Back in Apia—Robert Louis Stevenson—Chief Mate Herberts lost Overboard—Savage Island—Thoughts of the Workman’s Train to London and back to the Suburbs

From Hiva-oa we went to Fatou Hiva, then to the Paumotu group that sparkled like Isles of Eden in the vast shining water-tracks of the Pacific; for miles and miles there are islands dotted, and I felt some of the enthusiasm that R.L.S. felt when he visited the same Islands, and he did not exaggerate about the beauty and novelty of the Marquesas and Paumotus group. I heard him telling some friends of his experiences at Hiva-oa and elsewhere as he delightedly told them anecdotes of Marquesan etiquette, and I daresay I saw him writing some of the experiences which he gave to the world in his books, for one day in Apia, while I was having some dinner in the German Hotel, I sauntered around and, gazing through one of the doors, saw Stevenson quite alone, sitting at a little table with a bundle of paper by him, writing; he stooped very much while he was writing, which must have been very bad for anyone who suffered from chest complaint.

By his side was a glass of something; he was quite oblivious to all around him, and did not notice anything. I think he often went to that silent hotel room so as to get away from everyone and write.

A gentleman came into the bar while I was there, and walking towards the door of the room wherein Stevenson was writing he was spotted by the hotel manager, who shouted to him that the room was engaged, and I believe Stevenson tipped the manager of the hotel so as to be left to himself.

After calling at Society Islands we left for Samoa, where once again I met the incorrigible Hornecastle. He had been away to the Solomon Group, and as I strolled out the next morning after my arrival, I met him on the beach in a hot argument with two Samoan sailors, who were demanding their wages.

“Not a God-damned cent,” Hornecastle was shouting, as I came up. It appeared they had contracted to do a week’s job and had done one day of it and then demanded the full week’s money. That was real Samoan all over, especially those who were Christianised; they were terrible hypocrites; would do you by tricks, and then go off to the mission class and shout “Me good Samoan mans, all good, no steal. Halee, hal-ee ju-ja!” rolling their eyes skyward terrifically the whole time. Some of them are really serious in their belief and they are then very dangerous. I met a fierce-looking fellow one night and he started to try and reform me. I was sitting talking to Hornecastle and two Americans at the time, and they had been giving him a drink or two and then they started to chaff him about the missionaries, and I laughed at something Hornecastle said about a missionary who had married; in a moment he lifted a knife, and if I had not dodged swiftly I should have had it in my ribs up to the hilt.

He was not a full-blooded Samoan. I have never seen a Samoan who had once accepted your friendship turn traitor afterwards. But even the true Samoans are not so trustworthy when they have got the religious mania on them; they are a superstitious people, and the solemn-voiced missionaries chanting into their childish ears create extraordinary illusions in their minds. Some go raving mad and others go off to the other Isles and live a life of isolation and devote all their remaining days to begging the one great white God to save them from hell fire. I have seen them myself in this miserable state, deserted by all their relatives, and when they become dangerous they often suddenly disappear, for the Samoans quietly finish them off on dark nights! They club them and bury them with sorrow in their hearts, just the same as Europeans do, only our methods are perhaps the unkindest—we bury our insane in an asylum and they bury them under the forest earth and flowers. They do have lunatic asylums in the Islands, but they are for the milder cases, and the Government found that the incarcerating principle was very much abused, for the Samoans soon got to know of the free food, lodgings and comforts of the asylums of the South Seas, and drastic measures had to be taken to end the numerous cases of mild madness that kept seizing Samoans and Fijians who were down on their luck and wanted a rest. I do not know what the South Sea Islands are like now, but when I was there penal servitude was one of the greatest honours that could be conferred on the middle-class Fijians, Tongans, and Samoans, for they got food in the prisons that they only smelt outside, also warm comfortable beds, and when the discharge day arrived they could be seen leaving the prison gate wailing bitterly over the cruel flight of time! Nor is this an attempt of mine to be funny. I have seen the natives deliberately come on to a schooner’s deck, and right in front of my eyes start to unscrew the cabin skylight to steal it, so that they could get, as they say, “in pison place.”

Again I fell in with a “new chum” who had just arrived and cleared from a schooner. Together we secured positions as superintendent post-diggers for the German Commissioners.

We had several natives under us. It was a look-out job; we had to watch and see that they toiled without cessation. At first we were kind to them, but it did not pay; the natives were very much like children, they soon took advantage, and so we soon changed our manner, looked stern as charity organisation officials, and once more obtained the approval of Van Haustein, the head overseer.

We had been extremely short of cash. The storekeepers required the wherewithal down (as elsewhere) before parting with necessaries which we had not got, and which we anxiously needed to make us respectable Samoan citizens. We did not stick the job more than two weeks. It was squally weather the whole time, and my eyes often inclined seaward as longing thoughts came to me of home and England.

About this time I once more met Stevenson. It was a wild night. I had just returned from a short cruise to one of the off Isles of the main Samoan group; rain was falling heavily, in true South Sea style. I had taken refuge in a native bungalow by Apia beach. Close by lived my friend the Samoan shell-seller, whom I have before mentioned. We were almost drenched to the skin, and were talking with some natives and an old shell-back who also had taken shelter, when out of the darkness, across the open track, came hurrying Stevenson. He was dressed in a large extemporised hood of sail-canvas to protect him from the torrent of rain, probably lent to him by some friendly trading skipper. Breathless he stood beside us, was quite chummy with the natives, and seemed in a most amiable mood; he was smoking, talking to the natives one side in Samoan and joking with the shell-back, who “sir-ed” him, the other side. It was a terrible night. As we stood there we could hear the seas thundering against the barrier-reefs as they rebounded heavily and threw their manes of spray shoreward, where lay the wrecked warship Adler with a broken back, high and dry, thrown up by the hurricane of some time back. Overhead moaned the bending coco-palms that stood scattered about amongst the native bungalows. Soon the roof of our shelter started to badly leak, whereupon we all decided to make a dive for the old shell-seller’s home, hard by. Stevenson led the way, enjoying the venture, laughing and running like a schoolboy. Though the distance was only a hundred yards or so, we all received a good soaking, Stevenson excepted, who held his canvas sail-sheet with arms outstretched as he ran, making a sheltering roof over his head. The shell-seller was asleep on his mat, but upon our arrival at once got up. He slept “all standing,” in the middle-class South Sea style, and was not overburdened with clothes. Lighting his candles, he did his best to welcome and entertain us. As I have before said, the walls, indeed his home itself, seemed composed of shining shells, all the varieties of the South Seas, pearl, red, white and glittering rows, small ones and some weighing half-a-hundredweight, made up the length and breadth of his walls, beautiful shapes and curves, glittering as they reflected the candle gleams. As we all stood gazing in the gloom, Stevenson forgot the late hour and the rain, and with enthusiasm went off into natural history as the old fellow, who was an enthusiast in his art, got very delighted to be able to expatiate over the various specimens, the depths and dangers he had encountered whilst gathering together his vast shell tribe. He was overjoyed when Stevenson bargained with him for a quantity, and salaamed in a ridiculous way, till Stevenson’s mouth curved with humour as he strove to be polite to the old chap every time that his garment, a torn sailor’s shirt, touched the ground in front as he bowed! I do not know if that particular shell-house has been described by visitors to Apia of that time; if not, it should certainly have been numbered amongst the curio sights, both for its ingenious construction and for the combined artistic and commercial instinct of the Polynesians that it revealed. As we stood smoking in the doorway that faced inland, we could hear the songs and laughter of traders and sailors who drank deeply in the small grog shanty not far off. I have no doubt that Stevenson did not seek its shelter because of its extra gloomy side rooms kept by dubious Samoan women, and to be seen going in or out on a dark night would not enhance the reputation of anyone. It must have then been close on midnight; the rain suddenly ceased sufficiently to encourage us all to go out and venture on a run for it. Between the squalls we all made headway, tacking from bungalow to bungalow; some of the inhabitants we found awake, squatting just inside the door-hole. As we dodged from shelter to shelter Stevenson seemed to enjoy the whole thing as much as a boy on a truant night out. Of course, we all were familiar enough with native homes, but the late hour, the rain-dodging, the jovial receptions we had as we suddenly all scrambled into them without ceremony, was an experience that had a deal of novelty in it, and at times whilst we were on flight strikingly weird, for as the moon overhead burst through the flying scud, Stevenson with his oilskin canvas sail stretched out by his extended arms flapping looked like some forest fiend running, only his long tight-breeched legs revealed as he flew ahead of us all across the moonlit track to the next shelter. As I write it seems like a dream to me that the lively boyish-mannered man of that stormy night in Apia years ago was the now idealised poet and author, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Before I left the Islands I went off on a schooner to Ellice Islands and then on to Santa Cruz and called at the Islands of the Solomon Group. In a typhoon that struck us fifty miles north of Rotuma we lost the chief mate, Herberts, and a Chinaman who was a deck hand. I was asleep on deck at the time right aft, snug by the stern sheets. Before I went to sleep the night was calm and clear, the stars shining brilliantly all around, and we were just drifting to a lazy breeze at about four knots an hour. Suddenly I was awakened by a terrible crash and an awful typhoon was on; the seas were rising rapidly and it seemed that hail and rain were falling in a deluge, but the sky was quite clear overhead, for it was the rifts of the waves all around being whipped off by the wind. I scrambled along the deck, the skipper was calling me. “Hi, hi, sir,” I shouted, and in a trice we got the sails in, and then, as I stood by the skipper holding on to some cordage for dear life as she lay over, the seas lifted their heads to windward and as their tops hissed and foamed a tremendous sea came over. I distinctly felt the boat sink under the weight of that ocean of water. The skipper grabbed hold of me and I grabbed hold of him; the sailors forward by the fo’c’sle saved themselves by rushing in the fo’c’sle alley-way. We heard a cry above the thundering of the waves and then the vessel righted; the skipper was overboard head and shoulders, half through poop bulwark bars and cordage! I had hold of his leg! I was holding on to save myself, and so saved my life and his too! Two sailors came to our assistance; we were both half insensible but scrambled to our feet as Alf, the bos’n, shouted “Sir, the mate and the Chinese hand have gone overboard.” I shall never forget those words, and the sudden realisation of what it meant, as we all stood and gazed out across the black waters as the mountainous seas arose slowly and grandly, blazing with phosphorous foams, and as they travelled onward the typhoon blew with such terrific force that our clothes were ripped up! It was impossible to attempt to save them, our boats were all washed away; once we all thought we heard a faint cry across the waters, and that was the last of John Herberts, chief mate, and Ching the deck hand.

I stuck to that skipper and eventually arrived back at Vanua Levu, and went over on a cutter to Samoa again, and for a long time I was despondent and had sleepless nights, as I would lay awake and remember.

Before I left Samoa I went over to Savage Island with Castle, who seemed at that time mighty pleased with himself over some contract he had got to take a cargo of copra and other stuff to Tonga. It was at Savage Island that I stayed with an Englishman who had married a native woman. He had several children and they seemed very happy. I stayed with him for two weeks before returning to Apia with Castle. He would often talk to me about England in a sentimental way and knock the ash out of his pipe and sigh, and yet he seemed, as I have said, happy in his free life, for he had a beautiful plantation and grew all kinds of tropic fruit, and his wife was a most pleasant woman; indeed I think he was much happier than thousands of English people in old England who live in the London suburbs and toil their lives away to bring up their children,