The great world war has not commenced yet, but even now his withered hands itch to clutch his disused war-club and sally forth to take revenge on those white men who laugh at his majestic bearing; those men who stole his isles and brought rum and vice to contaminate the virtue of his race. How spiteful will he feel when he wipes his spectacles, and, astonished, reads the truth! But then he will cool down, look at his innocent old war-club on his homestead wall and offer his humble services for the vast tribalistic war clash in the white man’s lands, while Thakambau and Tano, the cannibal kings, and Ritova and King Naulivan, who never heard the word culture, sigh and turn in their graves to think that they are dead, while the very world is trembling with glorious, bloodthirsty battle. Ah, well, their children’s children are coming to help us: may the old Thakambau spirit still be alive in their blood to help the advance of culture—the civilisation of sad humanity. Let us hope, too, that our semi-savage Allies will not eat the fallen foe! But I must proceed with my own wanderings, for I have a long way to travel yet.
Samoa still rises silently in moonlight out of the sea of my dreams. I can hear the barbarian orchestra clanging away down in the native village, as Samoan girls and youths, and two or three white men, waltz under the palms just below the plateau, where groves of orange-trees hang their golden fruit amongst dark leaves. As I play the violin the semi-savage people whirl to the wild rhythm of the forest ballroom music of a tribal waltz.
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CHAPTER VII
Robert Louis Stevenson—Bohemian Incidents—I lead a Tribal Orchestra—The Big Drum—Robert Louis Stevenson at a Tribal Wedding—Robert Louis Stevenson in the Grog Shanty—Mr and Mrs Stevenson—The Last Man-eater of the Marquesan Group