Now “Vailima” is the official residence of the administrator of Western Samoa and Stevenson’s memory is kept much greener than it was in the days of German control. Once more travellers go up the steep mountain path to the peak of Vaea where he was buried as he had requested. You recall how much the Samoans loved their “Tusitala,” or “Teller of Tales” as they called Stevenson. Part of the road from Apia to “Vailima” was laid by them and christened “The Road of the Loving Hearts.” At his funeral it was the natives who had worked with him who bore Stevenson’s body up the steep path to the mountain top, where he now lies with the Pacific at his feet. On his tombstone are the lines of the “Requiem” he had written to be inscribed there:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
“Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”