Part 14

We had a _siva_ in the afternoon, when a young chief danced with the _taupo_ of his village, to whom he is engaged: She gave him some occasional affectionate whacks of reproof at some remarks that distance did not make clear; and we had a great “_talolo_” with the speech of the great _tulafale_ of Samoa, and then a return speech, which was listened to with some curiosity. Some devil inspired me to urge our representative speech-maker to discuss the severe and mistaken view of dancing taken up by the missionaries--I mean the brown clergy. They had done all sorts of good, but they were crowding too much out in their zeal, and the white missionaries were not so excessive--and so forth. And Adams had made a remark that seems to me a deep one. Something more is needed for these people of few occupations. If they are to live to-day they are destined to a putting aside of the excitement of their little wars, and they need some outlet in games that exercise them, and keep up their appreciation of physical life and excellence. Anyhow, these views were launched out at a risk, and in a few days, without a doubt, will have gone all around Samoa.

My own reason was a nearer one. It grieved me to think that Aigā should risk her church position, because she was polite according to Samoan etiquette, and that the other girls, who did the same, to wit, gave us dances, at the request of their fathers and superiors, should be placed between divided duties. This had been an oppression to the mind ever since we came; and perhaps after all, we may have done well.

In the evening, our own _taupo_, Faauli the daughter of the orator, gave us a _siva_; she danced, and danced well, and so did Lilia, the daughter of a great chief, a Catholic, and then we had the other _taupo_, who danced again with the young chief to whom she was engaged. His dance was certainly amusing to the imagination. The chorus was singing about himself, in his honour, and he performed the steps, if I may so express it. He and another with red girdles and black, furry loin-cloths, and red leaves in the hair, and red bead necklaces, danced with the _taupo_ herself, dressed all in red and purple leaves. The dances were a dance of the hammer, and the dance of the cocoanut, and in the glitter of the palm-fire, the ballet of our fairy opera. And satiated with dances I have tried to be quiet and to sketch until now.

Oct. 30th.

We shall leave to-morrow. I feel tired, a little saddened; I suspect that sleeping on the floors at night, in draughts from the back-country, and wandering occasionally, in the midday, among the hot thickets, may have given me some little fever. The German manager of one of the plantations was telling me a little while ago that there was danger in this, though nothing like what he had seen in other countries. On that account, he had lifted the flooring of the houses, built for his men, Solomon or Marshall islanders, whose health was of course of importance to him, during their contract time. After all this care, they will be taken back, perhaps, to the wrong place, and I suppose, eaten by their fellows, if they happen to land on the wrong spot, or at some neighbouring village.

* * * * *

This afternoon we went to Sapapali, to take leave of Aigā who had been so kind to us, and who seemed almost hurt at our not remaining. We found her apparently sad and troubled, and I regretted that we had been accompanied by the other Taupos of our locality. Not that they were not kept in their places by the greater lady, for this rather timid and amiable person knows perfectly well how to speak to people who are socially below her, and nothing has interested me more than her various shades of inflection in addressing others. But something has evidently annoyed her, whether the break with the church on account of the _siva_, or her girls having been indiscreet, or her having made some mistake that I do not exactly understand. She was much teased by one of us about some “tendresse de cœur,” and that may have annoyed her. And the praise given to her little girls, and an attempt to get them away from her control may not have been pleasant. When I had seen the rest of the company pass by my sketching place, and I knew that the visit was over, I went back alone to her house and found her among her girls prostrate and in tears. But she came out to me, so as to be alone, and she spoke as if we should misjudge her from Sunday-school views and not understand that her parade at the head of her warriors, all undressed, was an official duty to us. And then bade me sweetly good-bye--and but a moment ago my curtain mats have been pushed aside by a messenger who has come all this way at night to bring me flowers from her.

So that I am not in cause: I leave it to you to read. I feel almost as if what I were writing to you were indiscreet enough. Remember that there is little privacy here, and that the houses are half open, so that one may almost rush in. In fact, were it not for the complication of human nature, I cannot see how there could be any privacy. There is privacy somehow or other, but not in our way. Outside the house there may be ways of saying things, inside and out there are dictionaries of signs, but they all have the most wonderful way of hearing, and there are always eyes everywhere. I have remarked that since I have cultivated the habit of sitting on the ground, I see more of everything, and I seem to be able to watch more easily. But, as I said, privacy is relative: nothing has struck me as more Samoan than an elopement which I almost witnessed. The young woman ran away with some young man, along the beach, in the presence of hundreds of people who, it is true, were not exactly watching her. She was just as publicly caught and brought back, cuffed sufficiently and scolded by her older sister, and I see her occasionally, in a neighbour’s house, looking not so repentant as on the first afternoon of her punishment. As I said, I am tired and sad--and I wish you good-night across the ocean and land.

At Home in Vaiala, Nov. 4th.

The end of our malaga was not so pleasant. When we left Sapotulafai last week, I was ill and fevered, and suffered quite a little during our long trip of fourteen hours at sea. We had to row it. There was no wind, and our men, never over-energetic, had been up all night in the last enjoyment of social delights. Once indeed, Seu scornfully took an oar, but even with that, twelve good hours’ rowing is not bad work, and we got back in the evening at eight, having left Savaii at six o’clock in the morning. The light and colour were as usual: even with fever I could occasionally see how beautiful all was, but I managed to sleep, and do not remember anything in particular, unless it be the long-continued song of the men rowing----

“Lelei. Apoli-ma! O-le-e--O-le-e!”

Vaiala in Upolu, Nov. 13th.

Yesterday, on Faatulia’s invitation, we rode over to the Papa-seea, the Sliding Rock: only a little distance, some hour and a half from where we are, so that by eight o’clock or so we were out in the rain, mounted on the horses seared up with difficulty for the early start. Mine was a horse owned by the boy Poki, who is an owner of horses--he has now three, and his food for them is given by the village common. His still more youthful friend, Sopo, hired his horse to Atamo and somebody else fitted out Awoki and Charley who went with us. Samau, the _tulafale_, and another of our crew were to go ahead and carry some European food and our painting and photographing kit. As we passed along the beach, which is, as you know, the street of Apia, we met Meli Hamilton and Faatulia and Fanua, and little Meli Meredith, all mounted. Gathering them together, under rather a gentle rain, we turned toward the woods behind the town and cantered over a dyke, through a mangrove swamp, where formerly must have been some coral inlet; then past some villages, a few huts, and then into the forest. This is no description to you, but perhaps I can interest you by letting you understand that the delicate form of the great novelist, Mr. Stevenson, passes up or down this road, of necessity, on his way to his Spanish Castle in the mountains. So that when he begins to write South Sea stories, and is obliged to use local colour, you shall probably admire some beautiful description of all or part of the road.

In the woods we overtook our men, and dear Fagalo and Sué, whose bare legs were paddling in the rain. A little path led through woods all overgrown, in a narrow zigzag, over fallen trunks and under branches beneath which we bent. The light fell through green high up, upon green all around us; innumerable small trees and bushes, and occasionally great trees whose trunks ended in high buttresses of rooting sharp and thin, as if the trunk had been ravined. These are the trees which in the old story-books of travel were supposed to furnish a ready-made planking. Over all grew lianas and vines whose great long stems hung in the air above us, or low enough to be pushed aside as we rode. Notwithstanding the several varieties of growth--the Samoan wild orange with double leaf and prickly stem, whose fruit was used in old times as a soap to wash with, or the Fuafua, with broad leaves--the effect was not unlike the appearance of our own forests, had it not been for the lianas, and the occasional sheafs of wild banana that swung against our horses’ heads. For an hour we went along in a scattered file, the sunlight occasionally dropping in upon the great stillness around us. Rarely a bird sung. Once we heard the running of a river. Then we came to a stopping place; all got off; the girls

[Illustration: THE BOY SOPO. SAMOA]

skilfully ungirthing and unsaddling their horses, and tying them up to the branches with long ropes. Over the trees that sloped down below us, we could now see the harbour of Apia, from one end to the other, and we kindled a fire of dead wood, to show the anxious friends at our end of the bay that we had arrived. There are three waterfalls in this little opening to which our narrow path had led us, and it leads no further and nowhere else. Of the three falls, each divided from the others by wide platforms of rock, the upper one is low and does not count. It is the second and the third that are “slipping rocks.” The water rushes over them in one or many falls, according to the season, and in some of the channels the surface has become so slippery with moss that all one has to do is to sit and be whirled into the pool below. We had just begun to look down into the little hollow, edged on one side by a high rock upon which ferns and vines and green bananas find a scanty foothold, when Fagalo, throwing off her upper covering, seated herself on the edge of the current, and in an instant had slipped off. And a laugh from below echoed above as she rose from the pool and swam to the shore. By the time that we had clambered down to meet her, she had come up and rushed down again followed by Sué. The sight was charming: the pretty girls, with arms thrown out and bodies straight for balance, their wet clothes driven tightly to the hips in the rush of the water, had a look of gold against the gray that brought up Clarence King’s phrase about Hawaii and the “old-gold girls that tumbled down waterfalls.” In the plunge and the white foam, the yellow limbs did indeed look like goldfish in a blue-green pool. Further down there is a small rush of water into a little hollow in the rock; the two girls in their play filled it easily, like mermaids in too small a tank. Then we had lunch on banana leaves, to which our wet friends contributed the shrimps that they had caught, accidently as it were, and without thinking, in these moments of “abandon.” We had also a mess of _palolo_ looking like very dark green spinach, darker than the green leaves in which it was wrapped. Adams insisted that this dish tasted quite like “foie gras,” which he also said was quite as nasty a preparation.

To explain what _palolo_ is I should have told you of a little expedition we made one morning last week, just on the return from our malaga. But I was ill and had suffered too much from native food to write any more upon similar subjects. Even all my liking for Meli Hamilton and my admiration for the fullness and redness of her lips, and for the gleam of her teeth, could scarcely reconcile me to the wriggling of the great tree worms through which she crunched so gayly and healthily at our last great Samoan dinner.

[Illustration: THE PAPA-SEEA, OR SLIDING ROCK. FAGALO SLIDING WATERFALL. VAIALA, SAMOA]

At the waterfall, after our lunch, our men had theirs, and they sat with heads all wrapped about with leaves, while the rain came down upon them; for if there is anything that a Samoan detests it is getting his hair wet. The rest of him does not matter. Meanwhile we smoked under our umbrellas, pretty Meli Meredith half under mine, and Meli Hamilton under a big banana leaf. For most of the others rain did not matter. They had either gone into the water or were preparing to do so by sitting quietly in the current. Otaota had prepared for the slide, and was stretched out in the run of the waterfall that now swept over, now left uncovered her extended limbs; for she leaned out upon one elbow, and dipped a hand in the water, scattering it upon the other girls in a lazy way. Otaota was “missionary” that day, and would not uncover the lovely torso about which I have told you so much. Then the sun came out in a lingering, gentle way, as if it dripped down from the sky, and with it all the girls went over; Fanua and Meli Meredith and Otaota. And as we looked down upon them, they swam over and hid behind the branchings of the vines like so many nymphs of streams, their faces and arms glancing like gold out of the green. Near them one of our men made a deep red in the water by contrast. And now Awoki, with much hesitation, prepared, put on the native lavalava, and tried his luck. Yellow he is to us, but he looked white and pallid among all those browns and reds.

The whole thing was catching, and had we stayed longer we too should have been over, though Adams said that just then our dignity forbade it. But our feeling of dignity had been helped by Meli Hamilton’s telling us that the last time she had gone over the fall, she had struck badly against a rock, and so had her companion, the navy officer; so that with the rain beginning again, horses were bridled and saddled, and we all started for a wet ride in the wet woods, down the slippery path which we had to take in single file. Fagalo rode with Charley, on Sopo’s little nag, and the last thing I saw of Otaota was her bare legs over the back of Awoki’s horse; he sat behind, his arms around her, gallantly protecting all that remained of her with his little waterproof. And we came home tired and wet, but having spent a pleasant childlike day with grown-up children.

PALOLO

Vaiala in Upolu, Nov. 14th.

I broke off yesterday telling you about _palolo_. I think my words ended by telling you that even all my liking and admiration for Meli Hamilton would scarcely reconcile me to the wriggling of the great tree worms which she crunched at our

[Illustration: GIRL SLIDING DOWN WATERFALL. BANANA LEAF AROUND HER BODY. SAMOA]

last Samoan dinner. Mrs. Lieutenant Parker became very white as she saw her and I handed her rapidly something or other, brandy or whiskey, to help the occasion.

_Palolo_ has no such horrors. For it we have not had far to go. Only just out into the reefs before us, when, in the early morning before the dawn, we rowed out a few yards to find a concourse of people, in boats and canoes, scooping up with eager hands thin hairlike worms that swarmed in the water within the special hollows of the coral reef.

We were more or less ready for the appearance of these little creatures who, on a certain day of the year and the moon, appear suddenly with the dawn and disappear with the sunrise until another year. We were expecting this arrival, which never fails. As I said, it is looked for ahead; it has its own laws; the scientific ones fail because we have calculated by our dates, instituted for other reasons than the life of the _palolo_. Our Samoan friends are in the secret. We white people compute that the _palolo_ is due at dead low water in the night of the third quarter of the moon nearest the first of November, but that reckoning involves Solar and Lunar months, as I intimated.

Our good friends here have been whispering to us and telling us that this was to happen and they know how to be prepared for it. Certain plants, certain shrubs blossom; and then you know that the time of the _palolo’s_ month is drawing near. There are signs in the heavens, and the moon helps. It is, I think, in its third quarter that the event takes place. Somebody with us, perhaps several people (because our village contains important and learned people) mark time during the year by counting pebbles, and green feathers, and leaves, up to such and such a day, so that, at a certain moment, our friends can tell us that the _palolo_ is due next morning.

The third year one has to count a different number of days, but the creatures down below in the coral know exactly to the minute. The night is watched through, our people are all ready, are warned at the proper moment. People from far away are also ready. Our friends have found each one some proper hole which may be more or less lucky later. We watched the dawn coming upon us, lighting the breakers on the edge of the reef. When the breakers withdraw it is slack tide and we watch, and our friends watch, more intently than we can, the absolute calm of the water. Then, of a sudden, somebody calls out, “the _palolo_ is there!” or something like it, and then this empty water is full of long lines of what seems to be worms, which you scoop up, not so anxiously as those who care.

A short time, an hour they say but it seemed to me shorter, the sun is up over the edge and the worm is gone until next year.

It is nothing but something like the thinnest of little seaweed a few inches long, and you have to accept as a fact that this wriggling mass is made up of worms.

I wish I could fairly describe the place and scene but you can make it up for yourself. The scene is one of busy struggle. It is a matter of food, it is true, also a festival of amusement apart from the picnic side. Very interesting was the eagerness shown in the catching, by the few white girls born here, whom I watched. They paddled about, jumped out with bare feet on to the jagged coral like any Polynesian, but with that seriousness and ferocity of our race, so different from the easy good-natured suppleness of the brown skins who seem to be part of the nature around them.

The dark transparent water inside the reefs, the rosy colouring of the dawn, the splendour of the sunrise which is at length over land and water, would have been beautiful enough even without this animation of human element. But I have not dared taste the _palolo_ even as made up yesterday with cocoanut milk. I have come to the point of a revolt against almost all of the food, from cocoanut milk to live fish and slugs.

Vaiala in Upolu, Sunday, Nov. 23, 1890.