Joshua Slocum was a magnificent specimen of strength and health, and his manly figure was well set off by the clothing—or, rather, the lack of it—used in the tropics. When Mrs. Stevenson met him afterwards in New York she was much struck by the change caused in his appearance by the wearing of a conventional black suit, and regretted that he had to hide his real beauty—his lithe, strong figure—in ugly broadcloth. She had a great and sincere admiration for him, as she always had for physical courage in any form. In her preface to The Wrong Box she says, "Some time after Louis's death Captain Joshua Slocum, on his way round the world alone in the little sloop Spray, came to the house at Vailima. Here, I thought, was a mariner after my husband's own heart. Who had a better right to the directories [studied by Stevenson at Saranac when planning for the South Sea cruise] than this man who was about to sail those very seas with no other guide than the stars and a small broken clock that served in place of a chronometer? Captain Slocum received the volumes with reverence, and used them, as he afterwards told me, to his great advantage."
From his own book, Sailing Alone Around the World, I have taken the following account of his meeting with Mrs. Stevenson:
"The next morning after my arrival, bright and early, Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson came to the Spray and invited me to visit Vailima the following day. I was of course thrilled when I found myself, after so many days of adventure, face to face with this bright woman, so lately the companion of the author whose books had delighted me on the voyage. The kindly eyes, that looked me through and through, sparkled when we compared notes of adventure. I marvelled at some of her experiences and escapes. She told me that along with her husband she had voyaged in all manner of rickety craft among the islands of the Pacific, reflectively adding, 'Our tastes were similar.' Following the subject of voyages she gave me the four beautiful volumes of sailing directories for the Mediterranean, writing on the fly-leaf of the first, 'To Captain Slocum. These volumes have been read and re-read many times by my husband, and I am very sure that he would be pleased that they should be passed on to the sort of sea-faring man that he liked above all others. Fanny V. de G. Stevenson.' Mrs. Stevenson also gave me a great directory of the Indian Ocean. It was not without a feeling of reverential awe that I received the books so nearly directly from the hand of Tusitala, 'who sleeps in the forest.' Aolele, the Spray will cherish your gift!
"On another day the family from Vailima went to visit the Spray. The sloop being in the stream, we boarded her from the beach abreast, in the little razeed Gloucester dory, which had been painted a smart green. Our combined weight loaded it gunwale to the water, and I was obliged to steer with great care to avoid swamping. The adventure pleased Mrs. Stevenson greatly, and as we paddled along she sang 'They went to sea in a pea-green boat.' I could understand her saying of her husband and herself 'Our tastes were similar.'
"Calling to say good-bye to my friends at Vailima, I met Mrs. Stevenson, in her Panama hat, and went over the estate with her. Men were at work clearing the land, and to one of them she gave an order to cut a couple of bamboo trees for the Spray from a clump she had planted four years before, and which had grown to a height of sixty feet. I used them for spare spars, and the butt of one served on the homeward voyage for a jib-boom.
"After a farewell ava ceremony in Samoan fashion at Vailima, the Spray stood out of the harbor August 20, 1896, and continued on her course. A sense of loneliness seized upon me as the islands faded astern, and as a remedy for it I crowded on sail for lovely Australia, which was not a strange land to me; but for long days in my dreams Vailima stood before the prow."
It is sad to know that this brave sailor tempted fate once too often, for he sailed out of New York harbor some years ago and was never heard of again.
Even though their beloved Tusitala was with them no more, the Samoans did not forget his widow, and they often went to Vailima in bodies to do her honour. In a letter to her mother-in-law she describes one of these visiting parties:
"A couple of months ago the Tongan village sent to ask if they might come and dance for us on Christmas. They were the men that considered they belonged particularly to Louis; do you remember my telling you how their village was put into mourning at the time of his death—in Tongan fashion—for three days? And then how they marched up here, every man in a new black lavalava, some forty strong, to decorate the grave? I did not feel much like gaieties, but could not refuse the Tongans. I asked Chief Justice Ide, his daughter, and a travelling salesman named Campbell to see the dancing. Six or eight pretty girls were turned up by our 'poor old family' to make the kava, and, though our own boys had been given a holiday, we had attendants in scores. I had had a turkey roasted and corned beef boiled, so that with such things laid out on the sideboard I could give my guests a sort of picnic meal instead of dinner. The Tongans marched up—about fifty of them—led by their taupo dressed in a fine mat and dancing as she came. She was followed by the girls of the village carrying the usual presents on poles, and then came the fighting men with blackened faces and wearing the dress used in the war dances. They were all tall powerful young men, and looked very fierce and magnificent. They manœuvred while on the lawn and then we had the usual business of kava and orations. The dancing, for which they used an ancient war drum, took place in the hall, where the Chief Justice and I sat, as you might say, on thrones in front of the table, with the other spectators sitting on the floor around us. The dancing was wild and really splendid. When they left, just as dusk was falling, we presented them with a full-grown pig and two boxes of biscuit. Our boys thought Louis's grandfather[67] should be shown some honor for the occasion, so they decorated his bust with a wreath cocked over one eye and a big red flower over one ear. I never saw anything more incongruous; it was enough to make him turn over in his grave."
Mrs. Stevenson's health improved after her return to Samoa, and she and her daughter spent quiet, pleasant months together working in the garden, walking in the forest, playing chess, reading, and sewing, and were both looking forward to the return of Mr. Osbourne when the news arrived of the sudden death in Edinburgh of Mrs. Thomas Stevenson. It was a sad shock to her daughter-in-law, who had grown to love Louis's mother dearly, and all the more distressing as she was summoned to go at once to Scotland to help settle the estate. It now became clear that the island home, made dear by a thousand tender associations, would have to be abandoned. Had Mrs. Stevenson been able to follow out her own desires at that time, she would have preferred to spend the remainder of her days there, but her son and daughter were drawn away perforce by the claims of their own families—the education of their children, etc.—and it was impossible for her to live there alone. So, with a tearing of heart-strings more easily imagined than described, she began to make preparations to leave the place for ever.