Part 8 (1/2)
While the days go thus in these Southern islands we at the North are struggling for the bare necessities of life
For food the islanders have only to put out their hand and take what nature has provided for them; if they plant a banana-tree, their only care afterward is to see that too reat reason to love their country and to fear the white man's yoke, for once harnessed to the plow, their life would no longer be a poee of Caini, as a tall and dignified Tonga h an interpreter and talking man
It was perfectly natural for him to inquire the object of my visit, and I was sincere when I told hi anchor in Samoa was to see their fine men, and fine women, too After a considerable pause the chief said: ”The captain has co way to see so little; but,” he added, ”the tapo must sit nearer the captain”
”Yack,” said Taloa, who had so nearly learned to say yes in English, and suiting the action to the word, she hitched a peg nearer, all hands sitting in a circle upon hted with the si poreat scholar or statese As for Taloa, a sort of Queen of the May, and the other tapo girls, well, it is wise to learn as soon as possible the manners and customs of these hospitable people, and meanwhile not to mistake for over-fauest I was fortunate into shake one's faith in native virtue
To the unconventional mind the punctilious etiquette of Samoa is perhaps a little painful For instance, I found that in partaking of ava, the social bowl, I was supposed to toss a little of the beverage over my shoulder, or pretend to do so, and say, ”Let the Gods drink,”
and then drink it alleht not pass it politely as ould do, but politely throw it twirling across the rievous , which, inspired by a bit of good road, e I was instantly hailed by the chief's deputy, who in an angry voice brought ns for pardon, the safest thing to do, though I did not knohat offense I had coht, but not until a long palaver had ensued The deputy's hail, liberally translated, was: ”Ahoy, there, on the frantic steed! Know you not that it is against the law to ride thus through the village of our fathers?” I ies I could, and offered to dis by the bridle
This, the interpreter told ed for pardon I was su a wit as well as a bit of a rogue, explained that I wason a most important er, but, pleading all this, I knew I still deserved to be roasted, at which the chief showed a fine row of teeth and seemed pleased, but allowed me to pass on
[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course froellan to Torres Strait]
[Illustration: The _Spray's_ course froas and his faht presents of tapa-cloth and fruits Taloa, the princess, brought a bottle of cocoanut-oil forlate
It was impossible to entertain on the _Spray_ after the royal manner in which I had been received by the chief His fare had included all that the land could afford, fruits, fowl, fishes, and flesh, a hog having been roasted whole I set before them boiled salt pork and salt beef, hich I ell supplied, and in the evening took the-horsetheater; and in a spirit of justice they pulled off the horses' tails, for the proprietors of the shoo hard-fisted countryrieve to say, unceremoniously hustled them off for a new set, ala friends; the chief, finest of theh the greed of the proprietors it was becoreat powers, in want of lahich they could enforce, adopted a vigorous foreign policy, taxing it twenty-five per cent, on the gate-islative reform!
It was the fashi+on of the native visitors to the _Spray_ to coear and cli ashore to ju could have been htfully si-dresses, a native cloth from the bark of the mulberry-tree, and they did no har was only a merry every-day scene One day the head teachers of Papauta College, Miss Schultze and Miss Moore, ca women students
They were all dressed in white, and each wore a red rose, and of course came in boats or canoes in the cold-cliirls it would be difficult to find As soon as they got on deck, by request of one of the teachers, they sang ”The Watch on the Rhine,” which I had never heard before ”And now,” said they all, ”let's up anchor and away” But I had no inclination to sail fro the _Spray_ these acco women each seized a palm-branch or paddle, or whatever else would serve the purpose, and literally paddled her own canoe Each could have swum as readily, and would have done so, I dare say, had it not been for the holidaywoer for the _Spray_ Mr Trood, an old Eton boy, ca ferried in such state?” Then, suiting his action to the sentiave the da on shore yelled with envy My own canoe, a sout, one day when it had rolled over with me, was seized by a party of fair bathers, and before I could get my breath, almost, was towed around and around the _Spray_, while I sat in the botto what they would do next But in this case there were six of them, three on a side, and I could not help lish lady, who made more sport of it than any of the others
CHAPTER XIII
Sa Malietoa--Good-by to friends at Vaili Fiji to the south--Arrival at Newcastle, Australia--The yachts of Sydney--A ducking on the _Spray_--Commodore Foy presents the sloop with a new suit of sails--On to Melbourne--A shark that proved to be valuable--A change of course--The ”Rain of Blood”--In Tas Mr A Young, the father of the late Queen Margaret, as Queen of Manua frolish sailor whois now the only survivor of the fa been lost in an island trader which a fewwas a Christian gentleraces that would become any lady It ith pain that I saw in the newspapers a sensational account of her life and death, taken evidently from a paper in the supposed interest of a benevolent society, but without foundation in fact And the startling head-lines saying, ”Queen Margaret of Manua is dead,” could hardly be called news in 1898, the queen having then been dead three years
While hobnobbing, as it were, with royalty, I called on the king hireat ruler; he never got less than forty-five dollars a month for the job, as he told me himself, and this amount had lately been raised, so that he could live on the fat of the land and not any longer be called ”Tin-of-salraceless beach-combers
As my interpreter and I entered the front door of the palace, the king's brother, as viceroy, sneaked in through a taro-patch by the back way, and sat cowering by the door while I told entleedof the Cannibal Islands, other islands of course beingthat his people have not eaten a e hireatly pleased to hear so directly from the publishers of the ”Missionary Review,” and wished me to make his compliments in return
His Majesty then excused hihter, the beautiful Faa ”To make the sea burn”), and soon reappeared in the full-dress uniform of the German coh, I had not sent alia to receive ood-by to Faa Malietoa for the last time
Of the landmarks in the pleasant town of Apia, my memory rests first on the little school just back of the London Missionary Society coffee-house and reading-roolish to about a hundred native children, boys and girls Brighter children you will not find anywhere
”Now, children,” said Mrs Bell, when I called one day, ”let us show the captain that we know so about the Cape Horn he passed in the _Spray_” at which a lad of nine or ten years stepped nireat cape, and read it well He afterward copied the essay for ood-by 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 theave an order to cut a couple of bamboo-trees for the _Spray_ frorown to the height of sixty feet I used them for spare spars, and the butt of one e I had then only to take ava with the fa Samoans, was conducted after the native fashi+on A Triton horn was sounded to let us knohen the beverage was ready, and in response we all clapped hands The bout being in honor of the _Spray_, it was my turn first, after the custom of the country, to spill a little over otten the Samoan for ”Let the Gods drink,” I repeated the equivalent in Russian and Chinook, as I remembered a word in each, whereupon Mr Osbourne pronounced ood friends of Sae_, she 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 todays in my dreams Vailima stood before the prow
The _Spray_ had barely cleared the islands when a sudden burst of the trades brought her down to close reefs, and she reeled off one hundred and eighty-four miles the first day, of which I counted fortyher off free and sailed north of the Horn Islands, also north of Fiji instead of south, as I had intended, and coasted down the west side of the archipelago
Thence I sailed direct for New South Wales, passing south of New Caledonia, and arrived at Newcastle after a passage of forty-two days, ale encountered near New Caledonia foundered the Aain, nearer the coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware that the gale was extraordinary, a French mail-steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney, blown considerably out of her course, on her arrival reported it an awful stor friends said: ”Oh, my! we don't knohat has become of the little sloop _Spray_ We saw her in the thick of the stor to like a duck She was under a goose's wing ers on the steamer, I heard later, were up to their knees in water in the saloon When their shi+p arrived at Sydney they gave the captain a purse of gold for his skill and sea the of this sort