round dancing; for had not Faatulia, the wife of our leader, Seumanu, been threatened with excommunication for dancing in her innocence in European ways at the Consul’s Fourth of July ball. Meanwhile my models across the way in the shadow posed badly: they were always moving, or they came across the way to see what we