.dt title, by author-A Project Gutenberg eBook
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.it Transcriber’s Notes:
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.it MIDI and MP3 files have been provided for both music\
examples. Click on the links to the right of “Listen” to hear the music.\
<b><s>Whether this works depends on your browser. If you don't hear the music,\
you will probably find the music file in your downloads folder.\
ePub and Kindle readers don't currently support embedded music.</s></b>
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.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
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<xxl>MUSICAL COMPOSITIONS</xxl>

<xl>By A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON</xl>
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<I><l>March—</l></I>
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“Our Fleet” War March of the Allied Sailors and Soldiers. Dedicated by
special permission of Lady Jellicoe to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the British
Fleet, 1915. Pianoforte and Military Band.

<I><l>Entr’acte—</l></I>
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“The Monk’s Dream” (<I>Full Military</I>)

<I><l>Romanza—</l></I>
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“Song of the Night” (<I>Full Military</I>)

<I><l>Waltz—</l></I>
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“Firenze” (<I>Military</I>)

<I><l>Regimental Marches—</l></I>

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 | “By Order of the King”      |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Imperial Echoes”           |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Colours”               |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Salute the Standard”       |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Under the Old Flag”        |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Our Fleet”                 |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Sierra Leone”              |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Relief”                |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Night Riders”          |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Rough Diamonds”            |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Stronghold”            |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Half Seas Over”            |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “House of Hanover”          |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Light of the Regiment”     |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Dashing British”       |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Scottish Chief”        |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Dandy Fifth”           |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “Cashmere”              |
 | “The Long Bright Line”  |
 | “Paramatta” |
 | “Carrara” |
 | “Old Castille” |
 | “Bohemia” |
 | “Il Cavaliere” |
 | “The Military Call”         |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
 | “The Boundary Riders”       |<I>Also Pianoforte Solo</I>
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Etc.
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<I><l>Songs—</l></I>

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“Samoan Love Song and Waltz”
“A Soldier’s Dream”
“By the Delawar”
“South Sea Melodies”
“Alabama Way”
    Etc., etc.
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<B>Published by BOOSEY & Co., London, Aldershot and New York</B>
<i>Played by Military Regimental Bands throughout the World</i>
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<s>Lieutenant <sc>J. Ord Hume</sc>, L. F., the distinguished Composer,
Bandmaster and Contest Adjudicator of the British Empire, says: “I
consider Safroni-Middleton’s rousing Military Marches the finest of
recent years, and unique productions, coming as they do from the pen
of a sailor.”</s>
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.h1
SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER
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<sc>Tree Climbing</sc>
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[Illustration: <sc>Tree Climbing</sc>]
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<xxl>SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBER</xxl>

<l>CONFESSIONS OF A LIFE AT SEA, IN AUSTRALIA
AND AMID THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC</l>

BY
<xl>A. SAFRONI-MIDDLETON</xl>


<xxl>❦</xxl>

<s>WITH TWENTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS</s>




LONDON
<xl>GRANT RICHARDS LTD.</xl>
ST MARTIN’S STREET
LEICESTER SQUARE
MDCCCCXV
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PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH
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<l>I DEDICATE THIS BOOK</l>

TO THE MEMORY OF
MY BROTHER

<xl>MORTIMER HUGH MIDDLETON</xl>

AGED SIXTEEN YEARS

Lost overboard in mid-ocean while serving
before the mast of a sailing
ship outbound for
Australia

<s>ALSO TO THE MEMORY OF</s>

<xl>CAPTAIN POPPY</xl>

Of the sailing ship <i>Aristides</i>, lost
with all hands

AND TO THE MEMORY OF

<xl>MY COMRADES</xl>

Of the Australian Bush and
the South Sea Islands
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Old comrades, by my fire in dreams
    Your hands I clasp to-night;
Heaven starlit o’er the forest gleams
    As ’neath the blood-wood’s height
You lie with folded hands asleep
    By shores of tumbling waves,
As I creep up each silent steep
    To kiss forgotten graves.
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The soul of all the songs I sing,
    Whatever sounds most true,
I dedicate each wild true ring,
    Inspired, old chums, by you.
The world grieves not that you are dead—
    Brave, reckless men who died,
Crept from their camp-fires back to bed
    Along the wild hill-side.

But, comrades, ’neath the hills or waves,
    Could one sad song of mine
Reveal dead souls of far-off graves,
    ’Twould be a song divine.
As pure and sweet as flowers that grow
    Where once with wild delight
You sang, where bush-flowers, bursting, blow
    Thro’ dead fire-ash to-night.

And so in dreams I take your hands,
    In long-dead eyes I gaze,
And half in tears from other lands
    Bring back the dear old days.
In other lands ’neath greyer skies
    Wild rides again recall,
Your songs, your laughing, manly eyes—
    The boy who loved you all.

Lies in my sea-chest ’neath my bed
    The fiddle, stringless, still;
Old chums, since all of you are dead,
    ’Neath forest steep and hill,
I cannot play the songs you loved;
    But with tired eyes and pen
I strive to tell the truth, who roved,
    And found you—God’s best men.
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PREFACE
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<sc>In</sc> the following chapters, wherein I have endeavoured
to write down my experiences at sea, in
Australia and on the South Sea Islands, I have not
gone beyond the first four or five years of my life
abroad, but later on I hope to do so, if I get the
chance. I have made no attempt to moralise in my
book, and if I appear to have been guilty of doing
so, be assured it was a spasm of the intellect and
quite forgotten all about a few minutes after I had
written it down.

All I have attempted in this book is to endeavour
to tell exactly my experiences as they occurred in
my travels in many lands; also I have wished to
reveal a little of the usual experiences, the ups and
downs, that youths pass through when they go to
sea and are left completely on their own in other
lands, seeking to see the world, often ambitious to
find a fortune, but generally succeeding in only
gathering heaps of grim experiences. Unfortunately
no one can buy his experience first, and so the
general rule of green fortune-seekers overseas is to
end in failure, and to be honest, I was no exception
to the rule. Nevertheless my loss of all that might
have been was amply compensated by the rough
brave men whom I met, seafarers and otherwise,
who revealed to me the best side of humanity and
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the value of good comradeship: devil-may-care
fellows with hearts that were blazing hearth-fires of
welcome in the coldest days of adversity of long ago,
ere I, crammed up with experience and nothing
much else, down in the stokehold of a tramp
steamer, returned across the ocean to my native
land, eventually to get the roving fever and again
go seaward.

.pm verse-start
Pom-pe-te, pom-pe-te, pom, pom,
  All thro’ the burning night
Shovelling coal for the engine’s heart
  Down in the blinding light.
Working my passage, penniless,
  Over the western main,—
And I know they’ll all be sorry
  To see me home again.

Pom-pe-te, pom-pe-te, pom, pom,
  Shiver and shake and bang;
Thundering seas lifting us up,
  Making the screw-shaft clang.
Unshaven faces thrust to the flame,
  Washed by the furnace bright,
And England thousands of miles away
  In the middle watch to-night.

Oh! what would they say could they see me
  Mask’d thick with oil and dirt,
Shovelling deep down under the sea?
  This sweater for a shirt,
With the funnel’s red flame blowing
  Out in the windy sky,
And the family pride perspiring
  To keep the steam-gauge high!
// 012.png
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I can hear the wild green chargers
  Pounding the boat’s iron side—
Old Death, impatient, knocking away
  All night to get inside!
Where haggard men like shadows move,
  Toil in the flame-lit gloom.
Oh, it’s just the whole world over
  Sailing the wave of Doom.

For the aristocrats are sleeping
  Snug in their bunks, I know,
All on the upper deck, while we,
  Are sweating away below!
Hard-feeding the white heat’s fury,
  Piling the wake with foam,
Unravelling all the knots that wind
  The way that takes them home.

I’ve clung on an old wind-jammer,
  I’ve done things—best untold;
Hump’d the swag on many a rush,
  Found everything—but gold!
But oh! for the flashlight homeward!
  The anchor’s running chain,
And the sight of their dear old faces—
  To see me home again!
.pm verse-end

Be assured that I have given no artificial colouring
in my book, neither have I seriously set out to
describe what I have seen, though I am confident
that I must have succeeded in giving some local
atmosphere, since all that I have written is drawn
from true experience, but I cannot be certain that
all the events followed exactly in the order that I
have written them, for with the flight of time the
dates of days, months and years fade away. I have
// 013.png
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left to silence almost one year of my South Sea
Island life, especially of that period when I, with
a kindred spirit of my own age, lived for several
months in a hut of our own fashioning on the shore
side near Pangopango harbour off the Isle of Tutuela;
also I have passed over several months of my
Australian bush experiences, and I have done this
for reasons of my own. Later on I hope to record
the experiences of my sea life that followed my
twentieth birthday.

All I say of the South Sea missionaries is said in
good-fellowship. Some of the best men are missionaries
and sacrifice years of their life in a hopeless
quest. So bear with the honesty of one who has
fought side by side with the best and worst, and
face to face with the grim realities of existence.
For the present I hope someone will like what I
have written in this, my book—one more ambitious
plunge of a failure.
.rj
<B>A. S.-M.</B>
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.h2
CONTENTS
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     | | <xs>PAGE</xs>
I. | I RUN AWAY TO SEA                      | #17:ch01#

II. | STRANDED IN BRISBANE                  | #25:ch02#

III. | SLEEPING OUT AND BUSHED              | #36:ch03#

IV. | I LEAVE FOR THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS     | #42:ch04#

V. | I PLAY VIOLIN AT NATIVE WEDDINGS       | #51:ch05#

VI. | SOUTH SEA BAR-ROOM                    | #57:ch06#

VII. | I GO CRUISING                        | #68:ch07#

VIII. | WITH R.L.S. AND OTHERS             | #78:ch08#

IX. | CANNIBALISM                           | #90:ch09#

X. | A FIJIAN BRIDE                         | #105:ch10#

XI. | BACK IN SAMOA                         | #116:ch11#

XII. | TRAMPING THE SOUTH SEA BUSH          | #120:ch12#

XIII. | STILL TRAMPING                      | #133:ch13#

XIV. | SOUTH SEA DOMESTIC LIFE, ETC.        | #139:ch14#

XV. | TAHITIAN MORALS                       | #148:ch15#

XVI. | MARQUESAN QUEENS. THAKAMBAU         | #157:ch16#

XVII. | R.L.S. AT SAMOA. NATIVE MUSIC     | #174:ch17#

XVIII. | R.L.S. IN THE STORM               | #193:ch18#

XIX. | FATHER DAMIEN                        | #203:ch19#

XX. | I RECEIVE A KNIGHTHOOD                | #211:ch20#

XXI. | LITTLE DAMIEN’S GRAVE                | #218:ch21#
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XXII. | BOUND FOR AUSTRALIA                 | #228:ch22#

XXIII. | I STOW AWAY                        | #244:ch23#

XXIV. | IN THE BUSH                         | #255:ch24#

XXV. | BEFORE THE MAST. MAN OVERBOARD      | #260:ch25#

XXVI. | IN SAN FRANCISCO                    | #273:ch26#

XXVII. | LOST IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH        | #280:ch27#

XXVIII. | ON THE GOLD FIELDS                | #290:ch28#

XXIX. | THE CONCERT IN COOLGARDIE. FAREWELL| #298:ch29#
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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<xs>PLATE</xs> | |
1. | Tree-Climbing        | #<i>Frontispiece</i>:frontis#

2. | River Scene, Queensland          | #24:i02#

3. | Forest Track, Out Back           | #40:i03#

4. | Coco-nut Palm in Full Fruit      | #52:i04#

5. | Native Girl, Samoa               | #64:i05#

6. | View of Apia from Mulinu         | #74:i06#

7. | Planting Coco-nuts               | #84:i07#

8. | Preparing Copra                  | #104:i08#

9. | Native Coast Village near Apia   | #116:i09#

10. | Low-Caste Native Girl           | #126:i10#

11. | Native Bamboo Bridge            | #138:i11#

12. | Rarotongan Scenery              | #150:i12#

13. | South Sea Lagoon                | #166:i13#

14. | Native Girls making Kava        | #170:i14#

15. | Para Rubber-Tree                | #182:i15#

16. | Native Pottery                  | #192:i16#

17. | Loading Bananas                 | #200:i17#

18. | Coco-nut Palms and Pasture-land | #210:i18#

19. | Native Homestead                | #220:i19#

20. | Native Canoes, Fiji             | #226:i20#

21. | Homestead Scene, Queensland     | #236:i21#

22. | Cabbage-Palm and Bush Land      | #250:i22#

23. | Pastoral Scenery, N.S.W.        | #258:i23#

24. | Modern Sheep-Shearers           | #280:i24#
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<s><i>The author is indebted to the Agent-General for Queensland for the
photographs reproduced as plates 1, 2 and 3; to the High Commissioner
for Australia for plates 21, 22, 23 and 24; to the Director of
the Imperial Institute for plates 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
and 20; and to Messrs W. A. Mansell & Co. for plates 5, 10,
12 and 13.</i></s>
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I
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I run away to Sea—Outbound for Australia—Appointed Solo Violinist
in the Saloon—I watch Sailors asleep
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I will</sc> write you that which no man has written
before. I will tell you the truth as I found it. I
will tell you of the aspirations of rough but brave
men in distant lands and on the ships of distant
tropic seas. I will tell you the truth of many thrills
that buoyed me up with hope in my wanderings,
and also of the chills that crushed in the last forlorn
stand on the field of adversity. Aye, you shall hear
of those things that men dream of in silence. I will
pour them out of my soul for the calm eyes of stern
reality.

<sc>My</sc> pages of romance have long since been
shrivelled up in tropic seas, under blinding suns, on
the plains and in the primeval bush lands, but still
I am the living book of all that has been in the dear
old dead romance of passionate boyhood. The
glorious poems, the dreams of what should be, the
flinchless fight for right, have all faded away and
left in the secret pages of life the withered flowers
of old friendship, tied up with magic threads of
women’s kisses, the memories of dead, brave comrades,
some under the seas and others under the
bush flowers of Australian steeps or beneath the
tropic jungle of the South Sea Islands. There they
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sleep with the memories of savage native men singing
by their tiny huts which have long ago vanished
before the tramp of the white men. All these
things are in this book, with the poetry of life which
is mine, mingled with the memories of haunting
dreams of that world of Romance which so many of
us sail away to but never, never find.

I cannot promise that in the chapters to follow I
can tell all that befell me in the exact order in which
the events happened, for it must be that after the
flight of years I should stumble a bit in the days and
months of a life that was lived in the midst of wild
adventure and incessant travel from land to land;
but it will be enough to assure you that the characters
that I tell you of really lived and for all I know
many are still living. When I tell you that an old
cockatoo dropped down from the tropic sky on to
a blue gum twig overhead and surveyed me with a
sideways melancholy eye as I sat alone by my camp
fire, be quite sure that that cockatoo lived and
breathed, took stock of me and flew away into the
sunset, and has doubtlessly dropped into the scrub,
a small bunch of dead feather and bone, years ago.

At school I read more from the pages of romance
than from school-books. At fourteen years of age
the opportunity arrived, and secretly, with the help
of an older friend, I succeeded in securing a berth on
a full-rigged sailing ship, and, within four hours of
my trembling carcass creeping up the gangway and
down on to the great decks, I was before the masts
going down Channel bound for Australia.
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My recollections of the first few days are dim.
The skies bobbed about, I swayed on deck, the brave
old heroes of ages past flew out of my brain into the
stormy moonlight and shrieked in the sails overhead,
as my head swelled to the size of the dome of
St Paul’s and I vomited. I longed to be home again.
Alas! deep-sea sailing ships do not turn round and
speed with haste for their native port in response to
the feeble schoolboy’s tearful voice. I was done
for! Hopes, glories, vast ambitions, all vanished!
My thin legs trembled along on the decks till I
staggered through a little cabin door and fell into my
bunk. By some great oversight in the sea discipline
I was allowed to sleep for five hours; I cannot
remember to a certainty now, but I think I was
drowned and died about a thousand times in that
first off-watch sleep.

I soon recovered, and discovered that sea captains
do not stand on the poop cracking jokes and shying
oranges and coco-nuts up at the crew, as they
laughingly toil among the sails. I also found that
the Bo’sun wore very stout boots, and I have never
met a man in my life who could kick so true and
aim with such precision. Five years after, whilst I
was in ’Frisco, I called on a phrenologist and speculated
one dollar, and discovered that the contusion
and everlasting bump formed at the back of my
head by a Bo’sun’s belaying-pin was an inherited
taint derived from the over-burdened brains of my
passionate ancestors!

Well, I recovered my equilibrium, secured good
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sea-legs, went aloft, crawled along the yards, and
helped to reef the sails. Often in the wild nights
the sailors cursed and swore as I clung with might
and main, my hands and teeth clinging to the
rolling rigging up in the foremast top-gallants. My
comrades shouted orders to me, their voices blown
away on the thundering night gales, but I only
heard the instinctive cry of self-preservation within
me as the moon and the great beast-like clouds
swayed like mighty pendulums across the night
skies, swept from skyline to skyline, while the
masts shivered to the roll and thunder of the broadside
swell as the ship flew along at eighteen knots
before the gale. Often I would gaze down deckwards,
watching the praying figurehead’s lifted
hands heaving skywards when the tropic moonlight
made wonderfully brilliant the hills of bubbling
foam over the bows as she dived and plunged along.
I loved that figurehead, for often as I gazed from
aloft on moon-bright nights it seemed to wear a
strong resemblance to my dear mother, and with
my legs curled round the yards aloft in the lonely
sea-nights I would often look down and fancy in my
dreams that her shadow ever moved along over the
waters below the swaying jib-boom with extended
hands, praying for me, as no one ever prayed for me
before or since!

I slept amidships with the cook and three other
apprentices. I was a favourite with them all, being
of a cheerful temperament and a good fiddle player.
Often in the off watches I would play old familiar
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strains while they joined in the rollicking chorus,
awaking the silence of the lonely calm tropic nights
in moving waters that belted the whole world, when
the sails swayed silently along beneath strange
stars, filled out at intervals like drums, then flopped,
as the lazy tropic breeze once more sighed and fell
asleep.

The old Scotch Captain heard me playing one
night; he was a religious man and taught me some
beautiful sea-hymns, and in due course I played in
the cabin aft during Sunday service, when all the crew
mustered, and John the cook, who swore and cursed
most fearfully all day long in his galley, opened his
big-bearded mouth and sung most expressively
those old pious hymns, knocking even the Skipper out
in melodious reverential pathos!

The dear old Skipper had brought his daughter
with him. She was a pretty Scotch girl—a crew of
thirty-six men, and one pretty girl and me! Well, I
combed my hair, cleaned my teeth, gazed in my little
bit of cracked mirror-glass fifty times an hour, for
alas! the family failing asserted itself; I had fallen in
love! I have never been what you would call really
lucky in love, like some happy men; trouble always
arose after the first embarrassment had worn off and
I felt truly happy, and blessed the universe. And
it was so in this my first love affair. One dark night
as she stood in shelter by the bulwarks near the
saloon door I was admiring her eyes and swearing
eternal love, calling all the bright stars to be
witnesses to my unchangeable fidelity, and just as I
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kissed her sweet white ear and, in my madness of
love, breathed secretly through her beautiful dishevelled,
scented hair, as it waved in the moonlight
over her lovely curved shoulders, I received a
tremendous clump from the old Skipper! That
night I also received stern orders from the Chief
Mate never to be seen near the saloon again after
dark!

I crept into my bunk heartsick and wretched.
The affair got about the ship. I was chaffed a good
deal by the whole crew. Real old sea-salts they
were. I can see them now as I dream, walking
across the decks by moonlight, muffled up to the
teeth in oilskins, some with big crooked noses, all
with weary sea-beaten faces. Up aloft they go.
Again I see their big figures move up the ratlings
as they reach the moonlit sails, and climbing,
vanish in the sky. All around is sky and water and
stars, fenced in by eternal skylines, as the ship
travels silently onward, a tiny grey-winged world
under blue days, starry and stormy skies, towards
a skyline that for ever fades, following sunset after
sunset across boundless seas. They were a motley
crew those sailors. Some read books, some believed
in spirits, and some in beer, and one would tell us
over and over again of his experiences in distant
lands and his brave deeds and his wonderful self-sacrifices
and many other virtues, not one of which
he really possessed.

There was one old sailor who on arriving home on
his last voyage found that his wife was dead. He
// 024.png
.pn +1
would sit on a little empty salt-beef tub and tell me
about his courting days and his “old girl who was
one of the best,” the tears rolling down his coarse-looking
face all the time. He was an extraordinary
mixture; in one breath he would almost curse his
wife’s memory, and in the next ask me if I thought
there was really another world. He could not read or
write, and seeing me play the violin and read music
as well as books made me almost omnipotent to his
sad old eyes. I remember well enough how my heart
was touched by his manner and questions as I put
on a wise air and convinced him of the soul’s immortality.
I even went so far as to tell him that
my dead relations had returned to my family as
shadows from the other world, and the poor old
fellow perched on his tub listened eagerly, believing
all I said, and then went off and found his comrades,
who sat playing cards by the fo’c’sle door, and
laughed the loudest, till they all snored in the
fo’c’sle bunks, half stupefied by the smoke and smell
of ship’s plug tobacco. I have often seen them
by the dingy fo’c’sle oil-lamp fast asleep, seared
unshaved faces, all their worldly passions asleep,
looking like big children, so innocent, as they snored
away, and some of them who had fallen asleep whilst
they were chewing tobacco dribbled black juice
from the corners of their mouths, their big chests
upheaving at each slumbering breath. Outside,
just overhead, the night winds wailed and whistled
weirdly in the rigging as the jib-boom swayed along,
and at regular intervals came the thunder of the
// 025.png
.pn +1
diving bows as the ship dipped and heaved and
plunged along over the primeval waters.

Five months passed away on that ship. Storms
blew from all directions and sometimes dead ahead
and then we never slept. Hauling the mainsail up
and tacking is more nuisance than flying before
a thousand gales. To stand by the top-gallant
halyards as comes the wind; to clew the main sky-sails
up, singing chanteys, as you cling to the yards
with a thundering gale smashing the highways of the
water world into a myriad travelling hills as the wild
poetry of the sea singing to the ears of the sailor,
and I was never so happy as when the green chargers
ramped across the world.

I shall never forget my delight as we were towed
down Brisbane River, with the everlasting hills all
around. I will not weary you with any more details
beyond telling you that when we lay alongside
the next night I hired a wharf loafer and got my
sea-chest secretly ashore and bolted!
// 026.png
.sp 2
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i02-24.jpg w=600px id=i02
.ca
<sc>River Scene, Queensland</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>River Scene, Queensland</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

// 027.png
.pn +1
// 028.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch02
II
.pm ch-hd-start
Stranded in Brisbane—I look for a Shop—Meet typical House Agent—The
Vanity of Youth—I stock my Shop—Alone in the Bush—House
Agent calls for Agreement Money and the Rent—I do
a Moonlight Flit
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>As</sc> I have previously told you, all I am writing is
the truth, so I must tell you that I never saw the
Captain’s daughter again, but in my chest of old
letters and unaccepted manuscripts I still keep her
little notes, dropped near me on the deck of the ship
that took me to Australia.

The atmosphere of a new world sparkled in my
head as I stood in the old colonial town of Brisbane.
It was a sweltering hot night, and as I stood by the
river and gazed up the gas-lamp-lit streets, watching
the passing Australian girls in many-coloured attires
and the colonial “corn-stalks” in big hats slouching
about, I felt a tremendous loneliness come over
me, a strange homesick longing crept and crept, and
from my heart to my eyes a mist arose. I have had
many homesick breakdowns in my time, but never
one as deep and sincere as I experienced standing
there alone in that strange country. I was not yet
fifteen years of age, and the thought of my being
absolutely dependent on my own exertions was
naturally a big oppression to a boy of my inexperience.
I was tall for my age and looked two or three
years older than I was. A good comrade by my side
// 029.png
.pn +1
at that moment would have been untold wealth to
me. Under a lamp-post I counted my money. I
had just three pounds ten shillings! That night I
slept in a little low lodging-house by North Quay.
With daylight and a good breakfast my courage
returned and I sat up in bed and played several old
operatic airs on my violin. A week after I pawned
it for three pounds.

I had made no friends. My money was going. I
knew that I must get a job or meet disaster. The
idea of starting work was most distasteful to me,
and yet what was I to do? Walking along Queen
Street one night I stood by a tea shop. I gazed
at the window. My old school-chum’s father was
a tea merchant and I had helped them to blend the
teas in England, and as I stood there thinking, the
thought suddenly occurred to me that I would start
a shop and be a tea merchant.

The next day I tramped my legs off looking for a
likely shop. I found the rents too high and moreover
I had no references and the agents gazed suspiciously
at my cheese-cutter hat. I at once bought
a large big-rimmed straw hat in a second-hand shop,
and on the advice of a more sympathetic agent than
the rest I made for the outskirts of Brisbane. Here
and there on the scrub-covered slopes were scattered
wooden houses raised on posts. Upon a post board
just off the main track I saw written “Jonathan
Bayly, House Agent.” Taking my handkerchief
out I carefully dusted my boots, wiped the sweat
from my sunburnt face, walked into the little office
// 030.png
.pn +1
room, and there came face to face with the gentleman
whose name appeared on the board outside. I
did not like the look of him at all. He had a long goat-like
face and grew pointed whiskers on the chin only.

“Are you the House and Shop Agent?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said as he eyed me attentively.

“Oh,” I said, “I am looking out for a small shop
which would be suitable for a tea shop.”

I had observed business men in London put on
important voices and cough in an affluent way, and
as he once more eyed me I made a bold effort,
placed my hand in an affected way to my mouth
and coughed in two little important jerks, swayed
slightly on one leg and gazed round his office.

In a moment his manner changed. I had impressed
him with the sense of my own assumed
importance, and to clinch the coming deal, I dropped
my remaining three sovereigns on the floor, picking
them up carelessly as though they were buttons.

I have travelled the world over since, made deals
with moneyed men, bought gold claims worth
thousands of pounds, which I sold for a dollar—and
glad to get it!—and done many more strange and
unfortunate things in my time, but never since did
I so completely gull a human being as I did that old
colonial house agent—but nevertheless he did me
also.

Taking down his big white helmet hat from a
solitary peg, he placed it carefully over the three
remaining hairs of his cranium, and bowed me out
of the door to view the proposed shop. Walking
// 031.png
.pn +1
off the main track he led me across the bush, and
after walking for about one hour, he apologised for
the distance and the solitary bush surroundings,
telling me that the shop I was about to view was in
an excellent position, inasmuch as it was in the
centre of a proposed Township, and indeed when at
last I stood by its little shanty-like front door I inwardly
realised that it needed a good deal of apology
on its behalf. A small broken-down shanty was the
only other habitation in view for miles! The
description of this shop’s position would sound like a
silly attempt to be humorous. I only wish it were,
for I took that shop! I listened to that old Agent’s
palaver; I was only a boy and I had some dim idea
in my head that gold-miners and bushrangers passed
by it at regular intervals, and when he waved his
arms about and pointed out the proposed spot for
the Church, the Bank and the main streets, I
choked down my misgivings and clinched the
bargain. I took the place on a “seven years’ agreement
with the option of a renewal of fourteen more
years at the expiration of the aforesaid term.”
Of course, all this long lease was proposed by the
old Agent. I knew no more about agreements and
expirations of leases than a baby, but as I signed the
long important-looking document in his office that
same afternoon, I carefully read it through and
through as though I were taking my ninety-fifth
shop, and did not intend to be taken in as I had been
taken in before! Well, I signed it.

Next day I obtained the key and went into
// 032.png
.pn +1
Brisbane, bought a pair of scales, some paper bags,
a bottle of ink, a pen and one chest of cheap tea—I
think it was fourpence a pound by the thirty-six-pound
chest. I also got the manager of the wholesale
department to send me ninety-five empty chests
for show purposes. I was full of business. I kept
thinking of my old father’s advice to my elder
brothers when he said, “My sons, do not go in for
professions, nothing succeeds like business; sell and
trade in something that the world must have. Who
wants poets, musicians and authors?—with their
men and women made of moonrise!” And well
was he able to speak on the subject, since he
had reared a large family up by his pen, which is
in no wise mightier than the sword in many cases,
excepting when you sit concocting letters to your
immediate creditors for kind consideration and
more time before you pay up!

Well, I will proceed and tell you all about that
shop, and you must remember that it is only a very
minor detail in the story of my experiences to follow,
as I slowly but deliberately unfold my travels and
troubles, my love affairs and losses in Australia and
the South Sea Islands.

Oh, the vanity and pride of youth! As I turned
the key of my shop door and entered beyond the
portals, placing carefully on the floor my parcel,
which contained a cup and saucer, a small oil lamp
and the few absolutely necessary things to sustain
a decent domestic life, a thrill of extreme pride went
through me. I gazed around the spacious room, my
// 033.png
.pn +1
hands were itching to get hold of the ninety-five
empty tea-chests and place them in commercial rows
in the two large shop windows that gazed at the sunset
like two mammoth glass eyes of melancholy and
fate-like loneliness across the silent Australian
Bush. Behind lay my back garden which also
extended to the skyline!

I took a stroll around, and you can imagine my
delight as I stumbled across some foundations
already half dug out, which no doubt were for the
future homesteads of the coming Township! They
looked pretty old and I noticed that a young gum-tree
had grown to a considerable height in one of
them, but I did not stop to criticise; time, growth
of gums and Townships were outside my experiences
of life. I simply lent my imagination to the future
scenery and saw myself a prosperous tea merchant;
around me rose in the dreamy rays of the dying
sunset the grey terraces of splendid villas; I heard
the hum of human voices, the laughter of the bush
children romping on the streets-to-be of that Unbuilt
Township. Like a grey old pioneer of the
desert, uncharted on the map of civilisation, stood my
shop, and I the proud landlord, stroking the first
sprout of down on my upper lip, gazed innocently
around, and wondered what my kind old father
would think of my first business move up the steps
into the portals of the grim commercial world. I
felt considerably bucked up at the splendid outlook,
I even felt a tenderness springing up in my heart for
that old Agent. He had patted me on the shoulder
// 034.png
.pn +1
too, and told me that I was a plucky young chap
with real business ability in my head!

Next morning, standing under my piazza, I spied
a large carrier van rapidly moving across the thin
track that divided the immense grey slopes of the
outstretching country. It was my ninety-five empty
tea-chests and one full one approaching me! The
old colonial carrier grinned from ear to ear as he
dumped the lot in my shop, smelt my sixpence
twice, and placing it in his pocket, drove away
leaving me once more alone in the vast solitudes.

Profiting by my memories of a tea shop in the
Old Kent Road, I at once set to work and wrote on
white cards, “Genuine Pekoe Ceylon Tea, 2/ per
pound,” and underneath, in very bold letters, “The
cup that cheers but does not inebriate.” Of course,
in those days I knew nothing whatever of the
Australian Bushman’s temperament; had I done so
I should, of course, have written, “The cup that
inebriates and cheers!”

Ah, how I remember my pride as I stood on the
slope and gazed at my solitary shop window. Sunset
was once more sinking into its saffron sea out
westward, and sent over the hills a dying beam
that touched as though with tenderness those words,
written in big chalk letters over the doorway of my
shop, “Middleton & Co., Tea Merchants.” As I gazed
up at it I climbed once more on the old tub and added
this after-thought, “late of London,” and the sunbeam
died away as my eyes instinctively turned
westward. I knew that that same sun was stealing
// 035.png
.pn +1
round the world and those beams would steal likewise
over the lattice windows of my sleeping parents,
my brothers and my sisters, all dreaming and snoring
in velvet comfort, and I wondered if they
dreamed of me, and whether their wildest dreams
could picture my shop and my heroic ignorance as
the shadow of the Australian night crept over me
and the parrots stirred in the leafy gums, and the
innumerable frogs and locusts in the swamps hard
by chanted a fit accompaniment to my retrospective
dreams.

I tell you, I felt pretty lonely in that old place. I
would stand at the shop door and watch the fleets
of parrots and magpies sail away into the sunset,
day after day. And oh, the lonely nights! I often
would climb up to the extreme tip of a hill near by
and stare across the scrub to catch the last gleam
of the old Agent’s house; its slim brows far off
would twinkle with good comradeship and cheered
me up wonderfully.

Well, I think it was just about three weeks after
my first opening of the shop that I was standing one
evening at the door feeling pretty downcast; the
sun was setting over the blue hills and the thickening
shadows made the landscape look for all the
world like a dried-up primeval ocean bed, and the
weird scattered gums like the masts of old sunken
wrecks, that through some strange freak of nature
had burst into leaf. Suddenly on the distant range
I saw a moving speck; my astonished eyes gazed
steadily and then brightened with enthusiasm; it
// 036.png
.pn +1
was a lonely horseman! Surely he would not pass
by my shop without buying a pound of tea, thought
I. What on earth could I do to attract him? A
happy thought struck me. I rushed to my old sea-chest,
out came my old bugle-horn, and placing it to
my lips, I stood at that lonely shop door and gave
three tremendous blasts, then watched. To my
huge delight, as the echoes reverberating faded away
over the silent steppes, the horseman altered his
course; he was coming towards me!

He was a burly, brick-coloured, dusty-looking
fellow, and as he sat astride by my shop door gazing
first at me, then at my shop, and then again on the
surrounding country, he coughed twice and spat
over his shoulder. I felt extremely riled by his
manner. Then he said, “How’s biz?” With good
business forethought I replied, “Pretty good the
last two days!” Then suddenly making a bold
effort I asked, “Would you like to try a pound of
my Pekoe?”

With a kindly look in his grey eyes he said,
“Good tea I ’spose?” “Nothing to beat it,” I
answered quickly.

Looking quietly across the country he remarked,
“No complaints about its quality round these parts
I bet.” Without another word he gave me two
shillings, took the tea and galloped away.

I think it was about four days after selling that
pound of tea that I spotted the Agent coming down
the hill-side track right opposite my shop. The
month was up, and the rent due!
// 037.png
.pn +1

“Well,” he said as I stood at the door and boldly
faced him, “I’ve called for the rent.”

For a moment I fumbled in my pocket. I knew,
to be an honourable citizen, I should pay my way
and let all earthly considerations of sustaining existence
and thoughts of the future go to the winds,
but I had only fifteen shillings in the world, and the
month’s rent was four pounds, and the cost of the
agreement two pounds ten shillings. Pulling myself
together I said, “Can you give me another month?”

“Not a day,” he answered hotly, and then looking
up quickly asked, “Where’s the agreement
money?”

Then I saw that my first boyish instincts were
to be relied upon—the man was a hard-hearted
scoundrel. I answered quickly, “Where’s the
Township you spoke of?” At this he almost spat
with rage, and thrusting his pointed whiskered chin
in my face said, “Do you expect me to supply you
with a Town as well as with a shop?”

I pretended to see some fine logic in that remark,
quieted myself down, and then said, “Parrots,
magpies, ’possums and mosquitoes do not buy tea,
so how can I pay the rent?”

His temper now got the upper hand of him.
“You’ve taken the shop,” he snarled; “where the
hell’s your capital?”

On hearing him say this, the sudden inspiration
that has stood me in such good stead in the sorrows
and joys which I am going to tell you of, flashed in
my brain, and I quickly answered, “You cannot
// 038.png
.pn +1
supply a Town, and yet you expect me to supply
capital. Put your Township here and I’ll soon show
you the capital.” And then I trembled and forced
a smile to my lips. He looked so dangerous that I
did not know what might occur to me in those lonely
parts. But he was only a bully after all. For a
moment he looked me up and down with interest,
and then said, “Can you pay me to-morrow?”

Pointing my trembling hand to my rows of empty
tea-chests, I said, “Look here, I’ll go to Brisbane
to-morrow, sell that tea at cost price, and you shall
have your rent and the agreement money.” At
this he turned and went away. That night I
hastened off to Brisbane, hired a van, got my sea-chest
out of that wretched shop and was never seen
in any shop in those parts or anywhere else on earth
again.
.sp 2
// 039.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch03
III
.pm ch-hd-start
No Money—Sleeping Out—Bushed!—The Stockman’s Shanty
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Stranded</sc> in Brisbane without a cent I slept down
on the wharfs and sometimes curled my half-starved
body up by the warm funnel of the deep-sea tramp
boats. I will not weary you with the details of
those days and nights, excepting to tell you that
hundreds of English boys, and the pluckiest boys of
your country too, go through all that I went through
in the land of the Golden Fleece. I was soon in rags,
sunburnt and miserable. I mixed with English
and Colonial tramps, some good men and some no
good; most of them wore shaggy beards and others
tried to keep shaved and had forgotten their names
in the attempt to lose their identity—sad “ne’er-do-wells”
of the civilised world, who had hurried
across the world to save their necks or preserve their
liberty!

It is wonderfully easy to sink into the depths of
Failure’s Hell. The human relics that make up the
sad side of existence are fascinating folk, full of
sarcastic wit and most of them of a sentimental turn
of mind, and strange as it may seem, deep in their
hearts better men than those who climb the heights
of ambition on one leg—instead of crawling up on
all-fours and dying of old age half-way up.
// 040.png
.pn +1

I remember one night while we were all sitting
huddled in our rags round the funnel of the English
Mail Boat, one old chap (at least he seemed old to
me as I was only fifteen years of age) would sit by
moonlight reading and writing poetry. He had fine
eyes, and he and I got interested in each other, and
I found out gradually that he was a University man,
who in a moment of mental aberration had signed
a cheque and passed it. He had travelled the South
Seas, lived in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, could quote
all the poets and as far as I was able to judge wrote
beautiful poems. When he read one of them to me,
inspired by memories of his boyhood, I was quite
touched and he noticed it by my eyes, and I with my
impulsive temperament could have kissed that sad
old mouth as the beautiful words trembled out of it
and his face lit up to find that at last in the cold
old world he had found an appreciative listener.
Out of the big tail pocket of his ragged coat he pulled
a dirty old bundle which was all of his poetic work.
He read all the poems to me; the longer ones I
could not understand, as they were on Greek subjects,
but nevertheless I listened attentively, and
now that I am older I thank God that I did. We
slept for nights and nights in a wharf dust-bin
together, and one night I waited and waited and
he never came. I know he would have come if he
were able to. I never saw him again; he and his
poetry left me for ever—God bless him wherever
he is.

After that I spent days and days trying to get a
// 041.png
.pn +1
berth on one of the homebound ships, but there
were so many looking for the same post that I gave
it up as hopeless and eventually got a job in a
tanning yard where they cured sheep and cow skins.
Even after all these years I can still smell that yard
under the tropic sun and the terrible odours of
advanced putrefaction. My wages were thirty-five
shillings a week. I stayed just three weeks, got
my violin out of pawn and started fiddling on the
public streets. After the second day I chummed
in with an Italian harp-player. He taught me a lot
of fine Italian melodies, and in a week we were the
talk of Queensland capital. I used to stand by his
side at night when all the streets were lighted up
and put my whole soul into my playing as I thought
of my proud old father and my sisters, and then with
my big-rimmed Australian hat in my hand bowed
to the street audience as they shied in the silver
pieces. In two weeks I had eight pounds in my
pocket, and as it always does happen, and will
happen till the world ends, when I went to the
post office there was a letter from home with four
five-pound notes in it! How I would have jumped
to get that a week before; but my heart was
touched nevertheless by those kindly hands and
tender thoughts across the world, heedful of my
welfare.

Bidding my wizened dark-eyed old Italian harpist
“Good-bye,” I made for the bush, and travelled
north. I had a comrade with me. He was not a
bad fellow—hailed from the East End of London,
// 042.png
.pn +1
was utterly devoid of romance, and swore fearfully.
As we slept out in the bush at night I cheered him
up by playing the fiddle, till we both lay down side
by side, our feet towards the camp fire, and slept.

I shall never forget that bush tramp. For three
weeks we toiled along, our swags on our backs, from
steep to steep, and from plain to plain, nothing but
vast solitude and sweltering silence broken at intervals
by the fleets of large parrots migrating across
the tropic skies; as they passed overhead we would
hear their dismal mutterings, till their curling wings
faded away over the gum clumps on the everlasting
skylines of the oceans of hills and plains around us.

Brisbane was about one hundred miles away.
Day after day we continued our voyage across those
everlasting seas of grey scrub and rock. The tropic
sun belching down with full vigour raised blisters
as big as soap bubbles on our bare necks; they
would often burst and bring us great relief. Our
supplies were running short, and we had got off the
track and were completely bushed! The stiff bush
grass tore the ends of our trouser legs completely
away, and we looked terrible scarecrows, and got
thin too. Often we would climb the highest steeps
and gaze around in the hope of seeing some sign of
human habitation. We were indeed two sad castaways
on seas of desolation, moving slowly onward
on sore feet under the tropic sun. As we sat by our
camp fire at night my comrade would curse me for
bringing him to such a God-forsaken country, indeed
all my own valour vanished as we lay curled
// 043.png
.pn +1
together in the darkness of that endless bush and
heard the dingo’s wail as its creeping feet explored
the waste far away.

One night, over the hills far off on the skyline,
regiments of ragged gum-trees suddenly burst into
view, as up crept the white Australian moonrise.
We sat up and stared into each other’s eyes for
company. I shall never forget the terror that made
our teeth chatter. I gripped my revolver (I had
bought it and a tin of one hundred cartridges before
starting off from Brisbane). There far away on the
steeps, like a monstrous human shadow, moved
something, leaping from steep to steep like some
ghastly spring-heeled Jack. The perspiration rolled
down our faces. We were both speechless as we
stood up and gazed at that terrible sight. Instinctively
we clutched each other, as that terrible
Aboriginal came towards us; up went our trembling
hands in the moonlight. We shook visibly as we
leaned against each other for support, and fired the
six chambers of our revolvers in rapid succession.
The hills echoed and re-echoed that cannonade; the
enemy fell and we fainted! I poured some water
down my comrade’s throat and half raised him up.

At daybreak, crestfallen and miserable that we
had killed it, my chum and I buried the fallen
enemy, a poor old man kangaroo!

.if h
.il fn=i03-40.jpg w=454px id=i03
.ca
<sc>Forest Track, “out-back”</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Forest Track, “out-back”</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

Two days after that incident we were both hard
at work pulling pumpkins and stacking straw on the
cleared bush ground of a shanty. The stockman was
a good fellow, he treated us kindly and rigged us
// 044.png
.pn +1
// 045.png
.pn +1
// 046.png
.pn +1
both out in decent trousers. I had fine times at that
lonely bush homestead. The stockman’s wife took
a great fancy to me, and they would sit together by
their shanty door, after the day’s work, and listen
to my playing on the violin as though an angel had
fallen from the clouds specially to entertain them.
They had three little girls, plump little sunburnt
girls too. They all loved me. How they romped
with me, and how they cried when I went away!
The stockman’s wife shed tears, and the old fellow’s
voice sounded husky as he wished me “Good luck,”
and those three little girls, with their bright eyes,
wet with tears, are still looking up into my boyish
sunburnt face, and their dear little hands still wave
on the ridge of the steep as I ride away for ever,
fading from their sight.

My companion got work on another station and
found another comrade more suitable to his temperament
than I. He swore that I was mad.
// 047.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch04
IV
.pm ch-hd-start
My first Whiskies and Sodas—And after!—Secure Position as a
Violinist in Orchestra—We stow away—Sight the South Sea
Islands—Samoa
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Once</sc> again I arrived in Brisbane, and walking up
the main street, feeling rather down in the mouth,
I was suddenly thrilled by meeting an old school
chum out from England. We almost fell into each
other’s arms. As soon as we had both recovered
from our mutual astonishment, I inquired and
learnt that he was working as a clerk in one of the
Brisbane wholesale establishments. I had seven
pounds in my pocket when we met that night. I
went with him into my first public-house, and
started on whisky and soda! I have made up my
mind to tell the whole truth, in this the book of my
life, and so I must tell you to my utter shame that I
got fearfully drunk.

How it really occurred I do not know. My comrade
was evidently used to intoxicating refreshments
and showed huge delight as I got more and more
excited. I did not know what had come over me.
After the third whisky I felt an intense tenderness
creep over me for everyone in the bar. The whole
street got to know I was in that wretched place. I
smacked my old school chum on the back over and
over again, and as the old sailors and cunning old
// 048.png
.pn +1
Colonial loafers poured into the bar and called me a
fine and splendid young fellow, I shouted hurriedly
for “deep seas,” “schooners,” “whiskies,” and all
the thousand orders which they poured into my ears.
I was not too far gone not to notice the “old salts”
wink at each other as they lifted their tremendous
glasses and clinked them one against the other,
drinking my health and long life, as with pride I
paid. That night, when I eventually got on to my
bed, the room whirled round and round, and slowly
sank into vast depths of infinity, and I became insensible.
I will not describe my feelings the next
morning, as it would make woeful reading, but I will
tell you this, I have never drunk whiskies and
sodas since, and so the “ill wind” blew into me a
deal of good.

In the next room to me lodged a violinist, and he
could play too. I introduced myself to him and he
gave me several good lessons and recommended me
to some good studies. I told him my tale, and to my
delight he got me a job as violin player in the Brisbane
Theatre. It was an easy matter for him to do
this, as he was the leader of the orchestra. I shall
never forget the novelty of those first nights, and
the sights as the stage beauties whirled round and
round, cocked their legs skyward, and bowed with
blushing modesty as the audience loudly cheered.
I have never seen anything like those sights, not
even in the Fiji and Samoan Islands, where I met
women attired in half of a coco-nut shell, and
stalwart brown men standing under beautiful blue
// 049.png
.pn +1
skies as nude as Grecian statues, and yet not half
so nude as white women wearing only about a
quarter of their clothes.

Sickening of orchestral life, I bade my few friends
farewell, and sailed for Sydney. The harbour
struck me as very beautiful, also the city itself, with
its long streets—Pit Street, George Street and the
parallel streets—along which thundered, in those
days, the big engines of the steam trams.

Alas! ill luck befell me, my money was soon all
spent. I strove to get into the theatre again; but
the whole of Italy was standing at the door offering
their services for a macaroni-living wage, and I was
done for, as they were mostly good players and old
in experience. I hastily wrote home to England,
begging them to send me some cash. In those days
however it took quite three months to get a reply,
and long before the letter-due period was near I was
once more stranded and sleeping on North Shore
Ferry boats and on the Domain, chummy with the
old unfortunates again, as like mammoth rats we
crept through cracks and slept the sleep of the downcast
and weary.

One day I made the acquaintance of two more
lads who were about my own age. They had been
sleeping out in sheds for weeks, and were both half-starved,
and that afternoon we went down on the
wharf of Circular Quay together, and watched a
ship unloading fruit and bananas. Taking our
opportunity, we stole a fine bunch of the latter. I
shall never forget how we enjoyed that gorgeous
// 050.png
.pn +1
feed, as we sat in the Domain hard by and shared
out our stolen meal. My comrades were both
English fellows. That same afternoon we decided
to stow away on a large tramp steamer—I believe
it was a “Blue Anchor Boat.” At dusk that very
night, as she lay alongside, getting up steam so as to
sail next morning, we three crept up the gangway,
and after asking the chief steward and the chief
officer if there was a chance of “working our passages
home” we waited our opportunity and stole
down the stokehold ladder at dark, as quiet as three
mice, right down into the big ship’s depth, and lay
by the coal bunkers all curled up together on some
old sacks. For a long time we whispered together,
full of glee at the thought of such easy success in
getting away from Sydney, all Homeward Bound!

About midnight, we fell asleep. Suddenly I was
awakened by footsteps, and coming down the iron
ladder right over our heads I saw the big boots of
a man. Quickly pulling the peak of my cheese-cutter
cap over my eyes I pretended to sleep. My
chums were both snoring beside me, and, as I once
again peeped under the rim of my cap, I saw by the
figure’s uniform that it was the Chief Engineer.
He struck a match and looked at a steam-gauge, and
just as I thought that he was going up again on deck,
and that we were undiscovered and safe, he turned
and spotted us three boys curled there upon the old
sacks, all asleep as he thought. For a moment he
gazed down upon us, and then without a word crept
away. I quickly awakened my two comrades, and
// 051.png
.pn +1
told them. They would not believe me at first, but
eventually I convinced them, and we all quietly
climbed up the ladder and bolted. He had seen us
there, three pale-faced starved boys curled together,
and it had touched him, and now that I am older I
know that he would never have split, wishing to give
us a chance to get away back to our native land.
And though we did not profit by his kindness, I
often think of the tenderness that made that rough
sea-engineer creep up to the decks and keep a still
tongue for the sake of the three little stowaways.

Next morning we saw the ship sail away half
steam ahead across the Bay; round the Point her
stern passed out of sight as we three stood gazing
wistfully close together on the wharf. Away she
went, with the white hands of the passengers waving
farewells, and in my dreams I saw her pass through
Sydney Heads, and heard her thundering screw
start as she passed out into the ocean and rolled
away full speed ahead on the long, long track
Homeward Bound for England—and I cried myself
to sleep that night.

I soon sickened of that life, I can tell you, and one
day out at “Miller’s Point” I saw alongside the
wharf a schooner which I had been told was bound
for the South Sea Islands. I was lucky and secured
a berth before the mast, and next morning as dawn
crept over Sydney I was aboard her, flying through
the “Heads” into the Pacific Ocean before a stiff
breeze, with all sails set, bound for the Islands.

That night it blew like hell, and the ship almost
// 052.png
.pn +1
turned upside down. I was not used to the tumbling
of small craft, which is very different to the roll and
heave of big ships, and so became terribly sea-sick.
While I was aloft that night I brought up my dinner
and tea, the whole of which was caught by the terrific
wind and slashed on to the deck into the face of the
skipper and the man at the wheel. By Jove! they did
swear! But sailors are rough and forgiving, especially
when you play the fiddle to them, as I did in the
calms that followed that cursed gale and my illness.

In three weeks we sighted the first Island. At
first it looked like a huge coco-nut sticking out of
the calm shining sea afar, and as we got nearer
we saw that it was quite a decent little world
about 300 yards across and 100 wide. A big
crag, its population consisted of one hut, an old
man and two daughters. They were quite nude,
and running out to the extreme end of a small promontory
they waved their thin long brown arms,
and showed their white teeth, as we flew by with full
sails set, 300 yards off.

It was a most novel sight to me to see those
lonely people on that old rock out there in the wide
Pacific. How they lived, and what they lived there
for, heaven only knows—I don’t.

As sunset faded into saffron and crimson lines
along the skyline that tiny isle faded away into the
infinity of travelling darkness for ever following the
sunsets around the globe, and I and the crew of
eight, all told, lit our pipes and sat on deck as
the schooner, urged by the increasing wind which
// 053.png
.pn +1
always sprang up after nightfall, crept over the
primeval waters, the sails filling out and flopping at
longer intervals. The crew were rough sailormen,
two were Englishmen and four came from “Frisco,”
the cook was a mixture of Chinese and nigger blood,—a
most extraordinary-looking being he was too,
with his frizzly dark hair, slit-almond eyes, and thin
yellow teeth dividing the lips which incessantly
gripped a long pipe. He and I had no love for each
other. I caught him spitting in a tin pannikin, and
wiping it clean with his claw-like hand as he put my
dinner on and handed it to me. I took it, and turning
on my heel gave my arm a full-length swing and
over the side it went into the Pacific! By Jove! he
did glare viciously at me. After that I always carried
my own plate to the galley and placed my food
carefully upon it myself.

Daybreak was stealing over the seas as the steep
mountainous shores of Samoa burst through the
skyline ahead.

At midday the anchor dropped into the calm
waters of the Bay. Out from the beach, where the
thundering surf leaped over the barrier reefs in the
sunlight like showers of broken rainbows, came the
out-rigged catamarans, swarming with savage faces.
I shall never forget that strange sight of wild
men dressed in their own skins, and rough-haired
women too, bare as eggs. Along they came paddling
and singing weird tunes that sounded like the dark
ages in dismal song to my trained ears. Behind
the strings of those canoes swam the mothers. On
// 054.png
.pn +1
their wave-washed backs clung their tiny brown
babies. The bright maternal eyes gleamed, and the
wistful tiny bright frightened eyes of the infants
shone, as they rode securely on the brown soft backs
of those original old mothers of the sea-nursed
South!

Behind them stretched the shores of their island
home, thickly clad with big tropical trees, big fan-like
leaves shimmering in the distance. In a few
moments their naked feet were pattering on the
deck of our ship. We all made a rush to save our
belongings from their thieving hands, as they rushed
under our very noses, like big children, to collar all
that attracted their bright alert eyes.

That night off I went in one of the catamarans
with the rest of the crew. On the beach we met
half-castes and white traders loafing and spitting
by the sweltering grog shanties and Samoan women
were also loafing around. I eyed them with great
curiosity. They were nearly naked; some were
dressed in cloth loin-strips only; others, leaning
against posts smoking and chewing, were dressed
in some sailor’s old discarded shirt.

Never in my life have I seen such handsome
women and men as some of those Samoans were—fine
eyes, splendid physiques, the men standing nearly
six feet in their skins. Beautiful heads of hair they
had too, both the men and the women, and they were
full of song; and when I thought of the white men of
my own country, with pimply, dough-coloured skins,
bald heads and stumbling gait, with pens behind
// 055.png
.pn +1
shrivelled-up ears and eyes gleaming worlds of woe,
as they were pulled up to London Town in the train
every morning and every night pulled back again,
my heart was touched over the sadness of the lot
of the working people of the British Isles.
// 056.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch05
V
.pm ch-hd-start
I extemporise Stirring Music on my Violin at Native Weddings—Dethroned
Queens and Kings—Meet Papoo
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I am</sc> now going to tell you about Samoa and Samoan
folk just as my eyes saw them. My ship sailed away,
but I was not on board of it. The Samoan climate
suited my health, and I found decent fellows living
there who made jolly companions. One of them was
a reformed German missionary who had mended
his ways, left off the drink and toiled honestly on a
coco-nut plantation which helped him to eke out a
living for his accepted wife and family. They were
pretty little children too—I knew them all well,
thirteen altogether, some with blue-black eyes and
some grey-black eyes. All had a tiny splash of
white on their tiny plump bodies; their mothers
were as brown as pheasants’ eggs and mostly fine-looking
women.

For a week I lodged with a dark old Samoan who
had a kind of bungalow on the beach. The walls
were lined with the most beautiful South Sea shells.
He traded with them, and I believe did a good
business with sailors and traders. He certainly
made more headway than I ever did in my tea shop.
Well, I found my violin was a real fortune to me.
I got in with all the wealthy Samoan chiefs and
attended Samoan weddings; far away in the depths
// 057.png
.pn +1
of the forest it was I who played and composed
on the violin at those South Sea forest festivals.
Stirring music! The hotly blushing bride, dressed
in her bridal robe—her hair only!—which ruffled
as the breeze of the cool forest kissed her innocent
nakedness, was given away to the modest
Samoan happy youth, and you must forgive me,
dear reader, whoever you are, and remember I
was only a romantic boy, when I tell you that my
whole soul envied that youth! I was young and
inexperienced in the ways of Western and Southern
life, and I at first thought that the Samoan ladies
were rather loose in their morals. I am older now,
and I tell you this—the morals of the South Sea men
and women place the morals of our Western life
completely in the shade.

Certain phases of life in London could never occur
in the South Seas, and even were the women inclined
to traffic with their comeliness, the South Sea
Samoan chief’s war-club never misses!

.if h
.il fn=i04-52.jpg w=527px id=i04
.ca
<sc>Coconut Palm in full fruit</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Coconut Palm in full fruit</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

At night I would steal up the steep shore hills
under the mangroves and coco-palms and creep into
the tiny dome-shaped dens, which were the homesteads
of the native men and women of those
South Sea isles. They all got to know me and
trust me, and I often would share their meals as
they sat squatting around their big earthen steaming
pots wherein they cooked fish and peculiar-smelling
vegetables. The heat of those dens was
terribly stifling to me with my clothes on, and I
would very soon make tracks and get outside, and
// 058.png
.pn +1
// 059.png
.pn +1
// 060.png
.pn +1
from those steeps I would gaze out seaward at the
vast calm Pacific trembling into silver under the
South Sea moon, as the phosphorus-sparkling
waters at intervals curled and broke to silvery waves
up the shore, by the mirroring palm-sheltered
lagoons. On the beach through patches of moonlight
passed the loafing half-caste traders and
huddled groups of Samoan women with their tiny
black children running round and round them like
big black rats.

Laoleo, a Marquesan, was my special comrade on
those nights out. He was the son of one of the
South Sea queens who had seen her day—far away
on one of the lonely Atolls, her beauty faded and
mouth mumbling and toothless, she sat dreaming of
her glorious past, and found life still sweet in living
over the memories of all that had been. Laoleo’s
father was in my time a dethroned king. I saw
him once as he sat by his den. He was fat and
squatty, only had one big yellow tooth, a large head,
cute twinkling eyes and fearfully wrinkled brows,
and when he wrinkled them up, as he thought of his
past, he looked like some grim personification of the
dark ages cast into human frame.

I shall never forget the great prayer-chanting
night. Laoleo took me into the inland scrub one
night, and there, in the forest by their dens, chanting
to their ancient gods, sat the old naked chief and his
big brown wives and daughters, some with their
ridis on, but most of them attired only in their hair
and modest smiles.
// 061.png
.pn +1

It was a beautifully calm night. Overhead from
seaward crept cooling winds, drifting damp odours
from wild flowers and orange-tree scents from the
shore lagoons and palm-forest glooms. Round and
round whirled the nude maidens of that strange world,
swaying their bodies in lyrical beauty and over their
heads in rhythmic movement their long curved
brown arms. The men squatting around slowly
moved their big brown bodies to and fro, chanting
weirdly all the time. By his big domed den sat the
dethroned king, Laoleo’s father. There he sat rehearsing
his grand past, his large thin feet on a little
mat, his chin pointing towards heaven, his face once
more alive with revived majesty as his warrior chiefs
around him swayed their clubs, calling down the
spirits of the mighty dead to bless that old king and
their own brave selves. Young Laoleo and I stood
in the shadows watching them all. As for me, I felt
a bit nervous—they all looked so different sitting
round there with inspired eyes bright with memories
of their glorious past, wondrous battles and beautiful
cannibalistic feasts, memories of the bygone days
when they nibbled their choice old friends, found
them of sweet dispositions and wept over tender
memories.

Through the spread tree-tops gleamed pale stars,
and peeping through the hut doors hard by, among
the coco-palms, through big leaves gazed the wistful
eyes of their small brown naked babies—like tiny
shadows of unborn children peeping from infinity
into the dim regions of moonlit reality.
// 062.png
.pn +1

How the memories return to me as I write on. It
was on that very night which I have just described
that I, the son of a proud English gentleman of
ancient family, fell in love with a South Sea
Island woman, ten years older than myself. You
shall hear something of my downfall. I loved and
lost, and cried in my heart as I lay alone in my hut
on a lone Pacific isle over the grief, the breakdown
that has stricken men since the days of our first
grief-stricken parents, old Adam and sad Eve. I
have not told you before, but several days preceding
the events which I have just spoken of, Laoleo and
I were down in one of the shore grog shanties, talking
and yarning to the batches of beachcombers, as
they loafed in the sultry glooms by the coco-palms,
smoking and spitting and playing cards—some of
them the black sheep of the civilised world, who were
never known to be really sober—when an exceedingly
beautiful Samoan girl of twenty-six years of
age came in and sat just by my seat as I played the
fiddle. She was accompanied by her father, an old
chief. She had an attractive, insinuating face, and as
she sat there, half-leaning against a post, her brown
naked soft velvet figure looked like some beautiful
sculptural work of art. Silently she sat as I played
on, her shining eyes gazing astonished at my white
sunburnt face, and not till I had finished the fiddling,
and the drunken old half-caste trader had finished
his jig and swaggered up to the bar for another dose
of stuff called brandy, did her eyes blink and her lips
part in a smile of pleasure that revealed her white
// 063.png
.pn +1
teeth. She gave me such a look as she sat there,
dressed only in a narrow tappa loin-strip, that I
quickly riveted all my attention on an attempt to
tune up my violin, so as to hide the hot blush that
flamed to my ear tips.
.sp 2
// 064.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch06
VI
.pm ch-hd-start
Contrasts—A South Sea Bar-room—I meet Robert Louis Stevenson—An
Old Time Trader’s Morals—Shell-backs
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Alas</sc>, a good many of those brown men and women
of the old days have passed away for ever, and in
their place, over the islands of the South Seas, roam
the varied offspring of men from many lands, the
half-caste children of white traders, Chinese mongrels,
Polynesian niggers, descendants of wandering, adventurous
viciousness, mixed up with the outcasts of
civilisation, and more often than quite enough the
puny offspring of touring American and German
missionaries, and English too. I don’t know which
has won in the race to populate the lonely and beautifully
secret-keeping isles of those far-away seas, but
I think the good old flag is still to the front, flying to
the breeze, represented in the sparkling, dancing eyes
of the romping children on the wooded South Sea
slopes—pretty violet eyes they have too, some grey
and some grey-brown, little laughing angels of
innocence, as they gaze up at you and go tumbling
head over heels, revealing their tiny plump white-splashed
backs, and the good old missionary sprees
hidden in the dark of the unrecorded! For true it
is that sometimes the virtuous and the good have
their weak moments, those sad lapses which are
not on any account recorded in the delightfully
// 065.png
.pn +1
innocent autobiography of the returned, weary but
still earnest traveller, beautifully written, and sold
for ten shillings and sixpence net, circulated among
the numerous British, German, and American
Christian Societies, and read by the benevolent old
gentlemen and ladies of their native land, which
is so overrun with poverty and misery.

I knew one old Samoan chief, who was a cute,
intellectual fellow, and could speak “pigeon
English” well enough to ply me with numerous
questions concerning my native English land. I
often remember how his bright eyes lit up with
astonishment when I told him of the far-away
sorrows of London Town, so different to the warm
moonlit forest of his own Island. I told him how
men slept on door-steps, shivering, clothed in verminous
rags which fluttered in the cold night winds
as they half covered starved skin and bone of dead
men who still breathed—men who had dropped out
of the fighting ranks of life, lost the forlorn hope,
and did not believe in God, for they had sorrowed
in life and found hell in the death of breathing-despair.
I told him of tiny wistful eyes of children
starving as they gazed into shop windows watching
the mist rise from the steaming foods, and yet
nothing in their little pinched bellies. I told him
of vast cathedrals pointing their steeples up to the
grey English skies, costing millions of money to
build, while far below their stone walls, stealing
along the wet cold streets, those tiny trembling
prayers, God’s helpless children, crept without food
// 066.png
.pn +1
and clothing. I told him of women, dishevelled and
weary, sleeping out on the Embankment and
huddled in dark corners and ditches, some fallen
through drink, and some through loving too well the
man who had betrayed their trust; and I told him
of their more fortunate sisters who had loved and
been unbetrayed by the object of their lucky trust,
and how terribly bitter those very women were towards
their fallen, lost sisters. I was young then,
otherwise how much more could I have told the
astonished old chap as he raised his eyes and hands
to heaven and wiped the perspiration from his
heathen brow!

Yes, to hear how we lived under the banner of the
sign of the Cross, wherefrom only the shadow falls
over the pale-faced multitudes as they tramp to the
clank of the chains of conventionality, chains gold-plated
with eighteen-carat hypocrisy.

“And then Englis come to here,” he said, as he
opened his South Sea mouth in astonishment. He
was an unmarried man, and having no fine-looking
daughters had not suffered as some of the Samoans
had, the why and the wherefore I leave the reader
to guess. I also leave the reader of my autobiography
to remember that the South Sea Islands’
so-called savages are men just like ourselves, with
inclinations and dreams and religions based on
mythology and the gods of their ancient histories,
and were they a powerful and mighty race, owning
three parts of the world, with all the advantages of
climatic conditions and education that the Western
// 067.png
.pn +1
world has had, they would most assuredly emigrate
from their Isles and seek to reform men to their ways
of thinking, and doubtless they would find a good
harvest in our modern cities for their pious endeavours.
I am sure we should all, under their
influence, make a grand stride towards that far-off
goal of perfect good. I know that there are many
men stealing across the earth who do not think as
I think, but this is the autobiography of my life, and
not of another life.

I was a lad in the days that I am telling you of,
and had the opportunities that other men who were
older and more respected did not get. I have often
rushed in where the angel feared to tread, and the devil
also. R.L.S. and others only saw the traders, the
Samoans and other tribes, as they stood before him
in one light, and the missionaries with the halo of
feverish goodness to reform shining around their
brows. I was a boy, my opinion unrespected, a
young beachcomber who knew more than they
thought he did, so they let go, and out came the
true man, glorious and joyous in the wild sprees of
those long-ago Samoan nights! Mind you, there
were good men in the South Seas of those days,
but over most of their heads, in the cemetery where
the whites were buried, the flowers grew. I have
stood gazing on those forgotten graves at sunset and
wondered what dead desires lay beneath those crosses
and stones, what sad crimes and what memories of
their native lands, for the Islands, as well as Australia,
were the happy hiding places of men who were flying
// 068.png
.pn +1
from justice, and were I to tell you the yarns, the
terrible tales of escaped innocence being hunted and
cursed through miscarriages of justice, I should
have to fill a book with nothing else but those tales.

I will now return to where I left the South Sea
Island girl Papoo, for that I discovered was her
name. As the drunken trader swayed to his
tub and her frizzly-headed brown father rolled a
tobacco leaf into a cigarette with two fingers and
stood by the one-roomed Samoan Hotel I spoke to
the girl who had so attracted my attention.

“You like music,” I said.

“Nein spoke,” she answered, but her eyes spoke
for her, and I shifted my seat and got closer and read
that poem of curves and shoulders, bright eyes and
hair, yes, all the mystery of a woman’s eyes, lit by
the magic light of sincerity.

I will not tell you all the many details of my
romantic love affair; but I can often hear in my
dreams the cry of the night bird and the hushed
intervals, as the sea-surf rose and thundered over
the shore barrier by the forest track near Vaea
Mountain’s thickly wooded slopes as I sat by Papoo
and made love to her, just the very same as English
boys do to the girls in the London suburbs to-day.
Papoo was just the same in her manner, modest to
a fault, betraying her modesty by adding another
garment over her ridi, which looked to me very
much like the half of a discarded red nightshirt of
some cranky old skipper. I played the violin to
Papoo by the thatched hut where she lived and she
// 069.png
.pn +1
sang weird Samoan songs, which stealing into my
ears from her lips trembled with lyrical beauty, the
soul of which was in my own head. Nights followed
nights and I would creep behind her thatched hut
on all-fours and meet her secretly. I got so deeply
in love with her that I asked her to clear from the
Island and go with me to Australia; and then the
end came, in the sense that we could not meet so
often. Her father found us out! I thought he
would kill me at first, but the anger in his dark
eyes sank down and he jabbered in South Sea lingo
tremendously for a time. I hung my head and
pretended to be heartily ashamed of myself, and
so he forgave me, but kept his weather eye on me
just the same; and my dear Papoo crept in the hut
door, gazed over her shoulder at me as she disappeared,
and pointed to the shore, and I knew that
she would meet me and bolt at the first opportunity.

It was the day after that episode that I was
sitting by a dead banyan-tree, when a white man,
whom I thought was a rather respectable trader,
emerged from the forest just by. It was Robert
Louis Stevenson. He had intellectual keen eyes and
a sad emotional-looking face, and looked a bit of a
dreamer. Of course I did not know him then, nor
can I remember much what he said at that moment.
I know that I had climbed a tree and was looking at
a bird’s egg when he came up to me and asked me
what bird’s egg it was; I could not tell him, but I
did as he requested, climbed up the tree and placed
it back into the nest. Had I known he was a great
// 070.png
.pn +1
author and poet I should have taken more stock of
him. I remember that we strolled across the slope
together and I gave him some tobacco and climbed
several more trees as he stood below calling up to me
to show him the eggs. It was not till nearly a week
after, when I was on the beach talking to a trader
friend who said to me “That’s Stevenson, the
writer,” that I asked about him, but even then I
did not gather that he was as famous as he was.
I remember the very next day as I and Papoo lay
hidden by some coco-palms we saw him lying full
length, leaning half on his elbow gazing seaward,
writing now and again on a slip of paper that he held
in his hand. He had his boots off, for they stood
beside him. I think he must have been bathing in
one of the creeks by the Bay and afterwards crept
up to the seclusion of the banyan-trees to dream
and write down his thoughts. Papoo and I watched
him for a moment, and then arose and stole away,
as she had the household duties to attend to and I
did not want her father to catch her again.

Almost every night I would go down by the beach
and mix with sailors and traders—men from all
countries they were, a good many Germans among
them, especially when the <i>Lubeck</i> arrived from
Sydney, bringing passengers and a varied cargo.
The crew would come ashore and have a regular
spree, some of them drinking the vile concoction
sold at a shanty bar by the beach. There was one
old chap who hailed from “Nuka Hiva.” He would
sit drinking and smoking and yarning away for
// 071.png
.pn +1
hours, telling us his experiences; he knew all the
Islands, had been married over and over again, and
as he was growing old and infirm through drink and
temper (for he had a terribly fiery head) he would
sit and curse the memory of his numerous family,
not one of whom would help him. He had grown-up
sons and daughters on most of the Isles of the
South Seas round about; some of his children were
as blackish as their mothers, and some half white
and half brown. He would sit for hours while I
played and strummed on the violin, telling me of
the strange habits of the different tribes and their
marriage customs. We would sit together and roar
with laughter as he (half drunk) crawled on the
shanty floor illustrating the way he solemnised the
marriage of his eighth wife in Fiji, describing how
he kissed her feet, and how he went through ceremonies
of a most extraordinary kind in the many
weddings that he had attended as bridegroom. I
could not very well write here the tales he told, and
moreover I do not believe all that he said was true,
though he would pull his billy-goat whiskers, lift his
hat from his extraordinary high bald head, and seal
every detail with a blasphemous oath of “God’s
truth.” He was interesting at first, but I soon
wearied of his adventures, for he told the same yarn
night after night, and as I slept in the same room
with him my life became a burden to me. Just as I
was going off to sleep he would suddenly sit up, half
drunk, and say: “Did I ever tell you of my marriage
with Betsy Brownlegs, the Fiji chief’s daughter?”
// 072.png
.pn +1
// 073.png
.pn +1
// 074.png
.pn +1
And then, notwithstanding that I quickly answered
“Yes, you have told me and everyone else in
Samoa,” he would sit up and start off, pouring out
the old tales.

.if h
.il fn=i05-64.jpg w=489px id=i05
.ca
<sc>Native Girl, Samoa</sc>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Girl, Samoa</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

One night I got him in a decent mood, played him
some old English songs, and then he revealed the
best side of his character, that all men have, and
with tears in his eyes looked up at me and said,
“Matey, that ’ere old song makes me remember—she
sang that, and I killed her!” And then out
came the sorrow of his life, why he was a drunken
exile in the South Seas. As a young man when in
England, for he was an Englishman, he had fallen
madly in love with a pretty girl in a Kent village.
All went well for a time; then a rival came on the
scene who was more polished than poor Hornecastle,
and the object of his affections cooled down
towards him and gave every encouragement to the
suitor who wore a top hat and white cuffs. I can
still see the gleaming of Hornecastle’s eyes as he told
me of that rival of his, how he caught his village
sweetheart one night sitting on a stile with the top
hat hanging on a post beside her and the cuffs round
her neck. “I did for her,” he said; “I meant the
shot for him.” And then, though many years had
passed since that tragedy which had made him fly
from his native land, the tears of remorse crept up
to his eyes, but they quickly brightened as he told
me that he had read in an old newspaper that the
second shot had succeeded, and his rival had died
in the hospital. So ended my strange comrade’s
// 075.png
.pn +1
courtship—the girl and the rival in the grave, and
Hornecastle an exile in the South Seas, and on the
slopes his many wives and children romping with
glee, brought into existence by the top hat and
white cuffs episode. How strange and inscrutable
are the ways of Fate.

I made the acquaintance of another old chap who
had a mania for eating hard-boiled eggs. He had
been a sailor, travelled the world over, done many
misdeeds and many good ones. He spoke with a
Yankee twang and I believe was an American. He
would sit in the grog shanty telling all the traders
and sailors in the bar, when his turn came round, of
other lands, and invariably finished up by condemning
the country in question or praising it according
to the quality of the hard-boiled eggs that he had
eaten while residing there. They were real old
“Shell-backs,” the men of those days, had sailed
the seas, lived on “hard tack,” slept “all standing”
in wind and rain, and as the various yarns
were told they would listen and quietly sip their
beer, spitting over their shoulders out of the grog
shanty windows without missing, in a way that
struck me as wonderful. They were wild times,
those that I am writing of, not so long ago either, as
I am still a young man. You see I started young
and saw more of life before I reached man’s estate
(which is the only estate I ever possessed) than a
good many men see in their threescore and ten
years. As I write and dream on I can see those Isles
glittering under the tropic sun, with the shoreward
// 076.png
.pn +1
surfs rising and breaking into rainbow-flushed
colours, thundering over the reefs. They are still
breaking and curling to spray out there, as on the
beach through the tracks of moonlight pass and
repass the semi-savage-looking figures of Samoan
men and women, and still I can hear the songs of
those who fish in the Bay as they glide along from
shore to shore in the strange outrigged canoes, while
the half-caste and white traders loaf, lean, smoke
and spit by the shore shanties, tugging at their short
beards.

Time went on till Papoo and I drifted apart, and
since I must tell the truth, this being no romance,
one of her own tribe courted her. She still had her
eye on me, but the novelty was wearing off, and I
went off to Tonga in a small trading schooner.
When I returned to Samoa after about six months,
I found that Papoo and her family had left the
Island. I never saw her again, and so ended my
second love affair.
// 077.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch07
VII
.pm ch-hd-start
I go cruising amongst the Islands—Arrive in Sydney—Wharfers
looking for Work—I go off hunting for Gold—Meet R. L.
Stevenson at Sea
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Once</sc> more the wandering fever came over me, and
wishing old Hornecastle good-bye and my few other
friends, I shipped in a schooner bound for the Fijis.
For two or three months I roamed with her from
isle to isle, saw the various tribes of original mankind
of all the South Seas, heard their songs and
squatted with them in their little huts as the children
of past bloodthirsty cannibals said grace over their
meals to the great pride of the onlooking missionaries,
who have done a deal of good notwithstanding
their own sins.

After a week’s stay at Vanua-Levu we proceeded
for the Australian coast, and I arrived once more
in Sydney Harbour and there once again I fell in
with sailors. There they were, a ragged chain of
shoulders on the wharf, mostly men of forty to fifty
years of age, stalwart and sunburnt relics of better,
or worse, days. Still they stood, watching with
weary eyes for work, tugging grizzly beards and
moustaches, smoking plug tobacco or fiercely chewing
in the hot sunshine, arguing the point over the
latest trade union grievance, spitting over their
shoulders with the same wonderful precision and
// 078.png
.pn +1
fate-like persistence. And still they stand there,
at least the younger ones; the older ones are now
dead, asleep in the “Necropolis” out at “Rookwood,”
with all their grievances at rest and their
dried-up chewing gums silent for ever, the cry for
higher wages for ever entombed!—while their pals
stand down by Sydney Bay and now and again
in the long silent watch of many years wipe their
noses with their outstretched thumb and forefinger
and break the silence by some brief remark, such
as “Poor pal Bill, whenever I sees the old windjammers
being tugged out across the Bay I thinks of
’im and the good old days before the mast, before
we joined the trade union, and now he’s dead, I
wonder where he is.” Then, by way of punctuation,
the reminiscent loafer spits out a thin swift stream
of black tobacco juice.

I soon tired of the wharf monotony, and finally,
hearing of the gold discoveries of those times, the
fever got hold of me and I resolved with a friend,
whose spirit seemed very much like my own, to go
up country and see if we could find gold ourselves.
The gold discoveries were far away in Western
Australia, but I got an idea in my head that gold
was to be found in New South Wales. I bought a
blanket, a billy can and other necessaries for bush
exploitation, and we started off by taking tickets
on the Newcastle night boat. It took one night to
get round, and next morning we started off. I
remember we passed some old coal-mine shafts and
then tramped along a main track with tall gums
// 079.png
.pn +1
each side of us. We were happy together. My
comrade was a Scotch fellow, stolid and full of dry
humour, and I believe he would have marched on for
years without complaining so long as he could
smoke. At midday, both tired and hungry, we
hailed the driver of a cart that came across some
paddocks to the right of us. He was an Australian
farmer and a kind fellow we found him. I shall
never forget his jolly laughter and the twinkle of
his eyes when I told him we were “travelling up
country in search of gold,” as we sat up there
beside him and the Australian buck-jumper galloped
along at about four miles an hour. He put us down
about four miles outside of Maitland. It was an
old-fashioned, sleepy-looking place, and as we
tramped through the main street, with our cheese-cutter
caps on and swags on our backs, the Australian
youths opened their big mouths and grinned from
ear to ear, as they stood in groups by the roadside.

That night we left Maitland behind and slept
on the scrub by the Hunter River and then tramped
across country. The heat was terrific and reminded
me of my Queensland experience. We got work at
homesteads and pulled pumpkins, examined creeks
carefully, dug holes, gazed for sparkling running
water that might reveal the precious metal as it ran
over the pockets in the hills; but we found no gold,
only hard work and toil. We soon sickened of the
life, only suitable to the Chinamen who toiled about
us on the stations. Grim, rum-looking things these
men were. They looked so stolid and emotionless as
// 080.png
.pn +1
they tramped in Indian file across the slopes at
sunset back to their sweltering huts that it would
require very little imagination to dream that they
were stuffed mummies of the Pyramids walking in
some long sleep, exiled to the dried-up Australian
Bush, and they smelt so strong that when the wind
blew from their direction my comrade and I at once
lit our pipes!

We soon made tracks for Sydney, where once more
I tried to get a berth on an English ship. I had
received several letters from home and longed to see
them all again; but it was not to be, all the home
boats were full up that week and money was getting
scarce. My comrade and I determined to get a job
somewhere, and going on board the <i>Lubeck</i>, a
German ship, I was taken on as mess-room steward,
and my mate secured a job in the saloon. We
were delighted at such a companionable bit of luck.
Next morning she sailed, and as I was walking along
the deck next day I saw the Pacific Ocean all around
us, and gazing over the bulwark side by the saloon
leaned Robert Louis Stevenson. He did not notice
me as I stood there by the engine-room door, and I
stared on and had a good opportunity of examining
the man who had just begun to be interesting to me,
as I had a faint idea that he stood apart from ordinary
mortals and wrote books of poetry, and so I examined
him with interest. He was a good deal like
the photographs which I have since seen of him in
books and elsewhere, though he looked somewhat
older. His face seemed very much sunburnt, and its
// 081.png
.pn +1
outline struck me as though it expressed Jewish
origin.

The voyage to Samoa, as far as I can now remember,
only took about a week or ten days. We
called at Tonga and stayed, I think, only a few
hours. I slept among the sailors in the fo’c’sle.
They were all Germans and they spoke very little
English. I discovered that one of them had a
violin and, mine being in pawn in Sydney, I borrowed
it from him and started to entertain the crew by
playing old English songs, and some sea chanteys,
one of which was the good stirring old Capstan song
“Blow the Man Down.” As I sat on the hatchway
at night and two German sea-salts shouted songs in
German as I played, Robert Louis Stevenson came
and spoke to me, and seemed very much interested
in my playing. He remembered seeing me in the
Islands and asked me if I was an Australian. I
told him I came from England. He became interested
in me and just as I was losing my first embarrassment,
and had played him once again a
Scottish melody which seemed to please him very
much, I heard the wretched German chief steward
shouting for me, and I had to make a bolt. I did
not see him again till we arrived near the Islands,
then one night as I was sitting on the hatchway
picking the fiddle strings, sweating a good deal,
for it was a sweltering hot night, Stevenson came
through the alley-way by the engine-room, and sat
beside me and another sailor who was humming as I
strummed away. I saw his face outlined distinctly;
// 082.png
.pn +1
it was a calm night, the moon right overhead flooded
the sea with a silver sheen as the screw whirled
steadily round and the vessel sped along leaving a
long silver wake which could easily be seen for
miles behind as the sparkling foam drifted with the
glassy swell.

Stevenson was one of those men with a keen
face that made you feel a bit reticent until he
spoke, and then you discovered a human note in
the voice that put you thoroughly at your ease,
and as he spoke to a German sailor he picked
my violin up and started to try and play some
old folk melody. I told him how to hold the
bow correctly and hold the head of the violin level
with his chin, which he at once attempted to do
and made several efforts to perform, upon which I
smiled approvingly at my illustrious pupil! He
had long delicate fingers and looked well as he stood
in the Maestro fashion and did all I told him to do in
an obedient way as though I were Stevenson and he
the humble sailor-lad. He asked me many questions
about music and seemed to know more about
the history of celebrated violinists and the history
of musical notation than I did, but he spoke modestly
and did not take the least advantage of my inferior
knowledge as he walked to and fro restlessly and
then sat down again. He seemed fond of looking
over the ship’s side, gazing out to sea, and up at the
stars. He was very friendly with all the sailors,
went into the fo’c’sle, talked to the crew and was
greatly interested in ship life. I did not see him
// 083.png
.pn +1
again till I arrived on the Islands. I did not care
about travelling with Germans whom I could not
speak to, my knowledge of German being no more
than “nein,” and “jah,” and so I left the <i>Lubeck</i>
and once more came in contact with old Hornecastle.
My chum, though I did all I could to persuade
him to leave the boat, would not do so, and so
we parted, and the last I heard of him was that
he had shipped before the mast of a sailing ship
bound for San Francisco and during terrible weather
got lost overboard. Poor Ned, I often think of him
and even regret leaving the <i>Lubeck</i>, otherwise he
might not have gone off on the ill-fated ship, for she
too got lost later on with “All Hands.”

Hornecastle[#] had also been away from the Islands
somewhere or other, I forget now where, but I remember
his pleasure at seeing me again as he
smacked me on the back, and shouted “Hello, my
hearty.”

.pm fn-start // 1
Hornecastle was a successful trader and always gave me employment
if I required it, and paid well.
.pm fn-end

It was about that time that I spent a good deal of
my time in practising the fiddle and studying music,
and Hornecastle and another old shell-back would
sit on a chest and say, “Shut it, youngster, give us a
toon!” I had got hold of Kreutzer’s violin studies,
and some of the double-stopping strains, I must
admit, got very monotonous even to me as I played
them over and over again hundreds of times, and
when I think of the old chap’s temper at my persistence,
and the way he got out of his bed one night,
// 084.png
.pn +1
// 085.png
.pn +1
// 086.png
.pn +1
as I was practising, and said, “By Christ, if yer don’t
stop that hell of a row, I’ll smash yer fiddle,” I can
hardly blame him.

.if h
.il fn=i06-74.jpg w=600px id=i06
.ca
<sc>View of Apia from Mulinu</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>View of Apia from Mulinu</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

One night a schooner arrived from Honolulu and
the crew came ashore and had a fine spree. She
brought as passengers two missionaries. I do not
remember their names, only that we all called them
the “reverends”; the elder one of the two, who
looked like a German, was a real “knock-out”; he
had succumbed to more women, and had made more
devoted mothers on that Isle than Hornecastle had in
all his populating career! But he was a good fellow
withal, and after he had been to the missionary
school and done his duties he would come to us
and talk about our evil ways, and try to reform
old Hornecastle, who was dead against the Church.
Hornecastle would listen to him, blinking his grey
eyes all the time. He would tug his beard, put his
finger to his beak-like nose and say, “Look ye here,
Missy” (which was an abbreviation for missionary).
“It’s no good yer trying to come your old swank
over me, you’d best start to reform yerself, old cock.”
But that missionary was oblivious, and used to the
sarcasm and genial observations of his own kind,
and took it all in good part. Half comic and half in
earnest, he would raise his pious hands above his
head, as old Hornecastle would let go and curse
missionaries and all creation in general. This
missionary meanwhile would sit quietly gazing
around, taking notes down, asking questions, the
names of trees, flowers, and Isle afar and near,
// 087.png
.pn +1
busily engaged in compiling his memoirs, to be
published when he returned to his native land in a
grand volume chock-full of extreme virtue and self-sacrifice,
and the sad ways of the children of the
South Seas, and the little bit of good white men had
circulated in the children who would grow up pious.
I have read a good many books written by men
who have presumably travelled and lived in the
parts they have written about, but I can most
earnestly assure my readers of this autobiography
that black men of India and on the Gold Coast of
West Africa and in the South Seas do not speak as I
have read that they do speak.

The copper-coloured man of Ceylon and Bombay,
as soon as you step ashore, speeds towards you and
says, “Me show you where live, me good man,
carry parcel and nebber steal,” points viciously to
his rival—who is clamouring in pigeon English for
your patronage—and swears that “He’s bad man,
steal all, and been pison” (meaning prison), as the
aristocratic dark-turbaned gentleman, with long
black naked legs, white shoes and no socks, grins,
shows his white teeth, pulls his black hand from
under his shirt tail, and tries to entice you to scan
his splendid selection of photographs—photographs
that, not to put too fine a point upon it, even a Turk,
on looking at them, would blow his nose and blush!
The South Sea Islanders accost you in a more innocent
way; naturally a virtuous race, and living in
isolation from civilised Europe, they have watched
the White askance, and gradually discovered that
// 088.png
.pn +1
the godliness he clothes himself with sometimes
covers a deal of vice! So they strive to sell you
corals and fruit, as they patter over the ship’s deck
with naked feet, and when they see the white man’s
eyes wandering over their lithe figures, the women,
who have been schooled in Western ways, glide up
to you with speaking eyes, stroke your hand with
their soft brown fingers, stand with their curved
nude brown bodies, clothed only in a string of beads,
and like a big greedy child say, “You like me? give
me money, eh?”

This, of course, sounds very different to the books
I have read, but whoever you are, go to the South
Seas, and keep your weather-eye open and you will
not contradict me when I say that the money spent
by Christian Societies in England and America to
polish up the South Sea Island daughters and men,
who were far more innocent than Europe ever remembers
being, could be spent in our own countries
with far greater advantage. The South Sea
Islanders would be happier and the English poor
and starving children better looked after.
.sp 2
// 089.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch08
VIII
.pm ch-hd-start
An Old Time Marquesan Queen—Forced Teetotalism and the
Result—With R.L.S. watching Native Dance—A German
Missionary—A Medley of Incidents
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>There</sc> was an old Marquesan Queen who lived near
Samoa. Years ago in the zenith of her beauty
and fame she sang and danced at the cannibalistic
feasts, was the belle of the Isles and a kind of Helen
of Troy of the South Seas. She was taken prisoner by
various tribes, bought by the big tattooed chiefs and,
when they sickened of her, sold again and again until
at last she emerged from the door of a South Sea
Divorce Court, and fell into the arms of one of the
Island Kings and, becoming a Queen, became
virtuous, in so far as she possibly could be after
being reformed to the Christian religion. Hornecastle
called at her lonely Isle once, while we
were cruising around in a sloop. He, of course,
knew her well, and after introducing me to her as his
son, I brought the fiddle out at “Castle’s” request,
and played to her, as she sat old and wrinkled by her
hut door. She was a most extraordinary-looking
old woman; when she smiled her face puckered up
into a map of wrinkles and her small shrunken black
eyes twinkled as though through the dark came back
old memories of those lusty stalwart chiefs of long
ago. Then she readjusted her pince-nez and I saw
// 090.png
.pn +1
the tears in her eyes as her black fingers nervously
turned over leaf after leaf of the big English Bible
which she had on her bony knees. She had grown
very pious and sedate and no one on earth would
have guessed her past history as she sat there, with
nothing on except an old bustle skirt, which only
reached to her knees, and stuck on her head a large
Parisian hat of the fashion about the time of the
French Revolution.

I suppose she’s dead now and gone to the land of
her fathers. I often think of her and the way she
gazed at my white face as I dropped on one knee,
with all the respect due to a Queen, and kissed that
shrivelled hand. I can still see the faint, majestic
smile flickering on those aged lips that had received
in the bloom of maidenhood how many kisses on
their soft amorous curves—and the lithe brown
body’s outline of breathing beauty, how often had it
been folded in the arms of brief paradise? There
she sat, a wrinkled-up bit of humanity, jealous and
fretful of those who had not seen their day, for all
the world like some old ladies of my own country,
as she surveyed with approval, the decorum of the
future race romping about her, tumbling head over
heels on the plantation slopes, partially clothed in
palm-leaf hats, and lava-lava, extending from the
waist to the knees.

Hornecastle could speak the “Island lingo” like
a native and many were the modest blushes she gave
as the old chap went over reminiscences of the
glorious past, telling her of her past beauty and
// 091.png
.pn +1
swearing that she had but slightly changed, and
that for the better, giving me a vigorous side wink as
he told that thundering lie with its inner meaning.
Poor old Castle, he may be still alive. I never
met a more knowing and yet sentimental old shell-back
and he grafted into my mind more than any
other man the knowledge of South Sea Island
life and the inefficacy of white men of religious
aspirations. I would not even be surprised to
hear that he was now pious and sobered down.
I never met a man like Castle for strength.
I’ve seen him pick up a tree trunk that weighed
three hundredweight and handle it as though it
were a one-seater canoe. He once told me that he
had only had two illnesses in his life and they,
he said, were “Bronshitus and Pew-Monja.” He
was born in the early days of old England
when they did not teach the boys and girls
Latin, French, German and Euclid, long before
children looked upon their parents as fools, and
held the candle while their old mother fetched up
a ton of coal.

There was one other eccentric old man whom I
have forgotten to mention; his name was Bodey,
he’d travelled the world over and had spent ten
years of peace and rest in Darlinghurst Gaol,
Sydney. I never saw him sober, so that I cannot
tell you anything of his real character, excepting
that he was extremely devoted to his Samoan wife,
who likewise struck me as very fond of him. She
was a tall, fine-looking woman of about forty years
// 092.png
.pn +1
of age. Her original beauty had long since departed;
her front teeth also had gone; her plump, full lips
were much shrunken, but her eyes still remained
cheerful-looking and moved quickly and intelligently
as she spoke. Bodey gave her a terrible
shock once. He broke his ankle and, being utterly
helpless, could not get down to the beach drinking
shanty, and so got quite sober. For two days
running, his manner was so different that his wife
gazed upon him as a stranger, and he too gazed upon
her, as she nursed him and bathed his foot, with suspicion,
quizzing her with astonishment, but I took
mercy on him, went and got a bottle of Samoan
whisky and the couple in half-an-hour were once
more united and happy. Three weeks after that he
died of shock.

Hornecastle and I went to his grave, to place a
large cross on it, which we had made ourselves.
When we got there Hornecastle cried like a child,
and I gave a Samoan who was lying asleep near by
a large silk handkerchief and one “mark” to dig a
hole after we had gone, and place that cross over
our dead friend. I remember well how Hornecastle
in his drunken grief stuck the cross in and kept
poking down and down, as though he was searching
for his old comrade, and when I pulled him away he
staggered back, fell on his knees and kissed the earth
with his lips, crying out, “Bodey, old mate, can yer
hear me?”

It upset me terribly at the time; I did not know
Castle had such deep feeling in his nature. I pulled
// 093.png
.pn +1
him off and told the Samoan to make the grave neat
and he bowed his brown face fourteen times reverently
to show me that he understood my wishes.
As soon as we had gone he bolted off with the tombstone;
what he wanted it for only heaven knows.

It was about that time that the Islanders had
some great festive ball and I and Hornecastle went
inland and had a fine spree. Hornecastle got fearfully
drunk, and I played the violin as the Samoan
men, boys and girls, dressed up in a very picturesque
way, flowers in their hair, and grasses and leaves
clinging to their brown bodies, went through their
ancient dances, in the shade of the banyans and mangroves.
It was a great meeting; the old fighting
chiefs were all there, dethroned kings and discarded
queens, claimants to fallen dynasties of the Islands
around. Robert Louis Stevenson was there.
Hornecastle smacked him on the back to let me see
that he was in with the best society. Stevenson
took it all in good part and laughed heartily as the
half-naked Island women danced and whirled
around and threw up their legs while Hornecastle
kept shouting “Hen-core! Hen-core!” He was a
low old scoundrel, but I couldn’t help liking him;
he was most sincere in all his likes and dislikes
and never put on any side. Stevenson liked him
too, for while he was gazing interestedly on the
weird moonlit forest scene of that primeval ballroom
I noticed he often gazed sideways with intense
amusement at Hornecastle, who kept getting
enthusiastic about the various nude figures of the
// 094.png
.pn +1
Samoan women, and made critical remarks about
their limbs and beauty, slapping me on the shoulder
every now and again, and poking me in the ribs as he
noticed some especial point about them that interested
him. The presence of Robert Louis Stevenson
standing close by made me feel a bit uncomfortable
in my association with Hornecastle, especially
as the old reprobate would appeal to me at every
incident, as though he thought I was as bad as himself.
It was almost dawn before the Tribes finished
their grand war dances. All the little children,
tired out, lay huddled in groups under the scattered
palms and coco-nut trees fast asleep, their tiny dark
faces revealed by the moonbeams which crept over
their pretty eyelids and tiny parted sleeping lips, as
the night wind blew aside the long-fingered palm-leaves
just above them.

The few whites, Robert Louis Stevenson and his
friends, went off home some time before the grand
finale, which consisted of the banging of drums and
the kicking of legs and movement of bodies in a
manner something resembling the modern “cakewalk,”
except that it was a deal more rhythmical
and fascinating to gaze upon. Hornecastle fell
madly in love with a fat old dark woman of about
sixty years of age; round and round the two of
them went together, and the old chap, I’ll swear,
cocked his legs quite as high as the South Sea maid
of sixty summers. In the morning he looked pretty
bad and kept sticking his head in a tub of cold seawater
to keep it cool, and till he got a few more
// 095.png
.pn +1
drinks down him he looked a bit ashamed of himself,
and well he ought to, considering I have only told
you half the truth with regard to his behaviour.

.if h
.il fn=i07-84.jpg w=513px id=i07
.ca
<sc>Planting Coco-nuts</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Planting Coco-nuts</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

I must tell you, before I go on, about the German
missionary “Von Sour-Craut.” One night he was
caught out with one of the high caste chieftain’s
daughters; what he had been really doing I don’t
know, but there was a terrible rumpus. One of the
old Inland tribes who were staying on for some
feast at Satufa and were on the warpath (for at that
time there was always some trouble about over-chief
jealousy) got hold of him and took him off
into the forest. The whites, English and American
missionaries, got wind of his predicament and off we
all went and succeeded in finding him trussed up like
a fowl. Hornecastle swore that they were an emigrant
tribe of Solomon Islanders and that their intention
was to roast him on a cannibalistic spit; he even
told me afterwards that he saw the oil basting pot;
anyway, true or not true, we all had a terrible fighting
scramble to rescue Sour-Craut. Hornecastle
knocked six of them over with a log. I got in a
blow on one of them and had my knuckle dislocated
as I put my hand up to protect my head as a warrior
lifted his club and brought it down with a crash!
We won the day though and released the trussed-up
victim, and the whole tribe of outraged mothers and
fathers, who had attempted to get their own back,
scampered off into the moonlit forest like a pack of
mammoth rats. We tried to get the truth out of
Sour-Craut the missionary as to what he had done
// 096.png
.pn +1
// 097.png
.pn +1
// 098.png
.pn +1
to cause such wrath among the natives, but he
insisted that divine prayer was his only object in
seeking out the dusky maid, but we all had our
suspicions and Sour-Craut got the sack by the
authorities and left those parts. Hornecastle had
a nasty wound in the back and one of his ears was
partly chewed off. He had good blood though and
it soon healed. The way he swore over that wound
was something terrible, in fact I really think he
used worse language than he did when we went
to Nuka-Hiva and slept side by side in a hut that
had previously been inhabited by a half-caste
Chinaman. We were just going off to sleep when
out they came from their hungry vigil and running
in all directions started to taste the two of us—for
they were bugs as big as hornets! We did smash
them up too, and I’ll swear that they were more
tenacious in their death struggles than the New
York species that came down the walls in vast
regiments and nearly ate my eyelids away, but I
will tell you of all that terrible time later on.

One night soon after the first-mentioned event,
a German sailor gave me a copy of A. Lindsay
Gordon’s poems. I read the “Sick Stockrider”
and felt like leaving the Islands for a pilgrimage to
the author’s grave. I at once came under the influence
of the unfortunate Omar Khayyam of the
Australian Bush and wrote off yards of quatrains.
I think if they had been published they would have
made me famous as the author of the world’s worst
poems; anyway I liked them, and when I read them
// 099.png
.pn +1
to Hornecastle and he smacked me on the back and
said I was a genius I almost put them in an envelope
to send to the Poet Laureate of England. I dedicated
the poems to Hornecastle, and that’s the only
part of it that I wish to remember.

Mr Castle introduced me to a real poet; he wore
long shaggy hair, unfortunately he was a Dane and
wrote in his own language, but I knew that he was
a real poet by the way he gazed at the pretty brown
Samoan girls as they passed by us on the beach,
their arms round each other’s naked shoulders,
crimson flowers in their rough hair, and their ridis
adorned with leaves and blossoms that dangled to
their bare knees. The poet came under the influence
of Castle’s loose ways and one night while
half intoxicated fell on his knees and attempted to
embrace a beautiful Samoan wife of about twenty-five
years of age. I knew the husband intimately
and quickly explained matters to him, told him that
he was only a poet, otherwise there would, I am
sure, have been another rumpus. The Dane and I
became very friendly after that episode and, to my
delight, I found that he could play the violin, and
had a lot of fine duets for two fiddles. We went to
the native hut villages and borrowed a disused hut,
and sat there together playing for all we were worth.
The native children, men and women stood by their
small doors and huddled round us delighted and
astonished as we scraped away in the twilight by
the border of the forest. Old Hornecastle got quite
jealous of my friendship with that Danish poet, but
// 100.png
.pn +1
I soon stroked him down the right way, and took
him down to a grog shanty and gave him several
“splashes.” A touring party came across the Bay
one day, four of them altogether; they were English
and had come across from New South Wales. One
of them was a retired judge; he had a head without
much front to it, and the back stuck up like a large
walnut with a few hairs gummed on it. His son
spent the whole day in taking photos; he took snap-shots
of everything for miles, also of Hornecastle
in all positions, and the old chap was delighted.

“Castle” and I persuaded that judge’s son to
sail across to the Isle where that old Marquesan
Queen lived with the sole purpose of taking her photo.
I was an innocent party to the whole business,
but they took several hundreds of photographs of
Castle’s friends, etc., and the old judge discovered
them among his son’s belongings and there was a
row! I never saw such wrath, such virtuous indignation
as that man was capable of. I don’t know
what became of the son, but I have a suspicion that
he is on the Bench in England to-day, a good and
prosperous man, and if he ever reads these memoirs
of mine he need not be frightened as I have not
the slightest intention of giving him away over that
photo business. How sad is life when you think
of things, but the best thing to do is not to think
too much. I have seen men become prematurely
old through worrying over the inevitable things of
civilised life. Why try and improve things or make
them worse? “Socialism,” “Trade Unionism”
// 101.png
.pn +1
and all the other thousand “isms” if they are
for the betterment of the race will come, or, if not,
fall away. Universal approval will guide the laws
of mankind as well as the laws of nature, and so
things fall into their places or fall from their assumed
places as sure as the stars of heaven roll and fall to
the universal laws of gravitation. And so I jog
along doing my best for my immediate circle and
do not get excited over the awful event that will
never happen.

I must tell you of a gentleman I met one night
who came across the Pacific from the Island of Pitcairn
where the mutinous crew of the <i>Bounty</i> landed
years ago. They are all dead now, but their children
are still living there; in fact, the whole race are now
partly descendants of the sailors of that long-ago
ship. I have met in my later musical rambles
many of the blue-blooded folk of different lands and
I think if God makes Peers and Knights of dead men
in heaven, very few of them will be able to go on
with their title, but if that son of the old mutineer
of the <i>Bounty</i> does not get a title when he’s dead it
will be a shame. He was a splendid fellow, brave,
sincere in his conversation. He tolerated Hornecastle’s
numerous repetitions of past loyal deeds,
etc., like a hero, and gave me my first lesson in
astronomy. With a quick soulful ear he heard the
note of pathos as I played some old folk songs to
him; he gave me a long and wonderful account of
the beauty of life and the sadness of death, and when
he told me who he was I could have fallen over with
// 102.png
.pn +1
astonishment. I had thought he was at least the
head of some English University on tour. I was
of course young then, and the astonishment would
be, now I am more in with the world, more on the
side of finding a University man who had some really
original information to impart. Some men think
too much learning kills originality and makes men
become automatic penny-in-the-slot machines. Ask
the question of them and their memory reverts
back to the fourteenth chapter of the <i>Odyssey</i> or
Plato’s <i>Ethics</i> to seek for the reply and so their
faculties through long disuse slowly fade away and
they die from the head downwards. I don’t know
if it’s true or not, but I have heard that some great
theoretical men always when just dead cool off at
the head first, their feet being warm long after stiffness
has set in, but this is a gloomy topic and quite
out of my province, so I will ask my reader’s forgiveness
and change the subject at once.
.sp 2
// 103.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch09
IX
.pm ch-hd-start
Descendants of Mutineers—Cannibalism—I play a Violin Overture
at what I fear is a Cannibalistic Feast—A Samoan
Chief’s Philosophy—Musings
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Before</sc> I proceed I will tell you about the crew of
the <i>Bounty</i> just as I heard it from the lips of one of
the descendants of the old mutineers whom I have
awhile back spoken of.

The <i>Bounty</i> left England considerably more than
a hundred years ago, and made a voyage to the
South Seas, calling at the Isle of Tahiti. No one
knows exactly what the mutiny was about; anyway
there certainly was a mutiny and the crew cast
the Captain and one or two officers adrift, then ran
the ship ashore in the Pacific and hid themselves in
the Isles among the savage Tahitian men and women.
The latter being beautiful to look upon, the sailors
took them to wife, and with my knowledge of seafaring
men of my own day I can assure you that
they did not grieve much over their exile and
thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The Government
sent out a search for them and some of them got
collared and were taken home to England and
executed. The remainder, who had gone off to
another Isle taking their wives with them, eluded
their pursuers, lived and ended their lives on the Isle
of “Pitcairn” and left behind them hundreds of
// 104.png
.pn +1
half-caste children, who turned out to be anything
but what one would have expected, being an intelligent
and upright race. It appears that the
mutineers went in for debauchery; fought over each
other’s wives, and even their comrades’ daughters
as the years rolled by. Eventually they all died
excepting Adams, the mutineer ring-leader, who,
seeing all his old comrades dead, grew pious and
remorseful over his wild career, and being king of
the Island race brought the whole family up to be
strictly upright and honest in all their ways, and he
succeeded too; and there they are out there to-day
in the South Seas, happy and industrious. By the
irony of fate old Adams proved to be the best and
most successful missionary that ever reared a brood
in the South Seas, and all men who have been that
way will agree with all I have said and tell you that
even to this generation the Island children of those
parts are brave sailors, and their faces resemble the
long dead lineaments of those sailors of long ago,
and most of the families have English names, such
as Johnson, Noble, etc.

I am now going to tell you about cannibalism in
the Pacific Islands just as I saw it and heard of it.
Of course, a lot has been written on the subject by
many travellers, but you may be interested to know
my views and experiences on this gruesome but
interesting matter.

I knew two Islanders who still hungered after the
flesh of man; they were not the true natives of
Samoa, for the Samoans were not at all addicted to
// 105.png
.pn +1
cannibalism. One night they listened to me as I sat
playing the violin under the shade of some banyan-trees,
and invited me into the forest village to their
den. Well, when I arrived inside their snug little
homestead I noticed a grizzled old man and woman
nibbling away at the remains of a thigh bone of
some departed enemy whom they had roasted and
eaten. As I looked across at them sitting there
enjoying that awful meal they swiftly hid the bone
behind them. The man was a simple-looking fellow;
his shrunken gleaming eyes gazed kindly upon me,
but I could not conjure up in my heart much love
for him, especially when he grinned and revealed his
yellowish front teeth that had chewed up the remains
of who knows who? Some missing white trader,
or someone of his own race, or even a missionary
with M.A. after his name. They were very fond of
missionaries, as I’ve heard that they eat well, being
nicely nourished, and not being addicted to too much
drink they have not the rum-flavour that traders
have had who have met the awful fate of supplying
the cannibalistic festive board with meat.

I felt rather nervous as I caught sight of that
awful remainder of departed woe, but I took good
care not to let them see that I had noticed, as they
knew what would happen to them if they were found
out, and consequently, I being at that moment in
their power, they might have thought it advisable to
put an end to my existence and make me into provisions
for their secret larder! I was very young, white
and tender in those days and would have eaten well.
// 106.png
.pn +1

I am quite sure these remarks of mine may make
you think I treat such things as cannibalism lightly,
but it is not so; good and bad are comparative, and
when I sit here and write and see life with sadder
and more earnest eyes I simply think what a lucky
fellow I was not to have been born in the South Seas.
Had my parents been South Sea Islanders, and I born
in Fiji instead of Kent, doubtless someone would
have already recorded in their autobiography my
own cannibalistic revels and terrible sins, for I am
adventurous and wayward enough now with all the
advantages of birth and education—so what would
I have been if I had crept into the world and seen
the first light and heard the first sounds in some
Fijian moonlit forest? And you too, reader, what
would you have been? Probably both happier than
we are now—who knows?

Well, I looked over at that grim couple and smiled
pleasantly to let them see I had noticed nothing, and
as I spoke to them and the woman picked her teeth
with her finger and nearly choked as she swallowed
the mouthful that she sought to conceal, and said,
“No savee,” I heard a noise outside in the forest
and they both jumped up. I looked outside and
saw a group of the savages passing along through
the forest. It was already twilight, yet I could see
most of their swarthy faces distinctly and I at once
recognised an old Tongan friend of mine whom I had
long since thought had gone back to Tonga. The
four of us left the den and went across the clearing
and met the group as they hurried along, dragging
// 107.png
.pn +1
behind them a heavy load. What I am going to
tell you is absolute truth, and I will tell you the
details just as I saw them with my own eyes. That
load which they dragged behind them was a body,
and they were off into the forest depth bound for
the grand cannibalistic feast!

As I came up to them they all looked startled and
frightened and made as though to go for me, and I
believe now that I look back that had not my
Tongan friend appealed on my behalf I should have
been immediately killed. I had my fiddle with me,
and they looked upon my violin as some kind of
enchanter, some spirit of the dead, and after a
hurried consultation, standing there under the trees
with fierce faces and frizzly heads, muttering in
guttural tones, they all turned toward me, and one
said, “Ova lu-lu,” and made signs that I should
follow them into the forest and play music to them,
their intention being not to kill me but to entice me
on with them so that I could not return and give
them away, and so I was commandeered.

At that moment I had not the slightest suspicion
that the load that bumped behind them, tightly
wrapped up, as it parted the tall grasses and flowers as
they hurried along, was the dead body of some fallen
enemy, otherwise I am quite sure that I should have
made a bolt for it, but possibly my slow comprehension
saved my life, for however fast I ran I doubt
if I could have out-run a South Sea savage.

How well do I remember that terrible journey
through the forest, as overhead sang the trade-wind
// 108.png
.pn +1
in the palms and giant trees, and the sunset died
away and the mysterious glooms around became
deeper mysteries. Hot and dejected I followed
those stalwart bare men, twenty behind me and
twenty in front, as their naked feet hurried in single
file toward the terrible “place” where that “thing”
was to be cooked! And I, the hired musician,
trembled as the hot breath of the tall savage just
behind me blew down my neck as he dragged his
burden along on that sweltering hot night. I have
played the violin in many ball-rooms and fêtes
since that long-ago night, but never once have I
played without that terrible picture (which I am
now going to tell you of) rising before my eyes. It
seemed miles to me before they stopped. Great
heaven, they were dressed up for the occasion!
Some of them were smeared with whitish stuff, and
three of them—women!—were got up like idols.
One was a young and attractive-looking type of
South Sea womanhood. She walked two ahead of
me and I remember her well as she did not look so
fierce as the others and the thought came to my
mind that I could look to her for sympathy if they
wanted to kill me. Women are women the world
over, and down in my heart I blessed the soft curves
of that female frame as she moved along in front of
me, turning her head from time to time to gaze
steadfastly into my eyes. Several times I thought
of making a sudden dive into the forest. If I had
done so I feel quite sure the reader would never have
read this autobiography.
// 109.png
.pn +1

In between two great plateaux they stopped and
the chief that led them gave two bird-like calls
among the hills, and presently the bush parted
gently and out poked frizzly heads. More of them
to attend that feast! One was a terrible-looking
fellow; his head looked like a huge coco-nut with
fat lips on it and a tuft of quills on the top. He
glared at me and spoke viciously to the others.
How my heart thumped! I felt my face turn grey
and my lips go dry as I gave a sickly smile to that
awful man to let him see that I was perfectly agreeable
to all that they were doing and to all that they
might do, and in an inspiration I started to play the
fiddle and laughed hysterically. I do not mind
telling you that I was in a terrible funk and to this
day I do not like the look of men who have coco-nut-shaped
heads, so horrified and cowed was I by that
chief who muttered to the others and swayed his
club to and fro and several times half lifted it as
though to brain me! And all this I am telling you
is so terribly true that I don’t know how to proceed
with all that happened, whether to describe my
feelings or what my eyes saw. But there, whoever
you are, you can place yourself in my predicament,
and if you have a good imagination feel a faint echo
of my despair of that night of long ago.

Overhead hung the bright moon in the vault of
night as the busy hands of that fierce tribe gathered
and piled up the wood fire as in the hot embers
frizzled the “Long Pig.” There are some details of
cooking odours which I must leave out. I cannot
// 110.png
.pn +1
describe all, it was too hellish to describe. Round
and round that terrible fire they whirled like some
ghastly nightmare of the dead in hell, lifting their
chins skywards and chanting thanksgiving to their
ancient gods, and I heard the rattle of the threaded
shells that adorned the bodies of the wild women as
they too sang in shrill voices. I played away as fast
as I could on my violin the repeated intervals of
those minor strains, keeping time to that terrible
dance, the perspiration pouring down my face as I
tore away at the only two strings on my instrument.
There they were, a ring of swarthy faces around me,
as they suddenly stopped all hushed as the nightbird
in the forest said “Wail-wail-tu-tu-wail-wail,”
and they started on their haunches to devour their
“meal.” And as the forest wind blew the dying,
flickering firelight over their faces I thought I
would presently awake from some ghastly nightmare,
so terrible was the sight and so unreal-looking
were the surroundings conjured up in my own brain
by the knowledge of what that big dish joint consisted
of, for they themselves as they sat there
swallowing away looked quite innocent and peaceful,
and they even offered up a prayer to their gods in
devoted thanks for that supper, just the very same
as tiny white children who put their hands together
and thank God for their feast of the poor murdered
four-legged creatures of the field. I pretended to
join in the prayer and muttered out some noises,
but I could not under any pretence eat. I really
think that I would have died sooner than eat of that
// 111.png
.pn +1
joint. How I got out of it I don’t know, but I did,
and I put down my escape to the quantity of diners
at the festivity and their greediness.

As I sat there in that den of the forest I thought
of my people in England, in a respectable London
suburban home, calmly going about their household
duties, singing and playing the piano, and the afternoon
“At Home,” small talk and whispering, while
I sat on a little dead tree stump in the South Sea Isle
with my heart thumping like a funeral march drum,
as about fifty naked savage cannibals gnawed the
bones of that inhuman and yet human feast! I
thought of my father’s offices in London, as he sat
editing the adventurous books for that publishing
house wherefrom sprang out to the hands of
the schoolboys the <i>Highway Men</i>, <i>Red Indians</i>
and <i>Spring Heeled Jacks</i>, etc.,[#] that fired the
heads of the boys of my schooldays with the mad
adventurous spirit to go to sea and seek adventure
in far lands, and I cursed these books, for it was
through them that I was sitting there, wondering
every moment if those terrible men would suddenly
take a fancy to me, knock my skull in and prepare
me for the next meal!

.pm fn-start // 1
Work which was very distasteful to my father. He, having a
refined literary taste, was a critic of poetry, and wrote several
critical works, including <i>Shelley and his Writings</i>.
.pm fn-end

But no such thing happened. As soon as they
had finished they all crept silently away into the
forest to their several homes to sleep off the effects
of that orgy. They were men of the interior, and
// 112.png
.pn +1
even the true Samoans do not agree with cannibalism,
but the Island was in a fever then; they had
been prepared for war some time before and
those cannibals had come over from some other
group.

I took my first opportunity and leapt away into
the wooded country and arrived next day at
Hornecastle’s hut. I kept my mouth closed, for had
I told of that terrible night they would have known
that I had split and I should have been doomed;
and so I followed the good old proverb that “a still
tongue shows a wise head.” And I was pleased
that I did hold my tongue, for while I was drinking
in a saloon in Apia with Hornecastle, the night
following my terrible fright and dread of being
eaten, a German started cursing and told us how
he had hung a prize pig up in his store and, when he
went in the morning, to cut it up for joints, he found
it missing; the natives had stolen it, and crept
into the forest, and probably roasted it and had
a glorious feast, and as I listened to his details I
started to wonder if the load that my friends of
the night before had dragged through the forest
to the midnight feast could have possibly been
his stolen pig!—and all the horror of that secret
feast the outcome of my own suspicions. I said
nothing, and to this day my suspicions each way
are equal.

Thank goodness that under the influence of
education and the work of the missionaries the
terrible appetite which I have just described has
// 113.png
.pn +1
long since died out. The white man in the South
Seas has done that much good. You must remember
that I am writing under the still clinging
atmosphere that my mind inhaled when I was a
lad, of an age when we are apt to look upon
those who are mediators with the Supreme as men
who are, or should be, very different to other men,
and consequently their natural failings were greatly
magnified to my onlooking eyes. And so my remarks
and musings, considered from this aspect,
do not treat harshly the men who went out to the
South Seas to reform their brethren, but simply
show the futility, the uselessness of mortals attempting
to reform, to better the spiritual conditions of
those who are born of Mother Earth as they themselves
are. After all we are all of us only like little
children clambering and crying at the skirts of
creation, some with white faces and some with black
faces, and if the black-faced children, in their
innocence, laugh and cry over their little idol-dolls
and are pleased with them, why should the white-faced
children try to steal their dolls and smash the
lot up and make them unhappy by offering them an
idol in exchange which they cannot see and which
is too big for them to carry if they could see it.
And moreover, what more do the white children
know than the black ones?

I knew a Samoan chief who was a kind of philosopher
of his race, and I was much struck by his
remarks and wisdom as he used to sit squatting by
his hut and talk to me of the old days. He was not
// 114.png
.pn +1
a true-blooded Samoan, but came from the Marquesan
group and had once been a king before the
heavy tramp of civilisation came his way. He
would tell me wonderful tales of his time, many
of which, when I think of them now, seem almost
incredible, but they were true enough and some day
I intend to devote my time to writing them down
for publication. They alluded a good deal to
cannibalistic orgies and terrible battles for the love
of the women of those times, wild dances round their
monstrous idols, idols that sang and voiced forth
terrible prophecies, that made the warriors of those
Isles do most outrageous things to their enemies
and to their children and daughters. As he sat
there squatting and told me many things I would
turn “all chicken flesh,” as people say, and watch
his grim wrinkled face and twinkling eyes reveal
the smouldering passions that flamed in the dark
age of his time. Under the influence of that old
king’s memories I wrote the following poem just
as he would have written it, and approved of it too
if he could only see it; in fact it is just what he really
said, word for word, but I have rhymed it in my
own way.

.pm verse-start
Let him shout on, pass me the full nut-bowl,
I’m old, would I trust to his wretched creed?
I, with my fifty gods, that soothe my soul,
Must fail them all—trust to one god—indeed!
Look you—I’m wise, a dead white man is dead
Should he offend his Heav’n while ’neath the sun—And
we?—well, at the worst, when our soul’s fled,
If fifty fail, we’ve still his Mighty One!
// 115.png
.pn +1

He’d steal our souls, curse him, his lying race
Claimed my blue seas and this my ancient isle!
Remember well do I that first white face
That blessed my head, with hand t’wards heaven did smile,
Pah! I believed that grin!—had I known then
Those eyes gazed from the spirit heart of Hell
I’d slain him!—faith, ’tis true these strange white men
One virtue have when cooked—yes, they eat well!

Pass me the bowl, time ’tis to grieve, at most,
When in sick dying eyes the last stars sleep.
We’ve won our battles too, enjoyed the roast
Of what sweet foes! ’tis even so we reap
Sweet vengeance! They, those prating white men skunks,
Our wives defiled, our land made one vile hell;
Cursed missionaries, and traders on night-drunks—
Ah! I’ve a tale, when dead, their God to tell!
.pm verse-end

He’s dead now and the day is not far off when the
whole race will have passed away before the tramp
of the Western whites, vanished for ever, for all men
know that as soon as the white race creeps into the
household of the dark race of the South Seas race
extinction commences, and so the Fijians, Marquesans,
Samoans, Tongans, indeed all the original
inhabitants of the South Sea Isles, are diminishing
before the civilisation and Christianising work of
the whites, which means annihilation of the brown
race and brings before us the inevitable thought
that it would have been better for the race and
its posterity for the Islanders to have eaten all the
whites instead of cohabiting with them. But it is
too late, they are now completely in the power of the
“great white hand,” as I heard an old chief express
it, and soon the half-caste of Chinese, niggers, exconvicts
// 116.png
.pn +1
and the ne’er-do-wells of the Australian
cities will tramp over the graves of the dead men
and women who sang by forest huts and danced by
the glimmering fires in the days when the white surfs
ran up the shores singing into foams and silence.

Personally I do not believe that the drastic change
to other conditions has anything to do with the
diminishing population of the varied races of the
South Seas, and all men who have experienced life
in those clinics know that rum and syphilis, putrefying
the milk of the South Sea babies, and the preventives
to motherhood are the sole causes of race
extinction, and these causes have of course been
introduced by the whites and all the other semi-civilised
races. I am simply stating facts as I know
them, and I have not the slightest idea in my mind
that railing against those evils will better things;
indeed to attempt to better the conditions might
lead to more disastrous complications, like the sailor
who went down into the hold of the ship’s magazine
to find where the leak was, struck a match and blew
the ship up. And so things are best left as they
are; as useless to attempt to change them as to seek
to revise a man’s temperament. I myself have made
many attempts to change my own temperament, but
I think till I die I shall dream and dream and always
be under the control of that unfortunate impulse that
does the very thing which at that particular time I
should not have done. How often do we embrace with
affectionate trust our enemy and scorn the advice
of our best friend! And so the world jogs along,
// 117.png
.pn +1
always busy righting the wrongs of life and more
often than enough writing beautiful epitaphs on the
tombstones of men who cannot read them.

Such is my experience of life, and I have been
obliged to be pretty observant and have not travelled
this world over without noticing the special points
that influence existence. It is really wonderful how
observant some men are and how unobservant other
men are. I knew a man who had done nothing but
roam his life away over the seven seas to the mountain
peaks of the world. “What is Rio like?” I
said, “and the Amazon?” “All right I guess,”
he answered. “What’s it like in Pekin?” I
ventured to ask again. “All right I guess,” was
the growled reply as he squirted out of his grizzly
mouth an eggcupful of tobacco juice. I probed
him all ways to get a glimpse of his views of the
world and experience, but never got him beyond
the “all right I guess.” Another time I came across
a young fellow who had passed through the same
places like a race-horse. “What’s Rio like?” I
asked him. At once his face lit up and we had to
hold him down as the flood of description he poured
into our ears overwhelmed us. So you see it’s a
matter of the observant temperament that makes the
tale-teller and it’s ridiculous for anyone to think that
a man has to camp on the top of a mountain or up a
palm-tree for twenty years before he can describe the
surrounding country or the height and character of
the tree. Nature is very easy to scan and appreciate;
it’s only men and women that it takes years to
understand thoroughly, and then you may be wrong.
// 118.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i08-104.jpg w=528px id=i08
.ca
<sc>Preparing Copra</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Preparing Copra</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

// 119.png
.pn +1
// 120.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch10
X
.pm ch-hd-start
A Cockney and his Fijian Bride—Nature’s Lady—South Sea Dress
Fashions—Idol Worship
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>After</sc> the exciting experience which I related to you
in the last chapter, when I think I was within an ace
of being eaten by that cannibal tribe, I started off
cruising with “Castle” and my friend the Danish
poet. We made a happy trio and many were the
subsequent adventures which we had together.
Hornecastle hired a sloop and made a good bit of
cash at times by trading around the Islands, and I
was delighted to go off with him. It took us several
days to reach the Fiji Islands. I shall never forget
the times we had together and the strange people
we came in contact with. The Fijians struck me as
a very different type of people from the Samoans,
who are much more intellectual-looking, and when
Hornecastle and the poet and I went ashore we soon
found plenty to interest us. There were plenty of
whites there, half-castes and Indians who worked
on the plantations.

I chummed in with an Australian fellow and we
went up towards the mountains and saw the Fijians
in their homesteads. They were neat little thatched
homes; some of them shaped something like a haystack
as seen in English fields. I and my friend, who
// 121.png
.pn +1
could speak a bit of their language, went inside one
or two of these and watched them squatting on their
haunches at dinner eating steaming stuff out of
earthen bowls, using their fingers as knives and
forks. I made friendly signs to a Fijian mother
and her eyes quickly brightened up as I took her
baby in my arms and examined its tiny wild face,
its jewel-like eyes twinkling with fright. I never
saw such pretty babies anywhere in the world as
the mites of the South Seas. Their little plump
bodies are as soft as velvet and the expression on
the face like that of a baby kitten, and the mothers
are as proud as Punch when you admire and kiss
them, as I have often done, but you have to be
careful that you kiss them all—I mean the babies—because
mothers are just as jealous in the South
Seas as in the Isles of the English seas. And so
after I had committed myself and held up that little
Fijian kid, I went from one mother to the other and
did likewise to their offspring, and those dark naked
mothers (for they were only dressed in a loin-cloth)
all admired me and even the eyes of the men looked
pleased as they offered me food, and the native
youths clambered around us as we crept out of the
door, and tried to steal the buttons off our clothes.
They are all terrible thieves and the thieving instinct
is so strong in all of the Islanders of the
Pacific that they only place half the value on goods
which are given them and jealously guard and over-estimate
all that they steal.

I shall always remember vividly that ramble in
// 122.png
.pn +1
the mountains of Fiji, because we came across a
white man who had married a native woman. I
suppose the marriage was something after the wild
bird marriage act, anyway there he was sitting by
his dusky beauty on the slopes that rolled seaward,
quite as proud as any English father of his two tiny
half-caste brats. His wife, dressed only in an old
red flannel skirt, smoked a cigarette by the hut door,
and every now and again gave the little whitish
beggars as they romped and quarrelled with each
other a terrible spank. I never saw children turn
head over heels as those two nippers did; over and
over they went down the slope like two big brown
balls, uncurled themselves and came racing up to
us again and then off once more as I stood sweltering
under the tropic sun fanning myself with a
large palm leaf speaking to their proud father.
He was a Cockney from Mile End! You can
imagine my astonishment when he asked all sorts
of questions about my own birthplace and sighed as
he said, “The dear old smoke,” meaning London
Town. From the little that he let out I could see
that he had previously been to sea as a coal trimmer
on a tramp steamer. He was a man of about thirty-eight
to forty years of age, but looked older through
growing a scrubby beard, possibly to disguise himself
from the English police! He seemed happy
enough sitting there under his big umbrella hat, with
white pants to his waist, and beyond those two
articles of dress quite bare and cool.

His wife could speak English very well indeed and
// 123.png
.pn +1
I must say I admired her husband’s taste, for though
she was the descendant of South Sea savages,
cannibals, she would have put nearly all the Mile
End women of his native land into the shade, and
the West End ones too! She had a fine head for a
woman, a voluptuous soft curved body, earnest dark
eyes, darkish high-bunched hair, and a freedom of
manner and modest exposure of the upper part of
her body and lower limbs which was very fascinating.
She would have created an enormous sensation
could she have been transported just as she was to
Piccadilly or the Strand. I am quite sure that the
Mile End Cockney would have been envied and
would have had to keep his weather-eye open
too, as the Christians of London Town came into
contact with the innocence of the heathen South
Seas.

“You come England?” she said, as I spoke to
her husband. “Yes,” I said, “same country,”
and she smiled with approval that such as I should
have had the honour of hailing from the same
country as her children’s father, and going into the
hut brought my chum and me both a drink. I don’t
know what it was, but English beer tastes like
poison compared to it. I have been to many afternoon
teas since that time, but never have I had a
sweeter hostess or seen softer eyes, and all those
things that make Nature’s lady. I have heard a lot
about “Nature’s gentleman,” but I tell you this,
Nature’s lady is nicer to meet and as rare, and I’ve
found her just as she was turned out of the Garden
// 124.png
.pn +1
of Eden and just as beautiful and innocent, as she
sat on that little stump, bare as at her birth, excepting
for her lava-lava, with her pretty one-month-old
baby’s tiny mouth toiling away at her breast for all
it was worth. As the sunset faded out seaward the
Cockney sailor, his “savage” wife, my chum and I
sang all together, to the sailor’s accordion, “The Old
Rustic Bridge by the Mill,” also “White Wings they
never Grow Weary,” and I can never hear those
songs now but I see that scene again, the half-dressed
sailor, my freckled lanky Australian chum, the
Fijian beauty, singing at the top of her voice on the
Pacific slope by the Island hut.

We only stayed at that Island two days and then
sailed off to Lakemba and other Isles of the same
group. We carried Hornecastle on board and
dropped him in his bunk when we left Suva. I
do not know what he had been drinking, but it
made him pretty bad. We set the jibs and big
mutton sail and the trade-wind took us along at a
splendid pace. I was the second in command, and
though she was a rotten old tub I was the proudest
officer on the high seas! Hornecastle kept me
awake that night. The poet and I got a bit
worried; we thought he’d got a touch of the
d.t.’s, and from what I could gather by his delirious
mutterings he’d actually got married during that
short stay and was frightened out of his life of
being pursued by his irate bride!

Next day he was on his legs again and looked
better than ever. I tried to pump him and find out
// 125.png
.pn +1
what he had done to get so drunk and look so
worried, but he would not budge an inch, and to all
my innocent queries only told me to mind my own
business and look after the wind!

I cannot for the life of me tell you the correct
name of the Isle we next called at; they all had
native names and I never could understand half of
them. I think it was called Mulooka; anyway it
was a fine place and well wooded. I shall never
forget the beautiful sight of the forest-clad country
and the intense loneliness of the wooded depths
away from the tracks. I stood in the wood alone
and gazed up at the branches overhead. They were
covered with big breathing blossoms that had beaks
on them; they were big fat parrot-birds chuckling
away to themselves as the trade-wind swept across,
blew the top branches aside and revealed the deep
blue skies. I turned round and looked west; there
through the trees far away stretched the dark
blue crinkling Pacific, dotted here and there with
native canoes, paddled along swiftly from shore to
shore. On the beach far below were groups of dark
men and half-castes by our little sloop.

I must tell you of the fashions of those times.
Some of the chiefs wore a dirty white collar only,
and a waistbelt wherein was stuck an old-fashioned
revolver and rusty knife. Another stood on the
shore as proud as possible attired in a waistcoat.
Men and women seemed to vie with one another
at making themselves look ridiculous and outrageous
too. Of course, most people were amused
// 126.png
.pn +1
by them. I shall never forget how the Dane
laughed; he was a real good fellow that poet.
I laughed too, but not like him; I was getting
a bit used to sights of that kind. As for Hornecastle
he simply looked on and yawned. Finding
that he was staying the night and did not intend
leaving till late the next day, I made up my
mind to have a look round and go into the interior,
so off I went alone. I am constituted
that way and am never so happy as when I am
completely alone with no one to ply me with
questions or tell me their experiences while I
am keenly interested in my own at that precise
moment.

About a mile from the shore I came across a
village of native homesteads built on a beautiful
spot shaped out and shaded by the hand of instinct.
There they stood dotting the landscape by the cooling
shade of palms, yams, orange and other trees of
luxuriant tropic foliage. In the cleared spaces by
those huts squatted the tribes of powerful mothers
and men, all of them dressed in no clothes excepting
their hair, which sprouted upwards on the top of their
heads and shone in the sunlight. As I emerged
from the forest trees into full view the tiny children
stopped from their gambolling, stared at me for a
moment and then all raced off towards the village
homesteads as though for dear life. They ran so
fast that I could only see their legs twinkling in the
sun-gleam. Then uprose the wild mothers and
stalwart forest men, and between their bare legs,
// 127.png
.pn +1
with little wistful demon-like faces, those frightened
children peeped at me as I walked across the
scrub and waved my hand, smiling as I approached
them.

I found them a very hospitable people; they gave
me food and drink and I well repaid those wild
mothers for their kind thoughtfulness as I stroked
the small frizzing heads of their babes and raced the
little naked beggars, boys and girls, across the track
and gave the winners buttons for prizes. “Moora,
moora,” they shouted as I gave the last button
away, and then I held on to myself tightly as
they scrambled around me and tried to steal the
buttons off my clothes! “No, no,” I shouted to one
persevering little imp, and his mother, seeing my
annoyance, picked up a large plank and struck him
over the head with a terrible crash! By Jove, I
was astonished when she did that, but the poor little
devil simply looked a bit crestfallen, looked up to
me for sympathy, instead of his mother, and I
rubbed the top of his head and made him happy. I
found out afterwards that the top of their heads is
the safest place to hit, the South Sea Island skull
being very thick indeed.

I don’t know how those natives lived or what
employment they followed. I suppose some of
them worked at copra gathering or some other work
which was useful to the white traders; anyway they
all looked fat and well and their native villages like
little bits of paradise compared with European cities.
// 128.png
.pn +1
Away further in the interior were living (so I
heard) tribes that still encouraged the cannibalistic
tendency. I suppose they were still under the
influence of the older men and women who had
memories in their heads of the olden days when they
dined off their enemies and discovered the good
points of old rivals at the festive board. I never
went off into the interior to see if it was so; my past
experience was quite sufficient for me and I did not
intend to take any more risks.

Before I leave that native village I must tell you
of their idol worship. Before sunset I went back
to the beach, and loitering about got in with some
sailors, and together that night we went over the
hills and down into the village and strolled among
the natives, and going behind one of the larger huts
there stood before us monstrous effigies with hideous
faces and eyes bulging out like unburst soap-bubbles,
and before them on little mats knelt the elder native
men bowing and chanting prayers at the top of their
voices, throwing their long arms up over their heads
all the time. They were earnest enough in those
fetish rites, and as we stood there, white-faced men
of the Western world, watching, they took not the
slightest notice of us, so deeply were they engrossed
in their pleadings to those dirty wooden deaf idols.
Of course I could not understand a word they were
saying, but the note of the chant had grief in it and
sounded to me like “Winga-wonga, wonga-winga,”
repeated over and over again to a minor cadence
// 129.png
.pn +1
that fell and rose as their bodies and arms moved up
and down.

My comrades and I were somehow impressed by
that strange sight of religious old-world grief which
sounded the same note and showed the same
earnestness as the creed expression of the modern
civilised world. The missionaries were, and are,
of course, dead against the idol worship, and so as
time goes on and the methods of Christianity get
hold of the people the idols rot away or are touched
up and hidden in the secret depths of the forest, safe
from the destroying hands of those who have gone
over to the new creed. Often the wanderer among
the primeval woods will come across the relics of
those gods standing in some secluded gully under
the shade of banyan-trees and rotting tropic trunks,
covered with wild vines, vividly coloured with
gorgeous flowers, still upright, with perhaps one eye
missing and the face thus obliterated by decaying
rot made more hideous than ever. Yet some indefinable
awe still clings to them as they stand there
deserted by the poor heathen children who once
appealed to them with their whole hearts, sorrowing
over “the giant agony of the world,” now long
dead in their forest graves.

I have told you all this because I once saw it,
just as I have attempted to describe it to you,
and as I stood gazing, quite alone, I looked up
over the rotting, eyeless head and saw a branch
with about twenty human skulls hanging in a row.
The tropic rains had washed them quite white and
// 130.png
.pn +1
as they swayed and clinked one against the other
as the wind swept mournfully through the trees I
became nervous and made off from the spot as
quickly as I could. I am very fond of music, but
the funereal notes of those tinkling skulls did not
appeal to me and make me brave.
.sp 2
// 131.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch11
XI
.pm ch-hd-start
Back in Samoa—My Friend the Missionary—Musings
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Next</sc> day we sailed away, and being lucky with a
fair wind blowing steadily behind us we soon arrived
back safely at the Samoan Islands. It was a long
trip and I was jolly glad to see my berth ashore again
as I did not get much sleep at sea—room being
scarce I had slept on deck the whole time, and I had
to sleep in the sloop scupper as she lay over with so
great a list. Everything was just about the same,
and very quiet. The <i>Lubeck</i> had been in and left
again for Sydney. Hornecastle had a heavy drinking
bout. There were several American sailors
hanging round who had been left stranded by the
wrecks of the man-o’-war ships that were blown
ashore. I once more felt a longing to get away to
the civilised world. Our comrade the poet got
a job on a schooner and went away, and I was sorry
to see him go. I still had my violin and started
practising again in the evenings and often went into
my old friend the shell-seller’s big den on the beach
and yarned to him in “pigeon-English,” and it was
there that I met Mrs Stevenson. I was playing the
violin and she took a great interest in me. She was
a real Bohemian and invited me to her home at once,
but I was young and nervous, and at that time I
// 132.png
.pn +1
// 133.png
.pn +1
// 134.png
.pn +1
was getting pretty shabby too—my blue serge suit
had almost turned yellow through fading under the
tropic sun—so I pretended to have an important
job on that very night and got out of that invitation.
I played several melodies at her request and I well
remember playing “Alice, where art thou?” to her,
to which she sang the refrain quietly as I played.
She was attractive-looking and looked as though
she had spent her life exploring the tropics. At first
I thought she was some passenger just arrived on
one of the boats till she introduced herself and told
me her name.

.if h
.il fn=i09-116.jpg w=600px id=i09
.ca
<sc>Native Coast Village near Apia, Samoa</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Coast Village near Apia, Samoa</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

There were a good many whites about at that time
and also a lot of buildings going up for them, and for
a time I had a job looking after the natives who did
all the hard graft, but had to be kept watch over by
the whites. I do not think a brown man has ever
been known to work industriously in the South Seas
when no one was looking, unless, of course, he was
doing something completely on his own account. I got
to know many of the Americans, English and Germans
who were there at that time, some staying only a
day or two before going off to the Marquesan group,
Fijis, etc. Some I think were missionaries, others
were travellers sight-seeing. One of the missionaries
I got to know well and he struck me as a very
decent fellow, had a fine sense of humour, was devoid
of hypocrisy, and though earnest enough in his
mission he could see quite vividly the light and dark
shades of the whole of the Christianising schemes.
We often smoked and yarned together, and though
// 135.png
.pn +1
I was much younger than he, he seemed to prefer my
companionship to the society of the men of his own
profession. I taught him to play tunes on the violin
by ear, and a very good ear he had too, as well as a
refined taste for melodies with something in them,
and if he ever reads my autobiography he is sure to
remember me.

A “Man-o’-War” ship called in at Samoa about
that time. When the crew got ashore that night it
sounded like civilised Europe and home again. I
must say that the Samoan ladies are nearly as bad
over sailormen as the English middle-class girls are,
and the jolly Jack Tars had a fine time of it roaming
about the beach, on terra-firma again after so long a
sea voyage. They bolted off in all directions, visiting
the native huts along the shore, most of them in the
hands of a cute-looking native guide who knew all
the ropes and also all those Samoan ladies who were
mostly addicted to easy virtue. These men guides
work on commission, and some of them claim half of
the proceeds as the foreign ships arrive, and so they
do very well, and you can well imagine that Berlin,
London, Paris and New York to-day are well represented
in the South Seas as far as the different
stock of the world’s sailormen is concerned. There
they are out there to-day (the half-castes I mean),
while the fathers, pensioned-off sailors in the civilised
cities of the world, are bringing up legitimate
families, respectable young men and women who
do not dream of their half sisters and brothers toiling
on the plantations lashed by the overseers’ whip
// 136.png
.pn +1
in the far-away Pacific, and many a cosy vicarage
retreat of Puritan England, standing like the very
emblem of sedateness and purity by the village
roadside, is the ancestral hall of some savage South
Sea man or woman with eyes that gaze longingly
seaward from their native Isle, knowing not why.
And so the world jogs along and I suppose all for the
best.

It was about this time that I am speaking of that
Mataafa and Laupepa were enjoying their resumed
power over the Island. Laupepa had been exiled
by the German Government, and had at last been
allowed to return. There had been a good deal of
fighting going on among the German and American
sailors, and Samoans, but all seemed pretty quiet in
my time. A terrible hurricane had struck the Islands,
lifted the warships up on tremendous waves and
tossed them ashore as though they were canoes.
Many lives were lost, and the storm did more
damage in a couple of hours than all the warships
and threatening natives.
.sp 2
// 137.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch12
XII
.pm ch-hd-start
Tramping the South Sea Bush—Native Homes, Scandal and
Jealousy—Samoan Children—Samoan Girls attired in European
Cast-off Clothes—Another South Sea Chief
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I think</sc> that you might like to hear something of
the suburban life in the South Sea Islands, of the
native villages inland, and so I will now tell you
of my strolls and visits to Marano’s hut and his
wife “Taloffora.” One morning quite alone I set
out to go inland to the village of Safata. It was
a lovely morning; I walked along under the
tamanu-trees that skirted the borders of the forest
where thousands of screaming parakeets passed over
by the seashore, disturbing the tropical silence as
they wheeled away.

Before starting on the main track I made my way
down to the beach to have a swim in the cool waters
and refresh myself. I was then several miles from
Upolu, and as I crept from the forest and gazed shoreward,
where by the palms shone a lagoon, I suddenly
surprised a covey of native girls who were all having
their morning bath. Some were still in the water
and others on the shore; all of them, of course,
perfectly nude. I shall never forget how some of
them ran up the shore to get their “ridis” while
others modestly bent themselves in the shallow
waters, their heads and chins just poking out,
// 138.png
.pn +1
watching their opportunity to bolt up the shore.
This they did one after the other, their brown legs
splashing out as they raced to the palm-trees, each
plucking a big leaf to hold in front of her for
modesty’s sake. There they stood in a huddled
group just as God’s first thought had moulded them,
the jungle grass brushing to their knees, in their hair
the lovely wild red flowers plucked from the plants
around them, their rows of pearly teeth gleaming as
they smiled.

I tramped enviously onward. I was very happy
that day. Somehow the scent of the sea-winds
stirring the forest flowers intoxicated my brain as I
trudged along and I felt as though I and those forest
trees had been friends for ages. There is nothing
under the heavens like a South Sea forest to make the
atmosphere of true poetry, to lift you out of and
above your fleshy self, and as I tramped along I
sang to myself through sheer delirium of happiness.

Before the sun had climbed over the western hills
I arrived at “Safata” and old Marmona’s wife came
from her hut door with her big mouth open so wide
with welcome and astonishment that I saw the
brown roof and her three back teeth. “Marmona!”
she shouted with delight as she called for
her husband, “White man’s,” “Siva,” and across
the track from behind the scattered shed-like huts
of the village that stood beneath the palms and
South Sea bamboo-trees came running Marmona,
my old friend, whom I had got acquainted with in
Apia. He was delighted to see that I had my fiddle
// 139.png
.pn +1
with me and though he was getting old he clapped
his hands and started chanting and did a double
shuffle round me as the native girls came running
across the clearings to see the white man. Round
me they stood gazing into my face in regiments,
their thick dark hair smothered in grass; some wore
hibiscus flowers stuck behind their pretty brown
ears, others a palm leaf twisted hat-shape to fit their
curly heads, others were perfectly naked excepting
for a tiny strip of tappa-cloth tied round the thighs
into a bow at the back and in front a large blushing
hibiscus blossom.

It was a sweltering hot afternoon and by their
huts sat the Samoan parents watching their “Fainetoa”
(little children) play. Some of them were very
old, dark, hairless-headed grandfathers and grandmothers,
and they all sat cross-legged, each on a
little mat. Marmona led me up to a group of them
and introduced me with pride, very much the same
as an English draper would introduce an earl who
suddenly claimed his friendship, to his tradesmen
acquaintances, for I was a white man, and moreover
my violin-playing made me something of a god in his
eyes. I fully appreciated his great impression of
me, saluted the village folk in lordly style and
smacked Marmona familiarly on the back afterwards,
and he nearly fainted with sheer pride and
delight as the awestruck village <i>élite</i> followed us
across the cleared patch towards his hut, where
his wife Taloffora was busily laying the cloth on
the ground for dinner. Her back stuck high up
// 140.png
.pn +1
as she stooped and stirred the hot baked fish food
and plantains, all got ready especially for me, and
I sat there cross-legged on the special visiting
mat and thoroughly enjoyed that meal. As I
was sitting munching away, thinking how peaceful
everything was in that native village, I suddenly
heard a loud jabbering in a hut close by. It was a
jealous neighbour of Mr and Mrs Marmona’s; they
had long since been at loggerheads with my friend
and his family, and now to see me there dining with
them had riled them till their jealousy knew no
bounds, and to make things worse old Madam
Taloffora kept talking loudly to me in her own
language as she walked round me filling my platter
up with more hot fish. I could not understand
all that she was saying, but I guessed she was
having “one off” her jealous neighbour. Crash!
came a coco-nut from the enemy’s hut and
caught my hostess a terrible whack on that back
part which the South Sea Islanders often reveal
when they stoop. With a yell she placed her
skinny fingers on the insulted part, and then the
outraged husband came rushing under the palms
towards her and gazed up into her face. She
jabbered hysterically and the old fellow’s brown-skinned
face shrunk into a map of scheming wrinkles
that denoted intense concentration on the way for
the best and speediest revenge! For the brown
man is much the same as the white man—he believes
all his wife tells him, never dreaming that she
is possibly the cause of the whole trouble. Often
// 141.png
.pn +1
the tribes of those wild lands meet in bloodthirsty
warfare, kings are dethroned, queens murdered and
unmentionable cruelties occur through no greater
cause than that a woman was spitefully jealous of
another woman’s tappa waist sash!

I knew old Marmona’s wife well, and in truth I
could have sworn that she had scandalised the irate
owner of the hand that had shied the coco-nut; anyway
the deed was done, and I was at my wit’s end
to know what to do to avert disaster. As quickly
as possible I appealed to the old chap and by many
signs and deftly used Samoan words I let him see
that the best way to have revenge was not to imitate
the injury, but to let me smile on and treat him and
his wife with lordly respect. He was a clever old
fellow and quickly fathomed the depths of my meaning,
and I was so delighted to see how things were
going that when he fetched the hut oil pot out in his
hand, which the South Sea Islanders always keep
ready for bruises, I myself held it as that wretched
old scandalous wife stooped and he applied the
lotion with his tender hand, and across the track,
under the palms through a small hut door, gleamed
the envious jealous eyes of the woman who had
thrown the coco-nut. Had I not appeased the
murderous wrath of my host and hostess they would
have attacked that hut and the friends of each
would have taken sides and a pitched battle commenced,
which would in all probability have ended
in the taking of my life. Evidently the jealous
neighbour thought she had been sufficiently revenged,
// 142.png
.pn +1
for with the cessation of Mrs Marmona’s
groans the feud ceased.

Samoans are not given to vendetta vindictiveness,
and mortal enemies by day are often great friends by
night; and so it was in this case, for that night, as
I played the fiddle, the enemy crept from her camp,
sneaked through the circles of native girls and boys
who sat all around delighted as they watched me,
and fell into the arms of my hostess, each wailing
loudly as I played away. Two grim-looking aged
chiefs of many past battles chanted some old idol
song as their friends sat round with frizzly heads
and merry eyes listening to the awful noise. They
sang in any key but the one I was trying to accompany
them in, but it did not matter—they were all
happy enough and so were the audience as they
listened and smoked at their ease, tired after working
on the yam plantations or on the buildings that
were being erected for German Government officials
far away by the beach.

In the huts hard by I heard the poor brown kiddies
being spanked as they were put to bed screaming
with disappointment that they must sleep while the
chiefs sang and the funny white man scraped the
spirit wood with the magic long thin finger, for that
was the way those natives described my violin and
bow.

I shall never forget the strangeness of those times
in those primeval forests and native villages. As
the moon sailed overhead that night after the concert
had ceased I carefully hid my violin in my
// 143.png
.pn +1
hostess’s hut and took a stroll around under the
shadow of the palms. Among the yellow bamboos
I saw the native girls in the arms of the Samoan
youths, their eyes shining in the moonlight, while
the innocent old mothers and fathers squatting
cross-legged by their huts smoked peacefully away,
thinking those very lovers were fast asleep in the
next hut bedroom.

.if h
.il fn=i10-126.jpg w=522px id=i10
.ca
<sc>Low-caste Native Girl</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Low-caste Native Girl</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

As I strolled by with Marmona by my side they
each saluted us with the exclamation of “Talafa!”
and “Good white mans.” In the branched moonlit
forest by the narrow pathways that lead from
house to house, I saw dark figures pass; they were
the natives passing and repassing along the silent
forest tracks as they hurried each to his home in the
woods or other distant villages. Many of them had
stayed late in the village where I was staying, and
suddenly remembering the domestic establishment,
their lonely hut in the forest afar and the waiting
wife, they one by one went off running at full speed,
and often in those lonely South Sea hills you could
hear yells and excited jabberings as the wretched
wife screamed and the semi-savage husband endeavoured
to explain the why and wherefore of his
lateness. Indeed the traveller in the South Seas
invariably is astonished by the sameness of the
native and the European character. As men say,
“civilisation is only skin deep,” and very often so
is the difference between the white and brown man.
I particularly noticed the manners of those who had
better clothes on than their neighbours. They
// 144.png
.pn +1
// 145.png
.pn +1
// 146.png
.pn +1
would walk along with a trader’s cast-off long-tailed
shirt flapping behind them and gaze with a scorn-like
glance upon their brown brothers who wore only
a native “ridi,” and the native girls nearly burst
with pride and vanity as they creep from their hut
attired in a red sash only, a banana-leaf hat and white
flower behind their ear, and others with a yellow
pair of high-heeled shoes on and a white woman’s
cast-off night-shirt. The traders call in at the
villages and bring all kinds of cast-off European
clothing, which they exchange with the natives for
copra, yarns and many other things, and so you often
are surprised by suddenly meeting a native creeping
from the forest wearing some lady’s under-garments,
or a pretty Samoan girl attired in a sailor’s cast-off
pants, cut off close to the thighs and buttoning
under her pretty curved chin!

The women struck me as being very industrious.
They sit for hours and hours singing and making
cloth stuff out of leaves and bark which they keep
hammering and weaving. By their side lies the
stupendous bamboo stick which every now and
again they swiftly lift up and strike their children
over the heads with—as they keep pestering them
with questions and mischief the whole time that
they are working, the bamboo rod gives forth a
hollow sound on the tiny native skull, and seems
to have no effect beyond checking the infantile
activity for a few minutes, after which the mothers,
without ceasing the song which is always flowing
from their lips, lift the bamboo and strike once
// 147.png
.pn +1
again. Out of the forest into the village often come
the quick-footed youths and maidens with small
baskets full of jumping fish which they have been
catching down on the shore side in the lagoons and
in the sea, and as they go along the tiny baby
urchins run from under their mothers’ legs, steal
the fish through cracks in the basket and eat them
“all alive O.”

Round some of the hut dens sit the old stagers of
other days, stalwart old men, brown as mahogany,
their naked limbs striped with tattoo marks and
scarred with spear wounds. Squatting under the
shade of the palms they tell the younger men of
ancient battles and of the old idols and the wonderful
things those idols foretold and how it all came to
pass. Those old warriors still believed in the old
heathen gods, and when they were dubious about
anything crept away into the forest depths and
consulted some monstrous armless wooden image,
rotting away in secrecy, staring with a big boss eye
as it had stared for years through the shadows of
the forest, till the superstitious chief crept behind the
ancient tree trunks up to it and fell on his knees,
lifted his hands and chanted the prayers of his heart
to its wooden outstretched ears.

There was one aged chief in that village who
looked as though he were a thousand years old;
he had arched eye sockets and so deep were his eyes
set that you seldom saw them, excepting now and
again when a tiny gleam of the sunlight struck
across his face through the palms as he spoke and
// 148.png
.pn +1
lifted his head and finger skyward, telling of cannibalistic
feasts of long ago. One of his ears was
missing; he had once been hideous, but age had
softened the wicked features and expressions down,
and his wrinkled brown parchment-like face expressed
only a death-like awfulness, and made you
feel as though you saw life, distorted and wretched,
gazing through a human skull which death had long
since claimed but which would not die. That
wretched old chief told me that he could remember
quite well the first white man who had visited his
Island, and as he gazed upon me I saw a gleam
sparkle out from his hidden eyes and I instinctively
wondered what might have happened to that white
brother of mine who had fallen into the clutches of
that fearful cannibal when he was lusty, strong,
glowing with hunger and lust of blood. I do not
think he was a Samoan. Many of the older inhabitants
of those days were chiefs from other Isles
who had fallen through some great tribal battle or
had committed some crime and so sought the refuge
of another Island where they could dwell in safety,
away from the hot vengeance of their own people.

I stayed for two nights with Marmona and his
wife; they made me up a soft bed in one of their
spare huts, but I did not sleep very well for my
brain had an annoying knack of starting to think
whenever I was left alone. As it happened it was a
good thing that I was sleepless on those two nights.
As I lay the second night turning over and over on
my matting bed, I got so sick of it that I arose and
// 149.png
.pn +1
lit a cigarette, and without standing up I pulled
myself towards the hole that served as a door, and
pushing the sacking back I gazed out on to the
moonlit village. The winds were all asleep and the
shadows of the tropic trees and palms thrown by the
moonlight on the wattle huts and roofs of the sleeping
village lay perfectly still, and it all seemed as
though it were some tremendous painted picture of
a tropic South Sea village done in glimmering silver
oils. As I gazed I felt that I was the only living
creature in that ghost-like sleeping village, and then
to my surprise a shadow moved across the moonlit
patch, almost just opposite my hut door. Turning
my head quickly I saw the frizzly head of a Samoan
poke up out of the jungle ferns to the right of me.
In a moment I dodged back and watched with one
of my eyes fixed to a crack in my bedroom wall;
my heart began to beat rapidly, for on all-fours he
slowly moved along, stirring the grass aside silently
with snake-like stealth as he came straight towards
my hut! Every now and again he stopped and
looked around to see if all was silent and unperceived.
I began to feel in a terrible state of mind,
and looking round I swiftly caught hold of an old
club to protect myself with, for I saw that it was my
sleeping place that his eye was on! He looked a
great strong fellow and for a moment I wondered if
I should wait and see what it all meant or go to the
door and let him see that I had seen him, but extreme
funk sent curiosity to the devil and I put my
head out of the hut door and shouted Hallo! For
// 150.png
.pn +1
a part of a second his eyes stared astonished, and
then like a startled kangaroo he arose on his feet
with one hop and ran off with the swiftness of a
race-horse.

Marmona and I talked it over next day and we
both agreed that my midnight visitor was an envious
thief, who was after my violin and thought to steal
it from my hut whilst I slept. As I have told you
before, the whole of the Pacific Islanders are born
thieves, and I noticed that as Marmona told me his
suspicions and waxed indignant over that midnight
thief his own dark eyes gave one avaricious gleam
as he caught sight of my violin, which he would have
stolen in five seconds if he had thought I should
never suspect him. For the brown men are no
better than the whites, and will, in due course, all
be virtuous and honest, valuing their neighbour’s
opinion more than the article which their hearts
long to steal. When I look back and think of the
native villages and the peace, with no police patrolling
the village road with truncheons and bull’s-eye
lanterns to quell the courage of the evil-doer, I really
believe the South Sea Island heart is not half so evil
as it has been painted, and though I have travelled
the South Sea villages, mixed with the native men
and women, drank and laughed with them, separated
them in their childish squabbles, I have never
seen their women creeping about with smashed noses
or swollen lips and blackened eyes, as I have seen
the women of the white men on the cold streets of
London Town.
// 151.png
.pn +1

The morning after my night fright I intimated
to Marmona that I must leave the village, and he
arranged to go with me with the idea of showing me
the way through the forest to the village of Maffo,
as far as I can remember that was the name, but so
many of the village names were similar and extraordinary
that I cannot be certain of my exactness
in pronouncing them now. It was situated near to
the sea. Mrs Marmona almost embraced me as I
bade her farewell, and I held up her hand, bowed and
gently kissed it in courtly fashion. I then did likewise
to her late enemy who stood beside her; for I
knew that had I not done so trouble would crop up
as soon as Marmona and I were out of sight. Old
Marmona’s daughter, whom I have not mentioned
before, but who nevertheless was a great deal by my
side during that visit, came forward and gave me a
beautiful native-made comb from her hair, and by
the way she gave it I should think that it was the
greatest compliment that a native girl can pay a
youth. I kissed her hand twice and with sorrow
in my heart waved my hands as I passed away
into the forest. Poor old Marmona crept along
in front carrying my portmanteau, which was a
large silk handkerchief that held my violin and
bow, a small tooth-comb, brush, and a clean
shirt.
.sp 2
// 152.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch13
XIII
.pm ch-hd-start
I tramp through the South Sea Forest alone—Play my Violin to
the Natives—The Trader’s Vision—The Rivals
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Marmona</sc> was a faithful friend, and led me through
the forest, down the mountainous steep with the
certain instinct of a blood-hound. Once on the
track we called at a tiny South Sea home wherein
lived some friends of Marmona’s and to please him
I took the violin out and played to them all. There
were two daughters and several sons, and as they
stood listening they jabbered and eyed me with
wonder, for I made the violin wail and scream
hideously as I found that, notwithstanding their
love of natural song, the shrill notes pleased them
the best. They gave us a good feed of baked plantains
and other mixed food, and we could easily have
lodged there for a week had I wished to do so. I
cannot describe to you the beauty of the landscape
that we tramped across. The bright winged birds
whirred overhead, and often perched on the tropic
trees around us and preened their blossom-like
feathers, making strange noises, as though their beaks
touched tinkling bells.

At sunset through the trees we saw the Pacific
heaving far away and the white rising breakers for
ever charging the shoreward reefs. It was a lovely
spot, and nestled below in the hollow, between the
// 153.png
.pn +1
shore and the forest, was a small native village and
the homes of a few traders. A little distance from
the shore, by the promontory, a schooner lay
anchored, and hovering around it the natives
paddled in their out-rigged canoes. Arriving in the
village, Marmona introduced me to some friends of
his and I was glad of a rest; I had tramped a long
way and my feet were a bit blistered, for my boots
were getting rather thin. That night Marmona bade
me farewell, and I gave him several shillings and
he was very delighted indeed. Though I have read
that the natives are very proud, and scorn to take
money in return for a kindness, I never had the
pleasure of running across those refined temperaments;
indeed they all seemed to be true brothers
to the white man in that respect, and the only little
disagreements I ever had with my brown friends
were in my “hard-up times,” but I generally got
into their good graces when the wherewithal was
once more in my possession.

I stayed in that shore village for three days and
four nights. There were several white traders
living there, and I also got into conversation with the
crew of the schooner that lay outside. It was an
isolated little village and I got to know almost
every one of the inhabitants during my short stay
there, and I especially remember that little village
because of the old white trader I met there. He
lived alone in a small den hut by the sea; he had
earnest thoughtful eyes, and as I sat and talked to
him in the shadow of his one room I could see by his
// 154.png
.pn +1
face that he had been a very handsome man in his
time. There was something in his voice that was
musical and emotional, and as I played to him on
the violin he made remarks about the operatic
selections that told me he had seen better days and
in a sense was originally a refined and educated man.
Whether he was mad or not I cannot say, but when
the village was all asleep that night he gazed in a
frightened way all about him and told me to play
certain old tunes, and as the moonlight crept over
the sleeping village and perfect stillness lay over
everything, excepting for the noise of the breakers
beating down on the shore reefs at intervals, he
would put his finger up to his grey-bearded mouth
and say “Play softly, mate, they are coming!”
Then with staring eyes he would gaze towards the
forest and down shorewards, begging me not to stop
playing as he stood by his hut door with eager eyes
watching something going on that I could not see.
After it was all over, and the terrible look had gone
from his face, to my relief he bent his head on to his
knee and cried like a child. So intense was his
sorrow as I stood there by him that I almost felt
the tears rise in my own eyes. I could not make
it all out, for though his manner seemed insane yet
there was something so earnest and manly in his eyes
and in his actions that I felt safe with him by that
lonely hut as the village slept. Then he told me the
history of his life; and till I die I will remember
that old white trader of the South Seas, and from
the poem that I have written, inspired by that
// 155.png
.pn +1
strange sight and the tale he told me, you, reader,
may gather all that I heard, which he swore before
his Maker was absolute truth.
.sp 2
.pm verse-start
In my wattle hut by Maffalo I lie nor can I sleep,
Deep waters beat against my heart, thro’ my head the night winds sweep,
For the brown one sleeps by the forest track with the banyans overhead,
And the white girl sleeps by the channel cliffs where the white men bury their dead.
And the tin roofs shine, as the traders rest by the beach and still canoes,
Where the shore-line huts in silence stand by the waveless straight bamboos,
And when the moonlight whitely falls slantwise across the hill,
And the palms and shore lagoons for miles, with the sleeping winds, are still,
The brown one from the forest runs, the white girl from the sea—
With shining eyes by my hut door in silence gaze on me.
And I cannot sleep as the dead eyes meet, fierce eyes of ebon-flame!
The grey eyes gleam thro’ shadowy hair, as of old she moans my name.
In moonlight struggling silently they glimmer in the gloom,
As wails the native dead child far in the forest deep of doom;
And the wistful unborn children rise down by the shoreward palms,
Peep from the sea with anxious eyes, and toss their small white arms!
But deep in my heart the dead one screams—from its grave across the steep,
And I know it will with frightened eyes soon out of the forest creep!
As I watch the figures, ebon and gold, oft brighten by moonlight,
Till the white one wins and the brown one runs back to the forest night;
// 156.png
.pn +1
And, in vain, I leap to shadowy arms, as she crying flees from me,
Down shoreward runs, in a flash of flame dives back to the moonlit sea.
So, I drink and drink as the nights go by and the schooners day by day
Taking my heart with the white sails home where the sunsets fade away.
Till the sea-winds cease and the trees all sleep, and the hushed waves are all still,
And the moonlight slantwise falls across the forest track and hill
As I listening wait for the rustling sound with my dreaming eyes—unshut!
Till out in the night by the pale moonlight their shadows seek my hut—
Out of the forest depth one runs, and the white girl up the shore
Till the dead child screams and the unborn watch the shadows by my door.
.pm verse-end
.sp 2
I stayed in that village all the next day, and at
sunset I bade Marmona’s friends good-bye. Also I
bade that sad trader farewell, and he held my hand
for a long time before he said good-bye.

It seemed like some enchanted village of fairyland
as I looked back over the slopes and saw the
sun like a large ball of blood sink into the sea and
the moon rise over the mountainous country inland,
peeping through the heavens of shadow and
stars that brightened out in the east. I passed
away from the place with a strange feeling in my
heart for that lonely man and all that would happen
when the sea-shore village lay once more asleep in
the moonlight. I have heard many strange tales of
spirits and “ju-jus” from men in my travels, but
// 157.png
.pn +1
never one so strangely sad and impressive as his,
and I have often wondered if all that that old man
told me was the outcome of a delirious brain or
really some haunting truth that can be seen by the
eyes of those hearts that sorrow.
// 158.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i11-138.jpg w=539px id=i11
.ca
<sc>Native Bamboo Bridge</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Bamboo Bridge</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

// 159.png
.pn +1
// 160.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch14
XIV
.sp 2
.pm ch-hd-start
South Sea Domestic Life—I attend another South Sea Wedding—Meet
Men flying from Justice—Bound for Tahiti
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>At</sc> that time I was about eight miles from Apia, and
though I was alone, and a bit depressed, I soon regained
my spirits and tramped along whistling. To
my right moved the deep blue Pacific waters, as the
cooling wind gently stirred them and crept up the
shore and fanned my perspiring face. No artist
could paint in words or colour the beauty of the
romantic scenery that lay all around me. The
ocean’s tremendous voice murmured wavy songs
as it kissed the shore reef in snatches of whitened
wave; the slope trees expressed the silent green
utterance of mother earth, beautiful with sunset-coloured
flowers in the piled carpet of jungle grass
and blossoms of crimson and white wherein settled
gorgeous butterflies. A native girl, standing in her
brown velvety skin, waist deep in the grass, laughed
and revealed her pearly teeth as I tramped by,
expressing in her sparkling eyes the joy of the conscious
universe. I waved my hand and smiled as
her lynx-eyed bush mother watched her from a hut
door just under three large coco-trees a little higher
up where were several more huts. I saw a white
man by one of them, leaning against a tamnu-tree
smoking, so I altered my course and went up the
// 161.png
.pn +1
rocky slope and introduced myself. He turned out
to be a deck-hand on one of the trading schooners
that traded from Isle to Isle, and I saw by his face
and complexion that he was a half-caste, his wife
was a full-blooded Samoan. His name was Adams,
he seemed mighty proud of it, as he told me that he
was a descendant of one of the old <i>Bounty</i> mutineers
and a high chief who had previously reigned in the
Solomon Group.

“Come you, Papeteo,” he shouted, and up came
his daughter. I do not think I ever saw a more
beautiful native girl than she was as she stood in
front of me with raised shining eyes and a wealth of
waving dark chestnut hair.

“Pappy, go in and get him some grub,” he said,
and off she bounded, and his wife, who spoke broken
English, welcomed me, saying, “White mans, plenty
eat sooner,” and so saying folded her brown hands
over her stomach to hide the tear in her tappa-cloth
robe which ended at her knees.

Inside their home I sat, talked and ate a splendid
meal of grilled chops, cooked over their camp fire,
as Papeteo’s tiny brothers and sisters romped around
my stool, looked up at me with tiny demon eyes,
and tried to feel in my pockets. When I had
finished we both sat outside under the tall tropic
trees, where high up droves of doves moaned and
cooed as the sea-winds swayed the tops.

That half-caste trader was the bravest man and
the most fortunate man on earth, for as soon as he
had lit his big pipe and crossed his legs comfortably
// 162.png
.pn +1
he started off telling me of his narrow escapes in
storms and in fights with the natives of the various
Isles. I very soon saw that he was a swanker (they
mostly are, the half-castes of the South Seas), but
to be quite friendly I encouraged him and often
looked up with assumed surprise and admiration to
hear how he had saved my countrymen from being
murdered by the Solomon Islanders, Fijians and
other tribes by his own wonderful courage and
herculean strength, and just as he was gazing into
my face as much as to say “What do you think of a
deed like that?” the red-hot ash from his pipe fell
on to his wife’s bare knee. Up she jumped with a
howl and caught him a terrible crash on the head
with a bamboo club, as she started to beat her thin
dress with her hands, for it was all on fire. I leapt
forward and tore the dress from her, otherwise I
am sure she would have been seriously burned. All
the husband did was to look horror-struck, and his
half-caste skin went greyish-white. She had given
him a terrible whack with the club, and I suppose
he felt spiteful, for I noticed that his half-caste eyes
looked at her with hidden pleasure as she wailed.

Papeteo came running up from the shore sparkling
with sea-water, for she had been bathing in a tiny
lagoon a few yards inland, and she quickly ran into
the homestead den and got a large piece of cloth
and wrapped it round her skinny-bosomed parent,
and all was soon peace again. I learnt from that
half-caste trader that he was in the employ of the
missionary society and often went off on lecturing
// 163.png
.pn +1
tours to the many Islands, as he could, of course,
speak the native language perfectly, as well as being
able to talk English and a smattering of German.

My foot was so blistered and sore on the heel that
I altered my mind about getting back to Apia and
stayed there the night, and old Mother Adams was
delighted when she heard I would do so and kept
saying “A loo, O swa,” or something that sounded
like it, as her eyes gazed amorously at me. When
her husband had gone across the slope to one of the
other huts, to see some natives who were having a
great feast over a wedding, she made violent love to
me, jabbering something to Papeteo. She told her
to get off, and as soon as she had gone she started
stroking my hand and face softly and did many
more embarrassing things of Samoan custom, till I
was beside myself with worry, and I can tell you
that when suddenly the half-caste husband returned,
and she sat down quickly, I was extremely pleased.

That night I went with them all over the slope to
see the wedding party. A pretty young Samoan girl
had just been married to a stalwart fierce-looking
native, and when we arrived the “Siva dance” was
in full swing. By the rows of huts of the small
seaside village the inhabitants stood and squatted,
all singing in unison as the chief dancers, dressed
in flowers and native muslin, and parakeet wings
in their hair, whirled about and around like ghosts
in the brilliant moonshine that came glimpsing
through the palm leaves. It revealed the faces
and shining eyes of native maidens as they lifted
// 164.png
.pn +1
their long arms and contorted their bodies, sometimes
till their noses touched the forest floor.
From time to time the squatting men, enjoying
the scene as they stared in a circle around
those night-dancers, shouted out the equivalent to
an English “Encore!” as one fat native woman
succeeded in doing things which seemed impossible,
bending slightly forward, giving a sudden bound
and for a second standing on her head with one leg
pointing one way and the other in the opposite
direction. And then she stood on her head in the
moonlight till with another bound she regained her
feet and started hopping and whirling away once
more in full swing with nothing on, as, laughing
merrily, revealing pearly teeth and clapping their
hands, the chorus girls of that midnight stage kept
strict time with their feet and bodies on the forest
floor.

It was one of the most weirdly impressive scenes
that I have ever seen, more fascinating than any I
had seen before with Hornecastle. As I stood there
with old Mrs Adams and her daughter Papeteo
by my side, just behind the husband smoking, I
turned and saw two more white men gazing on the
scene. I was astonished to see them, as I had not
seen any of my race about during the day, and
thought I was there quite alone. They were
terribly scrubby-looking and had a hunted look in
their eyes, and as they noticed me they quickly said
something to the half-caste, and he in turn quickly
reassured them. They were two fugitives from
// 165.png
.pn +1
justice, who had committed some crime and were
wanted by the Commissioners. Probably they had
killed someone, and it appeared that my half-caste
friend was doing his best to hide them till they could
get away from the coast on some outbound schooner.
One of them was a very decent fellow to speak to,
and I gave him some plug tobacco and hinted to him
that he had nothing to fear from me, and neither had
he, for I was sorry for them; whatever they had
done they had already done, and they were my
countrymen. They had at first thought I was a
young missionary, and when they found out that I
was a wanderer only they were deeply relieved, and
when the dance was over I went back with them,
and found that they were staying in a hut just by
my hosts. They laughed and told me that they had
peeped through a crack and seen the whole of the
episode when old Mother Adams had caught on fire,
and chaffed me about her too. They were both
thickly bearded and looked rather haggard and
worried, and evidently had done something serious,
but as the night wore on, and they drank from the
large stone jar which stood in the corner of the hut,
they became exceedingly cheerful, and seeing that I
had a violin got me to play, and when I struck up
a familiar strain actually started to sing loudly.
Adams the half-caste came rushing in to us in a
fearful rage and called them damned madmen, and
everything he could lay his tongue to. I am sure
he would have been expelled from the missionary
society had they heard the way he swore and used
// 166.png
.pn +1
God’s name. He managed to sober the two fugitives
and would not leave the hut till they were
both lying down. Of course had they been caught
while being harboured by Adams he himself would
have got into serious trouble.

At daybreak they were both awake and tremulously
sober. “Good-bye, matey,” they said to me
as I too got quickly to my feet; “Good-bye,”
I said, “and God bless you,” and then the taller one
turned and put out his hairy sunburnt hand. I
quickly clasped it and, saying “Good luck to you
youngster,” they both walked quickly down the
slope shoreward; evidently there was an outbound
schooner lying in the bay and they were taking their
best chance.

It was a beautiful morning. Round the bend, sunrise
was bathing the sea with crimson and gold, and
the parakeets in flocks, screaming off seaward,
passed over my head, and the damp scent of the
bread-fruit trees and orange groves gave the place
the atmosphere of fairyland. I caught sight of
those two hunted men hurrying across the white
beach far away, and that was the last I ever saw of
them. I hope they got safely off and were better
men afterwards.

That same day I bade Adams and his wife farewell,
and pretty Papeteo gave me a tortoise-shell with a
native engraving on it as a memento, and once more
I started on my wanderings.

I eventually arrived at Apia, and going on to a
trading cutter with a sailor, whom I had got to know
// 167.png
.pn +1
in the town, I saw an opportunity of sailing as a
deck hand, and so on the <i>Polly Smith</i> I sailed away
bound for Tahiti. We had on board several native
passengers, two young girls, and several Samoan
men with their wives and children who were going
off to the other Islands to secure work on plantations.
We had a fine time on those moonlight
nights, as we crept along the equatorial Pacific Seas
with all sails set, and on the decks the sailors danced
with the native women while I fiddled away, delighted
to be at sea again. The little Samoan children were
the life of that boat; one tiny girl would stand on
the deck by the galley and go through all the
fantastic Samoan dances, throw her little legs about,
stand on her head, wave her legs and hands about
while upside down with as much ease as though she
were on her feet. There was an English passenger
with us, I think his name was Wallace. We became
very friendly with each other; he was going to
Tahiti on some Government business and came from
Sydney. For many days we lay becalmed, and then
a fine breeze sprang up and we raced away with full
sail set for some days. As a rule the wind slackened
by day and strengthened by night, and they <i>were</i>
nights too, the fine tropic stars shining away overhead,
the clear crystal skies imaged in the waters
all around us as the small cutter drifted along, far
away out on the lonely Pacific track. There were
no islands in that part of the ocean, but we were
all happy enough. The native passengers would loaf
all day long looking over the vessel’s side singing to
// 168.png
.pn +1
themselves, and at night we all congregated and had
a sing-song. I would play the violin and do my best
to keep time to the natives as they danced and
rolled about as the boat heeled over. Mr Wallace
sang songs and the half-caste cook got drunk on sly
grog, did jigs and afforded us great amusement.
.sp 2
// 169.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch15
XV
.pm ch-hd-start
Tahitian Morals and Duplicity—I play the Violin at Government
Concert—Death of M’Neil—The Black Slave Traffic
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Arriving</sc> at Tahiti our passengers went off to the
plantations and I went off also as I wanted to see
what kind of a place it was. The capital, Papeite,
was a much larger and livelier place than Apia.
The population consisted of all kinds of half-castes,
Chinese, French, and Tahitian brigands. I went
inland and tramped around the sugar plantations
whereon worked the natives and Chinese. A good
deal of the country was under cultivation. I shall
never forget the awful-looking people that I came
in contact with or forget the debauchery that I
witnessed. The sole occupation of a good many of
the natives was to drink as much as they could get
down them and the women sold their bodies to the
first-comer for the price of a drink. The missionaries
were there by hundreds, it seemed; they were a
mixture of French and English and had exciting
times reforming those native women and men. I
went into several of the native homes and found
them very hospitable people. Some of the women
had Chinese husbands and their half-caste children
had tiny almond eyes, jet-black and sparkling. The
Chinese of Society Islands impressed me as being
much more wholesome in their way of living than
// 170.png
.pn +1
the Australian Chinamen, and they did not smell
half so disagreeable. A Chinaman got jealous of his
native wife whilst I was there and struck her with
a knife. The Tahitians went for him and when I
saw him you could hardly tell which was his head
and which his feet; anyway his brother Chinamen
came into the village, rolled him up and gave him
a decent burial, and his wife screamed and wailed
away till I was glad to clear out, for it was a most
painful sight to see her grief. She was a pretty
woman, in fact all the young women were handsome,
and the men too, but as soon as the women get over
twenty they start to fade. A South Sea Island girl
of ten years of age is as matured as a European girl
of sixteen.

I found human nature was just the same there as
everywhere else—everyone wanted as much as they
could get out of you, and those who were better
clothed than their sisters and brothers were vain-glorious
and looked down on the others. Girls and
boys made love to each other and eloped into the
forest with the missionaries after them at full speed,
and the brave old chiefs strolled about and spoke of
the old times and smacked their lips and spoke on
the sly of the missionaries, saying “they were the
children of the devil” but addressing them to their
faces with some such jargon as, “Me Christian man
now. One God. Good God, who no eat other
God,” whereupon they would gravely walk away to
sell their soul for a drink. They loved their old
customs deep down in their heart and rubbed noses
// 171.png
.pn +1
with each other and cherished hopes that some day
the gods would help them to drive the white men
into the sea. But the older ones were even then
fast disappearing, and drink and prostitution were
raising the death rate of the native children, and so
there, as elsewhere all over the South Seas, the race
was fast dying out.

There were many traders there, and they all
seemed to make plenty of money. You could always
recognise a trader by his big hat smashed on his
head and his slouching walk and his very often
warty nose, that had started to blossom after drinking
some oceans of beer. They were generally
married men and often got into awful trouble when
they were quite unsober by mistaking their Tahitian
wife for their Marquesan wife, and mentioning the
wrong name to their bride during the night brought
down her wrath on to their wicked heads. I have
often seen them with a black eye or a terribly
scratched, clawed face, for women in Tahiti are as
jealous as the European ladies, and will brook no
rival; but of course when their husband is away with
his other bride on some far-off Isle they do not let
the grass grow under their feet, and often a white
trader leaves his home in disgust when his native
wife presents him with a half-caste baby with slit-almond
eyes and a face showing strong Mongolian
origin, or a little fair-skinned mite with pretty violet
dark eyes that looks suspiciously like the village
missionary.

.if h
.il fn=i12-150.jpg w=600px id=i12
.ca
<sc>Rarotongan Scenery</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Rarotongan Scenery</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

In Papeite I made the acquaintance of René, a
// 172.png
.pn +1
// 173.png
.pn +1
// 174.png
.pn +1
Frenchman, who was a clever violin-player. He
was at that time working as a clerk in the Tahitian
Commissioner’s offices and played at the Papeite
opera house which was something on the lines of a
bush town music hall in Australia. He was very
kind to me and gave me several good lessons on
playing the violin, for he had studied under some
of the best French masters. He had some splendid
duets for two violins and one night, when they had
a ball on at the Papeite Government House, he
recommended me and I got the engagement to go
with him, and we played the duets together. He was
a much better performer than I was, but he gave
me the solo part and did all he could to get me the
credit of the concert. All went off very well indeed
till, when René and I were having supper with all
the high folk of Papeite and I was feeling in very
high spirits at the turn my luck had taken, for I was
nearly on my beam ends when René got me that job,
I bent over from my chair and looked out of the door
and saw that my violin which I had left by the hat-rack
had disappeared! I got up and rushed off like
a shot, and as I did so I saw one of the Tahitian
servants bolting through the door with the violin.
Shouting at the top of my voice I ran after him,
cleared the steps with one jump, and there up the
moonlit street ran the thief holding my violin in
one hand. I had no revolver with me, otherwise
I would have fired, for I was desperate. My violin
was my all, and the fear of losing it put renewed
vigour in my feet and I was gaining on the cursed
// 175.png
.pn +1
thief.  “Stop or I fire!” I shouted, and as he was
leaving the straight track he turned, and I held my
hand up, as he thought, to shoot. In the moonlight
he saw my white hand upheld, and thinking it held
a gun he threw the fiddle down and rushed off into
the scrub. My fiddle was none the worse for the
adventure, but I was, for the night was close and
sweltering hot, and I arrived back to the supper-table
bathed in sweat and half dead.

I was at that time lodging in the north of the town
with a storekeeper. In the same room where I
was also slept a trader; his name was M’Neil, and
he had been very ill and was at that time convalescent.
He admitted to me that he had been
drinking too heavily and had made up his mind to
be a teetotaller, and, as he told me what a curse
drink was, he kept lifting a bottle of whisky from
under his bed and taking a pull at it, saying, “Man,
jist a wee snack for the gude time’s sake.” He was
really trying to break himself of the habit, and instead
of drinking half-a-bottle at a time was just
taking it in sips. By midnight he was quite drunk,
and started weeping over his past sins, and kept me
awake nearly all night saying over and over again—“Ma
lad, keep off th’ drink, ’twill be your ruin.”
He was not a bad man at all, and when he was sober
during the day, and I played him old Scotch songs,
for he would not for one moment let me play anything
but Scotch melodies, the tears would rise in
his eyes. He died two days after and I felt very
much cut up, for I saw him die and he gave me an
// 176.png
.pn +1
old purse, saying, “Take it, guid lad, and think of
me.” His old comrade, a Scotchman, came in
from up the street, held his hand and completely
broke down, crying like a little child as M’Neil
closed his eyes for ever. I still remember how that
Scotch friend rose up, looked under poor M’Neil’s
bed, and gently pulled the half-full whisky bottle
out, put it under his coat and left the room, still
sobbing, for M’Neil and he had had many good
times together and many a long talk and deep drink
in that room as they lived over their old days in
Bonny Scotland.

I was naturally very depressed after the death of
M’Neil; I had only known him a few days, but in
those few days I seemed to know more of his true
character than you could see through in another
man in ten years. I remember after a day or so I
got in with a Dutch fellow named “Van Blank.”
He was also a lodger in my dwelling-place and he
had held the Scotchman’s arm as he stood by
M’Neil’s grave; otherwise I think poor old Mac (I
cannot remember his name) would have fallen in.
He had imbibed considerably, and it took Van
Blank and I the whole afternoon to get him back
to his room and put him to bed.

René, my violin friend, went off to Matahiva on
some business, and I was at my wit’s end to know
how to get some cash and get away from Papeite.
I was offered a job by some missionaries to go off to
Rarotonga to help in mission work for awhile. I considered
seriously becoming a missionary myself, as it
// 177.png
.pn +1
seemed a paying game, and I never saw a mission
man of any sect on the beach hard up. Van Blank
had long since joined the mission and he introduced
me to several young Tahitian mission girls who were
devout Christians. They were mostly very good-looking,
wore more clothing than the inland natives,
were splendid dancers, and down in the thatched
homesteads of the village of Tetua I went and
stayed with Van Blank, and those mission girls,
good gracious me! stood on their heads, screamed
with laughter, waved their legs as I played the fiddle
and all went back to the barbarian stage in five
seconds, and after the dance I had to fly with Van
Blank as twenty of them strove to embrace us, all
at once! Next day Blank and I saw them in the
mission-room teaching the native children to sing
“Onward, Christian Soldiers,” or a tune of that type,
and as we looked in the school door they looked up
at us gravely with their earnest dark eyes as though
we were absolute strangers to the wild carousal of
the night before. You could tramp the world over
and never find people so clever in their cunning as
the Tahitian Islanders, and yet they are, as I found,
staunch friends in adversity and would never give
a white man away to his superiors. And so all the
creed denominations go swimmingly along, safe and
happy in the giant hypocrisy of reformation that
has brought such changes to the Pacific Isle, such
happiness to the reformers, and such deceit into the
hearts of the reformed.

A large trading schooner, the <i>Austral</i>, at this time
// 178.png
.pn +1
arrived in Tahiti and I once more secured a job as
second mate and left the island. I heard that her
final destination was Samoa and Tonga; she was then
bound for the Marquesas Islands. Before leaving
the “Society Group” she called at “Fakarava,”
“Raiatea” and “Takaroa,” beautiful Isles they
were too, standing lonely out there in the wide
Pacific, covered with luxurious tropical trees that
sheltered the velvety skinned natives, many of
whom were as wild as the savages of Captain Cook’s
days. Indeed, all the races that I came in contact
with were as wild at heart as ever their ancestors
were; but they were clever, and they soon discovered
the best policy, which was hammered into
them by the arrival of a warship and a gun battery
to smash them up and let them see the white man’s
power and the wisdom of following all his desires
and ceasing all their own desires. Then the
missionaries came and the traders brought the rum,
and the money to buy the rum, and gave the
women the opportunity to obtain the money, for it
was the women of the South Seas that started to get
the money and shared it with their native husbands.
I think that must be the origin of the name “White
Slave Traffic” of modern England. I know from
my own eyes and from the lips of the sufferers of
those far-off Isles that the Black Slave Traffic was a
monstrous traffic beside which the English “White
Slave Traffic” is a kind of sacred concert, comparatively
speaking.

As far as I could judge and criticise the civilising
// 179.png
.pn +1
influence of Christianity in the South Seas was
this—the English, French and Germans discovered
a beautiful land in the South Seas; a few months
after arriving they blew the heads of some of
the natives off, cowed them completely, took a
battalion of sailors inland to the wild native village
and those sailors all fell madly in love with the
beautiful dark-eyed women who stood trembling
before them, and by the time they were due
to become mothers the fathers were in England,
being paid their leave money at Chatham, while the
missionaries, hot with haste, were outbound for the
same Islands to reform the grieving mothers and
make them more upright in their morals. When
those missionaries arrived they put a “penny in the
slot machine” on the shore, nailed a large tract on
each wall of the heathen village homesteads, and
then called the people Christianised as they knelt
in their nudeness and penitence at their feet in
chanting rows, repeating the Lord’s Prayer with
bowed heads, as the missionaries lifted their eyes
heavenward and did not miss their boot-laces till
long after the reformed heathen had departed.
.sp 2
// 180.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch16
XVI
.pm ch-hd-start
Hafiao—Rival Marquesan Queens—Behind the Veil—Vaca Mountain—I
meet R.L.S.—Thakambau the Last of the Fijian Kings—Apia
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>After</sc> a monotonous voyage of adverse winds and
a typhoon that brought seas over and washed me out
of my bunk, smashed our deck in and carried away
all the cordage and boats, we arrived at “Hivaoa.”
The natives swam out to us in shoals; on they came
as the anchor dropped, lines and lines of bobbing
frizzly heads with swimming eyes, gliding along to
the paddling hands level with the water, while racing
along in front of them came canoes heavily laden
with cargoes of natives evidently more successful in
life than the poverty-stricken swimmers who only
possessed their own skins. We threw ropes over
the ship’s side and up they came, clambering, and
danced over the decks. Stalwart, fine fellows they
were, with large lustrous eyes, and as soon as they
leapt to the deck and shook themselves as dogs do
after a swim, they started rushing about singing and
jabbering for a job to take us ashore in their canoes,
and the skipper stood by his cabin aft with a big
cigar in his mouth, shouting, “Keep yer eye on the
God-damned devils,” for he had turned his head for
one moment and with native alertness one of them
had dived into his cabin and collared his best white
duck suit. Down came a large wooden plank over
// 181.png
.pn +1
the poor devil’s head as he dropped the suit on deck
and with a bound went over the side into the sea.

It was after sunset before I went ashore, and with
several of the crew we roamed about visiting the
natives in their thatched homes and saw the native
children romping around as they sneaked out of
their beds to peep at us and the swarthy mothers and
fathers, squatting on the floor, cross-legged, invited
us to drink and eat. All about us as we walked
under the palms from one home to another we saw
the shadows moving as the men and women roamed
about, passing from clump to clump of palm-trees
which shaded the Marquesan homesteads. It was
just like some fairyland, as over the clear skies shone
the Southern stars, and often came the singing of
the natives and the beating of their wooden drums
from where some of the families were giving parties
over a birthday or the anniversary of a wedding,
enjoying themselves in the same spirit as they do in
the suburban homes of English towns.

I saw a lot of old chiefs and wrinkled dethroned
kings and queens during my stay there. The girls
were nearly all dressed in leafy girdles and the
youths likewise. I had heard a lot about Hivaoa
from Hornecastle and I remembered that he had
several wives there and large grown-up families, but
I did not meet any of them to my knowledge. I
only stayed there two or three days and then joined
the boat again and we left for Nuka Hiva. The
natives there I found were very similar to those of
Hivaoa, but the Island itself struck me as very
// 182.png
.pn +1
prosperous, being a good deal under cultivation.
Whilst there I went inland alone and made friends
with a Marquesan chief named Hafiao. He could
speak English fairly well, also a little French. I
remember him well, because he was such an
intellectual-looking old fellow and looked very
much like Gladstone, but he was more powerfully
built and of course brown skinned. He told me he
was over a hundred years old, and he looked it too.
He had a nice house and three pretty native women
looked after him. I am not so sure that they
were not his wives. He told me that nearly all the
whites that called at Nuka Hiva came especially
inland to see him, and he was as proud as anything
when I told him that Robert Louis Stevenson was
greatly impressed by him and his kingly bearing.
Of course I made that all up, but while he puckered
his wrinkled old face up and tried to tell me of the
“great white people” that had called upon him, he
mentioned the name of “Stessen” and from what
he said I should imagine that he meant “Stevenson,”
for he described him to me at my request, and
most impressively told me that he was “good white
mans who saw that he the great Hafiao was no
ordinary man, but a brave and mighty king of men.”
He also told me that R.L.S. had come especially
across the seas from the great “white country”
to see him and kneel at his feet; and as he told
those tales of his proud imagination he lifted his
intelligent eyes to the skies and his shrivelled lips
trembled with emotional pride at the thought that,
// 183.png
.pn +1
though he was no longer a ruler of men, there were
white men living who had bowed the knee to him
and assured him that he still lived in the memory
of men as great as ever, though humbled by advancing
civilisation and the wrecking hand of cruel Time.
And, to tell the truth, that deserted forgotten old
chief of barbarian Marquesan tribes had more of the
look of born kingship in his stalwart shrivelled
anatomy, as he sat there almost in tears over revived
memories, than all the kings of Europe bunched
together; and I shall never regret going on my knee
before him and bowing my head in a moment of
emotional impulse as I bade him farewell and pressed
a plug of ship’s tobacco into his majestic hand,
which gift so delighted him that he forgot the great
majesty that for a moment had crowned him, and
with an aged shrill voice shouted, “Good mans,
white boy,” and stood upright and gave a kind of
delighted double shuffle at such a stroke of luck.

In that same village I also met wrinkled old native
women who gazed with scorn on the young native
girls who wore tappa girdles from their waists to
their knees. One of them told me she had been the
most beautiful woman of the Islands and much
loved by the bravest warriors of her day. She was
not unlike the old Marquesan Queen whom Hornecastle
introduced me to, who had had her photograph
taken by the Judge’s son whom I met at Samoa,
but she had not the queenly bearing, and when I
crept into the next hut I learned from another dethroned
queen that it was really she who was once
// 184.png
.pn +1
the most beautiful of queens and the envy of all
brave warriors, and she tried to get out of me what
the “bad no good woman” next door had told me;
but I kept a still tongue, for I saw how things were
between them and did not wish them to murder
each other over the awful jealousy that I saw each
had for the other. I can still see their brown
wrinkled faces under the starlit palms peeping from
their den doors as I bade them farewell and passed
away. I never saw such evil looks as they sideways
gave each other as I crept quietly on. They each
thought they had succeeded in proving they were
old-time queens. I did not particularly like either
of them, for each had gazed at me with odd looks
and stroked my white hand with their shrivelled
dark paws, smacking their remnants of lips, as
though remembering old days and cannibalistic
feasts.

Of course it may have been purely imagination
on my part, but I could not help feeling as I did, for
I had seen a good deal in my wanderings among the
South Sea Islanders, much more than I have told you
in these reminiscences—for there are things which
I must leave out, things which are too dreadful to
describe in cold print to civilised eyes of the home
country, but are well known to the travellers of the
days when I was a boy and saw the smouldering out
of the true savage races of the South Seas. I lived
on the Islands and mixed with the people as though
I were one of them, and though the outside world
lived under the impression that all the old savage
// 185.png
.pn +1
instincts had died out, I knew that they had not.
The natives knew they would be punished for
cannibalism and other crimes of a bloodthirsty
heathenish character, and so it was all practised in
secrecy, and to this day I will swear terrible things
are done on the quiet! Do not the civilised polished
towns of Europe harbour in their very midst men
who are dangerous criminals and addicted to heinous
crimes? Often those very men mingle with you and
even gain your admiration and respect, for you do
not dream of their true character, and yet men
think that the whole of the aboriginal South Sea
races have completely changed their old instincts,
and all are now Christian, just as they profess they
are, and nothing is done under cover as it is done
under cover in European cities!

I remember how Hornecastle got hold of a book
which praised the reformation of the South Sea
savage and the glorious work of the American
missionaries. The old fellow was eating an orange
as he read, and as he roared with laughter he
swallowed the whole of the half orange, turned
purple in the face, and when the native put his fingers
down and cleared the throat passage the old chap
sat upright, put his hand on his stomach and, to
my astonishment, still continued to explode with
laughter, roaring out at intervals as he nearly
choked, “God help the damned heathens,” “Holy
Moses and Missionaries,” and then buried his
nose in the book and started to read again with
extreme delight and twinkling eyes, for I think of
// 186.png
.pn +1
all men he knew the stealthy lives that were being
lived behind the veil of native life in the South Seas,
where often men disappeared and were never heard
of again, as the Polynesians, Melanesians and the
half-castes saw the longed-for chance occur and
got their own back! Aye, there are hundreds of
skeletons whitening in the forest of those Pacific
Isles, skeletons of men who fell by the stealthy
war club or had their heads blown off by the
old-fashioned breech-loading pistols given to the
natives by traders for shiploads of copra, palm oil,
and sometimes for help in kidnapping girls, who
often disappeared from their homes and were never
seen again.

I believe if a man like Hornecastle had written a
book telling all that he had seen in his own time and
the time when I was on those Islands it would have
been one of the most terrible human documents ever
read by the eyes of men, so terrible in its revelations
of bloodshed, trickery and lust, both on the white
and native side, that very few people would have
believed a quarter of the truth told. There are no
more undiscovered shores to be found in the world
now, and never again in the history of the world will
the wanderers from a highly civilised race suddenly
come across primeval races in far seas, who will leap
from the forest and gaze with astonished eyes into
the eyes of men who are their brothers of long
ago, lost in the dark of ages and returned to
reform the ways of the old, and heartily enjoy the
change from the new.
// 187.png
.pn +1

After a stay of about two weeks I sailed on the
<i>Austral</i> away from the beautiful shores of “Nuka
Hiva.” Far away the whitening waves, tossing
on the reefs, faded as the sunset struck the inland
forest palms and mountain ranges, and then the
stars came out and overhead the song of the sails
started to sing and once more I was at sea. It was
a long voyage; we called at the Caroline Islands, and
after an absence of quite five months I once more
arrived at Samoa, and got paid off by the skipper
and stopped in Apia, resting myself for several
weeks, spending my days in violin-studying and
calling on the storekeepers. Afterwards I went to
Upolu, and while strolling by the cedar-trees that
skirted the shore forest I met Robert Louis Stevenson.
“Hello, young man,” he said, as I looked up
and recognised him, “are you still living here?”
“No,” I answered, “I’ve been to the Marquesas,
and Fiji, in fact all over the place.” I told him of
the chieftain Hafiao who had told me that Stevenson
had bowed the knee to him. He was extremely
amused at all I told him, and I got to like him exceedingly
as he began to talk in an earnest way about
the Island customs and what the home folks would
think of life in the South Seas and the women, for
as we strolled along some pretty native girls
went by with baskets of fish, their lava-lavas on,
their bare brown bodies shining in the sunlight.
We stopped them and R.L.S. bought one of the
baskets of fish and invited me to his friend’s house,
and I went with him and stayed and had supper
// 188.png
.pn +1
and entertained them with the violin. I think the
gentleman whom he was staying with then was an
American, and had something to do with the
Legation offices. I had a very pleasant time,
and felt extremely at home with the earnest kind-faced
man who has added such interest to the sad
romance of Samoa, for as the world knows he died
there and was buried on the top of Vaea Mountain,
and to this day that mountain is looked upon
as a sacred spot by the Samoans who loved R. L.
Stevenson, and the natives never hunt or fire guns or
shoot the birds that roam and sing by that mighty
sepulchre, for it is their faith that his songs are still
being sung by the birds as the years go by and he
sleeps on that mountain top.

But to go back to the invitation which I had to
supper.

I had a most enjoyable evening; there was a
Mr Herd also in the party. The house was only a
one-storey dwelling-place, and the room wherein we
dined a large dim-lit place with two windows facing
seaward. The overhead hanging lamp-glass had
been smashed through the clumsiness of the native
girls who waited at the table, and I was deeply
thankful that they had done so, for I was pretty
shabby and threadbare at that time, and the gloom
made me feel more at ease as I sipped my wine and
had very little to say, having no confidence in
myself through the knowledge that R.L.S. was a
writer of books. He seemed in a good mood as he
sat at the other side of the table in his white duck
// 189.png
.pn +1
suit, his lean bare throat moving above his loose low
shirt collar as he and his friends spoke of their
experiences in the Islands and bubbled over with
laughter. The native girls, attired in fringed ridis
and tappu cloth reaching from their breasts, and
down to their bare knees, rushed round the table
waving palm leaves to create a breeze, and repulse
the mosquito droves that made desperate attempts
to get their share by dining off us. The American
Legation gentleman seemed to be a jolly customer,
and partook frequently of the whisky.

Robert Louis Stevenson seemed very temperate;
he smoked cigarettes and drank the pure juice of
limes, holding them over a glass he squeezed them in
his hand till the glass was nearly full, added whisky
and drank at a gulp, throwing the skins of the limes
over the heads of his friends, out of the open window,
only just missing them, and seemed greatly amused
as they dodged. He treated the native girls and
boys who stood around with great kindness, speaking
to them as though they were little children.
I think he spoke to them in the native language.
They seemed to know him; after the supper was
over, I noticed their good behaviour and respectfulness,
as they crossed their brown hands, closed
their eyes and repeated word for word after R.L.S.,
as he bowed his head and said grace.

.if h
.il fn=i13-166.jpg w=600px id=i13
.ca
<sc>South Sea Lagoon</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>South Sea Lagoon</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

“Well, Middleton,” he said, as our host sat down
to an old American organ and started playing
softly, his feet going up and down ten revolutions
a second, as he pedalled the leaky bellows, “which
// 190.png
.pn +1
// 191.png
.pn +1
// 192.png
.pn +1
do you like the best, the Old Country or the South
Seas?”

“Well, for climate and novelty, I like this place,
but I often have a longing for the homeland.”

“So do I. We all love our native land the best
at heart,” he said, and I could see by his expression
that his dreams were often overseas, for he lapsed
into silence, threw the cigarette away that he had
only just lit, and placed another one in his mouth,
and walked up and down, as was his habit at times
when in conversation with anyone.

I remember that he asked me if I was going back
to England again, also if I liked sea life, and when I
told him of some of my bush experiences he seemed
deeply interested, and asked me a good deal about
the Australian blacks. He was greatly interested in
their habits, and seemed to know a lot about their
history and wandering instincts, and remarked upon
the great difference between the intellects of the
blacks and the Islanders of the South Seas, as he
sat there gazing with his keen inquiring eyes,
fingering his chin as the cool wind drifted through
the open window. I can still vividly remember the
delight in his face as he watched the native servants.
I played the violin, accompanied by our host on
the organ, who played by ear, and made up for his
indifferent accompaniment by singing at intervals,
as I did my best to entertain. R.L.S. joined in
by humming. We were suddenly disturbed by a
jabbering noise outside, and then the door opened
and a native woman, with barely anything on
// 193.png
.pn +1
except the ridi, poked her head and body half in the
room and said something to our host the American,
in the Samoan language. It appeared that he was
a medical man, and had been attending her child
who was suffering through influenza, which had
become suddenly worse, so she and a gathering of
friends had rushed hurriedly to our host for help.
R.L.S. and I accompanied him, as he quickly shut
down the organ lid, and off we all went out into the
night.

Across the forest track we hurried. Like big
children, Samoan mothers, men, and their naked
little ones, went running along the moonlit track in
front of us, the wailing mother and father of the sick
child pattering beside us, looking with relieved eyes,
because we were white men, thinking that our
different skin made us potent and that all would
be well when the doctor reached their child. We
had to walk almost half-a-mile, and then they all
turned off the forest track to the left, and under
the palms, to where stood their large hut homes;
bending down we all entered the sick-room. It was
a sweet little mite, emaciated through chest trouble.
Its tiny bones seemed to be all out of place, protruding
under its soft velvety brown skin, as it
gazed wistfully up with small bright fevered eyes,
as we all leaned over its small mat bed.

The American tenderly picked her up, gave her
physic, and did all that was best for the infant, then
whispered some hopeless opinion to R.L.S., who
tenderly bent over the little patient, as concerned
// 194.png
.pn +1
as though it were his own child, as he chuckled with
his lips, and touched it softly on the chin with his
finger playfully, till it actually looked up at him
and gave a wan smile. The parents fell on their
knees delighted, and started rapidly to say the
Lord’s Prayer together as others shouted “Folofa-Mio,”
which meant “better to-morrow.” It was
a weird sad sight, and when we passed out under the
coco-palms into the brilliantly lit moonlit space I
noticed Stevenson and the doctor were very quiet,
for we felt pretty sadly as our medical friend had
very dubious hopes as to its recovery. A Samoan
quack medicine man had been practising on the sick
mite, and the disease, through improper treatment,
had got the upper hand. Stevenson went off soon
after we reached the house again, and though it was
very late, I would not accept the invitation to stay
the night, and went back to my lodging by the shore
side, near Apia Town, a little shanty place of a young
trader, who had let me share his home. When I
arrived back I felt a bit depressed, but my friend
cheered me up. He was a lively fellow, crammed
full up with reminiscences, having been for some
years trading among the Islanders, and he would
tell me in vivid language about his experiences in
the Fijian group. He had known and lived with the
son of Thakambau,[#] the last of the great Cannibal
Kings, who had then been dead some two or three
years or more, and terrible were the deeds of that
// 195.png
.pn +1
old king before he became Christianised[#] and
handed over the Fiji Isles to the British Government.
I had personally met old men chiefs whose
sisters had been roasted in the “Bokai Ovens” at
the grand cannibal festivities of their young days.

.pm fn-start // 1
Thakambau went on a visit to N.S.W. and brought measles
back to Fiji, which carried of a quarter of the population.
.pm fn-end

.pm fn-start // 1
The Fijian race is fast dying out. Thousands of Indians arrive
yearly, and the result is that Mohammedanism is secretly over-throwing
Christianity and the noble, if futile, efforts of many true
missionaries in Fiji and elsewhere.
.pm fn-end

.if h
.il fn=i14-170.jpg w=594px id=i14
.ca
<sc>Native Girls making Kava</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Girls making Kava</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

My comrade kept me up nearly the whole night
cheerily telling me of the wild escapades of those
days, and was extremely amusing as he described
Fijian weddings, which were conducted something
after the Samoan fashion as far as the fantastic
dancing went, but there the similarity ended. By
night most of the weddings were performed, the
king or head chief of the tribe taking a seat on the
throne, solemnly gazing on as a kind of spiritual
figure-head, as from the forest for miles around came
leaping the natives, attracted by the boomed notes
of the lais (wooden drum), all to assemble and witness
the wedding, as the native bride, flushed with
pleasure, attired in the scant robe of the period,
danced the wild fantastic can-can of the South Seas
before the assembled encoring tribe, dressed only in a
string of shells that jingled at her sulu-cloth. There on
the chosen moonlit night under the tamnu and bread-fruit
trees she swayed and swerved in all the postures
that would reveal her beauty to the bridegroom’s
eyes, and the ring of natives would make the forest
and hills re-echo as their voices extolled her female
charms, as the old high priest chanting the special
// 196.png
.pn +1
// 197.png
.pn +1
// 198.png
.pn +1
service gazed enviously, nudging the bride as an
encore hint whenever she did anything especially
pleasing to the dusky onlookers. “Mbula!
Mbula!” they would shout when at last, perspiring,
trembling and excited, she stood at rest. “Mbula!
Mbula!” they would still cry, which meant “may
the gods send thee many children,” and then the
bridegroom also danced as the old king or chief
descended from his throne to welcome the bashful
bride, and to bow her into his home before the
great wedding feast, for it was the custom of
certain tribes that the bride should receive the
king’s kiss first. More I cannot say, excepting
for the grim rumour and respect for the first-born,
whose lineaments often resembled those of the old
king who officiated at the wedding, and such was
the great respect held for those children who were
the first born, and consequently of blood-royal, that
the unloved maidens of those wild Isles, as innocent
as in the Garden of Eden, and of the ways of the
Western world, would often ambitiously throw
themselves across the path of the royal favour.

.pm verse-start
Oft sought the king the unloved forlorn maid
With witnesses to prove she’d been betrayed!
.pm verse-end

On the other hand some of the tribes outdid the
high standard of the morals of advanced civilisation,
and it was considered the height of impropriety for
a maid to eat in the presence of a marriageable man,
and everlasting disgrace lay on the head of the
native girl who had once touched a bed mat whereon
// 199.png
.pn +1
had slept a man, and many of the old customs of the
South Seas are still practised secretly, and this was,
and is, common knowledge to the white residents of
the Pacific.

But to go back to my comrade the trader, I
stayed at his homestead for some time. It was a
romantic spot; by our front door curled the waves
up the shore, and by night across the moonlit bay
in canoes paddled the natives, singing as they
fished.

We made a neat galley cooking stove just outside
by the door, whereby we sat at night, as the fire
blazed and the cooking fish spluttered in the frying-pan.
My chum was a splendid cook, and served up
many dishes of yams and bread fruit, entrées, done
in native fashion. From the village a mile away,
inland, the natives would come every morning and
clean our one-roomed dwelling out. On the wooden
walls above our bunks were photographs of our relations
and friends in England. I was very happy there
with my amiable chum, who was always in a joking
mood, and would cheerily sing as I played the fiddle.

He was a bit gone on a half-caste Samoan girl, and
the only little hitch that disturbed our friendship
was through my foolishness in responding to the
native girl’s wish to learn to play the violin. I was
innocent enough, and as soon as I saw the way the
wind blew I shut right down, and the fiddle lessons
ceased, and so the sulky look on my comrade’s face
faded and once more the cheery smile returned; and
by the crackling fire and spluttering stews, into my
// 200.png
.pn +1
ears was poured the lore of the South Seas, with the
human note of reality in it, till we retired to bed, and
the warm wind in moonlight waved the shadows of
the palm leaves outside over our faces as we lay
unsleeping in our coffin-shaped bunks, my chum one
side and I the other side, talking and dreaming till
“Are you asleep, Middy?” sounded far away, as I
sleepily answered, “Yes” over and over again as
he talked on, till at last even the sound of the waves
outside faded away and we both slept.

The natives got very friendly with us two, and
extremely jealous of each other if we hired one
of them more than another, and terrible were the
tales we had to hear about the one whom we had
hired.

“He not Christian man. Sin much, and steal
‘nother man’s wife” and so on, till we thought it
advisable, before there was a murder in the camp,
to make a bargain with the lot, and hire them all at
regular intervals to do our cooking, wood collecting
and the rough general work.
.sp 2
// 201.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch17
XVII
.pm ch-hd-start
Apia—R.L.S. visits Samoan Homesteads—Apia Beach Incident—Samoan
Music and Dancing—I am nearly drowned—Native
Song—Native Music and my own Compositions, which reproduce
South Sea Characteristic Music and Atmosphere—I sleep in
Cannibalistic Cooling-off Larder—“Barney Dear” and Old
Naylor
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>On</sc> the beach about a mile from Apia, in our
ramblings together, we came across Robert Louis
Stevenson. He was paddling in a shallow by the
shore, his pants tucked up to his knees, his legs sun-scorched
and browned. It was fearfully hot, and at
first he did not recognise me, for I was as brown as
a nut, and had on a tremendous umbrella hat; the
rim was a foot wide and dipped downwards. I had
told him when I last saw him that I was going away
to South America, as at the time I thought I had
secured a berth on a “Frisco” schooner that lay in the
Bay, and so he was somewhat surprised to see me.

I had just caught a monster sea-eel, and as he gazed
upon it I offered it to him. He would not take it
till I convinced him that I did not want it. His
friend plucked a palm leaf and gingerly grabbed
the slippery victim, and as he did so, we were all
suddenly startled by hearing shouts and the sounds
of pistol shots along the shore.

“What’s that?” said R.L.S. He seemed pleasurably
excited at the idea of some adventure coming,
// 202.png
.pn +1
and we all went off together in the direction
of the noise. At that time there was often a feud
between the various native tribes who differed on
some political matter; also there were often fights
between the natives, some who were adherents to
King Malieatoa Laupepa, and others who swore by
Mataafa. It so happened that it was only a squabble
of a minor kind, and when we arrived near the scene
of the conflict, the ambushed natives bolted.

Stevenson seemed somewhat disappointed. I
gathered from his manner that he would have loved
to have seen a real native battle, for his eyes flashed
with excitement at the prospect of what might be
happening as we went up the steep shore, and his
friend, who was a careful and jovial-looking man,
about Stevenson’s own age, warned him to be careful
as he heedlessly went forward.

Out came the native children rushing excitedly
from among the forest trees; Stevenson spoke to
them half in pigeon-English and half in Samoan, as
they excitedly pointed toward the direction in which
the guilty natives had gone. All being quiet, and
the prospect of more excitement from that quarter
disappearing, we went back to the shore, and searching
about found the eel which Stevenson’s friend had
dropped at the sound of the pistol firing. Having
found it, we all went off into a native homestead some
distance away from the shore, wherein lived a family
who appeared to be on very good terms with R.L.S.

They were all dressed in the “upper ten” native
fashion of Samoa. One of them was wearing an
// 203.png
.pn +1
old American naval officer’s cast-off suit. The
women had their hair done in fashionable style with
red and white blossoms stuck in at the bunched
sides, also on their native girdles, and what with their
plump handsome faces and intelligent eyes, looked
strikingly attractive. There were several children,
and they all welcomed him and rolloped around us
with delight.

Stevenson was soon engaged with the elder, who,
I think, was a Mataafa chief, who could not speak
English; but R.L.S. seemed to understand all he
said, and by the way he made him repeat phrases
over and over again, I should think the chief
was correcting Stevenson’s pronunciation of some
Samoan words.

The native boys and girls were dressed neatly in
ridis, and tappu-cloth blouses, their hair parted and
combed smoothly, and very polite, too, they were,
as they brought Stevenson their school-books,
wherein they had written their English lessons.
Stevenson seemed to take a deep interest in their
efforts, patted them on the heads approvingly as he
examined their books and this greatly delighted
them. In the corner of the large shed-like place,
wherein we all stood, the youngest son of about six
years of age, quite naked, stood on his head singing
with gusto, as R.L.S. gave him a lead pencil as a
gift, for he seemed to be very fond of children and
greatly enjoyed seeing their delight. Lifting the
little girls up, he held them high over his head, as
the parents smiled approval at his antics to make
// 204.png
.pn +1
them laugh, and Samoan children are never so
pleasing and pretty as when their cheery little brown
faces laugh, as their mouths stretch, and all their
pearly teeth are exposed to view.

As we said good-bye to the chief and his wife,
Stevenson put the youngest girl on his back as
though to take her away with him. Although she
was only a mite of about three years old, she seemed
to see the joke, and waved her hands towards the
homestead as we all walked away: then when he
put her to the ground she scampered off so fast
homeward that you couldn’t see her tiny legs
going!

I am telling you all this so as to attempt to give
an idea of Stevenson’s character, as he appeared to
my eyes as a lad. It was then evening time, and
the sun was setting over the hills as we all went
down the forest track, and in the distance two white
women and a native were coming up towards us.
It was R.L.S.’s wife and a friend. Mrs Stevenson
affectionately greeted him with a loud kiss! And
then started to give him a dressing-down for going
off and not keeping some domestic appointment.

She was a vivacious amiable lady, without any
side whatever; dressed like an Australian squatter’s
wife, and bare throated like Stevenson himself, and
they both wore white shoes without wearing socks,
in sandal fashion.

As we walked along the track Stevenson was very
observant and asked the natives the names of
various tropical trees. He had a cheery musical
// 205.png
.pn +1
laugh, and a pronounced habit of gazing abstractedly
in front of him while anyone was talking to him, a
habit which was especially noticeable when his wife
was with him, for he seemed to look upon her as a
sort of helpmate to relieve him and take the burden
off his shoulders, by answering and apologising to
those who interrupted his meditations. At other
times he was just the reverse and strangely talkative,
and could not talk fast enough to his friends,
whom he seemed very much attached to, as he took
down notes in a pocket-book. He had the appearance
of a man of very strong character, affectionate
and tender to children and all those about him.

I should think he was one of those who would
show great courage if he were called on to do so, for
once on Apia beach a white man was thrashing a
Samoan boy who had been stealing fruit and fish
from a basket which he had left outside a grog
saloon. Stevenson, who happened to be strolling
down the beach to take a boat out to a schooner
anchored in the bay, caught sight of the coward
blows being inflicted on the frightened lad, and as
the trader did not cease, Stevenson went straight
up to him and pushed him aside, and heatedly
expostulated with him about his brutality. The
ruffian stared astonished at R.L.S. and then used
some offensive epithet, at which Stevenson’s face
went rigid as he stared at him with flashing eyes,
and almost lost control of himself. I saw that had
not the man had the instinct to see that Stevenson
was not the slightest bit frightened of him and
// 206.png
.pn +1
gone away muttering to himself, Stevenson would
have knocked him down.

I think it was that same evening that I went to
a native feast at Satoa village. The guests were
mostly of the Samoan best-class natives. It was a
lovely night. Overhead sailed the full moon in the
dark blue vault of a cloudless heaven, as by the
huddled native village homes the assembled privileged
guests squatted around, forming a ring of dark
bodies as they watched the weird fantastic dance
which celebrated the birth of a child to a celebrated
chief. The stage of the forest floor was adorned
with the Samoan professional dancers and singers.
I shall always remember the weird beauty of
that romantic scene as they swayed and danced,
chanting strange ear-haunting melodies, all their
faces alight with animation and the joy of being
alive as they sang old South Sea love songs, suddenly
stopping in their wild dances as the words of the
choruses breathed thoughts of love and impassioned
vows of plighted lovers. They would stop perfectly
still and gaze for a few moments, staring in each other’s
eyes like statues, or the figures of romantic love
pictures, only their lips moving as they sang the words
of delight into the listening maids’ ears, then once
more suddenly start off whirling round with their
arms, swaying rhythmically, their faces gazing
upwards, and sometimes over their shoulders.

I can truly say that I have never seen anything
so really romantic, or heard music that so truly
expressed human emotions, excepting perhaps
// 207.png
.pn +1
when, some years after, I was troubadouring on the
frontier of Spain, and played the violin, accompanying
the Spanish peasants as they sang in parts the
romantic “Estudiantina.” The Spanish maids
gazed into their lovers’ eyes, as they sang, much the
same as the savages of the South Seas did on that
night of which I am now telling you.

A day or so after the preceding incidents, I made
the acquaintance of a Mr Powell, who was a friend
of Stevenson’s. I was playing the violin on an
American ship that had put into Apia harbour, and
he was on board. He was one of the head missionaries,
and struck me as a very pleasant gentleman.
I was trying to get a berth on the boat, which was
going to San Francisco, but I did not succeed. The
night before she left I was in the fo’c’sle, playing the
fiddle, with the sailors who had accordions and
banjos, and as we were playing “Down by the
Swanee River” R.L.S. peeped in at the door. I
could just see him by the dim oil lamp, as he gazed
over the shoulder of Mr Powell, his friend, who was
with him. His face lit up with a gleam of pleasure
as he listened to the rough sailor concert as one of
the crew danced a jig.

Though Stevenson at the time must have been
in consumption, he never struck me as delicate,
but, on the other hand, looked one of the thin
wiry kind, always alert, and boyishly curious in all
that was going on around him; when he laughed it
was as though to himself over some pleasant memory,
and his eyes gazed with a feminine gleam, half
// 208.png
.pn +1
revealing the emotional strain of the woman and
the firmness of the man in his intellectual face—the
mixture that all brave men are made up of. I was
unusually observant at that time through my increased
knowledge that he was a writer far above
the average, and I also noticed the respect with
which he was treated by those around him, and
especially the natives, who were comical in their
unconcealed pride when he spoke to them.

If I had seen and spoken to R.L.S. without
knowing who he was, I should have thought
he was a skipper or mate of some American
or English ship; his manner was easy, in fact,
almost rollicking at times.

I met Mrs Stevenson again later, and she asked me
to come up to their home and bring the violin, and
chided me for not keeping an appointment I had
made before. I promised to go, but never went;
unfortunately I went off in the morning of the
appointed day, on a cruise with my comrade. A
hurricane came and blew us out to sea, several times
we nearly turned upside down and once a sea went
right over the boat, and away went my comrade. I
leaned over the side to drag him back, and he
grabbed hold of me and over I went also. We could
both swim, but I went under, came up and found I
was under the boat. It was a terrible feeling of
despair and fright that went through me as my head
bobbed under the keel; the universe seemed to be a
tremendous black grip that had got me into its death-clutch.
All the life in my body seemed to wrench my
// 209.png
.pn +1
bones apart as I swallowed water and gave a desperate
plunge downward in my last bit of consciousness,
and came up to the surface just by the boat’s side.

My comrade clutched my head by the hair, and
when I was in the boat again safe I almost hugged
him with affection, the wind and the flying clouds
overhead, all sunlit, made me feel delirious as I
thought how near I had been to never seeing them
again! At last, after a terrible struggle, we landed
some miles round the coast. Our hands were bleeding
and blistered through straining at the oars to
keep the boat’s head to the seas, and desperate
bailing to stop us from being swamped.

As we landed on the beach and pulled our boat
safely up the shore, an old native man came running
down from the palm patch and offered us shelter,
which we gladly accepted. He turned out to be an old
servant of some Mataafa chief, full of spite for being
out of favour with his late illustrious master, but
proud of being a late vassal to Samoan royal blood.
He had a nice roomy homestead, two large rooms.
Though he was old, his wife looked only twenty.
They had one child, a few months old. My chum
and I kissed it affectionately and drank bowls of
kava which our host kindly gave us. We stayed the
night, slept on sleeping mats. All night torrents of
rain fell, the hurricane and wind nearly blew the
house down and lifted me off my mat, for the room
was open three feet from the ground all round in the
Samoan style. It was a warm wind; with the moan
of the seas breaking on the shore below, the moaning
// 210.png
.pn +1
// 211.png
.pn +1
// 212.png
.pn +1
of the bending coco-palms and the wailing cry of
the baby at regular intervals, I had no sleep.

.if h
.il fn=i15-182.jpg w=563px id=i15
.ca
<sc>Para Rubber-tree</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Para Rubber-tree</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

In the morning we went down to the boat; our
fishing tackle, revolver and my coat had vanished
from the locker. I had my suspicions about our
host, and we felt very much annoyed, for we could
not go back and accuse him after his hospitality,
as we were only absolutely certain in our suspicions,
and had no witnesses to prove we had been betrayed—like
the astute Fijian maids about whom I told
you some pages back. I deeply regretted the incidents
of that cruise, which caused my not being
able to keep the appointment with Mrs Stevenson.

When I arrived back I went to their home, but
they were all away on a cruising trip, I think. I
stayed with Holders, my comrade, for some little
time after that, long enough to teach him to play
simple melodies on the fiddle, and on those nights I
composed some of the melodies of my “Entr’actes,”
“Song of the Night,” “The Monk’s Dream” and
many others which have since been embodied in my
compositions for pianoforte, orchestra and military
bands.[#] I also composed at that time my waltz, “A
Soldier’s Dream,” which was played at Government
House, Sydney. I received a letter of praise from
Sir Henry Parkes and felt very pleased; that waltz
became popular all over New South Wales, although
it was unpublished, and played from manuscript.

.pm fn-start // 1
Published by Boosey & Co., London.
.pm fn-end

Holders was not one of the polished kind, but he
was better, being a brave good-hearted fellow, and I
// 213.png
.pn +1
liked his companionship all the more because he
did not drink. Though I found drunken men amusing
in my travels of the South Seas, my instincts
secretly detested them, and gave me a kind of
sorrow akin to sympathy for men so affflicted.

Eventually we both secured berths on a large
schooner, bound for Fiji. On board was an
American missionary who had not been long out
from Home. He became very friendly with me,
and I liked him very well, and there was a link of
comradeship between us for we were both homesick.
The crew were nearly all Samoans who cheerily sang
the whole day and night. I slept in the deck-house
with them as there was no room aft, where I
should have slept, as we had four passengers. The
skipper was never sober, and came to the deck-house
one night and continued to sing. I think he had
got the delirium tremens. He made us crowd sail
on when it was blowing a gale and take sail in when
a four-knot breeze was on; swore that he saw
spirits dancing on the deck, and that the natives
had put evil spirits and demons on his track. He
went off to sleep at last, and I and the mate took
charge of the ship and the passengers were much
relieved, and the Samoans started off on their old
idol songs <i>ad libitum</i>.

Two of them had fine voices; their songs were
old folk-lore chants telling of South Sea heroes. I
would get them to sing to me and so learnt them off
by heart and played them on the violin, but the
melodies all seemed to lose their wild atmosphere
// 214.png
.pn +1
when played as simple strains and divided into bars,
unwedded to the Samoan words and the intonation
of the wild childlike voices of the Islanders. Most
of the South Sea strains are in minor keys; I give
you here as near as possible my own impression of
the melodies as I heard them sung.
.sp 2
.if h
<b><l>Listen:</l></b>
[<a href="music/i025-music1.mp3">MP3</a>]
[<a href="music/i025-music1.mid">MIDI</a>]
.sp 2
.il fn=i25-music1.jpg w=600px
.if-
.ni
[Music:
<i>Andante.</i>\_\_\_\_<i>Chant Style.</i>\_\_\_\_Composed by A.S.M.<br>
<i>mp</i>\_\_Lais<br>
(Drums)\_\_\_\_<i>ff</i>\_\_\_\_lais ... lais ...<br>
<sc>Copyright.</sc>]
.sp 2
.pi
When we arrived at Viti-Levu, I went ashore and
stayed for several days and had the pleasure of hearing
a Fijian princess sing native songs. She was a
granddaughter of King Thakambau, and resided
in one of the best houses in Suva, was a good
hand at playing the guitar and took an interest in
me, as I was a musician; her husband, a Fijian
chief, had a deep mellow voice which was astonishingly
musical for a Fijian, and they sang together
to me in their native home, squatting on their mats
side by side. The princess was a beautiful-looking
woman for a full-blooded native, and I spent a good
deal of time with them, and really appreciated her
songs and playing. Some of the melodies she sang
had the Western note in them. As near as I can
I reproduce here one of my own impressions of a
characteristic Samoan song’s note.
// 215.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.if h
<b><l>Listen:</l></b>
[<a href="music/i026-music2.mp3">MP3</a>]
[<a href="music/i026-music2.mid">MIDI</a>]
.sp 2
.il fn=i26-music2.jpg w=600px
.ca
<s>“Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also\
for orchestra and military band. Published in London.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.ni
[Music:
<sc>Samoan Love Song</sc>[#]<br>
<sc>Minor.</sc><br>
<i>Moderato.</i>\_\_\_\_<i>mp</i>\_\_\_\_Words and Music by A.S.M.<br>
Mia Ta - lo - fa, The chiefs are sleep - ing, the<br>
seas in moon - light sing. The <br>
<sc>Refrain,</sc>\_\_\_\_<i>Moderato</i>.\_\_\_\_<i>con expressione</i>.<br>
night-winds are sing - ing my Ma - la - boo maid<br>
Un - der the co - - - co - palms.<br>
<sc>Copyright.</sc>
]
.pi
.pm fn-start // 1
“Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also
for orchestra and military band. Published in London.
.pm fn-end
.sp 2
I could not stand the skipper of the boat which we
had come across by (I think the name of the schooner
was the <i>Nelson</i>) and so I left, and my friend Holders
with me. We got into pretty low water in about a
week, and both eventually secured a berth on another
ship, a small barque, which was going to the Marquesas
Islands. The mate was ill, and went into hospital
at Suva, and I secured the berth. She was not sailing
for two or three days, and so we were still
stranded, beachcombers and cashless, but I met
a Mr Fisher, who was a wealthy trader and had
settled on the Islands. I went up to his house with
// 216.png
.pn +1
my comrade and took the violin for an evening’s
pleasure. We arrived a few minutes before the dining
hour (in the true poet and musician style of the
South Seas and Western Seas) because we had not a
cent between us and on the Islands it was a great
breach of etiquette not to treat the host before the
meal hour. Mr and Mrs Fisher were on the look-out
for us and our programme went off well, for we
sat down to dinner almost immediately. We had a
splendid time, received some cash in hand, warmly
shook our host’s hand, and departed late at night in
a misty dream, for we were not used to the strong
wine which our host was so liberal with, and seemed
to walk on air as our legs went up the white moonlit
forest track as we tramped along together merrily
singing years ago.

Next morning we were aboard the boat and stopped
on her till she sailed, and I think we put in about six
weeks of cruising, calling at Samoa and then going
to the Marquesas Islands. I went ashore at nearly
all the old places. In Hiva-oa, my comrade and I
saw the old cannibal courts wherein the grand
“Long Pig” feasts had taken place as the natives ate
the bodies of their dead who had been slain in battle.
It was sunset as we stood by the big banyans gazing
on the terrible arena and the sacrificial altar, whereon
the mortally wounded, still lingering, received the
last club smash, that sent their souls to Eternity
and their bodies to the stomachs of mortality, and
as I watched the natives, who with childlike eyes
stood by us cadging for money, sunset blazed on the
// 217.png
.pn +1
primeval ruins of that terrible amphitheatre and
before my eyes the vision of the dying sun-fused
twilight lay over everything. I saw the tiers of long-ago
cannibal guests arise in the mist, with their
hideous faces aglow with hunger as the mangled
victims fizzed on the cannibalistic spits. I heard
the sounds of the long-dead laughter as the coco-palms
and banyans around sighed into silence as a
gust of wind came in from the sea, and with the horror
of what must have been, I kicked the native and
pushed him away as he clambered, begging for money
all the time that I was watching and dreaming.

We then went to the native village, and became
acquainted with a half-caste Marquesan. He was
a convivial old fellow and followed us wherever we
went. We could not get rid of him; we gave him
many hints, and even told him at last that we wanted
to kneel and pray together and would he please
depart and leave us to our devotion; but no, he
was as relentless as Fate and immovable, and so,
not being able to kill him, we put up with him.
He took us miles away to show us another old arena
where the Marquesans had in the past fought their
historic duels, till the victim fell and was eaten.

Tired out we slept in a little stone house till daybreak;
it was a snug little room, with stone shelves
in it. On one of these I slept, out of the reach of
tropical lizards and other odious insects. In the
morning I asked our “old man of the sea” what the
house was, and found that it was an old dead-house,
a kind of cooling place where the bodies had been kept
// 218.png
.pn +1
before they were cooked. I had slept soundly on
that shelf. I didn’t even dream! And how many
thousands of dead men, dead girls, dead mothers
and children had slept their last cold sleep on the
spot whereon I had innocently lay, breathing and
warm? I had a cold chill on me the whole morning
as I thought of the dead of the past, and how I
had warmed that last bed. At last we were rid
of the half-caste and rambled about on our own,
and saw hundreds of natives at a village near
Taapauku. It was a beautiful spot by the mountain.
Banyans, tropic palms, coco-nuts and
gorgeous-coloured flowers swarmed everywhere, as
between the patches of trees, across tracks passed
the natives, almost naked, singing and carrying
loads of fruit, etc., as they stooped and went into
their native dens that stood in the cleared spaces.

That night we saw two Marquesans fighting with
clubs. They were jealous over a woman; there
were no other whites (excepting some Chinamen)
near at the time, and we could do nothing. The
fight did not last long. They held their clubs in a
firm grip, and swayed and ran round each other
seeking a weak spot. They were swarthy men, and
very powerful-looking, and as we watched under the
verandah of a native house, down came the club on
the head of the smaller man and the blood and
brain matter splashed all over the place as the skull
flattened like an egg-shell: I will say no more,
excepting that I felt sick for some days. On the
way back we met our “old man of the sea” again,
// 219.png
.pn +1
but managed to give him the slip as we ran down a
side forest track as fast as we could go.

Telling you of him reminds me of an experience
I had in Sydney once. I had met by chance, in a
saloon in George Street, an old man who had been
a sailor. He had been drinking, and I treated him,
as he kept imploring me to do so, and at length he
became very confidential. I gathered from all he
said that he was a social outcast; but nevertheless
I liked him. He was really a most queer character
and in the end became an intolerable nuisance. He
managed to know where I lived, and wherever I
would go he would go, and if I got ahead of him, and
was remorsefully pleased that I was at last rid of
him, up he would come! He had the instinct of
a bloodhound, I think.

I lived in a little two-roomed wooden house near
the bush beyond Leichardt, off the Paramatta Road,
Sydney. He was homeless, and so I took him in
and gave him a bed on the floor, but I was down on
him if he was drunk. His name was Naylor and I
think he was a Welshman; he had a beautiful voice,
and though he was an old villain, he would sing most
pathetically as I played the violin by night in our
little home. He was so drunk repeatedly, and
caused me such sorrow, that at last I turned him out.
I thought I had got rid of him, but as I lay asleep
at midnight I was suddenly awakened by hearing
the sound of singing coming toward my home, down
the road—it was Naylor! for I recognised the voice.
He was singing “Barney, take me Home again!”
// 220.png
.pn +1
and, notwithstanding my stern resolution to have
no more to do with him, my heart was touched and
made me follow my impulses as the silence of the
night was broken by the song of appeal. I crept to
my window and peeped through a chink; there he
stood white bearded and drunk in the moonlight,
appealing to me with his song over and over again.
Of course I let him in, and night after night I was
disturbed by that old song.

One night the crisis arrived. I was suddenly
awakened by a terrible crash at my front door, and
the old “Barney Dear” was being sung with ferocious
energy. I had overslept; he was outside terribly
drunk, imploring to be let in. I was obdurate; and
would not stir. At last his voice as he shouted,
“Dear old Middy, let me in, I’ve got a roasted fowl
here for you,” woke my curiosity, so anguish-stricken
and appealing was his voice that I jumped
up at once and looked out of the window. A large
fire was blazing in my yard, and over it, spluttering
and fizzling on an extemporised spit, was a fowl
cooking! Unplucked, entrails and all, there it
steamed, just as he had stolen it off the roost of my
neighbour’s fowl-house, a hundred yards off.

As I opened the door I gazed sternly at him. He
seemed surprised that I was not as pleased as he was
with himself. I positively refused to eat of the fowl,
and at this he got into a fearful rage, and kicked it
as it hung on the spit. Well, I even forgave him for
that night’s work. He’s dead now, and I always
feel a bit sad when anyone sings, “Barney, take me
// 221.png
.pn +1
Home again.” I remember years after, when in
England, I sat by the fire telling my mother and
sisters of old Naylor, and how relieved they seemed
when I told them I had let the old man in, when
he had sung, “Barney, take me Home again.”

It is strange how secretly in our hearts we have
a world of sympathy for the villain, especially old
ones, and had Naylor been a good pious old man he
would have never been heard of.

A very strange thing happened some years after,
when I was mate on a Clipper boat. A Welsh
sailor by the name of Naylor, a member of my
crew, showed a strong resemblance to the old
Naylor of my Sydney experience, so much so that,
one night while I was on the poop, I called him up
and said, “Are you any relation to a Lloyd Naylor,
an old man whom I had the pleasure of knowing in
Australia?”

“That must have been my father,” he said, and
he was delighted to know that I had known his
father. I did not tell him of my experiences with
his father, but said, “Naylor, your father was a fine
man, a great friend of mine,” and sneaking the
fellow into my cabin, I opened a bottle of whisky,
poured him out a tumbler full to the brim, and by
the way he smacked his lips I perceived that he was
a real chip of the old block.
// 222.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i16-192.jpg w=600px id=i16
.ca
<sc>Native Pottery</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Pottery</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

// 223.png
.pn +1
// 224.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch18
XVIII
.pm ch-hd-start
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
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>From</sc> 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.
// 225.png
.pn +1

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
// 226.png
.pn +1
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
// 227.png
.pn +1
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
// 228.png
.pn +1
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 <i>Adler</i> 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
// 229.png
.pn +1
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!
// 230.png
.pn +1
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,
// 231.png
.pn +1
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.

.if h
.il fn=i17-200.jpg w=600px id=i17
.ca
<sc>Loading Bananas</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Loading Bananas</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

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
// 232.png
.pn +1
// 233.png
.pn +1
// 234.png
.pn +1
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
// 235.png
.pn +1
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,

.pm verse-start
And for their sakes eternally
  Ride up to London Town,
Each morning pulled up in the train
  And each night pulled back down!
.pm verse-end
.sp 2
// 236.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch19
XIX
.pm ch-hd-start
Father Damien and the Leper Girl, as told to me by Raeltoa the
Samoan
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I will</sc> now tell you of one of those missionaries
who were sincere in their faith, unselfish in
their ambition and moreover suffered in sympathy
over the sorrows of the sick. In a village
home about eight miles inland from Apia, I had the
good fortune to come across a pure-blooded Polynesian
who was a poet and musician. I think I
stayed with him for about five or six weeks, but in
that little time we became the best of friends. I
well remember his intelligent brown eyes gazing
delightedly around as I played the violin to him and
his pretty daughter, a child of eight years, as she
sat on a mat by the door and clapped her little
brown hands with hysterical pleasure at the sweet
noise of the “piddle,” as she called my fiddle. I
would extemporise a chanting accompaniment to
his native compositions as he sat beside me, and his
wife sang away in the shadows of the homestead,
like a wild bird. She, too, had a beautiful face;
her eyes were very earnest-looking. They had four
children altogether, and as I sat by night in their
snug little room, I could see the four little brown
heads lying fast asleep in a row in the next room,
all stretched out on one large sleeping mat.
// 237.png
.pn +1

Raeltoa, for that was his name, was a Catholic
and had known Father Damien, who lived and died
just about that time on Molokai, the leper island
of the Hawaiian Group. As a boy he had lived with
Damien in Honolulu, and had been a servant to him,
and so I heard first hand from Raeltoa little incidents
of Damien’s life and character, the man who has
since those days become famous the world over for
his devotion to the lepers and who sacrificed his own
life so that he could minister to their needs and
brighten their lives of living death with the hope of
another life beyond their own loathsome existence.
All lepers were searched for and caught as though
they were escaped convicts, and then exiled for ever
to Molokai, a bare lonely isle of the Pacific, whereon
they lived in wretched huts, wailing their days
away as the dreadful scourge ate deeper into their
wasting bodies. One by one as the months and
years crept by they died and were buried by the
solitary missionary Damien, who lived alone with
them and buried thousands with his own hands.
Eventually he contracted the dreadful scourge himself
and died, but not till he had caught the ear of
civilisation afar and had vastly improved the conditions
of the leper isle and built better huts and
made the lepers more contented with their lot.

Well, as I was saying, Raeltoa knew him well,
and told me that, though Damien was very morose
and would get at times into a terrible rage with
him, he was a good master and would treat him
and all the natives who were under his care as
// 238.png
.pn +1
though they were his own children, “and he most
true to God,” said Raeltoa, as the tears crept into
his eyes over old memories. Then he told me how
Damien would sit up all night long “talking to great
God playing and playing” (meaning praying). It
appeared that Raeltoa had a relative who had signs
of leprosy. She was a Samoan girl of about twenty
years of age, and when the Government announced
that all the lepers were to be exiled to Molokai she
was broken-hearted, for she was “nice happy and
much love my brother,” said Raeltoa. One night,
about three months after the search parties had
been in force, she came to Raeltoa’s home, and flinging
her arms about him, wailed and appealed to him
to save her. The tears were in the Samoan’s eyes
as he told me all this. It appeared that a jealous
woman, who was also in love with the man that the
poor leper girl loved, had told the missionaries or
the authorities that Loloa, for that was her name,
had signs of the leprosy patch on her shoulders, and
so they were after her. For several weeks she had
been hiding in the forest, trembling and frightened
out of her life, till at last, hungry and nearly dead
with grief, she suddenly appeared at Raeltoa’s
home. He had hidden her for several days, and
then she agreed to go with him to Damien and ask
for his protection. One night, with Raeltoa, she
came out into the forest, almost resigned to her fate—for
it had come to her ears that her lover was paying
attention to the woman who had put the leper-hunters
on her track, and now she felt that she had
// 239.png
.pn +1
nothing much to live for—and the poor forsaken
leper girl took the risk and appeared in the doorway
of Damien’s room at midnight with her one true
friend by her side. In her childish native language,
she told Damien the truth as he sat in his hut,
gazing steadily in front of him, for it was his duty to
give her up to the authorities. As she knelt before
him with uplifted hands, her eyes made more beautiful
through the earnestness of despair, Damien still
gazed upon her as though fascinated by her sorrow
and helpless loveliness, and then he bade her rise, and
told Raeltoa to take her home again, and hide her
before he was tempted to do that which he ought to
do. So Raeltoa took her away again and Damien
and he built her a little hut by the forest, where she
could be isolated and cared for, “and she was there
for many many moons,” said Raeltoa to me, as I
listened.

“And what happened then?” I asked Raeltoa,
and he bowed his head and said: “Loloa was
happy, and she loved the white missionary, ‘Father
Damien,’ more than she loved the man whom her
rival had stolen from her, and so she was happy,”
and as he said this he sighed and dropped his eyes,
and I knew that he had also loved the beautiful leper
girl Loloa. “And what became of Loloa?” I asked
again.

“They came one night when all was silent, excepting
the sighing of the coco-palms by the voice
of the sea. I was alone at my home dreaming, when
I heard the scream far off in the forest, and I knew
// 240.png
.pn +1
then that they had found her, and they took her
away, and I never saw her again, and Father Damien
prayed for many days and many nights and did eat
of no food, and I saw the white missionary cry, and
cry, to himself many times, and a long time after he
too went to Molokai and one year after Loloa died
and Damien buried her,” and saying this the Samoan
placed his arm gently round his wife, who had sat
listening in a wondering way. She could not understand
all the language which we were speaking in,
but she nestled closer to him as he spoke, for his
manner was earnest, and his eyes had tears in them.
I also was touched, for I knew I had heard the sad
truth of a terrible drama of life, and I saw it all in
vivid mental flashes as Raeltoa eagerly told me the
secret of his heart and the truth that he had known,
and I read the affection and compassion in his eyes
for the woman he had loved and the splendid friendship
for the man who had befriended her in her
terrible sorrow, and who afterwards shared her fate,
and lies buried near her on the lonely leper Isle of
Molokai. I am glad that now, years after, I am
able to tell to the world through my book that which
I heard from the lips of Raeltoa the Samoan.[#]

.pm fn-start // 1
Raeltoa lived at Honolulu for eight years before he returned to
Samoa with his parents.
.pm fn-end

I made his little daughter “Damien,” for he had
called her after the leper missionary, a small violin
and bow. I sat all day over the job, and made it
from a cigar-box, and fixed two wire strings on it.
It was not much of a success, but the child and
// 241.png
.pn +1
parents were delighted, and as the tiny brown girl
toddled about with nothing on, grinding away
mimicking me, as she pulled the stick to and fro
over the strings, I was very much amused and
pleased that I had done it, but I was extremely
sorry after, for the poor mite became fond of me
and followed me into the forest, and as I lifted her
up to carry her over a fallen tree, my foot slipped
and, falling with her in my arms, I broke her leg. I
was in a terrible state as I carried her home to
Raeltoa. As tenderly as I could I held her, and
when I took her into the hut I told them what had
happened. Instead of them both flying at me in a
rage, as I thought they would surely do, they both
quickly reassured me, and Raeltoa went to Apia,
got a German doctor, and in a fortnight she was
rapidly recovering, and I would often sit by her and
pick at the fiddle-strings and amuse her. I taught
her to say several English words which she soon
picked up and laughed delightedly as she repeated
them over and over again.

Raeltoa would take me away to the coco-nut
plantations where he worked, and the natives
collected and dried the heaps of copra which was
bought by the traders and taken away to Australia.
The scenery round his home was very beautiful.
The slopes by Vaea Mountain ran down to his homestead,
thickly covered with jungle, mangroves,
guavas and bananas, banyan and many other
tropical trees, the names of which I did not know.
There were at that time several other bungalows
// 242.png
.pn +1
hard by, wherein lived married native couples and
some of the white traders with Samoan wives. They
were the real old beachcombers and “black-birders”
who had made and were still making good
incomes by stealing natives, and selling them to the
stealthy slavers that called in Apia harbours presumably
for cargoes of copra, but really for natives,
whom they enticed on board by splendid promises
of a glorious sea-trip. They baited their promises
with spoonfuls of condensed milk and cabin-biscuits,
and while the natives stood on deck smacking their
lips with delight, up went the anchor, and before
the wretched natives realised what it was to really
leave their native land, they were powerless and far
at sea. I’ve seen many a Samoan mother rocking
herself to and fro wailing and lamenting the loss of
her bonny son and very often lamenting the loss
of a daughter too.

Raeltoa and I went to the top of Vaea Mountain
once; when you are half-way up you can look right
across Apia and see the beautiful bay and farther
across the sea. The jungle at some parts was so
thick that we had to cut our way through it. I
found some pretty tropical bird-nests, and as we
climbed up the frigate birds flew over our heads.
We eventually got to the top of the seaward side,
right up against the sky. It was very silent and
beautiful, almost noiseless, excepting for a bird
singing now and again in the big-leafed dark green
scrub that grew thickly just below. I did not dream
as I stood up there that I was standing on the spot
// 243.png
.pn +1
which was to be the silent and beautiful tomb of the
man who was living miles away down by the river
that ran seaward, for that is where R.L.S. lived in
his secluded home, “Vailima.” I am sure that no
poet who ever lived has found such a grand silent
spot for his long rest as R.L.S. found on the top of
that mountain that stands for ever staring seaward.
I often look up at the moon on stormy nights under
other skies, and fancy I see it shining over Vailima
Mountain, dropping its silver tide over that lonely
tomb, and on the jungle and forest trees of the slopes
all around, and over the highways of the sea where
now thunder the mail steamers bound for South
America.

It was about that time that I made the acquaintance
of a gentleman named Joyce, who had been
a chemist in Sydney. He was a remarkable-looking
old fellow and was touring for his health.
He had small grey quick eyes, and a monstrous
beard, and having no hair on his head he had
managed in a most clever way to lift his heavy
grey side whiskers up over his eyes and on to his
bald head, so that when his hat was on the
whiskers protruded and looked as though they
were genuine locks in large quantity under his
hat.
// 244.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i18-210.jpg w=600px id=i18
.ca
<sc>Coconut Palms and Pasture Land</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Coconut Palms and Pasture Land</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

// 245.png
.pn +1
// 246.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch20
XX
.pm ch-hd-start
Mr Joyce and Mythologies—Numea and the Convicts—I play
Violin to Native King and get a Knighthood!!—I lead a
Native Orchestra of Barbarian Instruments
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>Joyce</sc> took a great fancy to me and I to him, and
I was eventually engaged as his travelling secretary.
He was very fond of music and would get me to play
his favourite melodies, and as I entertained him he
would sit by his bungalow with his hands on his
knees, and often would give me a gracious smile as
he gazed through his big-rimmed spectacles. He
took a passage on the schooner <i>Barcoo</i>, bound for
Rarotonga, and I went with him. We had some
terrible weather on the voyage and poor old Joyce
was sea-sick the whole time, and as we skimmed
along with all sails set heaving to a broadside swell
he looked the picture of woe as he spewed in the
schooner’s scuppers. In his sorrow he forgot his
hat, and his whiskers pulled up and tied in a knot
on top of his head doing duty as hair gave him a
woeful look and I felt very tenderly for him; for
he could not help being old and bald—could he?

Rarotonga was a lovely Island. As they loosed
the anchor ready to drop I gazed shoreward and
saw the grand mountainous country brilliant under
the tropical sun and covered with vegetation. Close
to the shore stood the coco-palms, and by the sheds
// 247.png
.pn +1
on the beach under the shelter of the palms stood
the natives, fine-looking men and women they were,
some half-dressed and some only in their lava-lavas.
As soon as we dropped the anchor they swarmed
round the schooner in their catamarans, bringing
us corals and other curios of the South Seas. That
night we enjoyed ourselves ashore, and were
specially entertained by the King and Queen. They
were both dressed in old dressing-gowns, and as they
sat on the throne I played them a selection on the
violin and the King knighted me on the spot.

Joyce was delighted with all that he saw and kept
saying that his health was improving rapidly, and
to tell the truth he got badly smitten with love over
a Rarotongan girl, and under very suspicious circumstances
disappeared for twenty-four hours. Next
day he took me inland and up in the hills he visited
the natives in their primeval homes. There were
a lot of missionaries about and they all looked
happy and prosperous. Joyce was deeply interested
in the mythologies and genealogies of the
Island races, and would go inland for miles so as to
investigate native manners and characteristics. I
remember well how he would see a fine specimen of
the Polynesian fair sex walk out from her forest
home, and rush up to her, take his rule from his
waistcoat pocket, start to measure her from head
to foot, open her mouth wide and examine her
teeth, all the time taking notes down in his pocket-book,
while the astounded native stood like a
machine, obedient as a statue, knowing that a good
// 248.png
.pn +1
tip would end the examination. “Of decided
Maori origin,” he would mutter to himself as he
lifted the limbs up and examined the soles of the
patient’s feet.

I must say I enjoyed Joyce’s society, for he was
immensely amusing and so serious in all that he did.
Sometimes he would run across a native with a face
that suggested the palæolithic period, or a terrible
Mongolian-nigger mixture, and then out came his
camera and he would snapshot them with delight.
He would measure their limbs and turning to me point
at the hideous nose, or extraordinary pot-belly, and
say, “My boy, this is a fine specimen of the neolithic
age.” Then he would start to give me a lecture as
to the reasons of certain abnormal conditions, while
the grinning native showed his big teeth and did the
right about turn and stooped to show to Joyce the
different parts of his anatomy.

The next day Joyce made me tramp right up to
the forest that lay at the ridge of the inland mountains
and that night we slept in a native bungalow
with two old Rarotongan men who had promised to
take Joyce into the hills and show him an Island
South Sea god. It was a beautiful moonlight night.
Joyce lay on the bed of leaves beside me asleep, his
beard tied in a knot over his head so as to keep it
well trained, and as I lay sleepless, watching and
thinking, a shadow fell across the tiny room.
“Look out, Mr Joyce,” I shouted and not a moment
too soon either, for there stood one of the Rarotongan
old men with a war-club upraised. I sprang
// 249.png
.pn +1
to my feet and gave him a tremendous shove. He
was a strong fellow, and as I fell he got hold of me
with a firm grip, but I was desperate and strong too,
and I made a great effort and got him under me,
and then he fixed his teeth in a fleshy part of my
shoulder as I gripped him by the throat with all my
might. In the meantime Joyce had rubbed his eyes
and was hastily searching around for something to
strike the native with and then down came his
camera, crash on the old man’s head! His teeth
at once relaxed their grip from my flesh and up he
jumped and ran off out into the moonlit night,
running fast with Joyce’s camera in his hand, for
that no doubt was what he was after.

We never saw him again, and poor old Joyce was
so nervous, and so was I, over the night’s experience
that we gave up searching for old idols and left the
inland solitudes and went back to the bay and,
knocking about for a week or so, finally sailed for
Numea, where Joyce spent days among the “libres”
(time-expired convicts). He also took me into the
prisons, where we saw the most wretched men and
women in existence, suffering transportation for
life, the map of despair seared on their faces as they
gazed through the bars of their small whitewashed
cells as Joyce and I were taken down the hushed
corridors of the gaol wherein men were incarcerated
and brooded till they died. We also saw the guillotine
whereon the refractory convicts often met their
end and man’s inhumanity to man finished in
sudden deep sleep.
// 250.png
.pn +1

I do not know what Numea is like now, but it was
a kind of mortal hell in those days, and I was sorry
that Joyce had taken me there as I lost a good deal
of respect for human beings and all my faith in a
fatherly overwatching Providence. Joyce for a
while gloated over all that he saw and heard, but in
a week he too sickened of Numea and ended the trip
by taking a passage and paying mine also to Suva.
There was a schooner just about to leave, so off we
went, and after staying at Suva for a fortnight proceeded
by another boat to Tonga and finally went
across to Apia, where Joyce intended shipping for
Sydney.

Once more I fell in with traders, and stayed
at and around Samoa for another three months,
during which time I went off roving and stumbled
across the village where lived King Mataafa. I
was introduced to him by one of the chiefs, a
fine-looking Samoan of six feet, who turned out
a good friend to me. Mataafa honoured me with
his friendship, and I gave him great pleasure by
my violin playing as I sat on a mat in the royal
native house, and he sat in front of me drinking
“kava,” while his retinue, following the laws of
Samoan etiquette, imitated the royal gestures. I
stayed in the village for several days and I saw the
chiefs and other Samoan royalty go through many
weird court dances, dressed up in picturesque fashion,
robed in stitched palm leaves, flowers and tappu-cloth
lava-lavas. At all those functions I played
the violin, and indeed I was the court musician and
// 251.png
.pn +1
conductor of the primitive orchestra of South Sea
bone-clappers, with instruments of jingling shells
and weird bamboo flutes and barbarian war-drums.
All these were played, screamed and banged at full
speed as I too fired away on my violin, doing my
best to keep the <i>tempo</i> going, as the dancers did
high-step kicks and flings that would have sent any
European to the hospital with dislocated joints, but
which did not even make those strange dancers
perspire, with such ease and elegance did they perform
the original dances of those climes. One old
native woman with a big red blossom in her dark
shaggy hair kept bowing to the ground and with
pride revealed the tattooed descriptions of fighting
warriors brandishing war-clubs, and other strange
inscriptions which were deeply engraved from her
shoulders to the lower part of her broad bare
back!

I became acquainted at that feast with a young
Island princess, the daughter of one of the Samoan
or Tonga kings, I really forget which. She was very
beautiful, and was one of the dance leaders, and as I
watched her dance, attired in a robe of flowers, and
broad tasselled ridi, she gave me many interesting
glances and I must admit that I was extremely
flattered and swiftly returned the compliment.
When all was over I got Pomby, my friendly chief,
to lead me to her and we gazed into each other’s eyes
with interest and embarrassment as we met, and
that night by moonlight I had the pleasure of escorting
her across the mangrove swamps which lay
// 252.png
.pn +1
across the track. I often saw her during my stay.
She was the most English-looking South Sea Island
girl I ever saw and had a voice like a musical bird
and eyes that breathed the tender light of poetry,
and I have often wondered what became of that
beautiful princess of the Samoan Isles.
.sp 2
// 253.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch21
XXI
.pm ch-hd-start
Little Damien’s Grave in the Forest—I go peddling in the South
Seas—The Art of Tattooing—About Apia and Samoan Life
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I met</sc> Raeltoa in Apia one afternoon. He caught
hold of my hand and kissed it, and was full of grief,
for poor little Damien, his daughter, was dead. I
felt terribly cut up at hearing about it. She had
caught influenza. Poor Raeltoa, I did my best to
soothe him, and at his intense wish went out with
him to the little grave. It was a terribly lonely
pathetic spot—a tiny mound under a small coco-palm;
the flowers were dying over my little dead
friend, and Raeltoa and I stood there side by side
and both felt very unhappy. I stayed with Raeltoa
that night, and the next night, but did not sleep, for
on the wall just by my bed hung the toy fiddle I had
made and the bow. The strings were broken and
the little warm hands that had held it lay in the
grave. We were a sad family, Raeltoa, his wife, the
children and I, and when I bade them good-bye
they had tears in their eyes, and I also felt sad.

After bidding Raeltoa good-bye I found myself
once more on my “beam-ends” and was extremely
pleased to fall in with a young trader who hired me
for canvassing purposes. He had purchased a
quantity of trinkets and gaudy underclothing with
the intention of travelling inland to the native
// 254.png
.pn +1
villages, and so for some time I was employed in
bartering with the Samoan men and youths. I
often watched their delight as they attired themselves,
as soon as they had purchased our goods, in
old shirts of various shades. The dusky maidens
danced and whirled with hysterical pleasure as they
pulled on the yellow stockings or stood smiling in
white shoes, on their arms tin bracelets sparkling
with jewels made of coloured glass, while my friend
the Cockney trader perspired with delight over his
bargains, and the sights that we saw. “Gaud lummy
ducks!” and “Ain’t this all right?” he would say as
we watched the different youths and maidens doing
double shuffles and turning head over heels as we
dressed them up. Then we passed on under the
tropic palms and mangroves to the forest track that
led to the next village.

After I gave up peddling in the South Seas I became
acquainted with a young apprentice who had
left a ship at Apia, and he and I went off miles away
to Tutuela and camped by Pangopango harbour
and on the shore side we built a little hut and lived
Robinson Crusoe lives. My comrade was a most
cheerful companion and came from ’Frisco. We
had fine times in that hut under the coco-nut trees,
and lived mostly by fishing; the ports and lagoons
below were crammed with small and big fish. We
had an old catamaran and sailed around dressed
in shirt and pants only, and we got so sunburnt that
we were very nearly as brown as the natives. I
could almost write a book about those times, so
// 255.png
.pn +1
varied and delightful they were. Arthur Pink, for
that was my comrade’s name, got a berth on the
American steamer and went back to ’Frisco. He
was a manly fellow, a staunch friend, and I was
grieved to lose him. Before he went he got in with
a Samoan tatau (tattooer) and had the history of
Samoa tattooed on his back and legs, chiefs, women,
birds and flowers, etc.; he tried to persuade me to get
tattooed but I declined. Tattooing is a great art
in the South Seas and the natives go through a deal
of pain during the operations. Some of the flesh
engravings are exceedingly well done; they perform
the operation with an instrument something
like a small tooth comb made of bone. The women
try to outrival each other in the beauty of the
tattooing which is mostly done on the lower part of
the back and the thighs and hips, wonderful schemes
of tattoo art.

.if h
.il fn=i19-220.jpg w=600px id=i19
.ca
<sc>Native Homestead</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Homestead</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

Before closing this chapter I will give a few
details about the Samoan and South Sea groups and
the people thereon. The chief Isles of Samoa are
Upolu, Savaii, Tutuela and Manua. They are all
of volcanic origin, are surrounded by coral reefs and
palm-shaded lagoons; from the shore side to the
mountain slopes inland grow the dark coco-palms,
the beautiful bread-fruit trees, mangroves, plantains
and other wild tropical bush and fern-trees,
wherein sparkle and flit gorgeous-coloured butterflies,
green parrots and cooing droves of Samoan
doves. In the shades of the forest and thick scrubby
vegetation grow scented flowers and over the forest
// 256.png
.pn +1
// 257.png
.pn +1
// 258.png
.pn +1
paths as you pass along in the cool evenings the
winds from seaward, hovering in the thickets steal
out in whiffs to your nostrils, whiffs that smell like
honey mixed with the ripe breath of decaying bush
flowers; on the slopes grows the beautiful hibiscus.

The mountain peaks, just inland, rise to the height
of four thousand and five thousand feet. Dotted
with forest they stand in rugged grandeur against
the sky, and when the trade winds are blowing thick
clouds come sweeping in from seaward, smash against
the peaks on their swift flight, twisting and curling
into a thousand magical shapes that fade away
like monstrous herds of phantom elephants and
distorted mammoth things as moonlight steals
over the flying mist. Some of the mountains have
enormous craters wherein grow baby forests,
haunted by singing birds. In the gullies far below
and miles beyond are native villages, homesteads
that look like sheds, open all round so that the wind
blows through and keeps them cool. From the
forest up there you can see the heaving Pacific
Ocean twinkling in the moonlight.

Apia is the capital of Upolu and has a very
mixed population. The white buildings are mostly
stores kept by Germans; nearly all the large
buildings are missionary halls and churches,
German, American and English chapels, wherein
they teach the natives hypocrisy and the misery of
hell, and they are such adept pupils that they soon
outrival their teachers in the great art of artfulness.
A good many of the Samoans can read and write
// 259.png
.pn +1
English much better than the poorer class of
England can. No Samoan would eat or even smell
the food that the middle classes of England live on.

The main trade of Samoa is in copra. Copra
is dried coco-nut and is exported to Australia
and elsewhere. It is picked and cured and packed
by the natives under the supervision of the whites,
Germans and Americans, who get good profits and
often make a fortune. It has never been known or
recorded in any book that a Samoan ever made a
fortune, which seems remarkable when we consider
that it is his own country. There was a Samoan
chief in the old days who endeavoured to make
money out of his copra plantation, and bought up a
lot of territory for coco-nut growing, but the missionaries,
acting for the traders, frightened him out of
his life, told him he would go to hell for putting his
heathen mind into mundane things, and for his sins
they fined him heavily and pinched all his copra
plantation. He turned out to be a good chief and
went into the building line and built many fine
houses for the missionaries wherein were many
rooms and great comforts. For this work he was
given one tin of condensed milk a week and at the
completion of the contract a paper-covered hymnbook.

The Samoans, Tongans and Tahitians are a handsome
race, the men standing nearly six feet; they
are well built and of a sunburnt colour, have dark
bright eyes, thick curly hair which they dye to a
golden hue, their temperament is cheerful, and they
// 260.png
.pn +1
are always singing. The women are very good-looking,
with roundish faces and full lips; their noses
are inclined to get flat as they get old; they have
earnest kind-looking eyes, well-shaped bodies and
good limbs whereon the tattoo of ancient pictorial
Samoa is beautifully engraved so as to show off the
curves of the back and thighs and give them an
antique appearance. In fact when they stand quite
still under the coco-palms you could almost imagine
they were beautifully finished statues if it were not
for the flies buzzing round their eyes making them
blink.

The native children are wistful, plump little mites;
much prettier than European infants and very
intelligent. They can swim at three months old;
talk, run and sing at a year old, and if a Samoan had
a child that sucked a dummy at six years old and
wailed drivelling along in its pram at an advanced
age, as the children of the wealthy class of England
do, they would look upon it as a great curio and
smother it for shame on the first starless night.

They are a clean race, and, except for the odour of
the scented coco-nut oil which they polish their
velvet skins with, do not smell of perspiration as
the clothed white do in hot weather. A Samoan
could not sleep or rest if a flea found him lying on
his bed mat; if a flea is discovered in a Samoan house
they know that a new-chum missionary has been
hovering near. The native girls and women are
naturally modest and they will blush at any
coarse words or suggestions from white men;
// 261.png
.pn +1
but they are very fond of finery, and so often fall
before the lure of the whites, who are generally
thousands of miles away when the victim becomes a
mother. At heart they are extremely religious and
innately feel that some great Power watches over
them, but this feeling is gradually dying away under
the influence of the missionaries, who look so human
to their eyes as they live in luxury and wax fat in
the best Samoan houses. The Samoan has seen
everything as it is and knows that the white missionaries
and traders are human beings like himself,
looking for all they can get and enjoying life to the
uttermost, and so the glamour is fading in the South
Seas as it has faded in the West, where many still
believe all they hear and read about the converted
heathen who would rather die than sell his honour.

The whites consist chiefly of tourists, traders and
missionaries of various sects. Many of the missionaries
are honest in their profession, really believing
all they teach, have weary eyes and remind one of
those bedraggled flies that crawl up the windowpane
looking for light. The traders are mostly
rough, sunburnt, crooked-nosed men and do their
best to do well and work hard at their various
trades. Some are a strange mixture of the bushman
and pirate. The honest ones toil hard to make
money and settle down prosperous in a shanty,
furnished with a large spittoon, pipes and cases of
the best imported whisky, and a shakedown bed,
as close as possible to the ground, so that they can
crawl by night on their hands and knees from the
// 262.png
.pn +1
nearest Apia bar-room straight into bed. Stolid,
square-headed Germans abound and speak as though
they helped to create the universe, drink a deal on
the sly, are very coarse when drunk, and it does not
matter how well a thing is done they are sure to
say “But you should see the way they do that in
Germany.” Most of the Europeans wear white
duck pants and broad-brimmed straw hats, and do
a deal of leaning against palm-trees, smoking and
spitting, also loafing by Apia saloon-bars, where they
stand in huddled groups beneath the coco-palms
and watch the Samoans toddling by to the mission-rooms
with Bibles under their arms.

As the steamers and schooners call into the
harbour, tourists and sailors come ashore; some go
on the spree, some get drunk and others go curio-hunting.
Sometimes the élite of Australian towns
arrive on tour and gaze on everyone with patronising
eyes. I saw one lot from Sydney arrive, people
of high standing too; they had receding chins and
staring eyes like bits of glass rubbed over with fat
and spoke with very conventional voices. The
natives, scantily clothed, go shuffling through the
streets, singing and jabbering. Apia smells of ripe
bananas and tropical vegetation. It is the modern
Garden of Eden; the ghosts of Adam and Eve roam
the forest by night and listen to the laughter and
wails of their fallen children as they eat of the forbidden
fruit and the ships creep into the bays and
again go seaward back to the shadows of the cities.

.if h
.il fn=i20-226.jpg w=600px id=i20
.ca
<sc>Native Canoes, Fiji</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Native Canoes, Fiji</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

Sailors and rovers settle down in the South Sea
// 263.png
.pn +1
capitals, talk all day of Rio, Shanghai, and Japanese
girls that did the Eastern can-can, drunken
sprees in ’Frisco, phantom ships and wonderful
fifty-day voyages from London to Sydney on the
<i>Cutty’s Ark</i>; old sea captains, mates with master
certificates, disappointed men, wrinkled and sea-beaten
Scotch engineers, dreaming of Glasgow,
engine-rooms, donkey boilers and sea bilges, and
that beautiful young woman at Marseilles who lay
in their bunk berth so drunk that they could not
wake her when the anchor was going up, so kept her
aboard in secret the whole voyage out to Melbourne,
where she went ashore and became a lady governess,
taught French, eventually married a vicar in the
suburbs and became “Visiting lady” and was beloved
by all for her purity and winning ways. The
ancient old man from the Solomon Isles with sad
eyes is to be seen there too, still laughless and grim
over the tragedy of that long-ago night when his
white wife disappeared, and after exploring the
Island forest the cannibalistic natives found him
starving, gave him drink and meat, and next day by
the strangest coincidence possible he discovered that
he had eaten his own wife. The great truth of
truth being stranger than fiction is vividly revealed
in all you see and hear in the Islands of the far-away
Pacific, where the good men brush aside the conventionalities
and go the whole hog, and the old
sinners of the European cities, seeking a haven of
rest from the law, with all their passions withered
and asleep, become virtuous and moralise. They
// 264.png
.pn +1
// 265.png
.pn +1
// 266.png
.pn +1
are strange old fellows, good company and extremely
interesting as they sit by their bungalows
and talk at night by South Sea shores. The waves
steal over the coral reefs and murmur mysteriously
by the lagoons of magic lands, dark with forest
branches; midnight stars are reflected in the clear
harbour waters as the blue vault of heaven over
your head gleams with worlds that are twinkling
and flashing and you dream you hear them singing,
and see writ on the wonderful canvas of starry space
the bright eternal words, expressing the tremendous
loneliness of Infinity that swallows up human
imagination, leaving us only wonder and hope.
.sp 2
// 267.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch22
XXII
.pm ch-hd-start
I leave the South Sea for Australia—Arrive in Sydney—I get hard
up and take a Partnership in a Flower Seed Business—The
Stockman’s Daughter Ethel—I meet an old-fashioned Australian
Bushman—He gives me a Night’s Lodging—I meet with
Queensland Blacks—Alone in the Bush—Brisbane
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>With</sc> regret I now leave the South Seas and once
more start off on my wanderings accompanied by my
modest and faithful friend who always sang happily
or sadly in response to my own feelings—my violin.

Hornecastle was sorry to see me go. He and
several comrades saw me off as the anchor went up
and I sailed away. I felt sad enough, for I had seen
some strange times and a good deal of life in those
lovely Isles of the Pacific.

I can still see the outrigged canoes following our
ship across the bay out to sea; they were filled
with Samoans waving their hands and crying
bitterly as their departing relatives, all huddled
round me on the deck, sobbed loudly as they too
waved their farewells, wiping their eyes with their
hands and tail ends of their scanty clothes, old sailor
shirts and cast-off European underclothes. It was
a sad sight to see them moaning by the ship’s rail
and those who saw them off paddling away to keep
in sight as long as possible—daughters and sons,
fathers and mothers, bobbing about in the sunset
water, some with their babies perched on their
// 268.png
.pn +1
backs, as the ship’s screw thundered full speed
ahead and they faded away.

Those emigrants were innocent Islanders, who I
have no doubt had been promised fine rewards to
entice them to leave their native Isle for a term of
three years, where to go I did not know. Some of
the sailors said their destination was New Guinea,
others the Queensland sugar plantations; anyhow
I am quite sure the best of the bargain was not on
their side. One of the women made an attempt to
leap over the ship’s side and escape, but her friends
held her back, but they all continued to wail and
howl like children as they fully realised that they
were really off on the big ship bound for other
lands! Some of them lay on the deck flat on their
bellies, beating it with their hands; the elder men
gazed with tears in their eyes across the wake at
their home-staying friends, till the following canoes
and their native shores died away. I doubt if
many of them ever saw their native Isle again. I
hope they did. They were stuffed down in the forepeak
just by the fo’c’sle all together, women and men.

In a few days they were all themselves again,
pattering along the decks singing away, cursing the
cook’s life as they took their food to him to cook,
bread-fruit, stuff which he baked for them in the
galley, also jams which tasted something like dried-up
baked turnips. I shall never forget the surprise
of those Samoans as we entered Sydney Harbour.
As soon as Circular Quay came in sight round the
bend they lost control of themselves completely,
// 269.png
.pn +1
waving their arms about in their excitement pointing
to the big buildings, opening their mouths,
showing their white teeth and shining eyes agog,
just like little children at their first Lord Mayor’s
Show.

Two days after I met them walking down George
Street dressed up in robes and sandals, all close
together looking at the shops. They stay in
Sydney a few days and then they are shipped off
to their final destination.

I was glad to be in Sydney again, where I met
chief-mate Poppy, who afterwards was an officer on
one of the clipper ships whereon I too voyaged. He
was a fine fearless sailor, square built, and had merry
grey eyes. I spent a lot of time with him for I had a
little cash left and took things easy for a few days.[#]
I went to the post office and found two letters from
home and some cash. I immediately wrote to
England asking forgiveness for not writing before
and assured them all that I was getting on well. I
forget now what I really said in that letter, but I
know that I gave myself a leg-up, as they say, and
did a bit of blowing on my own account. Anyway
whether all I said was true or not it made them
happy and I was very pleased also when the reply
came telling me how proud they all were at my
success in life, and two or three pages of good advice
how to keep the success going.

.pm fn-start // 1
Mr Poppy later became captain on a clipper ship, and was lost
with all hands off Cape Horn.
.pm fn-end

Ah! dear English people, do not believe all the
// 270.png
.pn +1
wonderful things you hear from your children
abroad. Did you hear the real truth you would not
call round on your relatives reading that letter over
and over till your voice got husky, but it may be that
you would sit on your bed and weep your heart out.
I’ve seen your successful sons, have sat by them
in the dirty lodging-house attic and watched them
write those things that made you happy. I have
also been their solitary visitor in the hospital as they
died of disease and then I have sent the last letter
home and felt too wretched to write home myself.
Of course some <i>do</i> get on and do very well, but some
of the adventurous boys are weak with their passions,
and so go to the wall. I could say a good deal on
this subject, but I will leave it for someone else.
But while I am on the subject I must say it would
be well if fathers took their sons aside and told them
of those temptations and the awful results before
they sent them across the world alone. I will tell
you this much—hundreds of fine young fellows have
found themselves stranded in the colonial cities,
slept out, got into bad company and yielding to the
temptations of despair have never been heard of
again for five or even ten years, as most of the
Australian gaols are away in the bush many miles
up country and the prison notepaper arriving in
England would tell the tale. So time goes on and
the bright English lad, the pride of the school and
the mother’s joy, emerges from the gaol door, embittered
by confinement, his only comrades the convicts
who were released before him and whom he
// 271.png
.pn +1
naturally seeks in sympathy and so becomes that
which he never in his wildest dreams dreamed of
becoming. But I must not get into the habit of
moralising over the downfalls and temptations that
meet the emigrant youth who arrives in the colonies
as I did, expecting to see a workless world and a
life before him of charming adventure. So I will
proceed with my own immediate experiences.

I am by nature very lazy while I have got money
in my pocket, and this failing impeded my progress
in the times I am telling you about. Nevertheless
I enjoyed myself, went up George Street and purchased
a good rig-out, and then went round sight-seeing
and very soon I was on my beam ends again.
I was lucky enough to fall in with an English fellow
who lodged with me in a side street out at “The
Glebe.” He and I became good comrades and as
soon as he got to understand my position and dubious
future he took me also into his confidence and we
eventually became partners in the flower seed
business which he carried on from an office in “The
Royal Arcade.” It sounds a big address, but it
was only a small office. I think the rent was eight
shillings a week. In that little office we packed up
the flower seeds together and I myself blossomed
into a real business youth once again, but it was not
half as lonely as that teashop of mine which I have
told you about.

Off we would go each morning out into Sydney
suburbs, each with a little bag crammed to the brim
with choice seeds of English flowers. I at once
// 272.png
.pn +1
wrote home a letter pouring over with enthusiasm
about my dreams of future wealth, coming from a
prosperous business, but the hard work soon began
to tell on my temperament, and my resolution to get
on in the world by doing work oozed away as I
perspired at the doors of the wooden houses out
in Burwood and Paramatta, while my chum stood
illustrating to the open-mouthed colonial women
the height and beauty of the flowers that would
glorify their gardens if they bought our seed.

Well, to cut it short, my comrade went off to
Melbourne to some relatives and handed me over
the whole show. This turn of affairs renewed my
old trust in the business, and though I was sorry
to lose my friend I bucked up and kept on with the
business. Indeed, it was my only hope; my best
clothes were in pawn, also my violin. I went next
morning to the office and filled up hundreds of bags
with seed which I thought corresponded with the
flowers illustrated upon them and off I went, taking
a book with me full of the names of customers, and
very soon I ingratiated myself into their favour and
they all promised to deal with me as they had done
with my comrade.

How it all happened I don’t know, but I had
made a mistake and placed a hundredweight of
turnip and cabbage seed into the choice flower
packets, and when I went off to Paramatta, my best
district, a week or so after, I was met at the doors by
irate men and women who swore that I had deliberately
played a trick upon them, and when I
// 273.png
.pn +1
arrived at the house of a nursery garden manager
who had bought a whole year’s stock from me and
found that the whole of the specially laid flower
beds were producing nothing else but cabbages and
turnips, I had to fly for my life. One old woman
raced after me down the Paramatta main road
swearing that she would do for me; by Jove, I did
run as she waddled shouting far behind! And that
was the end of the flower seed business. All of
those people knew my business address, as it was
on the packets in large crimson lettering, so I crept
into the office early next morning, packed the scales
up, locked the door and bolted off. The scales were
the only things in the office that I could raise money
on and I sold them for fifteen shillings and that same
day I took a berth on a coaster for Brisbane.

I think it took three days to get round. I was
delighted to see the old place again. I had taken
my violin out of pawn and the day after I arrived I
went away up country and got a job on a ranch
about fifty miles from Cooktown, and there I
blossomed into a real “boundary rider,” as they
call them out there. My boss was an Irishman, his
wife was English, and a dear creature she was too.
There was an old Chinaman working for them and
he got fearfully jealous of me as soon as I became a
favourite with the girls, for Kelly, that was my
boss’s name, had three daughters and one son. I
did not like the son, he was a grumpy ignorant chap,
and I had as little to do with him as possible.

Ethel, the eldest daughter, and I became good
// 274.png
.pn +1
friends and I taught her to play the violin; she was
not what the world would call good-looking, but I
saw something in her face that put good looks in the
shade. She had fine grey eyes, and one evening
when we were sitting by the homestead in the bush,
and the parrots were settling to roost in the gums
and orange-trees around us, I leaned over her to show
her how to hold the violin bow in professional style,
and she gazed up at me with an earnest look, and
before I could help myself I held her closely to me
and kissed her. She blushed and we forgot all
about the violin practice and many were the nights
that she and I went out into the beautiful bushlands
together and I made her happy. I knew that
she loved me; her mother was in the secret and
gave me every encouragement, and though I got to
hate the monotony of bush life I put up with it all
gladly so as to keep near that simple bush girl. I
thank God that I did too, for the first great sorrow
of my life came out of my affection for her. Suddenly
she became sick; to our horror she developed
typhoid fever and I was the last to kiss her dead face.
I cannot tell you any more about it even after all
these years; a part of my heart is in that lonely
bush grave away across the world in Queensland.

I was terribly cut up over that sorrow, and
though that homestead of the bush became more
lonesome to me than ever, I stayed on for nearly
two months for the sake of the stockman’s wife
whom I became very fond of as she knew my feelings
and I knew hers. I am not ashamed to tell you
// 275.png
.pn +1
that when at last I wished her good-bye I broke
down and kissed her as a boy would his mother. I
often wrote to her afterwards and I have some of her
letters now, and beautiful letters they are too.

I did not care much where I went at that time.
On an old Australian hack I rode away intending to
go to Cooktown so that I could get round to Brisbane,
but the spirit of adventure was in my blood
and I altered my course and left the track and
travelled north-west. I had a good swag of provisions
made up for me by the stockman’s wife,
and so I felt secure as far as food was concerned as
I rode over the scrub-covered rolling hills of that
lonely country. That night I made a fire just to
keep me company and camping there alone with the
birds and trees around me I slept with my heart in
that bush grave.

.if h
.il fn=i21-236.jpg w=525px id=i21
.ca
<sc>Homestead Scene, Queensland</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Homestead Scene, Queensland</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

Next morning I rose early and started off again
and before sunset I came across a shanty wherein
lived an old bushman. He was very kind to me and
asked me to stay the night, which I did. I slept on
a trestle bed by him in the one dingy small room.
He was an old man, and as the moonlight crept
through the small window-pane and revealed his
sleeping face I noticed that he had lost all his teeth,
and every time he breathed his lips would puff out
and then go inwards, making a ghostly chanting
noise at regular intervals throughout the whole
night. I got quite nervous and never slept a wink
till daylight crept across the tree-tops outside and a
kind of sweet reality stole over the hut-bedroom as
// 276.png
.pn +1
// 277.png
.pn +1
// 278.png
.pn +1
I closed my weary eyes and slumbered, but only for
about ten minutes, for he had slept well and waking
up with the light he started to make a deuce of a
row, chopping wood. I left early that morning
and from that day to this I have never slept with
toothless old men.

He was a real Australian bushman, I could tell
that by his conversation, which consisted of about
twelve words during my stay, the longest sentence
of all was the first at our meeting by his hut door
when he looked at me for a minute and then said,
“Want some tucker?” meaning food. “Yes,
thanks,” I answered, and when I had eaten up
ravenously all he put before me he sat and smoked
by the door, and after an hour’s silence said, “Turn
in?” Again I answered “Yes,” and when I left
in the morning he simply said, “Good luck, chum,”
and closed the door on me. This sounds a bit far-fetched,
but it’s true enough! Through living in
the bush they all get taken that way and almost
forget their own language and look upon you as a
nuisance if you ask more than one question a day.

Once more on my own, as they say out there, I
started off. It was sweltering hot. I did my best
to keep in the shelter of the tall gum forest that
covered the hills for miles around me, and seeing no
more signs of houses about the whole day I began
to consider it would be best for me to alter my
course and make for Cooktown as I originally intended
doing. I did so, and camping on the steeps
that night I saw a ring of smoke curling up almost
// 279.png
.pn +1
opposite to the side of the slope whereon I had
camped. Leading my horse I went over the rim
of the hill expecting to see a homestead, and as I
looked down a swarm of black awful-looking faces
huddled around a bush fire looked up at me with
startled eyes. I had stumbled across a camp of the
roving Queensland blacks! There they sat, black,
pot-bellied, nude women and men, some of them
holding short clay pipes between their thick protruding
lips. I had heard that they were quite
harmless, and so I bravely walked down the slopes
and introduced myself. The head of the band was
a stalwart ferocious-looking fellow and tried to
speak to me. “White fella all lone,” he said. I
shook my head and said “No,” at the same time
pointing behind me over the hills so as to let him
think that I was not alone. There is nothing like
being too careful with blacks; they are harmless
enough, so I had heard, but I did not want to give
them a chance to profit over their old instincts.
There are even white men in lonely bush lands who
would crack you over the head if their exchequer
was getting low and the addition of another man’s
would make the outlook brighter, and so I was wise
in my answer.

I shall never forget the sight of those aboriginals
and their startled eyes as, squatting there, some
huddled in dirty Government blankets, they
watched their meal cooking, which consisted of
green frog and fat lizards that bubbled and squeaked
in the glowing fire ash. One fat, awful-looking
// 280.png
.pn +1
woman asked me in broken English if “white man
got baccy.” I felt relieved to think I could do her
a good turn, and quickly gave her a small piece of
ship’s plug tobacco, which she snatched out of my
hand without a word of thanks. They were all
nearly naked; there were four women and about a
dozen men and they all continued to stare up at me
as I stood by them, their bright dark eyes shining
through their thick matted hair. The old woman
to whom I had given the tobacco quickly tore it up
with her long fingers and sat there with her chin on
her knees puffing at her short clay pipe, her lips
dribbling and smacking together like the flapping
wet sails of a becalmed ship as she puffed away.

It was terribly hot, and as the sunset died away
behind the gum clump on the skyline I took off my
coat and vest and kept only my pants on, tied the
legs of my horse so that she would not roam too far
off and sat down by those wild bush blacks and
taking my violin out of my swag I started to play a
jig. Their eyes lit up at once with wonder and I
was obliged to let them all carefully examine the
instrument. They looked inside of it, turned the
pegs and even smelt it, but could not understand
where the music came from, and the one baby that
clung by its mother looked at me as though it would
have a fit each time that I started to play. They
had no idea of melody but a good idea of time, and
all started to move their bodies to and fro as I
extemporised a strain which I thought would suit
the occasion. One old fellow with extraordinary
// 281.png
.pn +1
thin legs and a big protruding belly started off in
one of their native dances. Up went his legs skyward
and once or twice he almost turned a somersault,
and his shadow in the moonlight mimicked him
on the slope side as its head bobbed out of the gum-tree
tops that towered just over him. I did not like
the idea of sleeping with them, so I packed my
violin in my swag and pointed to the hills and intimated
to them by nods and signs that I must go and
join my comrades, and off I went over the slope, and
as soon as I thought I was clear away from them I
camped at the bottom of a steep gully and, tired out,
I fell asleep.

When I awoke the sun was blazing through the
trees at the side of the gully height, and I sat up,
and looking round I missed my swag. Running to
the top of the slope I looked around; my horse too
had vanished. As quickly as I could hurry along I
went down to where I had left the blacks. There
was the fire ash and round it a circle of naked foot
prints,
but not a sign of them in sight. They had
crept over the hills while I had slept and stolen my
swag and horse and left me standing alone in that
wild country perfectly helpless with nothing on but
a pair of pants!

I gazed like one in a dream on those footprints
and the camp fire ash. I was terribly thirsty and
at once started off to find water. I was soon
successful and on my knees I blew the scum off the
creek pool and drank. I don’t know how I got
through that day, but I did, and before nightfall
// 282.png
.pn +1
I had reached a wooden house on top of a hill. I
crawled round to the side door and knocked. A
young girl opened it and seeing me in such a state
quickly slammed it and the stockman came rushing
to the door to see what was the matter, a gun in his
hand, and if I hadn’t been quick, as it was nearly
dark, I really think I should have been shot. I
soon explained matters to him and he proved a kind
fellow, gave me an old suit and I stayed there for
three weeks and helped him to build an outhouse.
He paid me well and I arrived back in Brisbane
with nearly five pounds in my pocket.

I had had enough of the Australian bush and made
up my mind to get employment in the towns.
Before my money had gone again I started to look
for work, but only succeeded in getting a job in a
restaurant in Queen’s Street. My duty was to wash
the dishes and wait on the customers. It was not
at all in my line, and I could not get any sleep.

The first night was an unpleasant one; my bed
was one of a number in a dirty top room and up till
about two in the morning the door would keep
opening as those who were partially sober carried
in men who were blind drunk and placed them on
the beds by me. I sat up in my bed utterly miserable
and watched one red-nosed, black-bearded
besotted-looking man drivel at the mouth, swear
and groan as he made vain attempts to get his boots
off, and once or twice he looked round at me with
an idiot-like stare and said, “Hello, maish, s-how
are you?” and bending towards me affectionately,
// 283.png
.pn +1
tumbled on the floor. And another one in the far
corner would often stick his head out of the dirty
sheets and shout, “Wash’s the time?” So no one
will blame me when I tell you that I crept downstairs
at daybreak and bolted. About a week after I
was covered with a tremendous rash and was the most
miserable youth in Australia. I took a motherly
woman into my confidence and I soon got rid of
them: bugs and fleas are real comrades compared
to those terrible things that I took away with me
when I left that restaurant bedroom. I can assure
you that I never worked in a restaurant again and
even now I am nervous in the presence of drunken
men whom I do not know well. Hornecastle was
bad enough, but there was something about him
that inspired confidence as well as disgust.

I always found the motherly women were my
best friends when I was in trouble, for though I had
not got a cent they generally took me in and waited
till I obtained employment. I suppose they saw that
I was young and respectable, and in the colonies, in
those days, there were hundreds of young fellows
on their beam ends who were trying to make a way
for themselves, and as they always paid up at the
first opportunity these women generally had faith
in the derelicts that tramped about the towns of
“the land of the golden fleece” looking for work.

I got a job in a furniture warehouse and stayed
there for quite three months until business got slack.
I being a new hand received the “sack.” My
roaming instincts took me down to the wharf and I
// 284.png
.pn +1
was in with the seafaring men again, heard once
more the wonderful tales of adventure on the seas
and in far countries, but I was not quite so interested
as I had previously been, for I too had seen a bit of
the world and no longer believed all that those sea-beaten
old salts told me. Nevertheless I liked their
companionship; they were so frank and jovial in
their narratives. I came across two or three of the
men whom I had known when I was first stranded
in Brisbane and several of us got a job painting the
side of a large sailing ship that lay alongside. I
slept on board with the crew in the fo’c’sle and got
in with a young German who had worked his way
out at “a shilling a month” and had not got the
pluck to leave the ship, and so intended to work his
passage back to London. Influenced by me, however,
he altered his mind and stayed behind. He
was a steady fellow, older than I was, I think about
twenty years of age. He had one failing which I
well remember: he was always running after the
girls and thought of little else.
.sp 2
// 285.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch23
XXIII
.pm ch-hd-start
I stow away—Rescued by Sailors—Emigrant Derelicts—I go up
Country—Memories
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>There</sc> was a large tramp steamer alongside of the
wharf; she was getting up steam to go away and
was bound for London. I thought it was a fine
opportunity to try and get a berth together, but it
was no go, as they say, so my German friend and I
made up our minds to stow away. I had about two
shillings in my pocket, so went up into the town and
bought two loaves of bread and one pound of cheese,
and that night without any trouble we stole aboard
and went down the stokehold and hid away in a
coal bunker, and being young and optimistic we
both slept well. In the morning we sat side by side
in the blackness of that ship’s hold and heard the
noise overhead as they hammered the main hatch
down and the rusty rattle of chains as the tug boat
took her in tow.

“Do you think they will lock us down?” my
friend said, and I began to feel in a bit of a funk;
she was still alongside, and we both crawled out of
our hiding-place to see if the bunker lid where we
had crawled through was still open. It was shut!
I am sure that we both turned white at that
moment, but we were feeling desperate and my
comrade climbed up and, pushing the bunker lid, to
// 286.png
.pn +1
our intense relief it opened and let in the
light.

“Let’s get out of it,” I said, and in a moment we
both crawled out on to the deck. We were then
on the starboard side; the funnel was smoking
away and the crew all on the port side drawing
in the tackling; otherwise we should have been
noticed. Quickly creeping along the deck I saw the
forward hatchway open.

“Let’s get down here,” I said, and in a trice I
jumped down and falling on a bale of cargo slipped
to the lower hold. She was carrying a light cargo
and was evidently going to call somewhere else
before fastening down for the long voyage across the
world. I had fallen with a fearful smash, and looking
up to see what had become of my chum I saw
his face peep over the hatch-side and then dodge
away as the crew overhead lifted up the hatchway
covering and down it came with a crash. All was
at once dark. I was then alone, a prisoner at the
bottom of that ship’s hold.

At first I felt dazed and strangely calm; then I
suddenly realised my position and cried out at the
top of my voice and scrambled about in the dark
over the bales of cargo trying to get up to the hatchway
and make myself heard. What happened to
my friend I don’t know; he certainly never told the
crew about me, and though I hoped he had done so
I hoped on in vain and lay there almost breathless
with horror as the time went on. Then I felt the
motion of the vessel as she moved away and before
// 287.png
.pn +1
nightfall I heard the seas beating against the ship’s
iron side as I sat imprisoned in the dark below the
water line in the worst predicament that I ever was
in in my life. To make things worse out came the
rats! It seemed to me that there were thousands
of them scampering about the cargo as I shouted
myself hoarse, praying to God that I should at last
be heard, and when everything seemed hopeless I
sat for a time and felt pretty bad.

Presently a reaction set in and I started exploring,
thinking that if I could get up forward toward
the fo’c’sle I could thump on the deck and the
sailors in the off watch would hear me. I began to
feel terribly sick as the vessel pitched and rolled and
the smell of the cargo thickened the already stifling
atmosphere till I heard myself breathing heavily.

Crawling slowly along I managed to get to
between-decks, and to my intense relief I saw a wisp
of light through a chink. You can imagine my delight
at that moment as I made towards it. It was the
forepeak hatchway. I heard voices; someone was
sitting on it! Placing my mouth against that crack
I shouted “Hello!” and I heard the voices suddenly
cease and someone jump; as quickly as possible I
shouted once more through the crack. “It’s all
right, I’m a stowaway! Don’t give me away.”
“Who are you, matey?” came the answer. All my
old courage returned to me when I heard that gruff
kindly voice, and I quickly enlightened the questioner,
and in ten minutes I was out and snug in the fo’c’sle
sitting on a sea-chest, the crew around me. They
// 288.png
.pn +1
were English sailors and you can bet they did not
give me away. I discovered that we were calling
in at Sydney. It was an easy matter to keep me
hidden for two days in there among them. The only
one I had to keep out of sight from was the bos’n.

We had a fine time that night; one of the men
had a banjo and another a fiddle. I borrowed it
from them and we had a concert to ourselves. They
fed me up too, I can assure you that sailors are the
finest men in the world to fall in with when you are
down on your luck. It was an easy matter when
we arrived in Sydney Harbour for me to get away,
and they managed it. As soon as the anchor
dropped and we got alongside they gave me the tip,
down the gangway I went, and some of them stood
grinning on the deck as I stood on the wharf safe
and waved my hand back to them.

I had a good wash and brush up and soon looked
very different to what I did when those sailors first
discovered me, begrimed, smothered in coal dust
and perspiration. There I was, once more thrown
up on the beach in Sydney.

I will draw a veil over a good many of the days
of my life after that time. I fell in with the ne’er-do-wells
of the Australian cities, the happy-go-lucky
castaways of “better times,” who slept out
on the “Domain,” in dustbins and in the cave holes
of the rocky shore round by the Botanical Gardens,
where you could sleep and hear the waters creeping,
singing up the shore by your pillow all night long,
as you slept a penniless beggar far from your native
// 289.png
.pn +1
land. You could open your eyes in the silent hours
of the night and see the outbound sailing ships as
the rigging flitted across the moonlight and the crew
sang some homebound song as the ship met the
outer foams and started on the long, long track
home. The awful stench from Woolloomoolloo
Bay came on the wind round the bend at intervals,
like the hot breath of reality across your dreams.

I read some wonderful poems in those days, sad
ones too, poems with weary eyes that told the remorse,
the long remembering, but not the tale itself.
Dressed in rags I have seen them sleeping on “the
rocks” as the white Australian moonlight revealed
pinched refined faces; men they were from the
cities of the world, who were hiding from their
homeland disgrace, and some who had believed the
Arabian Night tales from the Land of the Golden
Fleece, sold up their all in England to sink to the
lowest depths of poverty and humiliation in the
country where it is every man for himself and God
for the lot.

How well I remember that time and those nights
among the Lost Brigade, as they slept huddled
around me on the matting of the “Donkey’s Breakfast,”
as they call the bunk mattresses which are
thrown away and piled up in wharf sheds when
emigrant ships arrive. Snoring wrecks, a few with
low-bred faces who could not read or write and
others with refined-looking faces notwithstanding
the scrubby beard that half hid them, many boys
also around, too shabby to get work and too wretched
// 290.png
.pn +1
to want it. One young fellow, through starvation
and homesickness, went off his head. He had an emotional,
girlish face and was not more than eighteen
years of age. We cheered him up and I’m sure
I did my best, but he would keep muttering to himself
and swore that spirits were charging him in
regiments all night long as he howled and brandished
his arms about fighting them. One night he got up
and ran off; we heard a splash in the bay. He was
buried out at “Rookwood” with the hundreds of
others who sleep in nameless graves, forgotten for
years, till <i>Lloyd’s Weekly</i> says, “Wanted, the whereabouts
of A. B.; left home in the year ——. Mother
inquires.”

I have been telling you the seamy side of the life
of the seaboard cities. Of course it is not all seamy.
Sydney flourishes and is happy, with her big streets,
her skirts dipping into the bay, her bright Botanical
Gardens, a kind of tropical Hyde Park kissed by
curling sea waves, and near those gardens is the wide
Domain. What a happy hunting-ground for an
Australian Charles Dickens that Domain would have
been, and still is! The emigrants still go seaward
and are dumped down to scramble to hell or dubious
fame and fortune, while the ships go flying homeward
to old England full up with the remnants who
landed on the preceding voyage out!

.tb

After coming ashore from my stowaway trip, I
lodged in a small top room in Lower George Street,
which was very different to Upper George Street.
// 291.png
.pn +1
By my dwelling-house the Chinese lived in their
opium dens. Some of them were very well off and
had managed to secure white wives. How those
white women could stand them I don’t know. At sundown
they would stand by their den doors and looked
like mummies peeping from their upright coffins
with twinkling eyes! Wrinkled yellow faces they
had, and you could always tell their presence by
the peculiar smell that came in faint whiffs from
their shop doors mingled with the odour of orange
pekoe, for they mostly sold tea or pretended to, but
really played “fan-tan” in those gambling dens,
and did other awful things as the innocent old
shrivelled spy stood at the door watching, picking
his yellow teeth with a long skewer. No one in
Australia has ever seen a Chinaman drunk; he takes
his opium and nectar in an arm-chair in the stuffy
room at the back of his shop, and with his long
opium pipe in his mouth goes off back to China in
dreams, when his stupefied head no longer hears the
traffic outside as the crowds hurry by and the Jack
Tars from the men-o’-war boats in the bay go
rollicking up the street “half seas over,” singing,
arm in arm, and inside that innocent-looking den the
white wife goes through the celestial’s pockets as the
Australian “bum” stands up at the street corner
waiting with greedy hand to receive his half. Five
hundred yards up the street stood the splendid post
office and all the business shops of the commercial
world of Sydney.

.if h
.il fn=i22-250.jpg w=600px id=i22
.ca
<sc>Cabbage-tree Palms and Bush Land</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Cabbage-tree Palms and Bush Land</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

After a month’s stay in the town I once more
// 292.png
.pn +1
// 293.png
.pn +1
// 294.png
.pn +1
went up country and secured work on a station,
staying there nearly nine months. I became quite
colonised as I toiled in the pumpkin fields, rode for
miles over the slopes behind the flying sheep, and
slept in a little outhouse by the stockman’s homestead.
I would sit and dream of home as over my
head the parrots wheeled away toward the sunset
and the station children romped and screamed with
laughter. Sometimes as I sat thinking and remembering
my mind wandered back to Queensland
and Ethel’s grave in the bush. I often lay in that
little hut unable to sleep till dawn crept over the
gum tops and the lyre-bird’s song chimed the first
peeps of sunrise over the hills. Two miles away was
another station whereon worked two other young
Englishmen. I often rode across the bush at sundown
to see them and we would sit and yarn
together about England, and all get homesick over
our dreams. Dell, the youngest of the two, was
thrown from his horse and killed. His friend
William and I often went across at evening time and
placed flowers on his grave and then walked away
with thick throats, unable to speak to each other.

The Australian bush is the most melancholy place
in the world to brood over sorrows. The music of
most of the bush birds has a prophetic note in it—they
wail away as though foretelling dire disaster;
after sunset myriads of frogs and locusts start
to chant and chirrup mournfully; over the solitude
comes at long intervals the wail of the dingo, and
often like the phantom of some lost dead child from
// 295.png
.pn +1
the gullies a wailful scream from a bird that no one
ever sees. I have often lain in my bunk by night
and looked through the little window hole and
watched the migrating cranes and other birds with
long outstretched necks pass under the moon,
bound southward; they looked just like skeletons
on wings, their bones tinkling together as they
passed swiftly across the moonlit sky right overhead.
I devoted a good deal of my time to music and
violin-playing in those quiet bush nights, and some
of the very melodies which are in the strains of my
military band solos were composed at that period.

William and I became close friends, linked
together by the sorrow over our dead comrade, and
eventually we gave notice to our employers and
both went off “on the Wallaby” and “humped the
bluey,” as they say in the bush.

We followed that life for a long time and became
real “sundowners.” The atmosphere of that
roving life has never wholly left my mind; the
songs of the birds in the gums and the winds moaning
and bending the leafy clump tips overhead
during the nights, as we slept below, still echo
through my memories. He and I were happy
together, and I found him a beautiful friend. I
can see his sky-blue eyes now, as he wondered and
listened to me when I told him of my adventures in
the South Sea Islands. Night after night we would
sit by our camp fire and stare, side by side, into the
glowing embers as overhead sang some sweet night
bird, serenading our memories as we dreamed of
// 296.png
.pn +1
home. My chum had a quiet earnest voice and
would sit there and sing wild sea chanteys as I played
an accompaniment on the violin.

.pm verse-start
And often in the night I hear,
Above the wind and rain,
My old chum singing in the hills
Those wild sea songs again.
.pm verse-end

He had an old bent-up cornet in his swag, and I
took a few lessons from him, and while I practised
the scales in the silence of the night the very hills
seemed astonished as the echoes answered one
another and died away across the solitude, and away
the frightened bush animals scampered as though
the devil was after them! And sometimes in the
daytime as the parrots passed overhead across the
blinding sky they would hear those notes and croak
dismally and hurry faster on their skyward voyage.

One evening, just as we were camping for the
night, we sighted over the slope a genuine old bushman
tramping along with his swag on his back. We
invited him to stay the night; it took a long time
to wake him up, but we succeeded, and his scrubby
sunburnt face lit up with delight as my comrade
sang and I played the fiddle. I never before or since
saw such a dried-up old relic as he was. He had a
big broken nose and black teeth through chewing
tobacco plug for many years. I never saw him spit;
he swallowed the juice. We managed to draw a few
remarks out of him, and I remember him saying
that he had known Ned Kelly the bushranger in the
// 297.png
.pn +1
early days and mumbled a deal about how the times
had changed and the meanness of the station bosses,
for he seemed to get his living by cadging at the
stations as he tramped along from day to day and
month by month, looking for work. He seemed
very methodical in his habits, for as we sat by the fire
talking, and darkness came swiftly across the slopes,
he at once carefully took his boots off—he did not
wear socks—and, placing them side by side under his
dirty blanket swag, put his feet toward the camp
fire, laid flat on his back, bit a large bit of black
tobacco plug off, and chewing the end fell asleep.

He left us in the morning at daybreak, went across
the scrub with his swag on his back and disappeared
under the gums and never looked back once.

Some of those old swagsmen are wise old men
with venerable grey beards, mouths that seldom
speak, and their grey eyes gaze steadily as though
they can see through you, for they have wonderful
instinct developed through years of practice.
.sp 2
// 298.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch24
XXIV
.pm ch-hd-start
The Deserted Hut—Visiting in the Bush—Stockriders
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>There</sc> were a lot of lonely men in those days,
tramping the ocean-wide bush lands, real helmless
derelicts of humanity, as they staggered on the
currents of luck into the stockman’s farm at sunset,
wailed their pitiful tales of better days behind,
mumbled their thanks over the tea and sugar given
by a kindly hand for their billy-can, and tramped
away once more into the solitude of gums and scrub.
On and on they go that way till they die.

One afternoon, while we were both sitting under
the shade of a gum clump out of the stare of the
flashing eye of the sun, I noticed some white bones
gleaming in the dried-up grass and scrub. It was
the skeleton of some bushman; a rotten swag
blanket lay under the white skull and the knee
bones were drawn up to the chest, showing the
way he died out there alone. As the white night
mists crept over the hollows and the winds stirred
the gums over that relic of loneliness, both sad at
heart, we turned away and did not camp till we were
miles away from that spot. The impression left
after that sight hung on us for a long time.

Once we came across an old bush shanty by a
river side. We crept in its little doorless room;
// 299.png
.pn +1
through chinks overhead we saw the blue sky and
the blossoms of wild vines that clung over the
rotting roof. The old chair was still there velveted
all over with grey moss, and the hearth was thick
with bush flowers. On the wall still hung the photo
of a young girl; the face though nearly faded away
was a strikingly sweet one; we felt instinctively
that some sorrow, some long-ago romance, was connected
with that photograph. There was the mouldy
bunk-bed wherein the bushman had slept, and outside
under an old gum, surrounded by wattle bush
in full bloom, was a grave, a small roughly made
cross over it, and that told us all as we stood by it
while the frogs chanted in the marsh just below. I
can tell you that the sight of that tiny ancestral
hall, rotting out there in the silence, and the grave
hard by, affected me much more than if I had stood
among the ruins of Imperial Rome.

A day or so after we arrived at the station, about
twenty miles from Arrawatta, and both tired out fell
asleep on a bank just below a stockman’s big wooden
house and were both suddenly awakened by a loud,
gruff, but kindly voice saying, “Hello, youngsters,
would you like some tucker?” We sat up quickly
and did not require any persuasion as that big
bearded fellow astride his horse told us to follow
him up the slope. When we arrived inside his wife
had the table already laid; they had noticed us both
asleep on the slope outside and there is no place in
the world that can beat the colonial squatter for
helping the bush wanderers who are down on their
// 300.png
.pn +1
luck. By Jove! we did have a feed, and as my
friend and I told the tall daughter, the squatter and
his wife our adventures and all we had seen they
seemed to admire our pluck and did all they could
to cheer us up and invited us to stay the night,
which we did. There was a vineyard on the next
slope, and in a shed close by enormous bins full of
the new season’s wine. I think we must have
drunk about two quarts each; I know that it
livened us up, and that night before going to bed we
all sang and my comrade and I sang and played to
them some homeland songs. They had a visitor
over from the next ranch. He was an Irishman
with merry blue eyes and a large pug nose. He
owned the world’s largest feet; I never saw such
feet, and though he got drunk and did step dances
and jigs and swayed dangerously about, he never
fell, for as soon as he lost his mental balance his feet
came to the rescue; on them he swayed often with
a terrible port or starboard list, but always just in
the nick of time slowly righted himself. Irishmen
are like Englishmen out in Australia. When they
hear that you are from the “Old Country” out
comes their hand and in a firm grip you are sworn
friends. The Irishman will give you anything you
ask for, will half undress himself and place his
clothes on your back, even though you don’t want
them; you are liable, however, to be sworn enemies
at daybreak when the reaction sets in, but if you
know the way to manage them they are soon
smoothed over and you will find that you can
// 301.png
.pn +1
keep about half of the clothes without further
threats.

We were near the border line that separates New
South Wales and Queensland then, and when we left
next day we came across the drovers marching
across the country behind their cattle, bound south
I think. I can still see them in my mind as they
passed away from us over the sweltering hot plains,
sitting astride their horses and cracking their stock
whips over their heads as the long ring of dancing
flies that wheeled round and round their big-rimmed
hats parted in two and then joined itself again,
started to dine viciously off the eyes, necks and
steam that rose from the stockrider and his steed.
It’s not all honey (except for the flies), but nevertheless
the bush drovers in their wild life on the
plains have happy lives; always on the move,
they camp, yarn, smoke and sing across the bushlands,
always many miles away from the spot where
they camped the night before, and they have supplied
the Australian poets with any amount of
inspired work in the songs of the bush and of the
rollicking men of the plains.

.if h
.il fn=i23-258.jpg w=525px id=i23
.ca
<sc>Pastoral Scenery, N.S.W.</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Pastoral Scenery, N.S.W.</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

About a week after seeing those drovers pass by
we arrived at a place called “Bummer’s Creek”
and stayed there for several days, helping Riley the
boss to build some outhouses. There seemed a
good many loafers hanging about that small township,
for the Australian bush climate does not inspire
men to work. We were offered two horses at
five shillings each and I at once bought them. We
// 302.png
.pn +1
// 303.png
.pn +1
// 304.png
.pn +1
sat astride, William and I, and proudly waving our
hands bade the men of the township farewell as we
started up the slope. I plied the stock whip and in
less than half-an-hour we had almost travelled three
hundred yards! I was not much of a judge of horse-flesh
at that time, and I felt pretty wild at being so
sucked in. Two of the bushmen crept up the slope
and then suddenly discharged their revolvers close
to the ears of those two horses of ours, and that
seemed to wake them up and off we went! Before
sunset we looked back and were out of sight of the
township. I got terribly sore through the protruding
backbone of that stubborn beast; sometimes
William would dismount and laughing get
behind and push it as its big eyes stared like soap
bubbles with fright. I felt sorry for it though,
especially when its underlip protruded as though
through extreme nausea it yearned to be sick
and couldn’t. My comrade’s horse was nearly as
broken up as mine. We held a consultation
together and decided to turn them adrift. Away
they went across the bush that night; we saw their
delighted tail stumps sticking up as they galloped
across a patch of moonlight and disappeared and
became wild horses of the boundless plains.
// 305.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch25
XXV
.pm ch-hd-start
Before the Mast—Bound for San Francisco—Man Overboard—I
see ’Frisco High Life—My first Funeral Expenses—Joss Houses—Guest
my Friend
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I will</sc> now leave my next three months of bush life
unrecorded, as it would be very much the same as I
have already written about. William and I got
South Sea Island mad. It was my fault. I used
to tell him about my experiences and as I told him
of Papoo and various other Samoan and Fijian
beauties, his eyes would gleam as he listened, until
at last his sole ambition in life was to go to the South
Seas. Indeed I got a bit of the fever on me to go
out there again, and when we at length arrived in
Sydney I tried to get away with him, but as luck
would have it he managed to secure a billet on the
German boat as messroom steward. I was very
sorry indeed to see him go, and he too when I said
good-bye to him. We had been happy and seen a
lot together in our twelve months’ friendship.
I stood on the wharf and waved good-bye to him.
Dear old William, I often wonder what became of
him; I never saw him again.

A week after he left me I shipped before the mast
on the <i>Cairnbulg</i>, a large sailing ship bound for
’Frisco and then round the Horn home. We had a
terrible spell of bad weather. About two weeks
// 306.png
.pn +1
after leaving Sydney, one evening just as sunset
faded a typhoon began to blow. We were all sent
aloft to take in sail; but it was too late, the mainmast
split and went overboard, taking and throwing
one of the crew into the raging sea. He still clung
on to the tackle of the broken mast as it floated
overside, and then a big sea came down and he was
washed off. We hove her to and lowered the lifeboat;
over came the seas like huge icebergs, crashing
to the decks as she shivered and groaned and
pitched with her broken masts and torn sails, swaying
and screaming beneath the storm-swept sky.
There was no slackness of volunteers to man the lifeboat
as those white-faced sailors with the soul of
pluck in their eyes stood by and the chief mate took
the helm. They lowered away; three times they
were nearly upset and thrown into the sea as the
ship lay right over and the big iron side seemed to
lay under the lifeboat’s keel. At last they got her
safely on the water; the skipper stood on the poop,
the hurricane whipping his shouted orders away like
pistol shots as a sea came over and washed three of
us along the deck. We all came crash against the
bulwark side, scrambled to our feet and rushed back
again to see if we could catch sight of the lifeboat
that was out on the pitch-black waters. How she
lived in that sea was a marvel. They came back,
but without our comrade: he had gone for ever, and
that night we sat in the fo’c’sle on our sea-chests
puffing our pipes deep in thought, feeling very sad
and wretched, and I heard the drowned sailor’s
// 307.png
.pn +1
special chum crying in his bunk opposite me for a
long time as overhead the look-out tramped to and fro
and the fixed-up wind-jammer once more tore along
on her voyage. The empty bunk of the lost sailor
which was just below mine got on my nerves, and
often when I was tired out and turned in I lay sleeplessly
thinking of the poor fellow away in his ocean
grave behind us, and would get up and go on deck
and finish by sleeping on the forepeak hatchway.

When we arrived in San Francisco our ship had
to go into dry dock to have a new mast fixed in and
I got in with some American fellows ashore, and
what with the beautiful climate and congenial
society and being sick of living on “hard tack,”
“soup and bully” and salt junk, I resolved to
leave the ship and stay behind. One of those shore
friends of mine was the manager of a dancing saloon
in the north of the city, and he told me that if I
could play dance music on the violin he could offer
me a good salary. I got hold of a good book of
dance music and, taking a small room near Kearney
Street, I practised the whole day long for nearly a
week, and soon got my hand in and eventually became
a crack hand at the job. The orchestra for
that dancing establishment consisted of two violins,
a banjo and a harpist. The ladies who visited that
secluded hall were painted up to the eyes, some of
them were pretty old stagers painted and dressed
up; whirling round the ballroom they passed off
as girls in their teens.

I had a good opportunity of observing the visitors
// 308.png
.pn +1
of that ’Frisco “high-class dancing saloon.” I
found out after a little while that it was used for
various different crimes, and one night just as we
had finished the overture and the old Californian
roués were taking their partners, a fashionably
dressed lady burst into the room and shot her
husband in the neck. I heard one of the bullets
from her revolver whiz by my head. The painted
lady who had been hanging on the wounded man’s
arm fainted away and there was a terrible scene
altogether, but the whole matter never reached
the public, it was all hushed up as the victim
was a gentleman who held a high position on the
Bench. I think he was a judge. I did not even care
to play the fiddle to that crowd, but I persevered
and sawed away night after night. I received
exceedingly good money for the job and had no
need to mix with the crew that danced to the strains
of music, as those wicked-looking members of the
Californian “elite” revelled in the atmosphere of
freedom and all the dubious games that caused the
downfall of their old ancestors Adam and Eve.

I was then living in apartments in F—— Street;
it was not a very fashionable residence, but my comrade,
whose name was “Crane,” lived there, and
persuaded me to live near him. He told me that he
was an Englishman and talked a good deal about
dear old London, thinking that it pleased me.
There also lived a man in the same building who I
was told was the captain of a large sailing vessel. He
was a suave-speaking man, and spoke with a strong
// 309.png
.pn +1
Yankee twang, wore side-whiskers, and every time I
chanced to meet him on the stairway, he was most
genial in his remarks and would praise my violin-playing,
for I would play a good deal during the
daytime, not having much else to do. One morning
my friend Crane opened my room door and,
coming in with a long face, sat opposite me and said,
“I say, Middleton, the Captain’s in great sorrow,
his wife’s dead, and if he can’t raise fifty dollars she
will have to be buried in a pauper’s grave.” I was
very much touched as he continued the tale, and
told me several distressing details of the affection
between that captain and the poor wife, and when
at last he described the death scene the tears came
into my eyes, and I at once volunteered to advance
the necessary cash, so as to give the poor fellow’s
wife a decent funeral.

Crane knew that I had nearly eighty dollars in
the bank, and when I stood up and said I would go
and get the money forthwith, he wiped his own eyes,
so touched was he by my impulsive kindness. I
went off and got the money, and coming back I said
to Crane, “Where is he? Is he in his room?”

“Yes,” Crane answered, “but he’s so broken up,
and moreover he’s so sensitive about borrowing
money from anyone, that you had better leave it
on the toilet in his room, when he goes out, and I
will explain all to him.” I at once accepted his
idea and understood, as I too would have been
sensitive in those days at borrowing fifty dollars.

That same night as I walked down the street on
// 310.png
.pn +1
the way to the dancing saloon, I met Crane and the
bereaved Captain. I felt a bit uncomfortable at
first, and so did the Captain as he turned his face
sideways, pulled his whiskers and exchanged a
quick glance with Crane and then nearly tumbled
over. I saw that he was “half seas over,” but I
forgave him; I knew that sorrow had driven better
men than the Captain to take an extra glass. Well,
to cut a sad story short, I went over to the Captain’s
house next day to attend the funeral. I had not
been invited, but I wanted to do the thing properly.
I had got the address out of Crane, and the time, and
about ten minutes before the procession was to start
for the cemetery I respectfully touched the knocker
with a mournful tap, tap. I shall never forget the
face of the awful virago who opened the door, and
as soon as I mentioned the Captain’s name and told
her the purpose of my visit she glared at me and then
roared with laughter. I lost my temper at last and
said, “I’ve paid fifty dollars for the funeral.”
That finished it, and then I heard the truth. The
Captain was a card-sharper and I had been done!
Even the little ’Frisco kid of about ten years of age
looked up into my face with a partly sorrowful and
partly contemptuous expression that I was such an
ass. I never knew which one really had my fifty
dollars, Crane or the Captain. I suppose they
shared it. I never saw the Captain again, but one
night as I was going to leave my room to go off to
work I saw Crane dodge on the staircase of the next
floor. He had called to see if there were any letters
// 311.png
.pn +1
for him. I said, “Hi, Crane, I want to speak to you.”
He came into the room smiling. He had a white-livered
face. “Where is my fifty dollars?” I said.
And then I had my first and last fight. The look
in his eyes broke the last thread of control in my
temper, and I let out and gave him a terrible smash
in the jaw. He hardly defended himself; he was
such a coward, and so ended my friendship with
Mr Crane and my trust in “confidence men.” I
have met many well-dressed men since that time
who agreed profoundly with all my ideas, and ended
by telling me of their rich old uncle who was waiting
round the corner for ten dollars to get back to his
exchequer, but I’ve had my lesson, and if I met
another man who wanted money to bury his wife I
would not advance it till I saw the coffin, and even
then I should respectfully lift the lid before I left
the room.

I never saw such a wild place as ’Frisco was in
those days. Seafaring men from all parts of the
world congregated there much the same as in the
Australian sea-board cities. I know not if they
were trade union men, but they all looked very
independent, chewed and spat much the same as the
sailors of my previous experience, excepting they
were virtuosos in the art and could send a stream of
tobacco juice over their left shoulder without moving
the face from its frontward stare. Most of them
had billygoat whiskers, and cadaverous faces
whereon was written “recklessness”; they mostly
lived on beer which was handed to them in vast
// 312.png
.pn +1
glasses which they called “deep seas,” “schooners”
and “shea-oak.” Those who are on the rocks
never bother about food, but live on free luncheons
which you can help yourself to if you buy a drink;
the food is sometimes “hot sausages, roast beef,
cheese and biscuits.”

I found the ’Frisco restaurants Oriental palaces
compared with the Australian dining-rooms. The
Chinese were there by thousands, smoking their
opium and sleeping in awful hovels, such as damp
underground cellars, like rats in a hole, and often as
you walked by Jackson Street you knew they were
under the pavement because the hot, fevered stench
came up through the paving stone cracks that let in
air to their subterranean dens. As in Sydney they
live by gambling and pray for luck in their “Joss-houses,”
and you would always know that the
“Fan-tan” was on by the yellow nose and alert
small eyes of the old spy peeping at the door, keeping
“tiggy” in case of a police raid.

At this time I got in with an elderly fellow named
Guest. He was a real “knock-out” for yarning and
told me many thrilling tales of adventure as we sat
or walked out together. He had lived a good deal in
Australia. He and I went out through the Golden
Gate together, and visited Farallon Islands. He
was hard up and I paid the expenses; he was a
good chap and thankful too, and would have done
the same for me I knew if I had run short. He
seemed to know a lot about Australian gaol life and
I think he had lodged in one of them against his
// 313.png
.pn +1
wish, and so I have not told you his right name.
He would tell me many of his experiences and I think
that he had escaped from penal servitude at one
time or other, for he always, when dwelling on his
bush life, let out in some way or other that he nearly
stumbled across a township during his wanderings,
which was strange considering he should, from my
own experience, have been very pleased to do so.

One night we sat together in my little room in
Kearney Street. I was strumming on the fiddle
and he sat by the window smoking and started one
of his yarns. He had a mysterious face, and a quiet
earnest voice, and whenever he was serious I would
listen carefully to him, and that night he seemed
more serious than usual.

“Put your fiddle down, Middleton,” he said, “and
I’ll tell you about my hut experience.”

I was so impressed by that tale of his that I think
I will tell it you here, as nearly as possible the way
he told it to me, as I sat there by the window.
Slowly he began: “I was fairly bushed once in North
Queensland; it was the time of the great drought.
I hadn’t even a swag and it was that sweltering hot
that I lay stark naked in a swamp by a gully for half
the day. I felt pretty sick too, for I had drunk
nearly a quart of the frog-spawned water which was
nearly black with ooze and dead reptiles, and I got
the fever in my blood that bad that I kept seeing
faces swim over me in the steam that rose from
the two-inch-deep scum as I lay flat on my back.
Phew! it makes me sweat now as I think of it.
// 314.png
.pn +1

“Well, that night as soon as the sun sank like a clot
of blood below the skyline, I rose up, full of aches
and pains and nearly dead, wiped myself down, put
on my pants and shirt, which I had used for a towel,
and started staggering off determined to make a last
attempt to get to some township or shanty. I think
I must have lost my head a bit then, for I got shouting
and tearing at my throat as I stumbled along.
The moon was up, and for miles over the flat
country I could see the gum clumps standing perfectly
still, for there was not a breath of wind.
Presently I heard a dingo wailing and then silence
again as a wind sprang up and over my head the
gums’ leaves stirred a bit and the cool air washed
my parched body over as though dead fingers were
caressing me. Then I could hardly believe my
eyes, for across the grey slopes far away I saw a small
light. By God, didn’t that light buck me up as I
scrambled along and crawling up a small slope on all-fours,
for I was then too weak to walk up anything,
I found myself standing before a small hut. Outside
was a large rain-water tub. I gave the hut door a
crash with my foot and then head first went for that
tub. ‘Who’s there?’ someone said as I heard the
bolt drawn. It was a woman’s voice. ‘It’s only
me,’ I answered as she stood at the door gazing
astonished as I wiped my mouth. I looked a terrible
guy standing there bare-headed and steaming, for
I had ducked my head in that water butt; my boots
were open at the ends like an alligator’s jaws and I
only had my pants on, so you can imagine I did not
// 315.png
.pn +1
look the kind of visitor that a woman longed to see
at a lonely bush hut at midnight. Anyway she
soon saw that I was genuine enough, and in no time
I was sitting inside feeling wonderfully refreshed as
I drank a large pannikin of hot tea and washed
down some food. She was a wistful-looking wench,
and I wondered a bit where the boss was, as she sat
there white-faced and the open door let the midnight
wind in and the moonbeams and shadowed leaves
crept over the walls and on to her face and knees
from the trees outside. I told her my tale, and then
she told hers. Her husband lay in the next room
dead, and the young fellow who worked for him had
gone off nearly fifty miles to get a coffin for the body.
I felt that I was dreaming as I sat there and the
night wind blew at intervals and sighed across the
forest gums.

“‘When will he be back?’ I asked her.

“‘Not till to-morrow,’ she said, and as the hour
was getting late and I started to yawn and nearly
fell asleep as I sat on the wooden bench, she asked
me if I would mind sleeping in the next room where
that thing was! At first I hesitated a bit, but not
liking to look a coward I pulled myself together and
said, ‘Well, I don’t mind,’ for I saw that I should
have to sleep outside if I didn’t, as there was only
one room besides the small kitchen where we were,
and just by where she sat twitching her fingers on
her knees was her own bed made up. She gave me
a small bit of candle and pointed to the long couch
as I entered that hushed room and quietly closed the
// 316.png
.pn +1
door behind me. It was a large room and as I
looked around I caught sight of a long trestle up
against the farther wall right opposite the small
window across which hung wild vines. I began to
feel pretty bad; my past experience had a bit
unnerved me. Placing the candle on a little stool
beside me, I settled myself on the couch, inwardly
cursing my luck at being given only one inch of
tallow candle. By faith, I could not keep my eyes
off that thing. I heard my own breath as I lay
there all of a sweat, and then the candle spluttered
and went out, and as the wind blew outside, and the
shadow of the boughs through the window moved
to and fro on the walls just above the shrouded six-foot
figure, my eyes stared and stared and it seemed
as though the protruding feet moved as the moonlight
crept in patches over the trestle. And then a
terrible thing happened.

“I swear by all that’s holy I tell the truth—the top
of the white shroud moved back and revealed a long
grey-bearded face! My feet also slowly moved off
that couch to make a bolt from the room, and likewise
those dead feet moved slowly towards the floor
to stay my flight! I was paralysed with terror. I
tried to shout, but something gripped my throat.
Up rose that dead man’s finger as with bright eyes
gleaming he said, ‘Hush, I’m not dead!’ Outside,
as he said that, I heard a whisper and the
crackling of twigs and a shadow whipped across
the wall as someone passed by the window. In
a moment I recovered. ‘Not dead?’ thought I.
// 317.png
.pn +1
‘I’ll show you to play this trick on me,’ and I leapt to
my feet, but the old bounder was too quick for me.
Crash over my head went something, and before I
could get out of the door he had vanished, shutting
it with a bang behind him. I heard a scream.
Taking a woodman’s axe from the wall I crashed
away at that door to get to the woman who had befriended
me. Down it came as I smashed away.

“Rushing into the room I looked round. I was
too late. I stumbled over something huddled on
the floor, and saw that the worst had happened. I
turned round and looked through the hut door over
the moonlit slopes; with the jaw-rag flapping behind
him ran that monstrous man who had feigned
death; in front flew a little man. I heard a scream
as he uplifted his gun and shot him and then turning
it on himself blew the top of his own head off. It
all seemed to happen in an instant, and there was I
left alone by that hut. By the door stood a coffin
and that told me that the second victim was the man
who had gone off to do the undertaking job. I at
once started off from that cursed place, for I knew
that were I found there the whole tragedy would be
fastened on to me,” and saying this he knocked the
ashes out of his pipe and wished me good-night and
went off.”
// 318.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch26
XXVI
.pm ch-hd-start
I play the Violin at Fashionable Concerts, etc.—Ship before the
Mast for Sydney—Go Up Country—Sheep-shearing—The
Shearers’ good Resolutions and the Fall
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I never</sc> knew what to make of Guest; he certainly
believed all that he told me. He eventually came
to my lodging and lived in the next room; he had
an old duck, I think he said it was eighteen years
old; he carried it about much the same as folks do a
pet poodle. I never saw such a wise and affectionate
thing as that duck was. By his bed in a large collar-box
it would sit the whole night long and follow
him and me about the room like a kitten. How he
got it and why he was so fond of it was a mystery to
me; he was the last man in the world one would
have thought to have a pet duck and put up with the
nuisance of it, but he had the duck right enough,
and when we sat having our meals together it would
push its beak under our arms and steal the dainty
bits off our plates. That was nuisance enough, but
the smell of it was outrageous and I very seldom
had luncheon with Guest afterwards, but had most
of my meals in a restaurant hard by.

I was still engaged at playing the fiddle at the
dancing hall, and now and again I accepted engagements
to go out to balls, etc., among the “élite” of
San Francisco. It was at the palatial residence of
// 319.png
.pn +1
a ’Frisco nabob out at Menbo Park that I played
my first public solo. I was terribly nervous. The
solo I played was Rode’s “Air in G,” and I gave as
an encore the “Cavatina” by Raff. Guest was there
that night; I had managed to get him a ticket and
borrowed a decent suit for him. I was sorry after
that I had invited him. He got drinking too much,
and though I had warned him to behave himself he
shouted at the top of his voice as soon as I had
finished my solo, “Good old Middleton! Give us
another.” I turned hot all over and the perspiration
whisked off my brow as I bowed to the applause
of the audience and the pretty girl at the piano gazed
up into my face and quickly placed the music of the
“Cavatina” on the pianoforte and I was glad to
start off playing again. I made several mistakes
but I don’t think anyone noticed them; my name
on the programme was not Middleton but Signor
Marrionette! and everyone, of course, had great
faith in the playing of a gentleman with that name.

Through my musical ability and enterprise I saw
a good deal of ’Frisco “high life,” and after a deal
of experience I came to the conclusion that low life
was only the crude essence of high life. One set
wiped their noses with a silk pocket handkerchief
and the other with the thumb and forefinger, but
both acted under the same impulse. The real curse
of those early engagements was that after I had
played the ladies would circle round me, quizz me
up and down, old and young plying me with questions,
telling me how they would love to spend their
// 320.png
.pn +1
lives listening to delicious strains of music; they
thought I was a soft sentimental poetical youth,
green to the ways of life, and little dreamed that I
had seen them all, so to speak, dancing in the South
Seas with nothing on!

I was very homesick about that time and as Guest
had made up his mind to go to Alaska I made up my
mind to get out of ’Frisco and home to England. I
threw my job up and not having enough money to
pay my fare home I set about trying to get a berth
on a ship. I will not weary you with my disappointments,
but I eventually after many hardships got a
job as deck-hand on the <i>Alameda</i> bound for Sydney.
I had made up my mind to get to Sydney first and
then get a berth on a ship that went by the Suez
Canal route. After a rotten trip across tropic seas,
working like a nigger, and sleeping in quarters that
would have made the ’Frisco Chinamen sniff with
disgust, I arrived at Woolloomoolloo Bay, was paid
off and wandered about for several days.

I could not discover any of my old acquaintances
that I would like to have seen. The <i>Lubeck</i> was in
dock, but though I tried all I could to see if William
my friend had returned, I could get no information.
There were hundreds of English fellows trying to
work their passages back to England and every
week the deep-sea boats came through Sydney
Heads with hundreds of passengers on deck gazing
with admiring eyes at the beautiful scrub-covered
hills of Sydney Harbour, their hearts beating happily
as the relatives and friends waved their hands on the
// 321.png
.pn +1
wharf. I often stood and watched the sisters,
brothers, and lovers meet, and as the ships left
the wharf for England once more I stood and
watched the farewell hands waving as the great
P. & O. or Orient liners sailed away, taking the
hearts of the pinched white-faced, ragged brigade
with her.

Failing to get a berth or a job at violin-playing, I
availed myself of an opportunity offered me to go
up country sheep-shearing. The new friends I had
fallen in with told me that I could earn a splendid
wage at the job, and though I knew nothing about
the work, I believed them and went off.

We went a hundred miles by rail and tramped
the rest, and when I eventually reached the sheep-station
I had no boots to my feet, and my trouser
legs were torn away through tramping through stiff
scrub. I never had such a rough job in my life as
on that sheep-shearing station. Hundreds of men
arrived day after day from different parts of New
South Wales, and clamoured for work. They were
men of all degrees, swagsmen of long experience,
and men of no experience, new chums and old
chums. I got in just in time to get a job as a
“rouse-about,” and then became a “penner-up.”

Many of us slept in camp tents and I made a good
bit of money by fiddle-playing. I extemporised a
small orchestra, which consisted of a concertina, two
banjos and a bone clapper, and when the work was
done we would sit under the blue gums and, as the
sun twinkled on the skyline and disappeared, start
// 322.png
.pn +1
the concert, and never did I have such an appreciative
audience as they stood, those rough unshaved
men leaning against the trees or sitting on stumps
smoking and listening to the melodies that took
their hearts back to the homeland, and as we played
away and the marsh frogs croaked they would join
in the chorus of some old song and put their whole
soul in it. “Play that again, matey,” they would
say as some strain touched them and awoke
memories of long ago. I’ve often seen the tears in
the eyes of those men, and I liked them; some of them
were old enough to be my father. They were mostly
men of a sentimental turn of mind and good men,
as far as their intentions went, but they all found it
so hard to make their actions harmonise with their
intentions. They work hard when they do work,
and after the shearing season go off with a big cheque
and a firm resolve to start a little business or go
back across the seas to see the old faces again.

With their billy-can swinging in their hand and
their swag on their back they start across the bush,
outbound to the new life of quiet and sweetness, and
then the dreadful fall comes. Hot and tired they
all stumble across the grog shanty in the bush
town, outside of its wooden door they drop their
swags to the ground, gaze in each other’s eyes with
that querying look that says in silent language,
“Well, I don’t think just one drink would hurt us,”
and then each one carefully looks at the other, as
though to say, “Mind, Bill, only one this time,” for
they have all been through the same old fiasco
// 323.png
.pn +1
before, made the same good resolutions and alas,
then do as they will always do, for that one drink
resolves into two. Each one looks once more at the
other and each one relents and grants his comrade
one more drink. “Yes, Bill, but mind you that’s
the last,” and then one poking his head out of the
grog shanty sees the sun setting and remarks to the
others, “It’s getting late, chums; we’d better camp
here for the night.” They all agree, and again all
agree that another drink could not possibly hurt any
of them. By that time they are getting half-seas
over with the extra drinks in between which they
each swallowed while the other wasn’t looking!
Then the loud songs commence, and the yarns of
past brave deeds, and the grog seller rubs his hands,
delighted to see them getting affectionate one with
the other as each finds his appreciative listener. By
this time their voices can be heard at the township
homesteads two miles over the hills, and the folk
come from far and near to hear the songs, and to
see the drunken spree of the homebound shearers.
Already the dance has commenced, and the banjo is
going full speed, “pink-a-tee-pink,” and then a space
is cleared for the grand fight over the awful insult
to the man from Stony Creek who has been doubted
when he said he knew where gold could be found by
the ton, and he found it but it was so heavy that he
couldn’t carry it into town.

By midnight all the money is nearly spent, and
on the slopes by the grog shanty most of them are
sprawling fast asleep, the more excitable ones lifting
// 324.png
.pn +1
their hatless heads up now and again, gurgling
out some spasmodic strain of the last drunken song
which they were singing just before they fell down.

At daybreak they are standing outside of the
grog seller’s door kicking it with their boots,
their mouths fevered and parched by the awful
poison which they drank the night before, and
so the great resolution ends once more. With
their billy-cans and swags they depart across the
bush on their several ways sad men on the “Wallaby
track” homeless and penniless. And so they go on
till they die, and I can well tell you all this because
I was with those men, heard the good resolutions,
saw the tears rise in their fearless eyes as they spoke
with emotion of the happy-to-be future, and then
witnessed their fall. With four of them I tramped
away across the bush solitudes to look for work in
a world of stern reality, for wherever you go in this
world you will find that you cannot live on dreams.
.sp 2
// 325.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch27
XXVII
.pm ch-hd-start
Lost in the Bush—The Drought—We find dead Comrades together—Horse
and Rider
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>It</sc> was my luck to be on the lonely track humping
the swag when a great drought swept its burning
wave across the whole of Australia. On the borders
of Queensland I had been with two more English
emigrants working on a selector’s ranch at “Sunrise
Creek.” Dorrell was the boss’s name and he
had a splendid stock of sheep and many acres of
land under cultivation. He proved a fine man to
us lads and treated us as though we were his own
sons. I taught his daughter to play the violin and
he was so proud when she was first able to play
“Home, Sweet Home” that he smacked me on the
back and gave me a week’s holiday. But life in a
selector’s homestead is extremely monotonous, and
after staying there six months I bade them all farewell,
and with a kindred spirit started off to tramp
to Maranoa with the idea of getting across to
Queensland and into more lively surroundings.

.if h
.il fn=i24-280.jpg w=600px id=i24
.ca
<sc>Modern Sheep-shearers</sc>
.ca-
.if-

.if t
.sp 2
[Illustration: <sc>Modern Sheep-shearers</sc>]
.sp 2
.if-

It was on that tramp that the great drought struck
the country; forests that were green shrivelled to
grey and then to brown, as the fiery blast from the
white hot sun day after day crept over the sky as
we tramped along. The wind blew like the hot
blasts from some volcano; the swamps and creeks
// 326.png
.pn +1
// 327.png
.pn +1
// 328.png
.pn +1
and pools soon became baked and cracked shallows,
wherein the very frogs stuck in the dry ooze, died
and stank. While we passed by, half dead ourselves,
searching for water, overhead across the cloudless
blue passed swarms of parrots. As my comrade and
I staggered along we heard the dismal mutterings
of those birds as they sped away overhead and faded
away leaving a greater loneliness after they disappeared,
tiny specks on the Southern skyline. To
the south-west of us rose some hills, and at nightfall
we came across a pool of water at the bottom of a
deep gully. It was hot-fevered stuff, but we knelt
side by side and drank it as on the scorched blue
gums the carrion crows wept, and yet, with that
same hope that springs eternally in the human
breast, sharpened up their beaks with the forlorn
hope that we might yet die and our rotting carcasses
supply them with food. By the swamp we slept
that night, and once more at daybreak started off.
Over us on the eucalyptus trees the carrion crows
had slept and over our heads they croaked and
flapped lazily along, following us, and often they
would stay by the trackless track to feed on the
dead birds in the mulga-scrub, birds that had fallen
from their perch during the night, dead through the
want of water. For miles and miles the bush lay
around us, nothing but a leafless, waterless drought-stricken
ocean, and often as the migrating birds
passed over, some would half fall from the blazing
sky and settle on the tree-tops to die, just the same
as swallows do far out at sea as the stragglers fly to
// 329.png
.pn +1
the rigging of the lonely ship, and fall dead on the
deck during the night through hunger.

My comrade was English, and was a splendid
friend; he was three or four years older than I, and
when we sat down together and shared out the food
we had in our swag, we would almost quarrel because
he would deny himself and give me the largest
share. He was uneducated, but that did not matter.
God had amply repaid him in the making for all that
his education might lack when he was a man, and
twelve months after, when I read in a newspaper
that I had been drowned at sea on the schooner <i>Alice</i>
that was lost with all hands, I felt terribly upset. I
had given him one of my “Very good” discharges
so that he could secure a berth; he got the berth,
and my name being on his discharge he had to sail
under my name, and died bearing my name. Many
beautiful things were said of me when my old
acquaintances also read the account, and thought it
was I who was drowned; but when the truth came
out, and I appeared and was once more known to be
living in common flesh, I became commonplace, and
the beautiful things that only survive in the memory
for those who are dead, faded and my sins once more
awoke and peeped through my good reputation like
the slit-mouths of those frogs that protrude among the
pure white lilies of a crystal lake. But I must return
to that tramp across those drought-stricken plains.

I think it was three weeks before we reached
civilisation again, though we were not more than
two hundred miles from Warrego. I sprained my
// 330.png
.pn +1
ankle while crossing a gully, and found it a terrible
job to get along, but Ned Shipley, my comrade,
made me lean on his shoulder as he staggered along
with the swag, which was nearly empty. We had
thrown all the blankets away and kept just one
small rug to wrap our little remaining food in.
Several times I gave in and told him to go on and
take care of himself, but he was not made that way
and simply lifted me up and dragged me along.
Just when we were both nearly roasted up to dried
skin and bone and despairing, we came across a deep
cleft in a gully, and in its shaded glooms we found
dozens of juicy prickly pears growing on the huge
boughs. I lay at full length on my back utterly
exhausted as Ned knocked the prickles off the rind
with his boots and placed the crimson fruit in my
parched mouth. That night was the first night
that we really slept soundly, and when we awoke
the sun had already fired the eastern sky with blood-red
streaks. As we lay on our backs under the tall
dried-up blood-wood trees, we saw the flocks of
cockatoos and migrating spoonbills pass in hurrying
fleets across the sky. All was hushed on the slopes
around us, excepting for the chanting noise of the
locusts and the surviving tree-frogs. I remember
well that particular morning; the long sleep had
considerably refreshed us both, and my comrade
even started to sing and I to dream of home and
England. I lay by his side and I seemed to realise
with a deeper intensity all that had happened. And
as the scent of the parched sea-scrub blew in whiffs
// 331.png
.pn +1
around my nostrils, and my chum stood up and
gazed dreamily across the plains with his hand
arched over his sky-blue eyes, I felt the atmosphere
of wild romance come over me. Notwithstanding
all the misery of that tramp and my helplessness,
the spirit of adventure seemed to thrill me with a
strange happiness. Even now after all the years I
can still see the rolling plains around us, our homeless
camp under the blood-wood trees, and the big
bird that fluttered just overhead, with crimson
underwings and one of its legs hanging down as
though it was broken, as it gave a lonely wail and
passed away. On we tramped that day and towards
nightfall, by the side of a dried-up creek, we both
stood and gazed on one of the saddest sights of
loneliness and helplessness that I ever saw or may
ever see again. There by a dead stunted palm on
the desert lay the skeleton of a horse; the bones
were bleached white and so was the relic of humanity
beside it, and as we both gazed on that sad sight,
we instinctively drew closer to each other.

.pm verse-start
The last lone ride I live it again,
Lost, alone on the drought-swept plain,
The grey-green gone from the scattered scrub;
The frogs stink, dead in the dry creek mud;
Away in the sky on southward flight,
Far specking the waste of blinding light,
The parrots are curling their glittering wings,
Soft-croaking their dismal mutterings;
By the small hot sun in fleets they pass
Where the wide sky flames like molten glass,
On crawls the horse o’er the trackless track,
The rider scorched on its blistered back!
// 332.png
.pn +1
A castaway on wide, waveless seas.
Miles, miles away rise gaunt gum-trees,
Like derelicts old, with sailless mast,
Cast on the rocks by the drought’s hot blast
The sun dies down—on the dim skyline
Faint-twinkles once like a goblet of wine
Held over that dead world’s hazy rim,
And the lost man’s eyes far gaze aswim
As the tide of dark rolls over him!
There’s hope! for a tiny cloud doth rise,
Toils slowly across the noiseless skies,
Creeps down to a speck on the other side,
To leave him alone on the desert wide;
’Tis night—overhead the bright stars creep.
He lies with his one friend down to sleep:—
And the months and the years have since rolled by,
And the horse and the master still there lie;
Where those sad eyes of hope peered thro’
The green shoot peeped—a bush flower blew,
For we found them there, yes, side by side—
Two skeletons white—just as they died.
Our hearts were heavy as on we went,
For his thin bone arm was softly bent—
Curled round the neck of his big comrade
There, telling us how two friends had laid
Their tired heads under the drought-swept sky.
And still out there the white bones lie.[#]
.pm verse-end

.pm fn-start // 1
Reproduced from the author’s <i>Bush Songs and Oversea
Voices</i>.
.pm fn-end

It was a long time before the first influence left
on our minds by that sight passed away. As darkness
crept over the cloudless skies and the bright
Australian stars flashed out, we lay together behind
some large boulders and dead scrubwood as nervous
as two children, and often my heart leapt as the
jewel-like eyes of the big lizards darted up the dead
// 333.png
.pn +1
scrub and grass twigs by our heads, as they slipped
and squeaked and scampered away. We were only
about three or four hundred yards from that spot,
and as night wore on and moonrise burst out over
the trackless plains, the wind-blown shadows seemed
to move to and fro by the steeps and gullies, as though
the ghosts of dead men crept from their unknown
graves and wailed while the hot night wind cried
through the leafless gum clumps. I almost feared
to see my tired-out chum’s face in repose, as he lay
by me fast asleep, with his mouth open, breathing
out God’s sad music of humanity as with each
breath his chest heaved up and down, while the
moonbeams on his unshaved thin face sea-sawed
with his snores.

It was with intense relief that, when still staggering
along three days after, we stumbled across a
track and following it for some miles came to a
homestead, and almost fell down by the verandah
as we knocked at the door. The old Irishwoman
almost wept over us and ran about with her pots
muttering and saying, “Sure and begorra the poor
bhoys have suffered.” The dear soul kept pushing
broths from her stockpot down our throats with a
long wooden spoon till at last I had to beg of her to
desist, otherwise I am sure I should have brought
the whole gift up again. Her husband was also
very kind to us and they gave up their own bed for
us to sleep in that night. In two days we were
almost fit again. I had devoted all my spare time
to bathing my ankle and the swelling soon went
// 334.png
.pn +1
down, and when Riley rode off, bound in his shaky
old bush cart for a place called Indrapilly, he took
us with him, for though we were welcome to stay
there at his homestead, we had had quite enough of
the bush and both of us longed to get to the town
again. Here I will end this short narrative of my
experience with that true comrade of mine in the
Australian bush and the lonely tramp across solitudes
where many men in times gone by have gone
and passed away for ever; for often the traveller
comes across bleached bones in those wastes, and
sometimes lonely graves, with the name cut in the
bark of a tree just by or on some roughly extemporised
cross.

.pm verse-start
In the never-never land they sleep,
  Where the parrots o’er them fly,
Winged-flowers across some sombre steep
  And monumental sky.
Fenced by stretched skylines far around
  Where thro’ the bushman creeps,
Finds some lone long-forgotten mound
  Upon the nameless steeps;
Ay, by its cross may dreaming stand
  Then, swag upon his back,
Fade far across the scrub and sand
  Out on the lonely track.
.pm verse-end


For two or three months my chum and I stuck
together and secured employment on the farm
stations near Toowoomba and then tramped on
again. With several pounds saved up we eventually
arrived at Port Bowen and from there went by
boat to Brisbane, and then I bade him good-bye, for
// 335.png
.pn +1
he secured a berth on a ship bound for New Zealand
and the next I heard of him was from a newspaper
report that he was drowned, as I have previously
told you. I stayed for about two months in Brisbane
and made an attempt to get into the theatre
orchestra again, but could not manage it; I secured
several concert engagements, however, as I was then
an expert violinist and could play by heart several
of Spohr’s concertos and the tricky variations of
Paganini’s “Carnaval de Venice.”

About this time the rumours of great gold finds
were being discussed, believed and doubted in all
of the Australian cities, and I got hold of a newspaper
article which had evidently been written by
some imaginative journalist. Had the account of
the discoveries and immense fortunes that were
picked up day by day been believed by the author
of that story he would have been a terrible ass to
have sat there writing articles for a provincial paper,
wasting valuable time when fortunes were awaiting
men who cared to take the trouble to get them by
strolling through the bush north of Perth. Anyway
I believed a good deal that he wrote, and got
the gold fever, which was raving pretty strongly
all over, like an echo of “the roaring fifties,”
when gold was first discovered by Hargraves. The
exiled convicts of those days in Sydney threw their
shovels and crowbars down on to the Government
land allotted to them, went across country, made
fortunes and returned to Sydney and Melbourne
prosperous men, elevated from the convicts’ chains
// 336.png
.pn +1
to the peaks of fame, their pedigrees forgotten, the
past swallowed up for ever. Their late enemies became
their firmest friends, as it was, is now and
ever shall be, world without end, to those who
have plenty of gold; and so by one stroke of
fortune men from the condemned cell who had
grinned through prison bars attained to velvet comfort
and applause, became notable officials, ay, and
rose to be judges on the Bench, and so by the irony
of fate often got their own back! But I must not
digress and go so far back, as that time is now
history and all happened long before I emigrated
from my sleep in eternity into the realms of time to
creep across the “Never-never land” on my futile
search for gold to help me to keep comfortable and
warm.
.sp 2
// 337.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch28
XXVIII
.pm ch-hd-start
Off to the Gold Fields—The Great Rush—Digging for Gold—Various
Characters—I find an Old Pair of Boots and am
thankful
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I will</sc> now tell you of my own experiences in that
gold rush. I left Brisbane by boat and landed at
Perth, West Australia, and found myself one of a
wild crew of some hundreds bound for the newly
discovered Eldorado. I had little money with me
and so, with many fellows who were likewise in
desperate financial circumstances, we went as far as
we could by train and then tramped the remainder,
bound for Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. By Jove,
they were a mixed lot those gold seekers, the
children of Israel crossing the desert were nowhere
in it. Some were old men, pushing wheelbarrows
with their future homesteads in them, others rode
bicycles, and the remainder, big unshaved men,
scoundrels and angels side by side, all with swags
on their backs, tramped along across those desert
lands each surrounded by a small ring of flies, as our
eyes blinked and we moved along in the blinding
sun, ever onward, pulled by the magnet that draws
the hearts of men towards desolation and gives
extraordinary energy to weary blistering feet as it
pulls them onward to fame and fortune or, very
often, to a grave in the desert. For as we tramped
along sweating, and cursing our swollen feet, we
// 338.png
.pn +1
often discovered off the track the whitening bones
of horses and camels and their long-dead riders as
the remains lay stretched, half hidden in the mulga-scrub,
the bush grass sprouting through the white
ribs; men who had died in delirium, tearing their
parched throats with maddened thirst under the
blinding sun of those parched lands. Sometimes
we discovered a tiny rough cross where the comrades
had hurriedly buried the delicate youth who
could not battle with the bush hardships, taken his
last scribbled letter with them, and passed away;
sometimes those letters were posted months, even
years, afterwards in the cities, and often never
posted at all, not intentionally but the trusted ones
would lose them or die themselves.

One of my companions on that tramp was an old
man with yellow teeth. I did not seek his company
but he sought mine and fastened himself on me like
some old man of the sea, borrowed my food, my
tobacco, my matches, and water, which was terribly
scarce. I do not think that old fellow had had a
bath for many years; deep in the forest of his
shaggy beard cracked the dirt and dry tobacco
juice of other days, and often as an extra strong gust
of wind blew the lower part back that hung over his
chest, I saw his neck all marked like a zebra where
the perspiration had rolled the dirt from his head
downwards, and so you can imagine that I was not
delighted to find that he had become so attached to
me, all through my being, as he said, “the dead spit
of his son who had died in a Melbourne lunatic
// 339.png
.pn +1
asylum.” I was a bit soft-hearted and did not like
to snub the old chap, and so I kept to the windward
side of him and tramped along. I called him
“dad” and made out that I was listening eagerly
to all the yarns he told me. I do not remember
much of what he said, as I was too much occupied
with my own thoughts. I think he had been a bit
of a bushranger in his time, for his conversation
turned mostly that way as we camped and sat
all together round the tent fire till the billy boiled and
we ate food which would have made me sick under
normal conditions, but when you are young and
have tramped across twenty miles of red rock and
stones on half-a-pint of swamp water and four
ounces of stale bread, putrid tinned meat is a real
godsend, and even that we borrowed from the men
who were wealthy men compared to us. Men of all
classes they were; some had aristocratic-looking
noses, and refined faces under their scrubby short
beards; some had pug noses and looked fierce and
spoke with an underbred twang, while others spoke
like polished university men, and many of them
were too, as they sat with hungry eyes in the moonlight
dreaming of the past and hoping about the
future and the prizes Chance might give in the great
school of Adversity wherein men learn so much.

It rained one night and never stopped for twenty-four
hours. I awoke with many others soaked to
the skin and shivering. The wind at night blew
quite cold. Those who were fortunate enough to
have tents stayed in them, and some of them were
// 340.png
.pn +1
so crowded that feet and legs protruded in circles
around them as the rain beat down the whole day.
I managed to get my head and one shoulder into one
of those shelters. When the rain ceased and we all
packed up and moved on again I got a shivering fit
on me and was nearly dead by the time I reached
Kalgoorlie. An Irishman and his wife took me in
and gave me a room over their shop near the end of
Hannan Street; I lay in bed a week before I was
well enough to walk out to get my fortune of gold as
quickly as possible and clear off to Perth and go
home to England.

For miles men were pegging out their claims
and prospecting the country; the claim was usually
named after some peculiarity of the spot where it
was situated or through something peculiar about
the man who owned it. The next claim to where I
with others dug a hole twenty feet deep for no
purpose whatever, excepting to make it soppy with
our perspiration, was called “Apples’ Claim.” The
miner who owned it was always taking oaths and
saying “As sure as God made little apples.” And so
it got its name. My old man of the sea’s claim was
called “The Great Unwashed Neck Reef.” Some
had poetical titles named after the anxious girl in
some far-off land who waited the return of her lover
with the great fortune, which generally arrived with a
thousand kisses in a long letter and an earnest request
for her to make a collection, send out the amount for
a fare home by steerage passage, and a postscript imploring
for no delay as death might end the suspense.
// 341.png
.pn +1

On my claim worked three others, a Scotch fellow
named Burns, and “Smith” and “Birth Mark.”
Smith and Burns were quiet plodding men, who
breathed heavily with hope as they shovelled away.
“Birth Mark” (which was only a nickname) was a
kind of Don Quixote and swashbuckler mixture,
and as he turned the windlass over our heads and
drew the buckets of earth up as we toiled in the
shaft below, he would talk to us for hours without
stopping, telling us of his grand pedigree, how he
was of Norman blood and the soul of honour; so
honourable was he that he was only a poor man
through scorning to be a party to a dishonourable
action. It was wonderful to hear of the great
opportunities that had come his way and how he had
let them all go by through his conscience dwelling
upon some tiny point bearing on the question as to
whether it would be right and proper for him to take
the fortune offered, or to toil as a poor man. He
would blow his chest out and gaze upon us as though
we were much beneath him. I put up with his
vulgarity because he had lent me the ten shillings
for my “Claim” licence and taken my violin as
security.

He would sit by the camp fire by night and tell us
all the details of his home life in England. He had
left his wife in the old country and seemed terribly
spiteful about it. “Middy,” he would say to me,
“she was a real bitch, my wife was. What would
you have done with a wife that wanted all the say
and never got up till twelve o’clock in the day,
// 342.png
.pn +1
and when you complained over the late breakfast
struck you over the head with her boots?” I pitied
him and told him so, and so did all the miners as
he gabbled on, though we all envied that English
woman comfortably tucked up in bed till midday
in old cold England. A lot of the fellows looked
shocked at such laziness and it would have done your
hearts good to have seen the tremendous indignation
on the faces of those miners when he told us that he
crept home rather suddenly one day and caught the
young lodger on the top attic examining the blue
birth-mark under his wife’s knee. He told us of his
rage and of his wife’s indignation over his rage, till
the whole camp roared with laughter and from that
night he was known as “Birth Mark” and was so
thick-skinned and thick-headed that he answered
to the rude sallies and that nickname with pride,
firmly believing that they all sympathised with him
over that story. I got to like him somewhat, for
his mighty swagger was intensely amusing and harmless
enough. He camped with me for a long time,
helped us in digging the shafts, and also in the dry
blowing, as we prospected for surface gold in the
bush for miles around.

Many men struck rich on the Great Boulder, but
no luck came our way. Day after day we toiled and
I think we must have dug hundreds of shafts. I
often fancied myself sailing home to England as a
saloon passenger a millionaire!—and thrilled at the
thought of my family’s delight as I pensioned each
one off for life; but I soon had not boots to my feet
// 343.png
.pn +1
and we sold the claims that we valued the week
before at two thousand pounds for one pound each
to new chums greener than ourselves, and in the end
had to live on tick, and then Birth Mark suddenly
one night disappeared taking with him my razor
and all that he could lay his hands on, which included
the little gold we had given him to mind.
We never saw him again; he would have suffered
from ill health for a long time if we had come across
him, but he was of Norman blood and had too much
respect for his aristocratic skin to expose it to our
plebeian wrath.

I do not think we should have had such bad luck
if we had worked completely on our own and not
listened to the advice of men who knew everything
and kept pegging out claims according to the rules
of theory and found nothing, while often the new
chum came on the “fields” and struck gold almost
the first day. We got excited and went farther up
country prospecting, camped out and endured all
the hardships that follow the life of the unsuccessful
gold seeker whose capital consists of his enthusiasm,
his greenness and the one suit of shabby clothes that
he lives and sleeps in.

Often out on those lonely tracks my comrades
and I passed deserted shafts and heaps of empty
meat tins with the weeds already covering up the
remains of recent mushroom civilisation and the
blasted hopes of mining men. We too drifted into
the hopeless stage, built a tent by the deserted
camps and rested before we started off back to the
// 344.png
.pn +1
towns again. One of the men, an old sailor, who
had left a ship at Perth and had come up country,
thinking to make his fortune and surprise his Polly
Beck of London Town by arriving home a wealthy
man, had a gun with him, was an excellent shot,
and early in the morning he would shoot the green
parrots that fluttered and stirred the grass on the
hills by thousands. On these birds some of them
lived. My friend Smith and I gave up gold seeking
utterly and sat down and slept in the sun by day
and strolled over the bush to break the monotony.
The country struck me as very desolate-looking,
but it was considerably relieved by the beautiful
everlasting bush flowers that grew on the hills, with
all the colours of the rainbow sparkling in them. In
those parts also grew the lovely green Kurrajong trees,
and the sombre blue and white gums. At night, we
heard the melancholy note of the mopoke in the bush
and wailing things that I never caught sight of.

I well remember the tramp back to Kalgoorlie
with my friend Smith by my side. He too was
despondent, for we had both dreamed of making
vast fortunes, and smacked each other on the back
as we chuckled over our prodigal return to England
as wealthy men. I was delighted before nightfall
of that day as we tramped back to leave the gold
fields for ever, for I found a pair of old boots by a
deserted shaft, and they fitted me just a treat, and
the comfort to my bleeding, blistered feet that had
been prodded with nails that stuck through my old
ones made me feel quite happy.
.sp 2
// 345.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch29
XXIX
.pm ch-hd-start
Playing the Violin to the Gold Miners—My Friend the Late
Missionary—The Great Concert in Coolgardie, under the
Direction of “Carl Rosa De Bonne”—Farewell
.pm ch-hd-end
<sc>I still</sc> had my violin when we arrived back in
Kalgoorlie, and after a deal of trouble I got some
strings and started playing to the miners, for Smith
and I were desperate for money and decent clothes.
In an old shanty place on the skirts of the town I
played the violin and a sailor played the banjo as
Smith took his hat round collecting and in two hours
we had more money in our pockets than we could
have earned on the gold fields in twelve months.
My accompanist, the sailor, was a splendid vamper,
and I played all those melodies which I knew would
touch the hearts of those miners; old English songs,
sea songs, and finished up with the “Ah che La
Morte” from <i>Il Trovatore</i>. They were delighted as
we finished each selection. Smith’s face beamed
with satisfaction and so did mine, as he repeatedly
came up to me, while I played on, and emptied the
coins into my pocket; the sailor played away as
though he was going mad with delight, nudged me
in the ribs and kept whispering into my ear “Shares,
mate, mind you shares.”

From far and near they came to hear the grand
concert. Some sang solos, and we accompanied,
// 346.png
.pn +1
others called for dance music. Hard by was a
drinking saloon, and I can still see those rough-bearded
men with their eyes shining with delight as
“All went merry as a marriage bell” and they
drank deeper and became from “Half-seas over to
dead drunk over.”

And then a strange thing happened. A tall,
stooping, broad-shouldered man came towards us,
and gazed steadily in my face for a moment. I too
gazed at him. We had met before! For the
moment I could not think who he was, and then in
a flash, just as he was turning his face aside as
though to let the past go by, I remembered. It was
the “Reverend” whom I had seen in the South
Seas, the very man whom Hornecastle had chaffed
when he visited our shanty by the beach in Samoa.
Staying my violin-playing for a moment, I lifted the
bow and saluted him to let him know quickly that I
remembered him, notwithstanding that he was
growing a beard and was dressed in a red-striped
shirt and shabby miner’s pants. “Well, I’m blessed,
Middleton,” he said, as he at once came forward and
took hold of my hand. “What on earth brought
you this way?”

“Gold hunting like the rest of them,” I answered,
and then I turned and said, “What about you?
What are you this way for?”

“Never mind that,” he answered quickly, and
I also quickly saw that his business and retirement
from the missionary profession was nothing whatever
to do with me, and minded my tongue. He
// 347.png
.pn +1
turned out to be a splendid friend to me, and in his
rôle of gold seeker and common miner he was a
man every inch of him. He had heard of the gold
finds in West Australia out there in the Islands and
had taken the first opportunity to clear out. He
was quite frank with me about everything and told
me that he had done well, much better work and
pay than the old missionary humbugging tour, he
said to me as he told me how he had bought a claim
for a few shillings from a young fellow and it turned
out rich and he eventually sold it for three thousand
pounds.

I introduced Smith to him and he took rooms
for us and paid all of our expenses, notwithstanding
the fact that I told him we had made more money
than we ever dreamed of making out of our extemporised
concerts. I will not tell you that converted
missionary’s name, because he is now in England,
and it’s almost a dead certainty that he will read
my book, and it’s not because I think he will do so
that I say here that he turned out one of the best
of men, and often by his conversation revealed to me
that he saw through the mockery of his previous
profession and the hypocrisy of many of those who
followed it. He would sit rubbing his sprouting
chin and tell me many of his opinions of those who
had been his comrades as he sat by me in the
evenings at the hotel rooms where we both stayed.

Eventually we went to Coolgardie together and
stayed for some days, and he got a concert up
for my special benefit, and I was billed all over
// 348.png
.pn +1
the place as “Signor Marrionette, the celebrated
violinist.” He hired the hall, and made all the
arrangements. Indeed, he cracked me up in such
a manner that long before the concert night came
off I was as nervous as a kitten over it all, and spent
the whole day practising the fiddle so that my performance
would not put my great reputation to
shame, but nevertheless I framed my programme to
suit my audience and put down Paganini’s “Carnaval
de Venice” and the Adagio of his “Concerto in D.”
and light operatic selections. I discovered that he
had a fine tenor voice and we rehearsed “Good-bye,
Sweetheart, Good-bye” and one or two other songs
which I have now forgotten the names of, and when
the concert came off and he sang as I played the
<i>obbligato</i>, he brought the house down, and gave the
audience as an encore a rollicking drinking song.
The young women that he had got hold of to
sing and make up our programme were so fascinated
with him that they looked like embracing and
kissing him. After the concert we both went off to
their home, for they were sisters, and spent the
whole night, very nearly, singing, playing and feasting.
They were Melbourne people and their father
kept a general goods store; he was a genial-looking
old chap and seemed hugely delighted to be
honoured with our company, and thinking that I
was of Italian origin he kept praising Italy and the
Italians up to the skies, saying, “Where are better
musicians than those Italians?” and many other
like things, till at last I was obliged to confess that
// 349.png
.pn +1
my Italian name was an assumed one, and then he
ceased drinking health to the “land of song” and
started off expressing his real feelings and finished
up by cursing the whole Italian race, saying they
were the dirtiest set of mongrels that ever sniffed
the sunlight.

My comrade the missionary often winked at me,
and we were both intensely amused, and when at
daybreak we carried the old chap into his bedroom
and placed him on the bed, he kept lifting his head
up as I took his boots off and called me a “dirshy
Ishalon,” meaning a dirty Italian. His pretty
daughters were very much upset about the old man’s
behaviour, but the missionary and I soon put them
at their ease, and when the old man was up sober
again, and once more the personification of assumed
politeness, we were all the best of friends and the girls
blushed to their ears, screamed with laughter, and
hid their faces in their hands, and the old man and
his thin wizened wife opened their eyes and mouth
wide with delight and fright mixed up, not knowing
what next we might say, as we told them of our
adventures on the South Sea Islands!

I have often thought of those girls since, and I am
quite certain they have not forgotten the young
violinist Signor Marrionette, or the handsome
debonair missionary Carl Rosa de Bonne, for that
was his <i>nom de plume</i> which appeared in big letters
on the bills that announced the great concert in
Coolgardie years ago.

Now my early travels and adventures are drawing
// 350.png
.pn +1
to their close, for we left the gold fields and the new
friends we had made very soon after the episode
of which I have just told you. I had plenty of
spare cash which I had saved through my violin-playing,
and so I went off in companionship with the
missionary, who had made himself a general favourite
with many of the miners and authorities of the fast-growing
city. The old storekeeper drove us in his
cart up to where the train started, and the girls
looked terribly crestfallen as we waved our hands
and they waved sadly back, as we passed away from
them for ever. Arriving in Perth we stayed at St
George’s Terrace.

Here I will end my boyhood days, for the down
of my upper lip had stiffened and sprouted to a
virgin moustache and I was getting homesick and
weary of hunting for fortunes. After several days’
stay in Perth my friend the missionary and I went
round to Sydney, and from there he took a passage
for England and I shipped before the mast on a
sailing ship bound for South America.

So ends this narrative of my boyhood wanderings,
wherein I have tried to describe to you some
of those experiences that stand out vividly in my
memory of all that happened in my travels in
distant lands. I had thought to tell you more than
I have done, but many things must remain buried
with the secrets of my heart, for a while at least, since
those who are intimately connected with them still
live. I would not wish to write in my humble
autobiography of things which they may not care
// 351.png
.pn +1
to be revealed to the eyes of the world. And
so, dear reader, whoever you are, and whatever
you may think of me, I wish you good luck and
farewell.

.tb

.pm verse-start
I’ve travelled strange lands far and wide,
I dived ‘mong mirror’d moons
In waters where the catamarans glide
By palms and reef-lagoons;
I gazed in a dusky maiden’s eyes
By a wild man’s tiny tent,
Then packed my swag, as the black crow flies
To another land I went.

I lay all night on the homeless plain,
To the skies I prayed in bed
For life’s wild romance, but prayed in vain,
As the stars crept overhead.
But often in the lone bush night
Bright eyes came, leaned o’er me,
Then glimmering in the pale moonlight
Ran back into the sea.

And in those waters o’er and o’er
I’ve dived in vain, then cried
For misery on some lone shore
With no one by my side.
And so for years I wandered, friend,
Sought love and wealth, alack!
Roamed distant lands, and in the end
Brought this one sad song back.
.pm verse-end
.sp 4
.nf c
The End
.nf-