The desire to own an island is still burning in my breast. In this neighbourhood, nearer Samoa, is just the island I want, owned, unfortunately, by a man in Tahiti. It is called Nassau and is said to be uninhabited.
Last night an immense rat ran over me in bed, and Mr. Henderson had the same unpleasant experience. In the hold of the Janet are a number of pure white rats with red eyes, which appeared of themselves quite mysteriously. The captain will not allow them to be harmed, which I think is very nice and sentimental of him. It was amusing to see our dog's perplexity when we came to anchor, and he put his head out of a port-hole to have a look at Auckland. His very tail expressed alarmed surprise. Our second steward (a white man) is in a state of wild delight. He took his "billet" under the head steward from a romantic hope of seeing Samoa, of which he had once read a description in a newspaper. Every little while I hear his voice, quivering with excitement: "What do you think of it, Mrs. Stevens?" One moment he is thrusting sugar-cane into my hand: "Taste it, Mrs. Stevens, it's sugar stick! I never saw it before!" and the next is: "Cocoanut! cocoanut! It's green cocoanut, Mrs. Stevens; I never saw it before in my life!" It is of no use to tell him that it is all an old story to me; he hears nothing but babbles on with shining eyes. I have just overheard this from a white stoker who had also never been in the tropics before: "He's been and swindled me, that native! There's nothing inside this green cocoanut but some kind of water."
Mr. Henderson has just told us as a secret that our next island will be Upolu, Samoa, and we are now as wildly excited as the second steward. On Wednesday afternoon, at four o'clock, we shall arrive at Apia, and the next morning, at break of day, off we fly to Vailima. As we were discussing the subject, the captain called out that there was a white rat in his cabin and he wished to catch and tame it, so I ran to help him. It was under his bed, he said, and the loveliest rat in the world. As he was dilating on its beauty, out it flashed, jumping on him and rebounding against my breast like a fluff of white cotton wool. The captain laughed and screamed with shrill, hysterical cries, in which I joined, while the loveliest rat in the world scurried away.
27th.—The weather really abominable, so cold that I have had to put on a flannel bodice. Tin Jack and Lloyd went to the station last night and returned with the white trader, a thin, pallid man, with a large, hooked nose and soft, frightened brown eyes. For very dullness I was about to go to sleep, when Mr. Henderson ran up, crying: "Sail ho!" Sure enough, there was a large vessel wallowing in the great seas. Captain Henry thought her an American driven in by the heavy weather. Round the point of the island the breakers were rising, he said, some forty feet high. While we were watching the strange craft she turned about and sailed away, to our great disappointment, no doubt having only come up to take her bearings. After I had closed my diary last night Mr. Henderson got out the chart and showed us his own islands and the supposed location of Victoria Island which he is looking for. I offered to toss him for the latter, to which he agreed. Louis threw up a piece of money and I won. I have yet, however, to find Victoria.
Nuieue has not yet recovered from the effects of last year's hurricane, and we shall not get many delicacies here. There are no ripe cocoanuts, few bananas, and no breadfruit. Some one said that I could get spring onions. "How do they grow them?" I asked; meaning did they sow seeds or plant sets. "On the graves," was the rather startling answer.
The "Janet Nichol" with ship's company
Last night Mr. Henderson pulled off a rat's tail. He thought to pull the rat from a hole from which the tail protruded, but the tail came off, and the rat ran away. The captain tells me that there is generally a plague of flies in Nuieue. It is too cold for them now, but usually when the natives come out in their canoes their backs, especially, are black with flies. Some one has sent me a basket of bananas almost too sweet and rich; also some excellent oranges. I have mended the bellows of our camera, where it has been eaten by cockroaches, with sticking-plaster.
28th.—Steamed round to the other side of the island to the missionary station, carrying with us the trader and a young Irishman named Hicks; also a native woman and a boy. Here, to our surprise, we saw the vessel we had sighted and lost; she proved to be the John Williams.
We watched her plunging to and fro, now close under the cliffs, now skirting the Janet, now fetching our hearts in our mouths as she stayed, and forereached in staying, till you would have thought she had leaves on her jib-boom. We actually got up the camera to take a photograph of the expected shipwreck. We were told afterward that it was only Captain Turpie showing off his seamanship.