I NOTICED that the brief incidents in my first book, Sailor and Beachcomber, concerning my personal recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson were received with an interest which I had not expected. Had I anticipated this, or had he struck me as an adventurous old shellback of crime and sea-lore, I should have dwelt more on the subject, but so much has been written about Stevenson’s life in the South Seas, by men who have devoted volumes to their reminiscences of that novelist, that I deliberately left the matter alone.
As far as Stevenson the literary man is concerned I, of course, have nothing whatever to add, excepting, perhaps, that Stevenson’s books dealing with the South Seas did not strike me as being as realistic and breezy as I had expected them to be, coming from such fresh experience and so able a pen. But having often seen him in Samoa and elsewhere, out of the limelight and under circumstances that have never, as far as I know, been written about before, I feel that I may as well tell at length the few incidents that I think may be of interest. I cannot do this better than by pursuing my own reminiscences, and so I will revert to my first visits to Samoa when I was a lad of about sixteen years of age.
Stevenson was at that time residing at Vailima, Upulo. I had met him several times in Apia and at sea, for at that time I was always cruising on the trading schooners and visited most of the chief islands in the North and South Pacific. I eventually got on a schooner that ran between Samoa and Suva (Fiji), and it was on these return trips to Apia, and during my sojourns there, that I saw Stevenson frequently, which was natural enough, since he lived there and hundreds of men became acquainted with him in that isolated paradise, where conventionality, as it is known in Western civilisation, was completely dropped, and all men became hail-fellow-well-met as soon as they sighted each other. Even missionaries practised this outward appearance of brotherhood.
I recall how I was sitting in a German store in April one afternoon when a Samoan, who knew me well, approached me and asked me if I would like to come that same evening to a grand tribal wedding festival that was to be held five miles off, round the coast. “And will you bring your violin?” he inquired. I accepted, and my companion, a young American sailor who had a banjo, agreed to go with me. I was well known among the chiefs and natives as an obliging violinist, for I seldom refused to perform at native ceremonies; the scenes that I witnessed, indeed the novelty and romance of it all, amply repaid me for all the trouble I was ever put to, though that is saying a good deal, for my troubles were sometimes serious ones.
That same afternoon my friend and I tuned our instruments up and made ourselves look as smart as possible, for the chief who was giving the ball was one of high standing, and a well-known follower of Mataafa, the ex-King of Samoa.
In high spirits we started off to tramp the five miles which had to be covered before we reached our destination. We had not walked more than three hundred yards from Apia’s main street when suddenly Stevenson appeared with several of his acquaintances, coming across the slopes carrying fish which they had purchased from the natives down by the beach.
Whangarei Falls, North Auckland, N.Z.
Stevenson turned and saw us, and noticing that we were carrying musical instruments, he came up and said in a jocular way: “Where are you hurrying off to? The Lyceum Orchestra?” Whereupon I told him our destination and he immediately became interested. “Are you in a hurry? I should like to come,” he said quickly. I assured him that we were in no hurry, and told him we would wait; but as his friends were becoming impatient he said that he would come on later, and so off we went without him.
When we arrived at the coast village where the ball was to be given, my friend and I sat down under the palms exhausted, for the walk was a long one and the heat terrific. Just before us was the native village, groups of conical, shed-like houses, sheltered by coco-palms growing to the shore’s edge.