The John Williams is a missionary ship on her way to Samoa with an English missionary and his family and a German lady who is going to open a school for Samoan girls. Mr. Lawes is the Nuieue missionary, a dark, foreign-looking man. We heard nothing but good of him from traders and natives.
We landed and climbed up the part path, part stairs of the cliff, our boys already trailing down it with copra sacks, the ship's boat slamming away at the jetty with a couple of black fellows holding on to it like grim death. The missionary natives were ranged in bodies on the path to meet us. First the men pressed forward, giggling, and shook hands; then the women, whose many-coloured garments we had remarked even from the ship, glowing on the cliff like a bank of flowers. The children who followed after pretended alarm and fled, but laughed as they ran. I was some distance from Louis, who has written the following in my diary:[5] "They closed in on me like a sea; I was in the close embrace of half a dozen outstretched hands, with smiling faces all round me, and a perfect song of salutation going up. From the sirens I escaped by means of a present of tobacco, which was the cause of my ruin, later on, when Lloyd and I went out to photograph. A bevy of girls followed, hugging and embracing me, and going through my pockets. It was the nearest thing to an ugly sight, and still it was pretty; there was no jeering, no roughness, they fawned upon and robbed me like well-behaved and healthy children with a favourite uncle. My own cut tobacco and my papers they respected; but a little while after, on making a cigarette, I found my match-box gone. There was small doubt in my mind as to the culprit; a certain plump little maid, more like a Hawaiian, with a coquettish cast of face and carriage of the head, and conspicuous by a splendid red flower stuck in her ear, had visited me with a particular thoroughness. I demanded my matches. She shook her head at first; and then from some unknown receptacle produced my box, drew out a single match, replaced the box, and with a subtle smile and considerable grace of demeanour, something like a courtly hostess, passed me on the match!"
Tin Jack was shown some spies who were taking names of women who had, against rules, been aboard ship. They will all be fined to-morrow. Levity of conduct, they tell us, is not allowed and is met by fines. I should imagine the public funds to be in a plethoric condition.
Before I knew where I was the trader had swept me up to the mission house, well built of coral, with a high, wide roof of cocoanut thatch beautifully braided together and tied with cocoanut sennit. In an inner room we found the passengers from the John Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Marriott and the German teacher. The Marriotts had with them the loveliest little twins imaginable, two years old, and almost exactly alike. Louis and Lloyd disappeared at once in search of photographs. The king, who seems to be liked and respected, was off in the bush, so they were disappointed in his likeness. After a reasonable time of worship before the twins, I started to follow the photographers, the trader conducting me, the John Williams party and Mr. Lawes (the resident missionary) following. We passed a cow, a bull, and two horses, strange sights for these latitudes. There were a great many flowers blooming in the underbrush—jasmine, the flamboyant, and a yellow blossom like a "four-o'clock"—and where a space had been cleared grass was growing. There is no running water, but through small fissures in the rock brackish water is found at the depth of seven fathoms. I was told of one great fissure, into which stone steps had been cut, where a subterranean stream gushes out in a waterfall.
The trader, who had already sold us three tappa (native bark-cloth) table-cloths at an exorbitant price, clung to me pertinaciously, taking me into his house, where he showed me a mat he wished a pound for, whereas it was worth but a couple of dollars. I refused to buy it, whereupon he presented me with two small rather pretty mats. I thought he owed them to me, so I accepted them without compunction. The young Irishman, who had followed us in, opened his box and took out an immense yellow shell necklace, a cocoa-shell basket, and a strange, very heavy, carefully shaped stone, which the natives use in fighting. All these articles he insisted on my accepting. I was greatly pleased with the fighting stone. The trader promised to get me a couple of "peace sticks" when we return to his side of the island. These are used by the women when they think a fight has lasted long enough. They rush between the combatants, waving their "peace sticks," and the affair ends. These peace sticks are made of dark, almost black ironwood, are about three feet long, shaped like spears, and ornamented, where the hand naturally holds them, with cocoa-fibre sennit and yellow bird feathers. The feathers looked to be the same as were used in Hawaii for the royal cloaks. As I write Tin Jack appears in a hat of Nuieue manufacture, braided pandanus, in shape an exact reproduction of the civilised high silk hat, and indescribably comic.
Returning to the mission house, we stopped at the king's newly built palace for a piece of ironwood that I wanted to mend the camera stand. The queen, a pretty, smiling, young woman, stood in the doorway directing us where to look. Arriving at the house, I examined the house dog's ear, and found he was suffering from canker. Louis and I, together, remembered the remedy for him, and told it to Mr. Lawes. I begged that Louis and Lloyd might see the twins. The little fairies were heavy-eyed from the knocking about and the close air of the John Williams. Each had had a convulsion during the last two days. I thought they looked rather too much like little angels. I tried, without success, to make our party refuse Mrs. Lawes's invitation to high tea. It did seem very hard; month after month passes in the most deadly monotony. Suddenly here are two ships at her door, each, incredible fact, with white women on board, and she has almost no time to speak to either, and in an hour or two they are gone. Poor Mrs. Lawes had wild eyes when the two sets of passengers and most of the officers gathered in a great circle round her board. It was an excellent meal, which I should have thoroughly enjoyed had I not felt like a cannibal and that I was eating Mrs. Lawes. But this it is to be a missionary's wife. I am sure she must have had a nervous fever after we were gone. She found a moment to bewail her fate to Louis; if only we had come piecemeal, as it were, and not all at once, like a waterspout, she would have been so happy. We shall leave behind us only a memory of hurry and flurry and confusion worse confounded. While we were at table the John Williams ran so close inshore that we were frightened, and Mr. Marriott very anxious, as all his worldly goods were on board. The John Williams left Sydney on Friday the 11th, the same day we did, and now we meet here and possibly may meet again in Samoa. We had just finished our meal when the steam-whistle blew for us, and away we all trooped to the boat. The John Williams was leaving also.
We had some trade stuff to be landed at the other side of the island. There Lloyd went ashore and got my peace sticks for which he paid two shillings the pair. A great many natives came aboard, among the rest the handsome sister and daughter of a chief. I gave them both a wreath, to their great pride and joy. Tin Jack dressed up in his wig and whiskers and false nose. The natives at first were much alarmed and some of the women inclined to cry.
29th.—Squally all night, but this morning the sun has come out and it really looks hopeful. The captain has been working all day until four o'clock at my device for mending the camera with Nuieue ironwood. I hardly slept last night for the heavy rolling and pitching of the Janet. A black cat has appeared, brought on board from Nuieue. It was proposed to have a rat hunt with the Auckland dog. I meanly intended to inform the captain, but I need not have troubled myself, for when a rat was shown to the dog he nearly went into a fit with terror. I have all my things ready packed to go on shore at Samoa.
30th.—Passed Tutuila in the morning. Almost despair of reaching Upolu before to-morrow, owing to an adverse current, but make it just after sundown. We ran along Upolu for a couple of hours, the scenery enchanting; abrupt mountains, not so high as in Tahiti or Hawaii, nor so strangely awful as the Marquesan highlands, but with a great beauty of outline and colour, the thick jungle looking from the deck of the ship like soft green moss. Through the glass I could see a high, narrow waterfall drop into the sea. Breaths of the land breeze began to come out to us, intoxicating with the odours of the earth, of growing trees, sweet flowers and fruits, and dominating all, the clean, wholesome smell of breadfruit baking in hot stones. Soon masts of ships began to show, and the smoke of Apia. The signal-flag was carried up to the foretopmast and laboriously tied on by a black boy, when the pilot came quickly on board. It was not quite dark, but we thought it better to dine on the Janet, though we were burning to get on shore. While we were eating, people began to arrive in boats to offer their welcome to Samoa. Louis and I started off, leaving Lloyd to follow in the ship's boat. It was a dream-like thing to find oneself walking along Apia beach, shaking hands and passing talofas on every side. We spent the evening on shore and, after ordering horses for the early morning, went to bed tired out.
May 1st.—Woke at six to hear the horses coming for us. When last we rode out to Vailima the road was but a bridle-path almost closed in by the bush. We can now ride two abreast, or even three, if we like. Tin Jack was much delighted to see pineapples growing wild, and bewailed his mistake in having settled on a low island. Lloyd rode ahead to a native village on the road with a packet of sweeties for some little girls who used to dance for us when we lived in the bush near by. We found Lloyd waiting for us; only one of the little girls was about. After we left the village the road plunged into the forest. The tall, liana-draped trees, carrying ferns in the forks of their branches, cast a grateful shade, and we rode slowly, to enjoy all to the utmost.