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# Reminiscences of the South Seas ### By La Farge, John

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[Illustration: GIRL WEEDING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. VAIALA, SAMOA]

REMINISCENCES OF THE SOUTH SEAS

JOHN LAFARGE

Author of “The Higher Life in Art,” “Great Masters,” “One Hundred Masterpieces of Painting,” Etc.

WITH 48 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS MADE BY THE AUTHOR IN 1890-91

[Illustration: colophon]

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1916

_Copyright, 1912, by_ DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages including the Scandinavian_

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

and thanks are due the following owners, who were kind enough to lend their original drawings or paintings, for reproduction in this volume:

MISS HARRIET E. ANDERSON DR. WM. STURGIS BIGELOW MISS GERTRUDE BARNES MISS GRACE EDITH BARNES FRANKLIN W. M. CUTCHEON, ESQ. A. A. HEALY, ESQ. JAMES J. HILL, ESQ. JAMES NORMAN HILL, ESQ. MRS. GEO. LEWIS HEINS MRS. CHARLES J. HARDY COL. HENRY L. HIGGINSON MRS. EDWIN CHASE HOYT AUGUST F. JACCACI, ESQ. WILLIAM MACBETH, ESQ. MRS. MONTGOMERY SEARS EDW. P. SLEVIN, ESQ. GEO. W. STEVENS, ESQ. TOLEDO MUSEUM MISS MARY L. WARE MRS. PAYNE WHITNEY DR. W. WALLACE WALKER ESTATE OF JOHN LAFARGE

PREFATORY NOTE

This record of travel in the South Seas was designed by Mr. La Farge as a continuous narrative, but some of his most valuable impressions were embodied in letters written from the Islands to his son, Mr. Bancel La Farge, or jotted down at the moment in his journal. Since it was his intention to introduce this material into the book, it has with scrupulous care been drawn upon for that purpose.

G. E. B.

CONTENTS

PAGE

EN ROUTE

ON BOARD, 26TH AUGUST, 1890 3

HONOLULU 12

HAWAII 33

KILAUEA--THE VOLCANO 46

RIDE FROM HILO AROUND THE EAST OF ISLAND OF HAWAII 53

SAMOA 68

OFF THE ISLAND OF TUTUILA, ON BOARD THE CUTTER CARRYING MAIL, OCTOBER 7 68

AN ACCOUNT OF RESIDENCE AT VAIALA 142

A MALAGA IN SEUMANU’S BOAT, OCTOBER 25 155

PALOLO 212

ANOTHER SAMOAN MALAGA 229

AT SEA FROM SAMOA TO TAHITI 288

TAHITI 301

STORY OF THE LIMITS OF THE TEVAS 323

LAMENT OF AROMAITERAI 331

THE ORIGIN OF THE TEVAS 353

THE STORY OF TAURUA, OR THE LOAN OF A WIFE 364

TAHITI TO FIJI 387

FIJI 395

THE STORY OF THE FISH-HOOK WAR 411

AN EXPEDITION INTO THE MOUNTAINS OF VITI LEVU 422

EPILOGUE 478

ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

GIRL WEEDING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE, VAIALA, SAMOA _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

TREES IN MOONLIGHT. HONOLULU, HAWAII 12

BEGINNING OF DESERT, ISLAND OF HAWAII 34

CENTRAL CONE OF VOLCANO OF KILAUEA, HAWAII 48

CRATER OF KILAUEA AND THE LAVA BED. HAWAII 52

MEN BATHING IN THE RIVER NEAR THE SEA. ONOMEA, ISLAND OF HAWAII 58

FAYAWAY SAILS HER BOAT. SAMOA 68

THE FLUTE PLAYER. SAMOA 86

BOY IN CANOE PASSING IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. VAIALA, SAMOA 98

MATAAFA’S COOK HOUSE. FROM OUR HUT AT VAIALA, SAMOA 110

SAMOAN COURTSHIP 120

SOLDIERS BRINGING PRESENTS OF FOOD IN MILITARY ORDER. IVA, IN SAVAII, SAMOA 182

TAUPO AND ATTENDANTS DANCING IN OPEN AIR. IVA, IN SAVAII, SAMOA 184

PRESENTATION OF GIFTS OF FOOD AT IVA, IN SAVAII, SAMOA 186

SOUTH SEA SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT. SAMOA 188

BUTTRESSES OF THE FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND TOMB OF SIGA IN THE REEF. SAPAPALI, SAMOA 198

THE BOY SOPO. SAMOA 208

THE PAPA-SEEA, OR SLIDING ROCK. FAGALO SLIDING WATERFALL. VAIALA, SAMOA 210

GIRL SLIDING DOWN WATERFALL. SAMOA 212

SAMOAN GIRL CARRYING PALM BRANCH 246

FROM OUR HUT AT VAO-VAI, SAMOA 258

MAUA. STUDY OF ONE OF OUR BOAT CREW. APIA, SAMOA 286

STUDY OF SURF BREAKING ON OUTSIDE REEF. TAUTIRA, TAIARAPU, TAHITI 302

THE DIADEM MOUNTAIN. TAHITI 308

PEAK OF MAUA ROA, ISLAND OF MOOREA, SOCIETY ISLANDS, TAHITI 338

EDGE OF THE AORAI MOUNTAIN COVERED WITH CLOUD, MIDDAY. PAPEETE, TAHITI 354

CHIEFS IN WAR DRESS AND PAINT. “DEVIL” COUNTRY. VITI LEVU, FIJI 396

TONGA GIRL WITH FAN 418

EDGE OF VILLAGE OF NASOGO IN MOUNTAIN OF THE NORTHEAST OF VITI LEVU, FIJI 434

STUDY OF HUTS AT END OF VILLAGE. MATAKULA, FIJI 452

BEGINNING OF VILLAGE--DAWN. MATAKULA. FIJI 456

MOUNTAIN HUT OR HOUSE AT WAIKUMBUKUMBU, FIJI 460

ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK AND WHITE

PAGE

SIFA DANCING THE SITTING SIVA 84

UATEA DANCING THE SITTING SIVA 90

SWIMMING DANCE. SAMOA 166

AITUTAGATA. THE HEREDITARY ASSASSINS OF KING MALIETOA. SAPAPALI, SAVAII, SAMOA 196

PRACTISING THE SEATED DANCE AT NIGHT. SAMOA 200

TWO TAUPOS DANCING A “GAME OF BALL.” SAMOA 256

TULAFALES SPEECH-MAKING. VAO-VAI, SAMOA 262

TAUPO DANCING THE STANDING SIVA. SAMOA 264

FAGALO AND SUE WRESTLING. VAIALA, SAMOA 274

YOUNG TAHITIAN GIRL 336

SUN COMING OVER MOUNTAIN. EARLY MORNING, UPONOHU 348

MEKKE-MEKKE. A STORY DANCE. THE MUSICIANS AT REVA, FIJI 404

THE DANCE OF WAR. FIJI 406

JOLI BUTI--TEACHER. FIJI 408

FIJIAN BOY 450

RATU MANDRAE--FIJIAN CHIEF 454

REMINISCENCES OF THE SOUTH SEAS

EN ROUTE

ON BOARD, 26th August, 1890.

San Francisco was the same place, with the same curious feeling of its being cold while one felt the heat; but there was neither place, time nor anything for me; there were things to buy and replace--all sorts of things had been forgotten, and now more than ever I realize that it is well to be overloaded--even if I believe that later I should feel it. What I want I want badly, and San Francisco is not a place to get it in.

And then there was a pleasant club, with the usual hideous decoration, but very comfortable and with such a good table, and such a _real_ one--meats that were _meats_, and fish that was _fish_, and fruits in quantity, and fruits are not fruits for pleasure unless they be in quantity; and good wine and champagne of a kind that is not ours; and a Mr. Cutler who took us there and talked of things he had done or would do, that were interesting, and the contrast between the smoothness of life there, and the apparent difficulties outside. I say apparent because many of them are based upon a feeling of indifference or “look out for yourself” in any event outside. Yes, the Union Club was a good waster of time. And then I am not yet well recovered at all from the strain of the beginning of the month; and I felt as if I had sea-legs and gait from the motion of the car. So that I shall say nothing of the great bay, nor its mountainsides, that look at this time as if they were nothing but those we have seen all along, but with the sea rolling in.

We got off on Saturday, not at noon as stated, but waiting for a couple of hours in dock, the little steamer filled with people and with very pretty girls, who, alas! were not to accompany us. But we have a circus troupe “_à la_ Buffalo Bill”; an impresario with the nose and figure head of the “boy,” and his wife, or lady, the usual “variety blonde” to match, joining, like the telegraph, (through the seas and continent of America), furthest Australia and the Singing Hall of London. Long-haired cowboys see them off, one of them fair-haired and boyish and “sixty-two.” There are Indians, one long-haired, saturnine, and yet smiling, with the usual length of jaw and hair (so that his back runs up from his waist to his hat), who sits with some female, perhaps a dancer, and talks sentiment evidently, in his way, to my great delight--and hers, too, whatever she might say. They sit with one blanket around them, and he points gracefully, and puts things in her hair--and draws presents out of his pockets, wrapped up in paper, and puts them back to pull them out again. She sits against him, and smiles at him ironically, and laughs, and generally looks like a pretty cat lapping cream.

The cowboys meander about and go to the bar-room too frequently, especially one, a fair-haired one, who feels the first attack of sea-sickness, and sits with his head on his hand--and resents his comrades’ begging him to come below, telling them that they have mistaken the man he is, that he is a Pawnee medicine man, he is, and that he will wipe the floor with them; and then he subsides again--so that my expected row does not occur.

Then everybody subsides, even the cheerful young Englishmen and old Englishmen, and the middle-aged Englishmen, who pervade a good part of the ship and utter all their small stock of remarks with slowness and power. There are others--the teacher going back for her vacation, to the seminary at Hawaii--the young German I suspect of being an R.C. priest, and the Scotchman who has carefully talked for the last hour on the advantage of our system of “checking” baggage, which as he says allows you to go on without getting off at any station to see if the “guard” has the things all right. But as he remarks, for the hand luggage, a “mon” can take care of that himself, otherwise he would not be fit to take care of MONEY!!

But the weather is disappointing, very cold (so that ulsters are convenient), dark and grey, and there is a heavy coast sea, which I didn’t like until yesterday, since when it has been warm, and we have had blue sky in large patches through rents in the violet silveriness of the clouds. It is the exquisite clearness of the blue of the Pacific, a butterfly blue, _laid_ on as it were between the clouds, and shading down to white faintness in the far distance, where the haze of ocean covers up the turquoise. The sea has the blue for a long time, but dark and reflecting the grey sky. This morning (Thursday) it has been blue like a sapphire, dark to look at except near by, but when you look down to it, and see it framed in the openings of the windows or the gangways, blue light pours out of it, and I realize that my blue sketches of four years ago are no exaggeration. When the clouds open somewhat, the blue light pours down and makes the shadows of the clouds violet, except when this fog against the warm sky looks red and rosy. Even the shadows of the blue sea look at moments reddish, when they reflect the opposite grey cloud. But we are not yet quite in the _sun_ seas--this is not the season yet nor the place. There is all the time a veil of cloud, a veil so heavy as to make great cumulus clouds bunch out in extreme modelling. But when it is grey, all in silver--there is a light--a lilac grey, a silver, not known to the other side; and it is only when the distant smoke of the steamer goes over the grey clouds that I realize that they become like those of the north Atlantic.

This is Thursday afternoon. On Saturday at dawn, or before it, we shall sight at first the island of Molokai, the leper’s island, where Father Damien lived, then Oahu and its capes and Honolulu.

Friday, 29th August.

Last night the sun set in those silver tones that I associate with the Pacific and with Japan. The horizon was enclosed everywhere, but through it every here and there the pink and rose of sunset came out and in the east lit up the highest of the clouds in every variety of pink and lilac and purple and rose, shut in with grey. But the moon, “O Tsuki San,” had her turn--then I realized where we were. All was so dark that the horizon was quite veiled, but the light of the moon, in its full, and high up, poured down on what seemed a wall-embroidery of molten silver slanting to the horizon. Itself was partly wrapped in clouds or veils or wraps like those that protect some big jewel, and when unveiled or

## partly covered, it had the roundness--the nearness of some great crystal

“with white fire laden.” The clearness was so great at places open through the clouds, that I thought I could see Jupiter’s satellites, and decided it was he by this additional glitter. There is no way of telling you all that the moon did, for she seemed to arrange the clouds, to place them about her or drive them away, to veil herself with one hand of cloud. It was like a great heavenly play--and played in such lovely air! If I could write on for pages I could only say that I had no idea of what the moon could be, nor of the persistence of colour that she could hold in all the silveriness.

When I went to bed, blue light poured in by reflection from the waves that had looked dark and colourless from the deck. It was the same contrast as by daylight, when the dark sea, isolated from the sky, takes a blue like Oriental satin, and is fired with light.

To-night again the moon gave a play--no longer in the great pomp of a simple spread of silver forms of cloud, but like an opera of colour and shadow, far in front of it, hung at times, a cloud so dense as to seem as dark as our bulwarks or “roofing”--but usually a cloud of blue, perhaps by contrast with the warmth of the clouds behind, all lit up and modelled and graded tier on tier. No Rembrandt could have more _indication_ of grading and of dark than these clouds had in _reality_. No possible palette could approximate the degrees of dark and of light, for the moon, when she uncovered entirely, was the same transparent silver vase out of which poured light. It seemed impossible--the electric light alongside of us was no brighter apparently than the bright markings of the light on the deck, on the edges of the bulwarks, and on the brass of the railings. Imagine the electric light, in say our Fifth Avenue, really turned on everything around you. It is a stupid simile, but I wish you to believe in what I am saying. I took a coloured print into the moonlight to try, and could make out the colours--fairly of course--moonily, but there they were all, all but the violet. We could read, poorly, but we could read. But this is not the point, it is that we could see far away to the moon, and that it made a centre of light for every dark, for every half-tint, curtain upon curtain hung in front of it--all the foregrounds of sky you could wish for in that possibility of fog cloud.

Never shall I think again of the moon as a pale imitation. Of course its representation began when the sun was gone. Why it was like a sun one could look at without wincing, and canopied itself with colours that did not imitate, but were merely the iridescent spectrum that belongs to the great sun. These colours, by their arrangement in the prismatic sequence seemed to make more light, to arrange it and dispose it, as if art was recalling nature. All this must seem unintelligible. It would to me if I dared reread it. But this is at least what we came for--the moon and the Pacific.

To-morrow morning, Honolulu.

There was the profile of Oahu at seven this morning. Earlier, Molokai was a long cloud on our port. Now Oahu becomes clearer, and is distinctly violet or plum colour. The sea in front of it is blue, and dashed with white foam. Above, the clouds are in the more delicate greys and violets, and far up is a little rift of blue. To the right a large white triangular patch--an extinct volcano cone. Near the base of the mountains all is mist.

It is now 7:30. Birds, swallows, and sea-mews meet us; the swallows came early this morning. But until yesterday, for two days, there was no life except the flying fish.

We are very close, so close that I cannot draw except in panorama. All looks like cinders as we go on. Lovely cloud effects on the hills--rainbows--and the furthest edge of everything in this promontory daring all.

Then, as we round this, _with our first turn perhaps since we left_, we can see more mountains and hills--for the first time, right on the blue sea, a fringe of green (not yellowish)--the first time I have seen a fringe of green to deep blue sea.

Later we see beneath the great hills or mountains, that look like cinders, green bushes of trees, and houses looking pretty enough and cool--but we are still far off--and then behind this grey mountain with fringe of green we begin to feel Honolulu.

Big mountains, green valleys and slopes far back, a fringe of trees, some large buildings, a steamer’s smoke from some place, here and there masts--all this spread for miles, like an edging. As the space unfolds we see an immensely long beach (Waikiki) running at the base of the hills around a bay, and far off in the haze many masts. “White water” edges the sea everywhere, even before the line of ships. The water has calmed on which we now slip. There is no motion to it; no more, apparently, than would make a fringe of foam to a lake. A narrow channel in the surf, and we see the shipping and the port: steamships and sailing vessels, an English and an American warship, and we are in, and I am interrupted for the keys of the trunks.

HONOLULU

Sunday morning, Nuuanu,

Nuuanu Valley, Honolulu.

Last night, after having tried the Hawaiian Hotel, we came up here and took possession of Judge Hartwell’s house, which we had seen in the afternoon.

We sat in the verandah, looking out toward the sea, I should say about two miles from us, with the same brilliant moonlight we had had the night before. The two palm trees in front of the house were gradually illuminated as if the whole air had been a stage scene, through the smoothly shining trunks glistening like silver, where the lower green stem of the bole leaf or branch of the tree beneath the branches separates from the lower cylinder. Behind them spread sky and ocean, for we are just on the summit of a hill, the sea-line spreading distinctly and the air being clear enough, (even when a slight drift of rain came down across the picture), to see the surf far out, and the lines of a great bar (to the right), which made a long hooked bend into the sea. Lights shone red on board of two English and American war vessels. Far off a few azure clouds on the horizon; and occasionally a white patch of cloud floated

[Illustration: TREES IN MOONLIGHT. HONOLULU, HAWAII]

like gauze over the palms, then sank away into the space shining far off--a little darker now than the sky, and warm and rather red in colour.

Meanwhile, the palm branches tossed up and down in the intermittent gale which blew from behind us in the great hills. The landscape was all below us, lying at the very foot of the palms which edge the hill upon which we are. Across the grass the moonlight came sometimes, as if a lamp had suddenly been brought in--and the colour of the half-yellow grass, which was not lost in the moonlight, urged on this delusion. Even the violet of the two pillars of palm and its silveriness were strong enough to make greener the colour of the sky.

When I walked out behind the house the hills were covered with cloud--I say covered, but rather the cloud rested upon them, and poured up into the sky, in large masses of white; the moon shining through most of the time, out of an opening more blue than the blue sky, itself an opaline circle of greenish blue light, with variant iridescent redness in the cloud edges. Against it the heavy trees looked as dark as green can be, and now and again the branches of other palms were like waves of grass against this dark, or against the sky all shining and brilliant. Occasionally it rained, as it did in the afternoon; the edges of the great cloud blew upon us like a little sprinkle of wet dust, and later, as it came thicker, the rustle of the palms was increased by the rustle of the rain. The grass of the hills shone as with moisture, but the grass outside, near us, was so dry that the hand put down to it felt no wet.

And I went off to bed under mosquito nettings, in a room that smelt of sandalwood, to sleep late and feel the gusts of wind blow through the open windows, and to think that it rained because I heard the palms.

Yesterday it rained very often. As we landed, the rain had begun, and the air was difficult to breathe with the quantity of moisture. All was wet, underfoot, though the wet, by the afternoon, had dried in this volcanic soil. We had been taken up to the home of Mr. Smith, Judge Hartwell’s brother-in-law, and decided at once upon going to housekeeping, for which we had to drive into town quite late; and we made out of our business a form of skylarking, I think to the astonishment of our guide and friend, who may have thought that persons who had been able to discuss seriously in the afternoon with himself and a member of the former cabinet, Mr. Thurston, the question of the sugar tariff, and its relation to the Force bill and the position of Mr. Blaine and of the Pennsylvania senators, should not be people to waste their minds on the dress of Hawaiian girls and the fashion of wearing flowers about the neck.

But the ride was full of enjoyment and novelty. Honolulu streets are amusing. The blocks of houses are tropical, with most reasonable lowness, and are of cement in facings; and the great number of Chinese shops and of Chinese, with some pretty Chinese girl faces and children’s faces, enliven the streets. And there are so many horses, small, with much mustang blood and good action and good heads, and ridden freely--too freely, for we saw a labourer ridden down by some cowboyish fellow. Hawaiian women rode about in their divided skirts; they had, as well as many of the men, flowers around their waists and their necks, and among their delights, peacock-feather bands around their hats. Many of them were pretty, I thought, with animated faces, talking to mild and fierce men of similar adornments. And as I said, there was much Chinese, and dresses of much colour--for men and women--and trees with flowers, like the Bougainvillia purplish rose coloured; grey palm trunks, and many plants of big leaves like the banana; yellow limes, and fiercely green acacias.

At any rate it was fun; we stopped and bought mangoes and oranges from natives who smiled or grinned at us. The air grew delicious with the wind that took away the oppression of the dampness, (we have about 80 to 83 degrees), so that if this be tropical, it is easy to bear, and the vast feeling of air and space gives a charm even to the heat.

I walked about this morning toward the hills, of which the near ones are covered with grass of a velvet grey in the light, and dun colour in the shade; but behind, the higher hills are purple and lost in the base of the cloud that has never ceased to turret them. After a while the sense of blue air became intense.

Tuesday.