“Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also for orchestra and military band. Published in London.
[Music: Samoan Love Song[[6]]
Minor.
Moderato. mp Words and Music by A.S.M.
Mia Ta - lo - fa, The chiefs are sleep - ing, the
seas in moon - light sing. The
Refrain, Moderato. con expressione.
night-winds are sing - ing my Ma - la - boo maid
Un - der the co - - - co - palms.
Copyright. ]
[6]. “Mia Talofa”: Samoan waltz, for pianoforte and as a song. Also for orchestra and military band. Published in London.
I could not stand the skipper of the boat which we had come across by (I think the name of the schooner was the Nelson) 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 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 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 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, 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!” 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.