Ulutogia (part of Aliipata) Dec. 2d.

We are at a charming place in the town of Aliipata, which seems to stretch indefinitely for miles along the shore. We have had two invitations to stop; one from Mataafa, and one from Tofae, who both have their connections here, but we have pushed further on, and are now at the house of a chief, whose name is Sagapolu, as I make it out.

Before us, to sea, over a great spread of blue, are two blue cones, little spots that belong to Tutuila. Near us are rocky islands—two of them outside of our reef. We came in on the blue swell that hid everything, and then pulled hard over the boiling of the surf, in the charm that covers danger. The morning was lovely on the water, and we raced with our other boats. We had said good-bye to our friends in Fagaloa, who the night before had given us a siva, not a prolonged one, well done by the girls, and accompanied curiously by the two-year-old daughter of the chief, who followed seriously the performance, and beat time or caught up with the gestures of the older people. Nothing could be stranger, and a more complete proof of the siva’s being a natural expression. No one noticed the child as anything extraordinary, except by an occasional smile. Our crew was asked to perform, and the villagers and the taupo gave the preference, and she was right, to our men. The girls always seem anxious to see the men’s dances; a compliment not always returned by the men. The rising of the moon saw us to bed, and we tried to sleep late, fearing the hard day that has just passed over us.

Here, so far, all has been as usual. The house is far from others, all in the open, with palm trees some way off. At one end of the room is a reading desk, and the ruined walls of the church near by, explain that this house is used as a temporary chapel. At the other end, is a table covered with costly mats, upon which are flowers in glass bottles, and there are two big settles and two big chairs, covered with shaggy white mats made from the fibres of the fao tree; all this furniture upon beautiful sleeping mats.

We have had a complimentary speech from the tulafale, the old chief, who is thin and emaciated and extremely dignified, and has given us kava; and I have learned that Seumanu has a kava name of Tauamamanu Vao (fighting with beasts of the field), when kava is called out for him; the taupo has come in to make it, and Samau of our boat, and Tamaseu of Seumanu’s, both tulafales, have come in to share it. There has been a spread of Samoan fare, apparently good, but I feel prudent and have taken little kava, and have been only a beholder of the feast.

The taupo, who is very young, is very silent, even when Atamo says that he is writing home about her.

They are sitting together, he absolutely immersed in his writing, a feat of which he is always capable apparently, and she is wiping her face on a new silk scarf of blue and red which he has given her, so that it has already caught the shine of the cocoanut oil.

Another little girl has singled me out, and has come to make friends, but I can only give her lollipops, that are handed away almost immediately, like my biscuit, to the smaller children. I have invited my fate, for I smiled at this beginning of taupodom, when she came in, almost closing her eyes from anxiety, to put a Samoan pillow for me on the pile of sleeping mats that had been spread for us to take a nap. Seu is having his back punched by an elderly lady, and peace and the flies reign over all. Here is a curious fact; one would think that with their habits of sitting and lying about, these people would remain in position, but it is only when they are sleeping very soundly that one can find them steady, unless it be a Tulafale officiating, or a chief sitting for dignity. The foot that does not press the ground is simply waggled interminably. Try it for part of a minute and see how difficult it is; and then you will realize that people who can move the foot for ten or twelve hours a day, may be able to dance when sitting, with an ease that only a juggler knows about his fingers.

Meanwhile, the sky is blue, with innumerable white clouds;—the sun smiles down on the banana grove behind us, and in front of it a little veil of light drops shows that it is raining overhead. The smoke from the house near us bends down lazily over the roofs, and Seu’s tulafale and one of our men, are beating a tune on the two great war drums. Lali is the name of the beating of a tune. One two, two—two, and so on, weird enough and rather tiresome. Such are the intervals of their naps, for they have had three hours of solid rowing this morning, and they need rest. At this moment the old chief comes in and talks about the music—praising the accentuation. These drums are near his house, say some twenty feet off, and are very large; gigantic troughs of old wood.

Then he calls across space for his daughter to make kava again; this is the third time within just three hours, but this time the kava will be chewed and not grated, as Atamo has asked for it.

Meanwhile a discussion on the name of the daughter: it is Mo Niu Fataia, if I get it right; it does not matter. Her name represents the fact that a place called Fataia, which we passed yesterday, has wild cocoanuts growing upon it that roll useless into the sea: hence her name. “The plenty of cocoanuts, of Fataia, that you don’t get.” It is this little word Mo that means “plenty that you don’t get.” Niu is cocoanut. You will notice all through, so far, how often names for people are arbitrary and accidental. Otaota, the beautiful daughter of the missionary person, is called Rubbish. Fagalo, who slipped the waterfall, is Forgetful, and so on. We have Smell Smoke Namuasua (or Cook-house, as Samasoni translated it) in our boat’s crew. In the early traditions, such and such an early divine heroine names her children by things that occur at their birth. One, I remember of “Carpenter’s Tools Rattling in a Basket.” The Bible is dipped into at random for names, and yesterday I talked to young Miss Kisa, which sounds like Kiss Her, but is Kish “who killed Saul.” (My taupo’s statement, the usual Bible may run otherwise.) I cannot make out whether good luck follows these sortes biblical.

At this very moment I see coming to me a young lady who wears a black mat and a mop of yellow hair and nothing else, not even a collar. She is late, having been at church. She is the official taupo, the other one only taking a momentary place, and she is the daughter of the chief, and has brought presents of rings and of tappa; and her name is Faatoe, which means all agree, “Leave something in the basket” (when all are helping themselves), and I think this is a very fair addition to our stock of names.

All this time the others to whom she is added are getting the kava ready carefully, gravely, chewing the root to extract its juice. There is a big row of kava people or attendants—all pensive; one man, two taupos, another man of ours, a little girl, and another of our men—no—there are a few others who are around the corner so that I can’t see them.

Then I went for a long walk on the seashore. The sun was setting; only toward Apolima was the sky at all clear. Over one of the islands to the north, cloud and mist threatening immediate rain, made a large veil that hung far up and melted its violet lace over the island. The sea was of the fairy green that the inside of the reef takes in rain, spotted with violet where the coral lay. With me walked on one side my little girl, her upper garment fluttering, her young, long brown arms and legs glistening in the sun. She smiled at me for all talk, for English she knew not. On the other side, a hunch-backed dwarf, Japhet by name, with yellowed crispy hair, naked to the waist, a garland of red fruit hanging down on him, to meet the blue drapery about his loins—his bare legs and tattooed thighs glistening also in the light. Their company meant kindness and the habit of accompanying a chief—and they were kindly certainly, and meant to please and serve. Neither you nor I could have invented a more curious combination, and one of which I should like to have either a drawing or a photograph, that it may serve for the ends of my life. If instead of me and my linen helmet, and trousers kept up by a sash we had had one of the Spaniards, who ages ago, perhaps, landed in the unknown neighbouring island of the Gente Hermosa, the “Beautiful People”—some bearded man with butgonett, and velvet hose and jerkin, the picture might have been that of a knight-errant in fairyland. Such a faraway image it made to me, as I looked down either way to the earnest face of the dwarf framed in the fruits of his garland, or the politely anxious eyes and moving bosom of the young virgin of the village, as we stalked on almost abreast, in the silence, making threefold tracks of very different shapes in the smooth wet beach; until the rain broke down, and then I ran back, supported and clung to by my improbable companions.

As the day closes it is still raining. A sort of glow is in the grey of the rain, so that it reddens all the shadows among the trees. Far off toward Tutuila there is high up a great opening where the sky is as of an apple-green that has been washed with the lavender of the rain clouds: big cumulous clouds round out, made gold by the sunset.

The light fades away, and all becomes blurred except always the cumulus in the distant green sky. The lamps are lit and we turn to dinner.

In the evening afterward we got to talking about the legends and superstitions, and we were for a long time merely getting about it. There had been a promise to have something written out for us of old verses, and then songs were sung, ordered from a number of girls.

These were mostly poems concerning the son of the old chief, who died in the last war, and about whom, says Maua, he is always thinking. I watched his face and sketched it while he sat and listened. He is as striking as an Arab chief, with the orbital bones projecting like a camel’s from out of his face, so as to make a great line of light or dark around the looking part of the visage. His head recedes far up, and his long beard drops on his thin chest. This death of his son has affected him more and more, so as to make him slightly insane.

Maua says that he was once “the baddest man in all Samoa,” and that he was the greatest dancer, and that he had invented many dances, and that he might be tempted to-day to dance, if only we could find some person to accompany him with songs to suit. I think that Maua is wrong, for the chief has become missionary, and is quite absorbed in that sort of thing. As I was saying, he has a splendid, fanatic, Arab head; and so the evening has closed with the old chief’s listening to these memories of his son. I am frightfully tired with listening to the legends struggled for. Perhaps a verse or so of some of the songs might be worth saving out of this wreck of dreaminess. It was a pure, complimentary, Samoan idea, poetic only perhaps because we cannot help translating the feeling as well as the words; it was about a chief the singer sang—a young and handsome chief—and she said how natural it was for the girls to wish for the hero’s notice, “for the very winds that blew belonged to him, coming as they did from his ancestral island that lies to windward.” But our friends are not poetic, I feel sure. They are intensely practical and full of common sense; they make poetry for me. And they are restful—and I—am sleepy, as I said before.

Wednesday Afternoon.

This morning, while it was raining, the old chief talked of the spirits that once ruled. We are told that the chief believes yet in these ideas, but I cannot make it out distinctly, neither one way nor the other. He is missionary now, and as we take his portrait, wishes to hold the prayer-book in his hand. But he tells me there are people who control the spirits (devils, our interpreter and we have called them—aitu) and that they predict things and recover property, bringing evil upon him who has erred until he acknowledges. And this power is not given to any man by inheritance, it cannot fall upon a plebeian, neither the son nor nephew of chief or priest, if indeed there were priests, for this he denies. He says that his people prayed, making oblations to the deities of the village and of the household, and that when these were collected together, they were eaten by them, which, he says, means by those who collected—not the priests, but the family or those attached to the chief, who thought it time for such offerings. And these were given to the bush, if it were for the bird divinity; to the sea, if the divinity was the cuttlefish. His was the cuttlefish, and his family did not eat it. All this, of course, you know more or less of; what I say is of no value except insomuch that I heard it myself. To know all here would require to be master of the language, not to be confined by missionary ideas, nor to be connected with such—and after all that, to have a very receptive, a very acute, and a very truthful mind. There are such people in the world, but you or I do not find them usually writing books, and judging questions for others. These soundings of the savage mind are Atamo’s properly; he is patient beyond belief; he asks over and over again the same questions in different shapes and ways of different and many people, and keeps all wired on some string of previous study in similar lines. But everywhere one comes right against some secret apparently, something that cannot be well disentangled from annoyance to the questioned one. For instance, in the question of genealogy, Seumanu told us that had he been interrogated some years ago in such a direction he should have struck the questioner down on the spot. Still we have hope, and if any one can manage it, Atamo will. Web after web I have seen him weave around interpreter and explainer, to get to some point looked for, which may connect with something we have already acquired. As many time as the spider is brushed away, so many times he returns.

This morning talk of the world of bad spirits that do harm to man suggested to me an opening toward a side I had never read of or heard of. Were there spirits that did good as well as spirits that did harm? There I had a door for home history. Yes, there were such, and no further than here: his son had had such a spirit, who went about with him and looked after him, protected him from harm (apparently from woman a good deal; and took, in such cases—as even with us—the shape of some other woman). Sometimes this protection would be sudden; when he was in the way of harm, a good spirit would appear and drive away those that might harm him, and would sometimes lead him personally away—prevent him—as the old word goes. And all knew that he was so protected; the spirit had been seen and would only disappear when suspected. Otherwise, any one might take the same for mortal man or woman—as in Homeric story, where Nestor speaks and acts, but it is Athens all the same. And had this spirit, or such a spirit, invariably an action only for good? Certainly—and nothing had ever contradicted such a view. And yet—only once, the good spirit had killed a man, but it was for protection always, as a guardian. Then, of course, I could ask no further. As you see, analogies keep coming up, our ideas easily dropping into theirs, and informing them—probably.

And had these spirits and others been apparently existing out of the world of humanity?

The dead became spirits and fought anew the old battles, with a knowledge of the present; as when a chief aitu, known by name, some weeks ago refused to participate in a spirit war urged on by a feminine spirit. “No,” he said, “I have been missionary, but if I am attacked I can defend myself. Go on with your war; if you are successful you do not need me; if you are pursued too far, and into my territory, I shall be here.”

Nene is the name of this male aitu who has “joined the church.” ... And the dead killed at sea turn into fish, into turtles, into sea-life. Now how to clear these from the original spirits existing of themselves? There was one, Tangaloa, who, our friend said, might be supposed to be a distorted vision of the true God. But that you know as well as I.

Here the talk drifted away to a question that, as you see, naturally connects. Were offerings made to spirits as being ancestors? Were offerings made to ancestors? No; of that they were sure—not even if Hawaii was different. And they did not care if the black pig meant anything in Oahu—to them (and the white teeth shone) it was only good to eat. If it crossed them in war excursions, it was only good to kill, but the bird and the cuttlefish, they were not to be hurt; and the bird might mean a good deal to them as it gave them omens by its flight—according to its favourable direction or the reverse, or by its cry. But they had, above all, a great divine omen, the rainbow—which presided over all. When for the people here it was bent over Tutuila, then things were against them; if it stood against them they were not to go into the war, but wait. It, however, it went with them, its end turned toward the enemy, then they were protected by it, and had victory promised them.

We passed the morning in such talk. Then we sailed out to the little island of Nuu Tele opposite, an old crater, and waited a while, while Atamo explored it, thinking to find out matters which might affect present theories. He found raised beaches, stratified, and shells and pebbles in the rock, so that it was mud once, and forced up and not submerged, all to the greater confusion and defeat of Mr. Darwin. But as these triumphs are out of my line of momentary record, I have only to say that I found in the little savage girl-wife of our momentary host the type of little Sifa of Tutuila, which had almost been lost to us. The usual Samoan face is heavy and not wild, suggests good nature and practical views; poetry is not in them but from them. It is we who put it there, because their bodies mean to us possibilities of expression which we associate with intentions that have not yet been developed in them. Nerves they have not; it is only occasionally that one recognizes any permanent tendency to emotion, often by some trifle that is not always pleasant, as in the sadder face of some dwarf or joker, or as in our host’s face, over which great sorrow has passed—or perhaps again in such a “chevalier” as Mataafa, whose character is rare the world over.

Our day passed pleasantly, and as I write, the other end of the room is filled with all these good people lying in a jumble together; Maua and the taupo who is pulling at him and lying on him in part; another girl’s head under hers, while all their feet run up on the posts. Others yet, lying flat, continue the circle, singing together, and sometimes, without rising, beating a siva movement on their own breasts or on each other’s. Four of our men, of the biggest, sit far away in the dark, with crossed legs, upright, immovable, like Egyptian statues: or, as

I close my letter, like sphinxes, have bent down to the ground from their hips, all lost in the dark, with large heads and shoulders and outstretched arms.

Lepa, Thursday, Dec. 4th.

We were out to sea, in the sun and rain, between nine and eleven o’clock, and passed the two islands, large blocks of green and brown on the green and blue water. We came here first, pulling through the reef, straight to the enormous beach, where our eyes were at once charmed by the theatrical, or should I say geological absurdity which divided it, cutting it right down from the steep hills behind, to the water’s edge. This was a little waterfall of three cascades tumbling over some small rocks projecting far across the beach, so that the water had, as it were, a stone conduit upon which it was carried from the mountain to the sea. It was an absolute set piece, quite practicable, and if ever I have to design for scenery, here is a little natural object all ready to hand. The copy could be supplied with real water, just as this one is, and the palm trees growing upon it would conceal the machinery as they do here, only—if ever I do it, I shall be told that it is unnatural—just as it looks here. Why does the water run on knife edges, instead of taking the easier lines of depth, and tearing up the sand for a bed? I might explain how, for Atamo is full of geology, and it is not as mysterious, of course, as it looks. But I give it up, and content myself with sketching the little girl between the posts opposite me.

We are in the faletele (guest-house) quite near the water. Some thirty feet off from us cocoanuts hang over the beach and the sea. Right behind us are rocks upon which is perched a new and handsome Samoan house, half-hidden in the green of trees. A promontory, finished by a little island with palms, cuts off the further end of that long beach which is divided by the cascade with its rocks and palms. Toward us, on one side, falls the column of water, which ploughs a little canal into the sea. There our men are bathing, standing up under the falling water, and later I shall be there too. The other end of our bay, near us, rounds away behind trees, and a mound, upon which is a fishing hut under palms. In our house the central beams that support the roof, come together like a V. All the posts and beams are decorated with flowers and leaves, and in the centre, near the great branching post, stands a table covered with siapu (bark cloth) and with flowers in pots, as on an altar, say a Buddhist table altar. Some of our men are dragging up the boats, but I am too lazy to turn to see them place them under the shelter of the cocoanuts. The taupo, is looking at me while I am writing, or at Atamo similarly occupied. She is bored, but I can’t help it. I could not entertain her if anything depended upon it. It ought to be cool, but the beach sends up hot waves of air, and my taupo’s cocoanut oil melts into it languidly. The name of the place is “A Break Between Waves,” and the name of the taupo’s brother, that heavy youngster, who is talking to Seu at the boats, is Break Love. There is a connection that I feel, but you had better make it out yourself. If the chief is heavy, the taupo is clever, and makes herself agreeable. Her sister helps her in every attempt. They are not as dignified as one can remember, and perhaps had we kept to another line of travel, and visited higher types of aristocracy, it might have been different. But they are easily amused and talk much, and are great beggars—and gently, are willing in the same way to marry us, one of them proposing to marry us both herself, and even asking at the last moment, “Are you going away? I thought you would have married me this morning.” All this is joke, with perhaps a look to possibilities: for do I not remember how two little taupos very missionary, far back in Savaii, changed their little easy manners to seriousness, and almost aggressiveness, when some madcap hinted that we were on a wife-hunt, and had come all this way for it. Those two little pieces would not allow the liberties of five minutes before, nor would they let me go without having catechised me seriously as to these chances—to which they were willing to submit; but they wished beforehand to know whether there was anything in it.

We had a siva at night, in which our young lady figured with the great grenadier’s cap that looks so savage and soldierly, and which is really becoming, the heavy faces growing gentle and refined under this heavy contrast. But it is painful to wear, being bound on tight, and how our taupo could stand it for three hours, as she did, I know not. She danced and sat down alongside of us alternately for nearly four mortal hours. Through all the dances there was a great display of pantomime, mostly comic, made none the less by the gravity of some of the performers who acted in reality as a dancing chorus; so that right through the crowd of delirious young men and women passed in and out a fine old Roman senator—I cannot better define him, who never smiled and who wore his drapery as do the antique statues, and whose mind evidently saw other meanings in the steps than did the other dancers. I could almost have wished that there had been some meaning in this accident, some deep, deep thought in this tragedy woven into the cloth of the fun, but I believe that it was merely the pleasure taken by the old man in feeling that his limbs were as vigorous and as supple as long ago. And we went to bed, the entire company remaining alive and interested for several hours after our succumbing to sleep. I could hear late in the night Charley and the taupo crunching sugar-cane and whispering while Charley, during the whole evening, had lain sound asleep. But sitting up late in the moonlight is Samoan. Before I fell asleep, my mind went over some of the historical developments of the theatre. I have certainly been instructed that at the beginning complete realistic performance is impossible. And yet I had been listening to a play in which every possible combination of a fin de siècle manner of looking at things had been slowly and elaborately combined. Was it then that this society in which I am now living, savage as it seems to us, is really a very modified form of an ancient structure of life? Or did these good people, when they sailed from the dim Havaiki, bring already, in their habits of mind, modified trainings of earlier civilization? Any similar views would please me, but I should be better pleased to consider that the rules have not been accurately defined and that we don’t yet really know enough about it.

This story of nothing I conclude to-day at Falealili, as we get further on. We were overwhelmed with gifts at parting, so much so as to make us feel as if perhaps the only fair thing would be to marry one of the girls, as an adequate return. Then with the return gifts we might have run away.

A wife brings mats usually, and gives much support, as is well known by one young gentleman I hear of, a captain of some schooner, who has wives in different places. Each of them in turn supports him when he appears, and as long as his visits are regular, and there is no preponderance or excess or skimping in his remainings, everything goes well, and there seem to be no jealousies. In fact, I think that the having to provide would be a great reducer of those sentiments that flourish most where there is idleness and pampering. Let us say that the subject is too complicated, for I feel already as if I had carried over too much of this letter into the next one. I am concluding now twenty-four hours later, at Falealili, while waiting for letters, and appearing to listen to the complimentary speeches of a tulafale who rejoices in the name of “Tuiloma, King of Rome.” He has a good deal of style, but not enough for such a name, while the chief of Lepa, who drops in to explain his reasons for being absent during our visit, has a fine head and makes a pretty good picture. He has fought against Seu, and they talk over old times. I am told that he fought well, and he looks martial, as I have tried to hint above. Otherwise there is nothing to speak of, at least for me, for I am miserable. It is very hot, and I feel the want of air. I have tried to sketch two little girls making wreaths near by, and they have been driven away to let some tulafale come in and make the ordinary speeches, to which Seu listens with his usual impassive manner. If he is bored no one would know it. Much laughter goes on after the ceremonies. But nothing can restore the little girls. One is a half-breed—very light, her already fair hair bleached with Samoan liming, and she has grey eyes and a very Samoan face. Her father is dead and she lives absolutely like a Samoan. I follow her movements, trying to detect some differences in this little creature, whose fate might have been just as much the other way. All that I can notice is that while I sketch she moves less than the others, and is content with fewer gestures. The fluidity of the pure brown blood is not quite there. I have told you, I suppose, often enough, how difficult it is to catch them in a drawing, unless they are asleep. I have never been able to get a whole minute for any position. Seu sometimes remains quiet for a few minutes, and some of the greater people or men of character are disposed to be steady. But usually it is perpetual movement skilfully disguised under an appearance of quiet. The half-breed was, as I said, more quiet and steady than her darker companions: our little half-breed Charley—sometimes referred to by the old joke of Charley Yow, the Boy Fiend—who serves as interpreter and boy-of-all-work, being a boy, is still more restless than any of our boys. He will lie asleep absolutely as if dead, but if awake he must wriggle. He bends over in true Samoan way, but as he has neither Samoan grace nor strength, I half expect to see him put his head between his legs, dog-fashion, so as to be able to take a convenient look up his back. He plays with his toes and rubs his fingers meditatively, with the European side of his mind, on the rims of our glasses and saucers. Even the rainwater gets a taste of cocoanut oil when he has been about. Yet he is clearly “Faá Samoa,” and lazy as he is and pleased at playing with his fingers on a string tied round his nose, or trying the edge of a knife, he is serviceable as a Samoan. When we put him to the task of interpreting a little Samoan poem a few days ago, he showed an unwilling capacity of mind not unlike what I could remember of schooldays when we had to put Chaucer into modern English, and when we bent all our energy into avoidance. The future of the half-breed is an interesting question here, but too much for my present dreaming.

December 6th.

Later, last evening, during which I was absolutely idle like Charley, and unlike Charley, because I was not well, we had a sort of abbreviated domestic siva. We were politely asked if we should like one, and as politely we explained that we were determined to go to bed early, but that we should dislike to interfere, and would look on as long as we were not too sleepy. The little daughter of the tulafale, herself the tulafale (spokeswoman) of the chief’s daughter, who is the taupo, explained to us that being “Misionali,” she could not figure in it nor be present, and if she were Misionali I think she did as well. The siva was sung sotto voce, and danced softly by three or four women, probably with reference to not disturbing while we looked on—in some curious confusion of meaning. The taupo, who is very stolid, with the expression of a judge of the Supreme Court, danced with nothing on but her tipuka or upper garment, put about her waist, so that the hole through which the head is put in this variety of “poncho” exposed the least polite parts of her back. And as I referred to her gravity of expression, or want of expression, by an allusion to the expressionless look of a judge on the bench, I might slip in here a pretty anecedote of the bright little daughter of one of our celebrities, from whom you will see that she inherits. Last winter her father gave her a chance to see the cabinet officers together, and on her return she was asked, “Well, were they nice?”

“Not nice, but funny!” she said.

Well, so with the dance; and danced by the virgin of the village and her chaperon it had a curious side. And it was funny enough, with the fun underscored and interlined and underlined, as it were, by verbal comment. Apparently the true dances that are not played are innocent as well as beautiful, but when the drama comes in, the dance follows the usual history of the drama.

This is a great missionary centre, and to-morrow will be Sunday, a day on which we shall have to rest because the people here are sabbatarians of a very strict kind, and do not approve of travelling on the Sabbath. Our men tell us things of the habits of travelling; they are all, Seu’s men and ours, except our two tulafales, whose behaviour is all that one could ask for, young gentlemen whose glory consists in the constant and sometimes successful assault of feminine virtue. As they explain it, they would be laughed at at home, if they could boast of no conquests during the trip; but owing to this being an “European malaga,” because we are European, they are on relative good behaviour; so that they lead in prayer and sing hymns, and are in other matters quite good boys. I have no doubt also that besides the fact that Saturday night and Sunday will give them plenty of feminine society, they also do not think that it’s quite the proper thing to travel on Sunday.

So you see that one can go far and see the same thing, and that, as I told you in Japan, the world is fairly round. Expressions vary, but the meaning is the same.

I am writing now from the next station called Vao Vai, “Between Waters,” a queer little place looking like some African possibility. Little houses are bunched together near a little river close by us, and in front of us, seen through trees, far out, is a little island full of palms, which the taupo tells me, is used as a resort for sick people who go out to get fresher air. She herself explains that we shall have no siva because they are sad for the loss of a young man, a half-brother of hers, brother of the taupo whose dance and dress I described above, and who was the taupo of the preceding village. Our good girl is missionary besides, which will secure us the greater rest from sivas. Her brother’s death was explained to us last night. He had gone over to Malua, where is the theological school, on a trip, with only one attendant, and fell ill and died here on his return, having, they assured me, been beaten to death by devils. So he said himself before death, and in proof of it, his body was sore. Moreover, just before his death, he ran out into the woods, in the dark. But being caught by the leg, by some tulafale or person of importance, and asked who he was, he gave his father’s name, thus proving beyond a doubt that he was possessed by his father’s ghost, I have not yet been able to get the connection between his father’s spirit and those who beat the son to death. But that may turn up yet, for the subject is in everybody’s mouth. I ought, perhaps, to add that the young chief had had a cold before, with inflictions of pneumonia, and had been somewhat relieved by medicine from the Catholic priest at some adjoining station, but the devils were too much for him.

To this little hut, looking out toward the enormous space of the sea, nothing growing in front of us but two half-cut-down bread-fruit trees, on the line of the horizon and the little island just outside of the reef, and the long line of breakers extending right and left and as far as one can see—have just come your letters carried to me across the mountains, in a great rain. I have been in some anxiety for them, for I had had only partial news since September 5th, which was three months ago. Newspapers have also come from San Francisco and from Auckland, giving telegraphic news as far as November 17th, from San Francisco to November 6th; so that our evening is full of incident. There has been a political change through the elections at home that alters the positions of persons, and gives one a sort of feeling that all is not Samoan peace. And the financial news affects us with doubt as to long delays, for drafts on the Barings, or on any one, indeed, will not be quite as easy to use in these little communities. So that this event is a turning point to me out of the world, as well as to the great people in it. To increase the resemblance to home, where

little habitual matters accompany great ones, we find in this little far out-of-the-way place fresh butter for the first time in many months, and milk. So that with Awoki’s cooking, we interrupt for this evening and to-morrow morning, the course of our Samoan food. It is amusing to notice what importance this event has assumed, and to realize that to-morrow, Sunday, will be so much more pleasant for this little change.

Sunday.

This morning I watched from behind my mosquito-bar, where I was pretending to sleep, the procession of people going to church for the second time. I had been waked at dawn by the little bell, which sounded like a steamboat call for all aboard. Against the background of the sea filed continuously the parishoners, grown people and children, most of the women with the hats that belong to their idea of church. But among them were some women with “fine mats” around their waists, that contrasted with the queer European headdress apparently made only for this and similar markets. These contrasting individuals were, I was told, the watchers upon the dead man of whom I spoke, he who was killed by devils in the woods. These fine mats were their guerdon—for he was a chief’s son. Had he been the chief, my informant said, mourning would have been general; the people would have had half their hair cut, and this would be done perforce to such as neglected it. With this information I woke up officially, just as I saw our men filing away to church. Later they came back to ask for canned salmon for their girls. Nothing has occurred. I have sketched most of the time. Atamo has been over to see the little islands, for the pleasure of paddling in a canoe. The taupo did not go, whether from missionary sabbatical feeling, or whether she was afraid, or whether the men would not let her, for they said that a woman did not know how to take care of a boat over a surf; rather an ungallant way of looking at it, for the women we have known, pretty generally paddled about well enough inside the reef. Our little taupo, who was very nice and quiet, spent most of the evening playing with the men. I have spent the day in intellectual idleness, as I told you, as the place is very small, being half surrounded by a little river, and crowded with small houses. I have moralized in a depressed way, and in this direction: would we at home, if things were clean enough about us to deceive us, find it amusing to sit in an Irish shanty, as we do now in this one? We should have pigs about and occasional dogs, and kind, ugly old women and some politics. And the resemblance grows more and more as I look at it from the dirty point of view. Things are thrown out of doors to the pigs, who are so convenient to put things into you wish to get rid of, as Mrs. Bell used to say. And the ducks wander about everywhere, and I watch the way the pigs eat cocoanuts, etc.

The chief and the others, the tulafales, have made speeches and drunk kava over and over again, all day, in an unofficial manner. And I am so sleepy, so sleepy that I almost fell off my chair, for I have a chair or camp stool—during evening prayers.

December 8th. Saagapu.

Anagapu is the name of the chief.

We are a little further along the coast, having passed through a dangerous reef, and waiting for a better tide, which we shall have to-morrow. The village is large, laid out handsomely in length, a little tedious in its regularity, well planted with trees, and with swamps behind and on the two sides that confine it. We have had the longest tulafale talk that I have ever suffered from, and I am prostrated with weariness and with sultriness of the air. We had feared heavy rain and looked with anxiety at two great water-spouts circling in the hills as we sailed along. There is an arrangement of mountains just behind us, probably some ancient crater, that looked as if it must be always in a boil of rain. There is nothing to do, fatigued as I am, but to go to sleep, and try to brighten up for a siva that I foresee. The people are many. There are lots of children, and girls who strut about careless of their lava-lavas, for this is a place unfrequented by foreigners and by the elegant people of Apia. I see two blacks, or Solomon islanders, dressed in lava-lavas in the Samoan way, who have taken refuge here, having escaped from the German plantation further on, which we hope to reach to-morrow evening. The chief tells me that they are quiet and well-behaved, and that they go to school like the others about them. All these blacks work harder than the Polynesians, and even their anxiety of look, as they come with hesitation toward us has a sort of possibility of action that I do not find in the browns of a similar class. I need not have suffered so much from the conventional speeches. Our host, on my waking from an attempt at sleep, stretches himself against the post nearest to me, and breaks out in most vernacular English, stating that he has been a little everywhere, and has been away from home for some twenty years. He has been as far as New York, which he says is not a good place for a sailor; in China many times, in Japan, in India, in France, in England, etc. He has conversed with the American Indians and states that he can understand their “lingo,” as he names it, from its similarity to the Pacific tongues spoken by the Polynesian. He has theories on these subjects, and believes

that there is a connection of race between the Hawaiians and the Samoans and Tahitians, and he extends it to the Malays in the west, and the American Indians in the east. And as I listen to him, I keep thinking that the story of the entire Pacific is probably the only explanation of the Polynesian. I should like to hear more, but personages of importance again come in and more talk of the society kind recurs. Later we are asked if we wish a siva. We hesitate for every reason. First, we hear rumours of a siva being prepared for us further back in some place already passed, owing to some letters of Tofae that announced us. Secondly, we are not impressed by our taupo, who besides want of beauty has also a discontented look which in some grotesque way reminds me of modern English high-art pictures—something grumpy. Then I have made up my mind to have a good sleep if possible; so that we say yes, if only the siva can be in another house; then we add that if we are too tired we propose to leave. We find, as usual, our boat crew extremely interested in the subject and in the performers, and the neat little house where we go in the dark is absolutely filled with spectators. A place has been set apart for us, filled by our two camp stools, and we are in time. The performers are full of anxiety to begin, and suddenly enters our taupo. In the dim light her sullenness looks like calm, her big headdress covers enough of her face to make the lines look delicate; and she comes in with a sort of hop of assurance, and throws herself down an entirely different person. She has authority and grace, and the “I don’t know what” that belongs to any one completely sure of a good professional standard. And she smiles with excitement, her smile widening with the cocoanut oil upon her face. And so the siva was full of fire, and danced in splendid time. Then we were able to leave and managed to get a good night’s rest. The floor when it is well covered with mats makes an excellent bed, and when one is sure and protected from mosquitoes everything else fades easily into sleep. In the morning we had a short talk with our host, who complained that he could not get away again to his wanderings. Samoa might be a good place enough, but he was bored. He had to submit, however, to the head of the family, who refused to give him leave. The old man, as he called him, using our phrase, kept him confined to his chiefdom. Family authority was thus vested in his uncle, our friend Seu, who had the name, and though the chief’s authority was his own for his chiefdom, outside of that the head of the family was master. This was the Roman law in its integrity; our chief personally was as a son, and only free when exercising a function. Even were he required to leave and come to his uncle in Apia, he should have to do so, just as he was bound not to go off as a sailor again.