Bought with the income
ofthe
Ann S. Farnam Fund
11 J ^

SAILOR & BEACHCOMBER!
Confessions of a Life at Sea, in
Australia and amid the Islands of
the Pacific
By A, SAFRONl-MIDDLETON
With Twenty-four Illustrations
Demy Svo, IQs. 6d. net
*^ Mr Middleton has a story io iellt and he
knows how io tell it in racy and picturesque
words. It is alive with sunny good humour^
as well as rich in ihe revelation oj a phase of
lije luhich haunts the dreams of many q/us."
— The Standard.
*' 0« ihe whole, ' Sailor and Beachcomber' is
one of the most satisfactory books oj wander-
ing travel thai we have come across. The
style is racy and unaffected., and fret from
boasting and egotism" — The AthenBeum.
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MARTINS STREET

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY

Portrait of the .-Vuthor

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY

BEING FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF A WANDERING
SAILOR-TROUBADOUR IN MANY LANDS

BY
A. SAFRONl-MIDDLETON AUTHOR OP
" SAILOR AND BEACHCOMBBB "

ir

WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRA TIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST MAETIN'S STREET
LBICESTBK SQUARE
MDCCCCXVI

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED
EDINBURGH

TO
THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR COMRADE
OMAR
WHOM I BURIED IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH
NORTHERN QUEENSLAND
ALSO TO
D. RAELTOA OF SAMOA
AND TO MY MEMORIES OF MELODY AND
MIRTH IN THE SOUTH SEAS

FOREWORD
"The path to hell is paved with good intentions."
Looking reflectively over this second instalment of my
autobiography, I perceive that I am such a genuine
vagabond that I have even travelled along in my remini
scences without caring for the material niceties of recognised
literary method ; so I have gone back over the whole track
and tried eamestly to polish my efforts.
It seems quite unnecessary for vagabonds to wear
(metaphorically speaking) old trousers with fringed ends to
the legs, penniless pockets, dusty boots, an unshaven face and
dirty collar, or to give vent to the devil-may-care utterances
and all the ungranunatical " politeness " of the phraseology
of the grog shanty and bush hotels, when they attempt to
live over again on paper the tale of their wandering life. I
cannot reform the world into a population of convivial beach
combers, nor would I if I could, out of consideration for
future vagabonds, who naturally want the outer spaces of
the world for their special province. Neither can I make
you believe I could have done better in a literary sense if I
had taken more trouble with my book. But I can to some
extent reform myself, and at least strive to compete with
the literary aristocrats on the slopes of their own culti
vated ground. I am sure they will make good company if
I succeed, and they will have been my best friends. Yes, I
half believe in jumping out of bed on a cold night to hold a
candle to the devil! I know that sometimes while you
stand shivering you discover that he's really not such a bad
fellow, and the candlelight is likely to give you a glunpse of
some faint resemblance in his wrinkled face, some far-off
expression of that beautiful old life that he lived ere he
sinned, became respectable and fell— banished from heaven.
Life is a terrible contradiction ; we are dead because we

FOREWORD
are bom alive. Our very creed is based on the sad fact that
the cemetery tablets record the dates of the true beginning
of life everlasting. The thmidering city is a necropolis
wherein multitudes of wandering corpses breathe, with inert
souls and thoughts that are hke night bats flitting through
the sepulchres of our death, with dead eyes and dead mouths
that open to cough and even sometimes laugh ! My book of
remiaiscences is (to me at least) like those silent, moss-grey
tablets of immortality ; but even more wonderful and true
(as far as I know), for, while I am dead, I can see my long ago.
I can lift the stone slab from the grave in the silent night
and gaze on the dead boy's face, and in a way make the dead
eyes laugh and the voiceless mouth mutter and sing in a
hollow voice old, far-away songs of love, romance and its
comrade, grief. Yes, you and I can see such things. Oh,
how ineffably sad to some of us !
You may wonder what all this has to do with the preface
to a book of reminiscences. It has a lot to do with the
matter, because I am a born vagabond, and the world is
incorrigibly respectable !
There are about one htmdred pages missing from this
book — ^pages that should have told of the inevitable details of
stem existence : those things that all men who are vagabonds
experience, such as the stomach-rumbles of hunger, mon
strous hopes and misgivings, hospitals and illnesses, and cold
nights sleeping out under the coco-palms and gum-trees
when the wind suddenly shifts to a shivering quarter. Evil
thoughts, heartaches, the tenderest wishes, passionate
dreams, longings, and memories in the night of a woman's
eyes, the fall before great temptation, atheistical thoughts,
curses and religious remorses you will look for in vain. For,
after all, I am not brave enough to tell the truth '. I might
have done so if I had had the friendly, courageous publisher
who would not cut them out of the original manuscript.
But where is the publisher who would let me hide behind his
influential bulk as be risked all and pubhshed the truth ?
Yes, those things which would make the reader recognise the
truth by his own responsive thrills.
Well, I will risk my reputation on the opinions of those
10

FOREWORD
critics who will be able to read the hundred pages I have
left out. For real scallawags do not always leave the
worst out only. Moreover, I may be lucky enough to find
sjonpathy, for even critics are sometimes at heart genuine
vagabonds, and they may realise that I have turned into
the light of other days, the stars, the blue tropical skies,
moonlit seas by coral reefs and palm-clad isles, and into
the heart of intense dreams, to paint faithfully all that I tell.
Before my North American experiences, which I have
recorded in the opening chapters of this book, I had shipped
before the mast of a sailing ship, the S  p, at Sydney,
N.S.W., intending to go with her round the Horn, and so
home to England. But, being unable to tolerate the bully
ing chief mate and the offal-flavoured fo'c'sle food, I left the
boat at 'Frisco and again shipped on an American tramp
that was chartered for trading purposes to go cruising in the
South 'Seas, where once more I had many ups and downs,
and settled for a few months in the Fiji group and elsewhere.
My reminiscences, and many of tbe incidents of that
time, I have told in the second part of the present volume,
which opens with " The Charity Organization of the South
Seas." My South Sea Island legends and fairy tales have never
been told elsewhere. I have written them as nearly as
possible in the manner in which they were told me by the
Samoan children and natives who were my friends. The
mythology of the South Seas is unfortunately becoming
almost completely forgotten by the natives, who now live
under such different conditions, and seem only interested
in the creeds, legends and mythology of the Western
world. These experiences of mine are written from memory, and
I have as nearly as possible kept them in the order that I
lived them ; and if they seem far-flimg for one as young as I
was, let me assure you that himdreds of English boys have
had my experiences and could tell this tale.
I am from a family of rovers. My uncles were travellers
and explorers. My brothers out of the spirit of adventure
all went to sea, and achieved success on sea and land through
II

FOREWORD
perseverance. My grandfather in his boyhood went to sea.
(I believe he was born at sea. His mother was a lady of the
Italian Court, noted for her beauty and an accomplished
musician. ) He was a direct descendant of Charles, the second
Earl of Middleton, whose estates were eventually confiscated
by creditors — an evil destiny that has survived right down
to the present, it having cropped up in the author's own
affairs. I hope to follow this volume with another one, wherein I
shall tell of my life when I settled for a while among civilised
peoples and became respectable, and my serious troubles
commenced. I have to thank Messrs Boosey & Company, of London,
for permission to use certain extracts from my military band
Entr'actes, Marches, etc., which they have published. A. S.-M.

12

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. IN BOSTON ....
U. UNITED STATES MILITARY MUSIC
III. I TRAVEL AND SELL BUG POWDER
IV. MY brother's RETURN
V. HOME ....
VI. CHANGES IN SAMOA .
Vn. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Vni. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AND HIS FRIENDS
IX. HONOLULU
X. AN INLAND MARCH
XI. AT SEA ....
XII. CIRCULAR QUAY
Xin. MATENE-TE-NGA
XIV. MEMORIES AND REFLECTION .
XV. THE LECTURER
XVI. HOMESICK ....
XVII. A NEGRO VIOUNIST
XVm. MY MANY PROFESSIONS
XIX. YOKOHAMA ....
XX. BOMBAY ....
XXI. AT SEA IN DREAMS . 13

1723
27
35 45
55 69
83
96
110
130 140
155
173
182191
213220230
241249

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XXII. I ARRIVE AT THE ORGANIZATION . . 261
XXIII. FATHER ANSTER .... 276
XXIV. BACK AT THE CHARITY ORGANIZATION . 289
XXV. AT NUKA HIVA .... 305
XXVI. A DECK-HAND ON BOARD THE " ELDORADO " 311
XXVII. MY ENGLAND .... 325

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of the Author
Hongis Track, Rotorua, N.Z. .
Whangarei Falls, North Auckland, N.Z.
Wanganui River, N.Z.
A River Wharf, West Africa .
Kawieri, N.Z. ....
Whakarewarewa, Rotorua, N.Z.
Old Maori, said to be 105 years old .
Half-Caste Maori Girls
Lake Rotorua and Mokoia Island, N.Z.
Settler's Home, Gold Coast .
The First Motor-Car in a Gold Coast Village
River Scene, West Africa
Botanical Gardens, Ballarat .
River Scene in New Zealand .
Dart Valley, Lake Wakatipu, N.Z.
The New Zealand photographs are by Mr F. G. Radcliffe,
Whangarei, New Zealand.

Frontispiece

To face page

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272
51
CHAPTER I
In'Boston — Song-composing — Looking for a Publisher — How I secured
him— I visit Providence — I play in the Military Band — Hard up
IN those old days of my youth an atmosphere of romance
gathered from old novels and dreams still sparkled in
my head. I am going to tell of the adventures that
followed directly on my boyhood, when before the mast I
had crossed the seas with eyes athirst for romance, looking
for the wonderful, the beautiful in distant lands, in men and
in women, and for that opportunity to perform those
mighty, world-thrilling deeds that, alas, I have not even
yet performed !
After much wanderiag in search of wealth and fame,
following desperate trouble owing to schemes that failed in
Australia and the South Sea Islands, I at length caught
typhoid fever in San Francisco. With many misgivings I
recovered. At last I found myself sitting in a top attic in
North America. It was a humble little room, the atmosphere
and surroundings the very thing to feed the fire of my aspir
ing mind, to force one to do better. Its one window-pane
was broken ; the furniture consisted of an old table, a box
chair, a candlestick and my extemporised bed on the floor !
I was in Boston, " the Hub of the Universe " ! My sea-
chest and best suit were in pawn in San Francisco. My
money had almost all gone, and my latest grand passion had
faded. I had been practising the violin furiously day and
night, for I hoped to become the world's greatest violinist.
Yet at heart I still felt triumphant. The world seemed
especially mine ! One thing only existence lacked — a
kindred spirit to stand shoulder to shoulder by my side on
some quest for glorious violence, adventurous thrills, voyag
ing across the uncharted seas of imagination. O too brief,
splendid madness of youth !
. Far below, outside my window, over the city's stone-
B 17

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
slabbed streets, rattled vehicles, and the hurried, endless
battahons of Yankee citizens passed by, seeking fortune or
the grave. Gold seemed the incentive to all thrills ; human
passion, hope and ambition seemed congealed into a
mechanical state of steam, electric locomotion, and all that
the ahnighty silver dollars would clink against. I also
seemed to have frozen and become a part of the machine
which is called civihsation. The songs of sails aloft, the
noise of forest winds and soundings across deep waters, had
faded from my dreams mto a wail of selfishness. Imagma-
tion is the soul of the Universe, and grief is its Bible ; but,
alas, I felt a gross craving for food.
So my ambition to outrival Paganini on the violin had
subsided from its state of enthusiastic fire and had left in my
heart a dull callousness. One intense wish survived : to
get a sound pair of boots and a new suit ! Winter snows
were only just melting, and much privation had considerably
thinned me. I had done many thiags which I feel remain
best untold. Necessity had inspired me with many original
and desperate schemes, the latest of which was a determina
tion to compose songs. Music hall hits come, have their
day, are whistled and sung by the elite and by the street-
arab, and suddenly I thought, why should not I supply the
public with those rotten melodies ? I would do it on original
lines and give the American public something new. Did
they not hail as brand-new old melodies that Wellington's
soldiers simg at Waterloo and antiquated strains brought
over by the passengers of the Mayflower with one bar
reversed and the title altered.
I would jump from my bed at night and, throwing off my
" blanket," which consisted of half-a-dozen old overcoats
which my landlady had lent me, write down inspired strains
and next day put them to suitable words, words with
those sentunental and lascivious suggestions in them that
suit the public taste — for the artist in me had sorrowed and
become temporarily gross. I sought money more than the
applause of musical critics. Boston pubhshers became
familiar with my handwriting. I had about fifty rejected
manuscripts with specially printed forms, notices that offered
i8

I BECOME BUSINESS-LIKE
me " their appreciation of my favours, and the editor's
sincere compliments, and by the same post with many regrets
they were returning the MSS." At length I thought my
name was getting too well known : I was obliged to seek a
nam de plume. With characteristic family cautiousness I
hit on a name that was already famous in New York musical
circles. My youthful innocence had almost passed, and I
vaguely felt that to compete with the world I must deliber
ately stain myself with its contagion. Often my heart
bristled with schemes as multitudinous as quills on a
hedgehog's hide.
I had composed an attractive melody and had placed suit
able words to it, but, notwithstanding my famous nam de
plume, " Muller," I had had my manuscripts retumed, tom
in the post, the editor's marks indelibly damaging it,
and too often a dark stain across the first page that looked
suspiciously like editorial tobacco juice.
Things began to look serious. I became, if possible, even
thinner. My landlady's politeness became gross ; she
thumped the door for rent. I was starving and only had a
cake of common yellow soap. With the superhuman energy
and pluck of aspiring youth I tried again, imitated the latest
hit and sent the manuscript to " D  & Co.," of Boston, a
small publishing firm in a side street off 6th Avenue. I
signed it with my nam de plume ; the initials differed by
one letter from those of the original owner — I thought this
necessary to save legal trouble.
I waited three days. The post brought me no letter, so I
wrote to the publisher and said :
" Dear Sirs, — I am an Englishman on tour, and a member
of the Carl Rosa Opera Company's orchestra. I may have
to leave Boston at any moment, so, much against my wish, I
must worry you for speedy consideration of my manuscript
song. Dreams of Eldorado, which I can get publicly per
formed in London town when I arrive back."
Two days later, to my great delight, I received a letter
asking me to call on D  & Co. re my manuscript. The
19

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
very thought of my song reaching engraving and print
thrilled me ; that I should be published in America at
another man's expense seemed impossible ! A Vanderbilt-
like feeling pervaded my being. I pawned my violin, paid
my landlady a week's rent and gave the little blue-eyed
daughter twenty-five cents to buy sweets with. I could have
sung with joy. Next morning at ten-thirty I was to be at
the publisher's office. By night the reaction set in. I be
came suspicious. Suppose it was all a ruse ! For had I not
borrowed a famous name ? A thousand thoughts haunted
me ; my musical ability seemed nil. I had no talent. I
hummed *my melodies over ; they seemed ridiculously
tuneless. There was no doubt about it : the Boston
publishers had seen through my scheme, had held a solemn
council, and most probably would be waiting in that office to
pounce upon me and charge me with my duplicity, and then
God knows what they might do. On the floor all night the
old overcoats moved and moved as I restlessly turned in my
bed. I was numbed with awful suspicions and possible con
tingencies. I rose haggard and wretched, and against all
my usual instincts sought a saloon and drank twenty-five
¦ cents' worth of rum. With renewed courage I prepared to
risk all. At ten o'clock I walked past a brass-plated door
with D  & Co. on it. Three times I passed it and then,
walking crabwise, I went in. A little man with a skull-cap
on got up and welcomed me. I hurriedly glanced round ;
the ambushed publishers of my imagination faded as the girl
typewriter yawned and clicked away. My erstwhile gloom
blossomed to monstrous hopes. Negotiations commenced.
" What did I usually ask for my work ? " he demanded. I
blushed and hastily wiped my nose. " Will fifty dollars
do ? " I answered. I eventually got five dollars for the song
as a preliminary payment on royalties to come. Such
royalties ! One cent on each copy sold after the first ten
thousand advertisement copies had been given away and
the second one thousand had repaid the actual expenses of
the publication and engraving. Afterwards, too, I found
out that to engrave a song of four plates cost the publisher
five dollars. I trembled as I clutched the green five-dollar
20

A LACK OF TRUE BUSINESS CONFIDENCE
bill. " Will he alter his mind ? " was my chief thought.
" Does he think I am the great Muller ? " The publisher
broke in on my thoughts. " Place your name there," he
said, and I signed the imposing agreement, four times the
length of my manuscript song.
Readjusting his skull-cap and wiping his spectacles, he
began to examine my signature. The weather was cold, but
I started to perspire. Was he comparing my signature with
MuUer's ? It was an awful thought, and with a sickly
farewell I bolted !
Hurrying down the main street, I longed to get out of sight
with the dollars, but I heard a shout behind me ; my assumed
name was loudly called : I turned ; my heart sank. I
nearly fainted : the publisher was rmming after me. I
clutched my money, determined to resist. The new great
ness thrust upon me by the sale of my song still remained
with me. I could not humiliate my pride and run, though I
longed to do so. With his little skull-cap askew, he stood
puffing in front of me ! I gave one glance to warn him not
to get too near my person, and heard him saying: "Oh, excuse
me, Mr Muller, I suppose you will be in Boston long enough
to correct the proof ? "
In a dream I reached my room, packed up my brush and
comb, got my violin out of pawn and left Boston for Provi
dence, where my brother lived, who had left England years
before. To my great regret I found, when I arrived, that he
was away in California. No one seemed to know when he
would return. I could not force my way into hi& bachelor
rooms, and so I was once more on the rocks.
I became acquainted with a'young Swede who was musical
and played the clarionet. Together we fixed up a small
orchestra, went out to play at dances and so just managed
to exist. We hired a large room in a hall near the Hoyle
Buildings in Westminster Street ; made our own furniture
out of meat tubs and our beds of old overcoats. My viohn,
with coats doubled on it, made an excellent pillow. With
our heads side by side on it we slept as soundly as though
we were in the Australian bush. I spent hours each
day, and sometimes worked far into the night, practising
21

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
my violin and reading the lives of great musicians and
writers. My brother, a crack violinist and a well-known journahst
in the States, did not return for four or five months, and in
the meantime our orchestra failed. My friend and I lived
for a time on the free lunches of the grog saloons. North
American saloon owners do not allow their customers to
starve while they supply them with alcoholic poison, which is,
however, fifty per cent, better than Enghsh spirit. For
Americans are both humane and practical. They know that
dead men do not buy rum, so the bars at luncheon hours
steam, with hot Frankforts, plates of cold meat, cheese and
biscuits, provided without any charge to their customers.
The honesty of Providence is illustrated by one fact alone —
if you buy ten cents' worth of whisky they hand you a glass
and the bottle, that you may help yourself. In London,
Australia and the South Seas the grog-keeper would be
ruined in a week if he ran his business on those lines ! You
seldom see a woman in a grog saloon, and never drunk in the
streets. Eventually I secured several jobs at concert halls. The
pay was small, but, though other work was to be had, my
temperament strongly objected to anything that needed
muscular power. To tell the truth, I was ambitious.
I longed to raise myself out of the ordinary ruck of things.
However, when my Swedish friend got a job out at
Pawtucket, digging post-holes, the high wages tempted
me and I too started work there. Together we toiled
for three weeks. Then once more I started composing,
and had several pieces of dance music accepted in my
own name. I arranged them as pianoforte solos, and one
or two for the violin and piano.
When the weather got warm I sometimes went out to
Fort Hill, on the Seekonk river. The prairie-land of Rhode
Island survives in variegated patches of miles of beautiful
scenery, with rushing rivers, and landscapes dotted by
wooden homesteads that remind one of New Zealand and
the Australian bush-land.

22

CHAPTER II
United States Military Music — The Roger Williams Park— Indians —
Rhode Island Scenery and Amusements — Yankees — Experiences —
A Miner from California
IN Providence I made friends with a military band
conductor. He was a jolly customer, hard up but
good-natured and humorous, a real American band
master of the old convivial school, kind at heart and fond of
good whisky. His greatest virtue was a commonplace one :
he would always pay you back anything he borrowed, but
unfortimately he was hard up and could not do so. He had
every excuse for this, for, as elsewhere, bandsmen, indeed
musicians in general, were supposed to be able to live on
melody and royalties that might arrive in some remote
future. I worked for him, borrowed my comrade's clarionet
and secured a position in the military band. It played in
Roger Williams Park, performing on the usual holidays and
on sunshiny evenings.
American conductors believe in vigour and fire when they
perform, and sacrifice artistic pianissimo to force and go :
on the march the bands lift you off your feet through the lilt
of the music. The characteristic go-ahead of the Yankees
is finely illustrated by the music they perform, and the
military bands swing the population along as they march
down the streets : men, women and children instinctively
fall into line. A Pied-Piper-of-Hamelin fever seizes hold of
the citizens ; the whole population is suddenly on the march
as the band goes by. I played in the band on the Fourth
of July, a day celebrated by fireworks and gun-fu-ing.
Americans go mad on that date, wear masks and do other
hideous things ; it's a kind of Guy Fawkes celebration.
The Roger Williams Park is partly wild and partly culti
vated, and artistically laid out with gardens and miniature
landscapes that in summer-time are a paradise of flowers.
23

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Various kinds of tropical-looking trees aboimd, in scattered
clumps that are haunted at sunset with bright, roving eyes :
for springing from bough to bough jump swarms of big,
wild, grey squirrels ; their brush tails, a foot long, stick up
as they jump. The children are their boon companions,
and come miles with lumps of cake and bread to feed their
tmy, soft playmates ; for they are as tame as white mice,
spring dovra from bough to bough and sneak a peanut off
your hand, turn, brush your face with their tails and are gone !
In a second they are sitting on a skyward twig nibbling
away at your gift, safe against the blue sky. I formd a nest
of them at Pawtucket FaHs, a wild, beautiful spot near
Rhodes. As I was looking at the fluffy youngsters the
mother arrived and, to my astonishment, chased me away.
At Pawtucket Falls, too, I met a group of travelling
Indians, menagerie people I think, en route for somewhere.
Fenimore Cooper and other Indian tales still interested me,
so I talked to them and spoke to " Bull Face," a grave-
looking chief, tawny and wrinkled with years, and clothed
in a heavy brown blanket which swarmed with fleas. He
spoke English as well as I did; but the South Sea Island
breeds are far removed from the Indian tribes, both by blood
and habit. I never sought his tribe again. I also saw
Indians camping at Ochee Springs ; real Indians they were,
with squaws attending to their wants as they blinked their
eyes and gazed scornfully on the onlookers. Smoking their
calamets, dressed in tribal fashion, they inspired me with
curiosity. I cannot say that the women were as handsome
as I expected, for they had stohd, broad, reddish-brown faces
and expectorated frequently as they sucked clay pipes. A
pretty little papoose tugged at its mother's breast, and did
not look unlike a South Sea Island baby, excepting that its
forehead was high and receding, and it had an impertinent
European look. The women carry their suckling babes in a
basket on their back : when the babe finishes pulling at the
breast it crawls into the basket behind and goes to sleep
until the next meal. I saw the papooses of another tribe
too ; the children looked like little wrinkled old men, and
you might have thought that they were small authors
24

PROVIDENCE SIGHTS
sitting on their bundles of unaccepted manuscript, so
worried did they look.
Providence is a spacious city ; English towns are in the
shade compared to it, and seem overcrowded and gloomy.
The streets are wide; terraced store buildings on each
side tower lo the skies. Piazzas shade the pavements
and the citizens from scorching sunlight and rain. America
has built her cities on the improved plans of the Old World,
and so has an advantage over London and our provincial
towns. Room to breathe in is the natural birthright of
America. Extensive parks, rushing rivers, and relics of
primeval scenery surround the city, and divide the suburbs
for miles and miles.
No sign of poverty is betrayed by the well-dressed crowds
that chatter cheerfully up and down the main streets; street-
arabs are unknown. A Mile End woman of London town
in rags, with bruised nose and eyes, walking down the street
would create a sensation in Providence, and their weekly
papers would devote an article to the distressing incident.
Brilliantly lit saloons shine in the evening streets, and
regiments of laughing youths and girls hurry to the various
depots, bound for the ferry-boats on moonlight trips down
the rivers. The bars are closed on Sunday, but men trust
men, and more sly rum is drunk on Sunday than weekdays.
Niggers with ebony faces mingle with the white population,
wearing white collars which support their ears : a shabby
nigger has never been seen in Providence. If you shoot a
nigger and do not kill him you are in danger of getting six
months in the State prison for wasting shot and powder !
Many of the characters you meet in American cities remind
you of Englishmen, but you can never really forget that you
are in America. No true Yankee with self-respect allows
you to quash his opinion. Nothing on earth can beat Pro
vidence, Boston, or any state you happen to be in. They
will argue for ever ; and if you at length say anything that
has indisputable conviction in it, a true Yankee will squirt
a stream of tobacco juice with the deliberate intention of not
missing you.
Things of this kind worry you for a while, but you soon
25

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
fall into their ways, and if you are smart can outrival them
on their own ground ; but you have got to be smart. To tell
the truth, Americans have good reason to be proud of their
states, and really have plenty to blow about.
Literary critics have hinted that Bret Harte discovered
his characters in his own imagination. I can on oath dispute
that fact. Grhn Mr Billy Goat Whiskers, who fought in the
North and South wars, draws his munificent pension, chews
tobacco and dwells in Providence to-day. You do not meet
him everywhere, but he is to be met.
In the grog saloons old miners from California told me
their experiences, drew from their pockets photographs of
gold nuggets and of gold claims that revealed small white
dots in the far backgroimd — the tombstones of men who had
thwarted them ! They were innocent-looking enough, these
men scarred with wounds, tropic heat and bad rum. They
followed the various occupations that suited aged heroes.
One old miner from Alaska suddenly arrived in Providence
quite penniless. His name was Cargo. Walking down
Z — — Street, he spied the name of Cargo over a sign-writer's
shop, walked straight in, spat on the floor, called the " boss,"
and tried to make him believe he was the ancestor of the
family of Cargo, and the rightful owner of the business. He
was immovable. They expostulated with him ; he would
not go, so they gave him a job and thus saved legal proceed
ings in the High Courts of the state, and the expense of
regiments of lawyers who would dispute the true owner's
claim to his business.
Providence is full of reminiscent men who tell of adventures
that are wide and wonderful.
If you are disinclined to go to the theatre you can always
go into a bar and in peace and comfort sit within earshot of
some grog-nosed hero of the old school, and find subject
matter to outrival the romance of fiction. You must take
good care not to let the old fellow know you are hstening,
otherwise he leaves facts alone and, with ill-concealed pride,
makes your blood congeal with vivid descriptions of old
days, murder and despair, or your mouth water for a breath
of the fortunes that knocked around ere you were born.
26

CHAPTER III
I travel and sell Bug Powder — Seeking my Wages — Pork and Beans —
Reminiscences of Sarasate — I strive to outrival Paganini — Practis
ing the Violin — I am presented with a Round Robin — My Blasted
Ambitions
AS the hot months came round my money gave out.
Work was plentiful in the numerous factories
that throb and thimder with machinery in Pro
vidence, but such work was not congenial to my tempera
ment, and would ruin my fingers for viohn-playing, as the
post-digging job did. Nevertheless I should have availed
myself of the opportunity had no alternative appealed to me.
But my friend the conductor was a crank who was always
producing some new scheme or invention that would assist
him financially and augment his moderate musician's salary.
One night he came to my diggings beaming with enthusiasm
over a plan to make us both rich. He had invented a new
bug powder : our fortunes were made ; all we had to do was
to let the Providence public know the catastrophe that we
had ready for these insects. Suburban houses in the States
are generally made of wood that is specially suitable for the
bug state. So the population of Rhode Island all have one
secret ; and on dark nights in hot weather candle gleams
and shadowy figures can be seen dodging on the windows of
the tenements, as restless folk in their nightshirts smash
bugs on the wooden walls. I write from experience. They
creep down the walls in regiments, and while you sleep eat
your eyelids ; if you wink they seek crevices, dart into your
ears, and prepare for the next attack ! Closing your toes
together swiftly at night in bed, you can be sure that you
have squashed three or four American bugs. I have carelessly
glanced at skeletons which I thought were ancient dead bugs
on the walls in the room of my new lodgings, and then at
midnight I have lit the candle, and down the walls were
27

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
marching battalions of old bug-skins ! They had smelt
me, and the regiments on the frontier of my bedstead were
already full blown with my blood.
So it is obvious that a good insect powder would be a
blessing in Providence.
Well, my Swedish friend and I threw our musical instru
ments aside, and started on the bug powder business, full
of hope. I had several musical compositions that I was
ambitious to publish on my own account. I felt that
Providence bugs had presented the tide in my affairs which
I should take at the flood.
With our pockets stuffed with a thousand bills, advertise
ments bearing testimonials from American presidents and
English royalties who had stayed in America, my comrade
and I tramped along with our hearts singing the excelsior
song of happiness. We really lived in a paradise of ignor
ance and youth. " A rose by any other name would smell
as sweet " is a true phrase, and happy, though selling bug
powder, was equally true of us.
We marched, singing, on the dusty, white track to
Narragansett. In the suburban gardens that led to the front
doors grew gorgeous flowers. I can still dream that I
smell their fragrance, and see the dancing blossoms in the
brihiant sunshine. Strange things darted over us, hovered
near the blooms and moaned like big humble bees. They
were humming-birds, glittering and flashing their vivid
colours, outrivalling the flowers with their brilliant feathery
garment. The sky was blue as a girl's eyes, and nearly as
beautiful. We delivered the thousand bills and spent the
rest of the day by a river. Wild fowl swam across it, and
fresh from the eggs, with frightened eyes gleaming, the little
ones paddled behind them. For miles the country was
strewn with trees and houses, many of them made of wood,
and at these especially we left three or four bills and at length
disposed of the lot.
When we called on my friend the conductor for a flrst
instalment of twenty dollars for our services we found him
out, but after several visits we caught him. He was pleased
to hear that we had worked a full week and left five thousand
28

SEEKING THE REWARD FOR HONEST TOIL
advertisements, but he put off the payment of our wages
and borrowed my last five dollars ! We haunted him for
days ; he was seldom home. My comrade and I sweated for
miles and miles, seeking him at his various musical engage
ments ; but the man seemed gifted with second sight, for
as we knocked at the front entrance he hurried off from the
back and vanished. The bug business failed and he moved.
Still we demanded our wages by post ; for he had left no
address, and we hoped that the postal authorities would
forward our pleading request. At last we found him. The
sound of martial music came down D  Street : a military
band was leading a funeral procession, of some old soldier I
suppose. There at the head of the band he blew solo comet.
We dared not approach him, but in our excitement we waved
our hands. He winked in a friendly way as he passed on, and
the strains of Chopin's Funeral March faded with our hopes.
Eventually we caught him in a cul-de-sac, got ten dollars
out of him and lived on pork and beans for a fortnight.
Providence would be indeed stricken without pork and beans.
As a rule they are not cooked, or rather baked, at home, but
bought in jars, hot from the baker's oven, ten and twenty-
five cents a jar. Crime is scarce in Providence, capital
punishment abolished. If a citizen sat down to his meal
and discovered no pork and beans, and slew the waiter,
he would get off on extenuating circumstances. Well, to
revert to the bug powder business, like all my commercial
enterprises, it ceased on my receiving the ten dollars, and my
employer the bandmaster told me, when I met him a month
after, that I had made five dollars more out of the enterprise
than he did.
This brings me to another friend, a Sioux Indian, who
was married and lived in the next rooms to my own. His
wife, a white woman, took in washing and kept him. I used
to sit in the evening and listen to his opinion of the States.
His whole soul hated the Yankees. I once praised the
Americans and their cities. He was do^vn on me in a flash.
" I am the true American," he growled, " and the day will
come when we shall get our country back." I did not argue
the point with him ; his old wife kept him, and he showed
29

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
base ingratitude by his opinions. He was educated and
well dressed, and revealed to me, by all his conversation, the
same kmd of spite for the foreigner that I had noticed in
the South Seas. Notwithstanding that the States had been
peopled by whites so long, still the Yankee was an interloper
and the robber of his country. He was not a bad old Indian,
and was a friend to me during my stay at his tenement.
Just before I took his rooms I went to Boston to hear H  ,
a celebrated violinist who was performing there ; I Avas
anxious to hear if he was as wonderful as the review notices
made him. I do not think I have ever heard such fine
playing equalled even. He played Mendelssohn's concerto,
and swayed the legato strain out till it sang hke a rivulet
of silver song as the deeper notes mellowed to a golden
strain as perfect in quality as the sunset lyre-bird of Australia.
I have heard Sarasate, Ysaye, Joachim and many others,
but no one with a better tone and intonation, except Sarasate,
who played like some inspired magician off the concert
stage. I heard him play at his villa in Biarritz, where I
had the pleasure of receiving a gratuitous lesson from the
celebrated maestro. " No, like this," he said, as I played
one of his own compositions : then he lifted his viohn to his
chin, and looked out of the villa's latticed window as he
played and rippled out a sparkling chain of diamond-pure
notes and then literaUy swooned into the adagio.
I never had the courage to play that particular piece after.
After hearing that violin virtuoso at Boston I became
enthusiastic and retumed to Providence. The fever was
on me. Again I determined to be the world's greatest
violinist ! I almost wept at my wasted life on sea and
shore. What might I not have been now, thought I, had I
been practising the violin all those thousands of days instead
of making sailors and South Sea Island savages my comrades ?
I went to the music stores and purchased the American
editions of Petrie's Studies, and Paganmi's Twenty-four
Etudes-Caprices. In my room, over the old Indian's, I commenced. At
daybreak I jmnped each moming off my trestle bed and
started practising. At first I tackled the Caprice which is
30

THE ENTHUSIASM OF ART
double-stopping throughout. In a week I had got it off.
I had long fingers, otherwise I should think it an impossibility.
All day I bowed away. My furniture consisted of a music-
stand, the Etudes, my bed and me ! When I look back and
think of my wonderful perseverance, it seems almost in
credible. True and wonderful is the energy and happiness
that aspiration brings to youth ! Day after day I worked
away at the studies with almost demon-like fury. Soon
my chin had a great scab on it where the violin rested as
I ground out the double-stopping sweeps, arpeggios and
staccatos. I became thin and haggard-looking. I greedily
devoured the lives of great violinists, among them Paganini
and Ole Bull ; also, after long intervals, pork and beans,
as the old Indian below-stairs cooked them. He soon looked
upon me as a sad kind of madman. I would gulp down the
beans, look at his old grandfather clock and rush upstairs,
then once more grind away, determined to make up for lost
years. I saw the mighty crowds at concerts to be, applaud
ing my wonderful playing ! I was a new Paganini. Ah !
how I remember it all. Through excessive playing the corns
on my finger-tips became so hard that I could not feel the
strings ! My nervous system was soon wrecked, and my brain
became ethereal with dreams — music was the all in all of life.
People who did not play the violin were insanely ignorant.
Inspired, I extemporised melodies as I bowed and toiled
away during the night hours: the day was not sufficient.
The doors of the next tenement would suddenly bang, and
strange tappings soimd on the walls. I opened the window
at midnight. I thought my double-stopping assuredly
entranced the neighbours. It was hot weather, their windows
were open too. In my imagination I thought I was playing
to crowded houses. I heard the applause. Do you think
I exaggerate ? Believe me, I could never write down the
depth, the magnificence, of those enthusiastic dreams.
Only those who have felt as I felt, and were once inspired
with ambition as I was inspired, will know exactly all that
I felt, and all that I dreamed.
One day ten solemn-looking American citizens appeared
outside the door of the Indian's tenement ; they wanted
31

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
to see me. My name was called. I laid the violin down.
I had no friends. Had my brother arrived ? Strange
thoughts flitted through my brain. Had people come as a
special convoy to praise my extraordinarily fine playing ?
I opened the door and, white-faced and tremulous, I stared
at a grey-bearded, solemn-looking old man who acted
as spokesman. He presented me with a round robin.
Fierce faces were looking over his shoulders ! Two or three
hundred signatures were there, the landlord's signature looked
the boldest ! I was either to stop playing the violin or give
up the premises and move at once. This was a terrible
blow to me. I should lose a day's practice if I had to tramp
about looking for another room. I hated the world. Men
were hard and mercenary. Only violinists and musicians
had souls. I looked at my violin ; it was my dear, abused
comrade, and I clung to its reputation more than ever. No
mother on earth ever leaned over her child with thoughts
that outdid the tenderness of mine as I leaned over my tiny,
responsive comrade, silent in its coffin-shaped bed. The
dead child of my musical aspirations it seemed to me, for
they were gone, and my mighty ambition lay a dead failure.
Oh, you aspirants, you musicians and poets of this world,
all you who love art for art's sake, for you, and you alone,
I write this. You will understand; you are my brothers.
I can wish you more success, but no greater happiness than
the delirium, the ecstatic joy that was mme when I sought to
become the world's greatest violinist.
I became melancholy : my incessant practice and irregular
meals had, for the time being, destroyed my nerves. I
thought of my schooldays and my life at sea, and longed for
my boyhood's days in the Australian bush. I remembered
the kingly stockman and his wife, and the surrounding bush
lonehness ; the leafy gum clumps and the parrots roosting
in them ; and the hours when I sat on the dead log by the
scented wattles in the hollows and watched the fleets of
cockatoos like tmy canoes fade away in the sunset. I heard
in dreams the laughter of the romping bush children as I
raced them down the scrub-covered slopes, and I longed for
those ambitionless days to come again.
32

MEMORIES
I can still see the forest trees
All waving in the dusk.
As scents drift on the wandering breeze,
From wattle-blooms and musk ;
And o'er the mountains far away
Where home the parrots flock,
Roams through the sunset's crimson ray
The drover with his stock.

The old bush homestead by the sea
Still stands, the front door swings
As on the tall, gaunt, dead gum-tree
The magpie sits and sings.
There, by the door, the stockman sits
And smokes ; as on her rug
His pale wife sits just by and knits —
His beard three children tug !
And as I stand and, dreaming, gaze,
The years have taken wing,
And from my heart out of old days
Comes this sad song I sing.
That garden where those children ran,
Raced me, laughed, screamed with joy,
Is overgrown — and I, a man,
Have overgrown the boy.
I know the redwood's forest height
Of branches thrilled with words,
All laden with God's golden light —
Songs of soft, bright-winged birds —
Has blazed to ash in homestead fires
Of cities o'er the plains ;
Of all those woods and sweet desires
This poem now remains.
Sweet Ellen, curled hair and brown eyes,
I loved her pretty ways ;
And as I dream sad heart-mists rise
From those wild boyhood days.
My love was half a passion then,
That pure love God earth gave —
It comes in after years to men
For someone in a grave.
33

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Their shanty where I sweetly slept
And heard the night-birds' screams —
As thro- the scrub the dingo crept —
Has rotted into dreams.
Now thro' the hills the echoes fly
Of hearts o'er shining rails —
The night express fast thundering by
That brings the English mails !
Yet often I go back again
To where the homestead stands ;
I gaze in eyes thro'- mists of pain
And clasp old shadow hands ;
Kiss EUen, Bertha and Lurline :
Those pretty children three
May some day read these Unes of mine
And all remember me.

34

CHAPTER IV
My Brother's Return — Scenery — Old Providence — Robert Louis
Stevenson — New York — At Sea — The Change
IN August that year I at last received a letter from
my brother, teUing me he had left California and
would arrive in Providence in a few days. I was
delighted, for I was then completely on the rocks, having
spent all my earnings on buying a violin bow and a stock
of music ! My comrade the Swede promised to come with
me to meet my relative at the station.
The next day we stood on the platform together at eleven
o'clock. The telegram said 12.30 p.m., but we were young
and eager. We rubbed our hands with joyful anticipation
as we stood there anxiously watching. Our funds were low
and my brother had performed a miracle — ^he was a poet and
journalist, and had made money out of his profession. When
the train steamed in and the saloon car door opened I
recognised at a glance the characteristic contour of the family
face, though I had not seen my brother since we were
children. I rushed forward overjoyed, and the welcome of
brotherhood smiled in his expression. Six feet in height,
and correspondingly athletic in appearance, he was well
able to carry his own portmanteau, but privations and
thoughts of affluence from his exchequer inspired me.
Impulsively I seized it !
Years of residence in the States seemed to have changed
his original nationality and the accent of his speech. He
stood smiling before me, a Yankee of the aristocratic type.
His keen grey eyes stared at my shabby clothes : the situation
was evident to him at a glance. In a store by the civic
centre, with an entrance that looked like the south nave
of the Crystal Palace, my comrade and I were measured
for new suits. Words could not express my gratitude.
With this Hghtening of my financial cares I felt the dim
35

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
dehrium, the exuberance, the faint revival of my old romantic
glamour return ; the world seemed beautiful after all.
My Swedish friend was delighted too, and smiled from
ear to ear. I can still see his tall, lanky figure, and his
merry round blue eyes as he puffs and tootles away on his
beloved clarionet. Ah, how happy we were, marching on,
carelessly imfulfiUing the great promise of youth whUe we
were yet youthful ! Yet what is the good of promise fulfiUed
when youth is gone, when the glamour has faded, and you
look through the grim spectacles of reality at the rouged
cheeks of blushing truth and beauty ? Oh, to remould this
scheme of life, and be born old ! To travel with Time and
grim experiences down the years towards cheerful, glorious
youth, back, back to the innocence and beauty of child
hood's dreams ! To die full of hope and fond beliefs — and
let the true believers travel the other way !
I know not where we went or why we went. I only know
that my brother embraced the occasion and caught the
vagabond fever ; and that our valet, an old Turk (who kept
swearing that he wasn't an Armenian), sang jovial songs
chat were musically reminiscent of his harem days as he
stumbled and struggled behind us, carrying our bundles of
fruit, new suits, bouquets of flowers, and my long-wanted
expensive copyright Etudes, Petrie's Violin Studies, and all
that sudden and unexpected affluence inspired us to buy.
I recall, too, how we were walking up the brilhantly
lighted main street when a negro, who was anxiously watch
ing for the editor of a Providence journal (that had criticised
his lodging-house and the lady lodgers who kept such late
hours), suddenly whipped out a revolver and fired. The
editor had appeared at his door and received a buUet in his
face, but he too had a revolver — probably he had been
expecting the negro's compliments — and he fired back and
blew all the negro's front teeth out. The next buUet from
the negro's revolver went through the Violin Studies which
I held by my side, and but for the fortunate ricochetting of
the bullet I should not now be able to write my remini
scences ! I think the negro recovered from his wound and
the editor was severely reprunanded for not hitting a vital
36

CIVILIZATION IN TIMBUCTOO !
spot. For the sins of negroes are dwelt upon like the sins
of the poor relation, and I must admit that negroes are
sometimes almost as bad as white men. There were no
moving pictures in those days to perpetuate the episode, but
still it is flashed vividly before my mind's eye. I see the
three races of good fellowship, my tall brother and myself,
between us my lanky Swede comrade, and, just behind us,
straight-nosed Turkey strugghng along on bandy legs.
Equipped with argosies of youthful dreams, pitching the
moon and stars and sun from hand to hand, with rollicking
song on our hps we fade away down the uncharted seas of
Westminster Street, Providence ! — to awaken on dim shores of
cold daybreak as once more I kneel and take the sacrament
before the grim, mock-eyed old priest — Reality ! When I
was twenty years and one month old — how long ago it seems !
We visited most of the fashionable places of interest,
went almost everywhere, through the Open Sesame of my
brother's liberality. And that is saying a good deal, for
theatres and palatial halls of amusement abound. There's
"The Gaiety," "The Colonial," "Hippodrome," "Sans
Souci," " Bijou," and heaven knows how many more,
wherein the cheerful multitudes of R.I. folk scream with
laughter and weep over unreal dramas.
I no longer played the monotonous second fiddle in the
orchestra of the music hall ; we sat, a happy trio, the smihng
occupants of orchestral stalls, where I saw the Indian
squaw fade to a shadow and die rather than sell her honour ;
and the American missionary weep over the grave of the
half-caste Zulu in Timbuctoo who had died sooner than
he would drink rum ! Here was no painting of true life,
no dramatic, realistic scene showing the besotted derelict
who died far away in the isolation of some alien land — ^the
man from nowhere, who took the wrong turning twenty
years before, being hurried into his roughly made coffin :
then his two lonely comrades watching the sunrise gleam
in his dead eyes, and the half -boyish smile on the silent lips,
as they place the coffin lid on, and creep along at daybreak,
carrying him under the mahogany-trees to the hole by the
swamp. They say a prayer and murmur : " Pity, Bill, that
37

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
we left the bottle of whisky by his bed. Didn't he rave about
someone in the old country ? Wonder what 'twas all about.
The weather's hot. Buried him rather quick, eh ? Here's
the cross : ' BiU.' No name. ' Died of Fever, Remembered
by Us.'"
Moonlight ferry trips, picnics, concerts and songs are as
characteristic of Providence as of the South Sea islanders of
Samoa and Tonga. One difference divides the Providence
population from the islanders — ^the natives of Providence
wear clothes ; but the Yankee mechanics outdo the Savaii
and Fiji islanders in tobacco-chewing, and can spit over their
shoulders with even swifter certitude than my sailor com
rades of San Francisco, whom I told you about in my first
book of South Sea reminiscences. Boating is an essential
feature in their amusements. Rhodes-on-the-Pawtucket is
crammed with boats. On sunshiny days thousands of
youths and girls paddle and sing away, and never reflect
on the time when Red Indian canoes darted in the moon
light over those same waters.
My comrade was still with me, and we got several engage
ments to play at dances and concerts. My brother was
in the ring, so to speak, and so we were received with an
enthusiasm that we had greatly missed when we really wanted
it. My friend eventually, however, went oft to Alaska to
some relations. He promised to write to me, but I never
heard of him again.
My brother owned, and still owns, I hope, estates called
Cranston Heights, an elevated, breezy place. On the hottest
day a sleepy wind creeps about them. From that spot you
can gaze down into the valleys and see a wall of cliffs about
an eighth of a mile long, rising a hundred feet high.
There on a large boulder, known as Middleton's Rock, my
brother and I would sit reflectively smoking long Yankee
corn-cob pipes, as we reclined, shaded by imabrellas of
green-leafed trees from the hot sunlight. We sat there
talking and dreaming of years ago when the Indians camped
on Cranston Heights. I think my brother could outrival
Fenimore Cooper and Cody in his knowledge of Indian
history and the legends of the original tribes that owned
38

LAND OF KING PHILIP
America. Stone arrow-heads and Indian pottery to this
day are often found there, and my brother showed me
several rehcs which were dug out of his estate.
Rhode Island was of course originally an Indian settle
ment. Forests grew by the rushing rivers, and on the
prairie landscapes stood native villages. The dominion
was under a King Philip, and the island is sometimes called,
for poetical purposes, " Land of King Philip." The forests
have succumbed to the woodman's axe, though still patches
of woods and prairie-land are left, and it was in that clump
that I sat and played my violin and dreamed sometimes.
Still the beautiful rivers run across the landscapes like veins
of silver and gold fluid, glittering under the leafy clumps
of beech, maple, hickory and many varieties of trees that
resemble tropical types. The waters of those old rivers,
like the coming and passing of singing humanity, have long
since shpped into the distant seas, but still other waters
flow on and are known by the ancient Indian names. The
Seekonk river winds through Providence and throws its
liquid mass into Narragansett Bay. From Cranston Heights
you can see the exquisite scenery that is characteristic of
the neighbourhood of Providence ; across the valleys the
hills fade before the eyes into dreamy distances as sunset
floods the horizon. If you are poetical you can see the
ghostly camp fires and dead Indian riders galloping and fading
into the arched sunset of blood flre. The view reminded me
of a South Sea modem shore village, for here and there were
dotted bungalows, fenced by trees and green shrub and
flowers. Things have altered a good deal since those days,
for I have recently visited Providence.
Mr J  , whose palatial bungalow was among them,
is one of Rhode Island's greatest business men, and his
commercial success is deserved, through his unassuming
philanthropy. He has given a great deal of land, parks
and drives to Providence. I think it was in Meshanticut
Park, one of his gifts to the city, that I met with an adven
ture. The weather was hot, and I spied a small lake by
some trees. Immediately I undressed and, though my
brother expostulated, I dived into the water: the park
39

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
officials came and arrested me, but my brother explained
and I got off with a caution. Years of wUd life in the South
Seas had taught me to bathe where and when I liked, and
I had yet to learn that park lakes in Providence were not as
lagoons on the isles of the wild South Seas, wherehi the whole
population bathe without even the modest fig leaf, gossip,
mention the weather and go their ways.
Oaklawn is another pretty spot. I stayed there with
some of my brother's friends, at Wilbur Avenue, I think.
There is a little wooden bridge thereabouts, not far from
an old stone miU. Near this spot in the old days a great
Indian battle was fought, and there by that little bridge
my brother would sit for hours, writing his articles for the
provincial and New York papers.
It was at Oaklawn Bridge that I sat and told my brother
of my various boyish experiences in the South Seas, of the
island chiefs, and of my reminiscences of Robert Louis
Stevenson, whom I had met at Apia and on ships at sea.
My brother was deeply interested in all I told him. He
was a great admirer of Stevenson's work and his perfect
literary style. We talked of Stevenson's easy and careless
manner that seemed such a contrast to his perfection and
polish in writing. How he did not care a tinker's curse for
the opinion of the conventional world, and loved to shock
visitors to Samoa by appearing before them suddenly in old
clothes, bare-headed and bootless. I saw him come aboard
a ship dressed in that way ; and I recalled how, on another
occasion, I met him coming down the track inland from
Saluafata, the native village. "Hello, youngster," he said;
and, as I was going his way, off we tramped along the track
together as he hummed beside me. Then, with the sunset,
out came the native children rushing from the forest. Like
tiny ghosts they glided, begging, in the shadows at our legs
as we strode alone ; and as Robert Louis Stevenson threw
brass buttons to them, they raced after them, and then,
half frightened that he might want to reclaim the
prizes, they suddenly disappeared, racing back into the
forest. The sunset died behind our backs and the stars
crept over the Vaea Mountain top and the dark-branched
40

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S GRAVE
coco-palms each side of the track ; the shadows thickened
as the stars brightened. So well do I remember that night
that even now I seem to see my companion striding onward
beside me, his loose neck-cloth fluttering in the wind that
drifts in from the sea, stirring the coco-pahns and pungent-
smelling forest flowers as it passes. Still I see his ghost-like
shadow, the clear eyes, the thin, assthetic face ; still he is
humming a folk-song, while his right hand beats the moonlit
bush with a stick — and yet he has lain there many years
on the top of the Vaea Mountain — ^liis rugged island tomb
raUed by the dim sky-lines of surrounding tropical seas, his
vaulted roof the everlasting sky, studded with the brightest
stars, as he lies with his stricken aspirations like some dead
Christ of the lost children of the wild, solitary South.
A critic in The Times, reviewing my first book. Sailor
and Beachcomber, after writing a column of critical apprecia
tion, finished up by saying : " Mr Safroni-Middleton prides
himself on having known Robert Louis Stevenson in the
South Seas." My book has three hundred and four pages :
on three of them I spoke of Stevenson ; but I fail to see why
I should pride myself on knowing him, except in this sense,
that I am proud to have met him and to count him among
the many men who followed after my own heart.
If he had not died before I returned, a little older, to
Samoa, he would have welcomed me as I should have
welcomed him ; for he had several times expressed a wish
that I should call on him and take my violin, but in the
foolishness of a boy's thoughtlessness I did not go. Worldly
greatness did not appeal to him, nor did my letters of intro
duction, for I had none, and he was, I am quite sure, aware
of the fact.
Well, to return to my experiences in North America. After
a time I left Providence, and then went down the Hudson
river bound for New York. There I stayed in a temperance
hotel close to the Bowery, and I cannot forget the scene.
Along winding avenues that divide the towering wooden
buildings rushed battahons of hurrying legs. The noise of
car bells and gongs and the babel of shouting voices assailed
my ears. All the races imder the sun seemed to have
41

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
emigrated to that spot to fight in scheming regiments for
the almighty dollar. White men. Chinamen, black men,
tawny men, yellow men, Armenians, Turks, Germans with
thick necks— aU were there. Over my head rushed express
trains. No space seemed wasted. Indeed the Yankees in
their commercial search for gold peg out claims in the sky,
claim square miles of stars, as up go their buildmgs to the
heavens. By the second-storey windows on elevated railway
tracks crash along the trams. In those days they ran by
steam, and the coal-dust showered down your neck and in
your eyes as you moved along with the thick crowd below ;
a crowd so dense that you could shut your eyes, make no
effort, and still be propelled along in the mighty rush, as you
dreamed of other days of peace and solitude 1 I went across
Brooklyn Bridge by night : swung on mighty steel cables,
it dangles in space and has several divisions for vehicles and
pedestrians. Below rushed the ferry-boats on the Hudson
river, their port-holes ablaze with light, and the sound of
music on deck fading as they passed underneath. Across
the bridge hurried electric cars, racing along by the mechanical
genius of man's brain, the hght of the Universe — ^the stars
switched on to wheels !
I only stayed one week in New York, for I met an old
shipmate whom I had sailed with from Sydney. He was on
a tramp steamer. One of the deck hands had gone into
hospital, so I yielded to my friend's persuasion, went on
board, secured the job and signed on. For the rest, it is all
like a dream now : I can hear the rattle of the rusty chain
as they haul the anchor up, and the imcouth, shrill calls of
the pulling crew rising above the clamour of the steam
winches, just before the tramp steamer moves away from the
wharf to put to sea. New York and its babble of voices
with their nasal twang, its vast drama of scheming existence
in a feverish hurry, fades away and becomes a memory of
some monstrous " magic shadow show " lit by the sun far
off somewhere across the lone sea miles astern.
The sea routine has commenced : deep down in the stoke
hold firemen with cadaverous faces turned to the furnace
blaze are toiling away. They look hke shadows in the
42

AT SEA
flame-lit gloom, like dead men working out their penance in
hell. Attired in pants and a sweater only, with their hairy
chests steaming with running perspiration, they work
furiously. Their conversation is made up chiefly of oaths
and forcible criticism on the lack of generosity they found
in Bill or Jim, who only stood them ten drinks ashore, after
all they had treated them to on that first spree night of the
last trip. They are not bad men, and as they spit out the
coal-dust in a thick mass from their stained lips, and take
a gulp of condensed water to quench their thirst, I feel
deeply sorry for them, and realise that they are the unsung
heroes of the sea. I look at the row of unshaved faces thrust
forward to the roaring fires, and at their shrivelled hands
and big arms moving the long steel stoking bars, and wonder
at the marvellous strength and virtue of the hard-working
ship's firemen.
On deck, Uke iced wme to my lips, I drink in the fresh
sea breeze. It is dark. I cannot turn in, for I should not
sleep, so I go into the fo'c'sle and watch the sailors playing
cards, then return on deck and look over the ship's side.
Under the pendulous, curved moon — for it seems to sway to
the roll of the rigging — the mate's form moves to and fro as
he tramps the bridge. The sailing ship that we sighted on
the weather-side at sunset is now only a tiny travelling star
low down on the ocean darkness far astern, where her mast
head-Ught shines.
The weariness of the sea's monotony is on me ; we have
been to sea long enough to be half-way across the Atlantic.
The weather is much colder. The moon is large and low,
and looks like a ghostly arch to the south, for it seems half
submerged far away on the edge of the ocean, that seems
shivering for miles with silver mystery. Just over the side
I watch the mirrored masts and rigging glide along with us
as though a ghostly ship is following ; and the hours fly
and dawn breaks greyly, and once more the tramp steamer
is surrounded by blue sky-lines, till sunset sinks to a wild
blaze in the westem arch of the sky. The sailors go on
watch. The cook washes his pots and pans ere he cuts his
corns and turns into his bunk. 43

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
The wind's voice murmurs mournfuUy in the rigging and
round the bridge awnings ; as the night grows older it swells
to a tremendous voice that is really me ! for it is the re-echo
of my own hearing and dreaming consciousness. I fancy I
hear the hounds of death racing across the wild sea moors
as shadows dropping from the flying clouds go running over
the moonlit sea, and now, as though a door in the sky is
opened, the stars and moon are driven and shut away in the
outer Universe. For a mighty sheet of storm-cloud slides
across the heavens. The world is changed to an infinity of
dark and wind, and the one dim figure of the look-out man
on the fo'c'sle head. The thundering seas slowly rise with
their white crests glowing in the ebon darkness as the brave
old tramp steamer, like a frightened thing, stays her way a
moment, and shivers as seas strike the weather bow. Then
again she pitches onward, as wonderful little men, with bony,
haggard faces with weary eyes in them, stare into the furnace
fires of the steamer's bowels, and shovel and stoke to sustain
an honest existence, and drink tank water. No wonder they
drink beer when they get the chance. I am quite sure I
should. A week later we sighted the cliffs of England, and soon after
the sea tramp touched the wharf at Liverpool with a jerk
and a shiver, and went to sleep among a forest of masts and
funnels till her next trip.

44

CHAPTER V
Home — On an Orient Liner — The Orchestra — A Sailing Ship —
Paganini — Port Said — Honolulu
AGAIN I am home and meet familiar faces, and enjoy
the sweet security of home life and respectability ;
but soon the flight of time brings its inevitable changes
both to my feelings and to those around me. I am no longer
the prodigal son and a romantic novelty to the many who
welcomed me at my arrival in the monotonous suburb ; but
nevertheless we are all moody companions in the sad drama
of respectability. I had made up my mind to go travelling
no more, but my good resolutions have faded away, and my
whole soul is centred on inventing the best excuse for my
not being able to accept the good position in London that
will make me, at last, the respected son of a respected father.
Well, I feel a bit ashamed of my incorrigible personality,
and yet how much my soul is burdened with the thought
that I must aspire to higher things, and go off to the city
each day like Mr W.'s son does, to sit on a stool. I can
never be the pride and joy of the family, and as I sit
alone and dream I am miserable with dim forebodings.
On the back of the chair is my very high white collar and
the smart tweed suit, and by my washstand my beloved
fiddle. Just over it, on a peg by my bed, is my big-
rimmed Australian hat. Alas ! that hat speaks of tropical
sunshine and coco-palms. I can hear the arguing voices
of bushmen in the grog shanty by "Bummer's Creek," and
the trade wind in the shore banyans as the beachcomber
laughs and nudges his pal in the ribs.
I cannot sleep, for the parrots are flying and muttering
across the sky of my dreams ; I hear the crack of the stock
whips on the slopes as the scampering, flying sheep go racing
across my bedroom floor. I close my eyes, and the natives
start singing in the Fijian village, and the drums are beating
45

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
the simset out ere I am wide awake, through the civihsed
jingle of the milkman's cans in the cold, wmdy street below.
The last dark wintry morning arrives. It has all been
settled. I have signed on for a voyage as violinist and
assistant purser on the Orient liner the Britannia. I am
to catch the 4 a.m. train to London Bridge. How dark and
cold it is as I get up and dress, then go up the next flight to
kiss my three sisters a last good-bye. They hft their sleepy
heads and put their arms aroimd my neck. " Good-bye,
Tiggy," they say once again, as I gently close their bedroom
door and go downstairs. My father helps me on with my
overcoat, and says very kind words. I try to answer, but
my voice sounds husky and I keep placing the wrong arm
in my overcoat sleeves. Now comes the greatest task of all,
a task that will tax all my courage. I strive to hide my
weakness and make a joke about the bad penny turning up
again soon, and then neither of us speak, and once again I
kiss her lips, the lips of the most beautiful woman this world
ever gave me. I hurry down the streets. I am glad it's
dark, for my eyes feel weak, and the windy Ught of the lamp
posts seem to swim about the street spaces. I am haunted
by her face all down the Channel that night, for she caught
my soul adrift among the stars ere I was born, and my heart
still sings a sad song for the woman who was my mother.
There is a deal of sameness on a large liner's trip to the
colonies. But for the complication of characters among
the passengers and crew, and the ports that we put into on
the voyage out, the passage would be extremely monotonous.
Forward, near the fo'c'sle, was the glory hole, between
decks, wherein slept the crowd of stewards and cooks.
They were a jolly lot of men, and when the steerage and fore-
cabin passengers had finished their evening meal they would
sit on their sea-chests yarning or playing cards far into the
night. Sometimes they would sing songs, accompanied
by the twang and tinkling of the assistant cook's banjo ;
and older men, who were tired out, thrust their fierce faces
out of their bunks and swore at being kept awake, as once
more the wild chorus of / owe Ten Shillings to O'Grady
46

THE DRIFTING ARMY
reechoed through the "glory hole." Sleepless passengers up
on deck clapped their hands with pleasure to hear the mono
tony broken, as the big pistons in the engine-rooms throbbed
out their incessant pom-pe-te-pom, and the screws thrashed
the racing liner across the world. In the morning at four-
thirty the men would be dead to the world in their bunks
as the second steward started shouting : " Now then, you
sleepers ! Now then, you sleepers, rise and shine ! " or
" Come out of it, you young b  ! " and so on, as sleepy
heads lifted up in the rows of bunks and then dropped
helplessly again. Some were romantic boys who had read
autobiographies, and some middle-aged men who had sickened
of the workman's train and drifted to sea.
In the evenings I played the violin in the saloon and deck
concerts aft, beyond the dividing rope which was the
boundary line that told the fore-cabin passengers that they
must not approach the elite in the first saloon.
Our orchestra consisted of three violins, 'cello, bass, and
the usual brass and wind. I had an easy time, and often
till midnight would stand on deck watching the stars and
the world of waters below, and listening to the voices of
passengers on deck outward bound for Australia, to find
fame and fortune — or ill fame.
I became very friendly with a member of our ship's band,
the solo comet player. He was a quiet, elderly man, turning
grey, and had once been a player in the orchestra of the
Lyceum Theatre. A fine all-round musician he was too.
He would sit on deck after dark, put a mute on his instrument,
and extemporise melody and make it sound like a sweet-
voiced girl singing softly to herself. He had the real tem
perament, and had received a first-class musical education.
Nothing reveals character, the intellectual cahbre of the
instrumental player, so much as the type of composition
that makes up his private repertoire. For in that he only
plays the compositions which appeal to him. Some are
devoid of personahty and only perform the stock pieces that
are fashionable. Others revel in melody that tells of the light
side of hfe, its gaiety, or the pathos of dramatic existence
on the stage, the tragedian's mock grief before the foot-
47

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
lights ere the curtain falls. Others find their musical heaven
vaguely expressed by playing those pieces that seem to
murmur, as a sea-shell murmurs of the ocean, that indefin
able note of poetry, the voice of the tmknown, the intense
inner life of our existence. My friend was one of the latter
kind. He gave me many useful hints which I profited by,
(as I often did in my travels), and so received a free musical
education, the only music lessons I ever really had.
But for the throb of the engines and thrashing screw, the
vessel's motion, and the stewards' sea-legs aslant to the deck's
list as they walk the saloons and cabin alley-ways, you could
half think you were in some subterannean hotel. Travel on
a liner, and the wild poetry of the sailing ships swerving to
the swell of travelling seas, the chmbing sailors aloft singing
their chanteys among the storm-beaten sails, the flying clouds
overhead that race the moon, all seem to be something that
you dreamed of, or lived through ages ago.
Sea-boots and oilskins seem mythical things that faintly
recall your yellow-backed old buccaneer novels, or the days
when Drake sailed down the seas.
Officers on the P. & O. liners speak with university pohsh.
" Ay, ay ", " Hold hard ! ", " Look out, you son of a sea-
cook ! ", "Holy Moses!", "Up she comes", "AU
together ! ", " Let go ! ", "Haul the mainsail up ! ". This
is all changed now to " Make haste, Mr Pye-Smith " and
" Yes, sir, I beg your pardon. What a draught ! ". Or a beU
tinkles down in the engine-room, and the mammoth liner,
like a mighty iron beast, slows obediently to half-speed,
stops, or slashes her tail and goes fuU speed astern, without
one song or oath.
The stormy night and head-wind, the huddled group of
sailors in oilskins singing their wild chantey, O, 0, for Bio
Grande, on deck in the windy dark as they bend together
and pull while the vast monotone of the ocean becomes the
orchestral accompaniment to voices from strong, open,
bearded mouths, and your world of stars suddenly veers as
the dark canvas sails and yards swerve round ; the chief
mate shouting, " What the blazing hell  Ay, there ! "
as on the wind comes faintly back, " Ay, ay, sir, all clear ! " :
48

A SAILING SHIP
this smacks more of the sea. Why, on a sailing ship, the very
sea-cook at the galley door, amidships, clutching his pans,
gazing across the wild, lonely waters, where the leaping,.
white-bearded waves seem like old misers' hands plucking
at the sunset's gold, is sheer downright poetry compared
with the electric-lighted saloon crowded with munching,
over-fed men and women with moving mouths and pince-nez
on their respectable noses.
The sailing ship has its rough, uncomfortable side, for well
I remember my last trip from 'Frisco round the Horn, when
I stood on deck at night, with deadly cramp gripping my
legs, my eyebrows frozen together, my nose pinched and blue
with cold, the decks awash and our sea-chests afloat in the
fo'c'sle and deck-house. I recollect the cook holding on to
his pots and pans and swearing as only an old-time boat
swain, and that cook, could swear as we begged for a panni
kin of hot coffee : stuff that tasted like heaven-sent life-blood
to our frozen lips as we two boys drank it. The weather-
beaten boatswain in his oilskins and sea-boots went by us in
the dark, as great seas came over, singing a song to himself
as though he was soliloquising in some quiet bar off the Mile
End Road instead of experiencing the wildest weather I
have ever seen, or ever want to see.
How I admired those old seafarers ! " Fetch that,
matey," they'd say, and oft I'd rush, eager to please and
obey the orders of Horatio Nelson and Sir Francis Drake, for
such men they seemed to me.
In the fo'c'sle at night they'd say : "Get that fiddle out and
play to us." A thrill of boyish pride would go through me
to notice their attention and respect as I played my best.
Presently they would join in as I played the chanteys they
had taught me, Sailing down to Bio or Blow the Man Down.
Without removing their pipes or chewing quids, their
cracked, hoarse-throated voices would join in.
Deep bass voices two or three had, and as they sat round
me on their old sea-chests, and I scraped away to the tuneless,
yeUingj bearded mouths beneath the dim light of the fo'c'sle
oil lamp, I drank in the last breath of the winds of sea
romance. I see them now as I dream. There they sit on
D 49

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
their sea-chests, oilskins and sea-boots on, with curios from
other lands fastened over their bunks around them, as they
open their big bearded mouths and sing. How ghost-like
their eyes look by the hght of the dim lamp, as the hazy
tobacco smoke curls thickly to the low roof ! Then their
hollow voices fade and the visionary " Old Hands " vanish
as the last breath of wind blows them like cobweb-fine things
through the fo'c'sle door, along the moonlit deck, away sea
ward for ever as I dream.
How I recall these lonely nights and the sailors moving
across the deck in the dark, or climbing aloft like shadows
back to the sky. I used to stand alone and gaze over the
ship's side and suddenly feel the intensity of living, as my
thoughts half clung hopefuUy to the stars, like lost, migrating
swallows that cling to the rigging of ships far out at sea ; and
the mighty, moving water all around me seemed to break
with its monotone against eternity. I remember lying in
my bunk, and by the oil lamp's hght watching the ship's
cockroaches go fUing across the photographs of my parents
and relatives which I had tacked on my bunk side to remind
me of home, though I required no such reminder. Those
silent faces intensified the difference between reality and
my boyhood's dream ; as a cold breath out of the grave of
my beloved, who slept^n the seas outside, blew through the
door across my face as I dreamed of her — ^my beautiful dead
romance !
Truly, sailing ships have their rough side as well as a wildly
romantic one. Rolling down south, with gales behind bring
ing the seas up like majestic travelling hiUs as under the poop
they go, and she roUs and swerves as the masts sweep across
the sky, is the motion of sea poetry. If you are aloft you
look down and could swear that she must turn turtle. TeU
ing you this calls back my feelmgs when I first went aloft as
a boy of fourteen years.
The ship was rolling heavily, and as I looked down on deck
something seemed to have happened (I turned pale, I'm sure) :
she was turnmg right over. I clmig on with might and mam
as the masts and yards went over ; death seemed to stare me
in the face : hke a wild beast I hooked on with fingers, toes
50

DANTE
and teeth, prepared for the final plunge into the heaving
ocean below, when lo 1 to the mysterious equal pull of gravity
she slowly swerved and rose, the rigging jerked and rattled,
the jib-boom lifted and the figure-head at the bows lifted her
face from the weather-side and went right over to peep at the
lee-side. Overjoyed, I looked over my shoulder astem and
saw the chief mate yawning on the poop and the man at the
wheel quite unconcerned, when I had instinctively thought
they were clinging to anything movable, prepared to dive
into the ocean when the ship turned clean over. That
bronzed, broad-shouldered mate grinned when I stood on
the poop. He asked me how I had felt. He was a good
sort. He's dead now and under tbe sea, missing these many
years ; and the red-bearded Scotch skipper, who was like a
father to me, is worse off, for the last I heard of him was that
he was stiU ahve and missing — ^mentally. " But this won't
buy the baby a frock," as they say at sea when you go off
dreaming and leave your work to yarn. So I must return
to the P. & O. liner as she races across the Mediterranean,
boimd for Suez.
We had caUed in at Naples, where we had taken on board
a batch of passengers. I remember one of them especially ;
he was a distinguished old Italian and his profile recalled to
my mind the pictures I had seen of Dante. He wore a loose
cloak and a cavalier hat, and carried a violin-case. His eyes
were eagle-like, yet bilious-looking, for he was suffering from
some kind of yellow jaundice and slow circulation. On the
hottest nights his teeth chattered with the cold. When we
were crossing the Red Sea and the passengers brought their
beds on deck to sleep, hoping to get a whiff of air, he went
into his cabin in the usual way, with his teeth chattering
with the cold, crawled into his bunk and got into his bed
clothes — a large canvas sack heavily lined with wadding ;
bodily into this he would go and tie the tapes at the head of
the sack tightly round his neck, so that no air could possibly
get into the sack and give him a chill. The very sight of it
all made me perspire and gasp in that stifling hot weather. I
felt sorry for him, and I cannot imagine now that he could
have hved very long after getting to Austraha, where he was
51

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
going for his health's sake. He was a splendid violin player,
but did not perform. I used to talk to him on deck, and dis
covered that he was a Genoese. I was greatly interested to
hear that his father, who was also a musician, had known
intimately the celebrated violin maestro, Paganini, and had
had violin lessons from him. From broken English, and
Italian gesticulations, I leamt that the great violinist had
pecuhar ways. He had stayed for a few days at my friend's
childhood home and while there had upset the quiet routine
of the family, for he was extremely superstitious and restless,
and walked about the house all night. He declared that
a ghostly woman stood with her face at his window
whenever he played a certain melody that had come to
him in his dreams. Beyond his famUy's enthusiastic
reminiscences over Paganini's violin playing, that is the only
incident that vividly impressed me. My friend was a remark
able character and, though he was ill, extremely vivacious
and always talking excitably. Sometimes he would sit on
deck after dark, and plucking the strings of his violin,
pizzicato, guitar style, would sing softly to himself in Italian
with a clear, sweet, musical voice that was very effective.
I went with him ashore at Port Said. It was fearfully
hot, but as my friend walked down the gangway with me he
was well swathed in scarves, and wrapped up in shirts under
his large fur-lined cloak. He seemed to have plenty of
money and was anything but mean with it. It was a treat
to get away from the hubbub of the natives coaling the
steamer. I only have a dim, dream-like recollection of that
particular visit ashore at Port Said. I remember the town
with the white buildings and palm-trees dimly outlined under
the stars, and the begging, dark-faced descendants of the
Egyptian Pharaohs who rushed forth out of aUey-ways and
sought our patronage. Signor Niccolo was terribly thirsty,
and the English restaurant was so crowded with passengers
from the boats that we both went off and sought elsewhere
for refreshments. We went up a dark alley-way, directed
there by a swarthy man who evidently misunderstood our
requirements. In the darkness it seemed like some sub
terranean passage to an Egyptian ghost-land as we walked
52

PORT SAID
along and heard the uncouth voices of the inhabitants
issuing from the little barred windows that were let in in the
high walls on each side. Shuffling by us went the sandalled
feet of black men with white turbans on that looked like
towels swathed about their heads. Presently we arrived at
a timnel-like entrance that led into a suspicious, dimly lit
little restaurant. As we sat at one of the small tables and
sniffed peculiar odours, that smelt like scented tea and
aromatic herbs, four dusky beauties came through a little
secret door and laughingly revealed their teeth, then asked
in broken English what we would like to drink. Signor
Niccolo called for wine and I had coffee. Oft rushed the
dark female attendants to execute our orders. " Funny
plaze and funny girlees, eh ? " said Signor Niccolo to me.
" Seems so," I answered, for the waitresses were only dressed
in little singlets, with a loose piece hanging to their knees and
a scarf swathed about their bosoms for modesty's sake,
which was the only modesty that we saw there, as they lifted
their scanty robes to dust the furniture. We drank our
refreshment and hurriedly escaped from the place.
I do not think there are any missionaries at Port Said ;
possibly the English and American officials look upon it as
hopeless. Port Said was a veritable hell of iniquity in
those days, and still is. Passengers often went ashore and
lost the boat, or disappeared altogether. After we left a
Yankee saloon passenger sat on the settee and told us of his
experiences there. He had gone into an isolated restaurant
at the north end of the town and called for a drink. In his
button-hole he wore a large red cameUia blossom which,
though he did not know it, was a kind of Masonic sign. So
directly he had ordered his whisky and sat down in the large
arm-chair, the attendant, who was an old black Arab mute
with a heavy grey beard, suddenly touched a spring in the
wall, and lo ! up went a partition on each side and he was
shut in a little room, staring with surprise at the old mute,
who, to his astonishment, now spoke in a musical voice.
The old man's beard and eyebrows dropped off and with the
old cloak fell rustling to the floor, and there, with shining
dark eyes and pouting lips, a dusky harem beauty stood
53

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
before him ! Even the sedate P. & O. chief officer smiled
behind his napkin as the Yankee told us that yarn, and we
tried to keep straight faces over all the details which I have
left out !
Three or four weeks later I arrived in Melbourne, where
I stayed a week in Collins Street and at length succeeded in
getting a berth on a boat that was bound for the Islands.
Eventually I arrived at Honolulu, where I had some luck
with my violin playing which enabled me to take a cheap
passage to Apia, vfhere I had lived before.

54

CHAPTER VI
Changes in Samoa — Curios — A Moonlit Scene — Saints and Fakirs —
Indians — Apia Town — Vailima — The Chief Mataaga — A Forest
Ballroom — The Wandering Scribe — A Legend of Samoa — An
old Shellback's Yarns — Tuputa and the Sinless Lands — A
Tribal Waltz
IT was some time since I had left Samoa. Things there
seemed to have considerably changed. Many of my
friends, both natives and white men, had gone away to
another island. I went up to Mulinuu village, expecting to
see my friend Raeltoa, the Samoan, and to my great regret
leamt that his wife had died of consumption and that he had
gone away to the Line Islands, in the Equatorial Group.
Robert Louis Stevenson had died some months before, and
was at rest on the top of Vaea Mountain. Indeed with his
death the old Samoa seemed to have passed away.
I felt rather depressed for a time, but I met an American
tourist, staying at the German hotel in Apia, who was very
eccentric, and he cheered me up considerably. He was a
collector of native curios, and his whole life seemed to
be centred on his strange hobby. He invited me into his
apartments, and I could hardly move for the lumber and his
large crates of native pottery, old breech-loading weapons,
cutlasses, mummified human heads, dried native feet cut off
at the ankles, war clubs, human teeth and skeletons, native
musical instruments and barbarian furniture. He talked
of nothing else but his gruesome collection. He had a high,
bald head and beak-hke nose, whereon he was eternally
fingering his pince-nez, which kept falling oft whilst he
enthusiastically held up relics for my inspection. His
passion for getting curios seemed never satisfied. We dined
at a native's house together ; suddenly he lifted the cloth
and saw that the table was a rough, native-made table of
platted cane and bamboo. Immediately he bargained for
55

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
it, and to the native's delight purchased it, and oft we went
with it. How he got them all away from the hotel I don't
know, for he had a regular cargo of stuff, but eventually
he got his curios on board a steamer and went off to San
Francisco. I stayed on in Apia for several weeks, joining a party of
tourists, and with them I visited the various scenes and
islands of the group. As I write, in a dream I see the slopes
rising from the sea, lying silent m the moonlight. The curling
smoke from the camp fires steals above the still coco-palms
that shelter the huts of the native viUages. The big, hive-
shaped houses are musical with humming melody and the
jabbering voices of rough-haired native girls and women.
Some squat cross-legged by door-holes, whence emerge tiny,
brown, naked children, to turn head over heels, or race like
joyful puppies after each other round the dens. Big full-
blooded Samoan chiefs smile and show their white teeth
as they roll banana-leaf cigarettes between their dusky
fingers. Across the flat lies Apia town with its one main
street ; beyond the inland plateaux rise, and far off you can
see the moonlit waves breaking into patches like white moss
on the level ocean plains.
By the copra and coco plantations are the emigrant settle
ments, where tired coolies, most of them Malay Indians, rest
after their toil. Native women linger near them, for they
are generous men those coolies, and give the velvet-skinned
native girls sham jewellery. The Indian sadhu (saint) sits
by the line of dens and stores under the palms ; he looks like
some carved holy image as he stares with bright, unblinking
eyes. The natives' wooden idols have long since been
smashed, or have rotted away, and that living idol of the
East is one from many cargoes that have arrived to take the
place of the old deaf South Sea idols. The new idols are real ;
they have live tongues and eyes that lure on true believers,
converts to Allah, to do monstrous things. The deaf, dumb
wooden gods of heathen times were sanctified compared
with these new immigrant idols that breathe !
That old fakir, with outstretched withered arm that
brmgs him reverence and cash, represents Hinduism, or
56

INDIAN SEERS
Buddha. His thick beard is almost sohd with filth, where-
from at intervals, out to the hot sky, buzz big blow-flies.
Just across the track is the bazaar, wooden cabins under the
mangroves and coco-palms, where the Indians sell jewellery,
the Koran, and richly coloured dress materials to the
Samoan women. The Indians appear flne-looking men
when dressed, with their dark, briUiant eyes and curly, close-
cropped beards . They swear to all things by the holy prophet
Mahomet, and wear a poetic smile that enlarges when you
are not looking to a sardonic grin ! Native women meet
them at dark under the coco-pahns, stroke their beards
and gaze secretly up into their faces with passionate
admiration. That pretty Samoan girl, with staring, romantic eyes and
rough, bronze-coloured hair, who only a week ago gave
herself body and soul to some Indian, the scum of the East,
sits alone under the dark mangroves by the lagoon and
thinks and thinks ofthe day before her faU. A red, decorated
loin-cloth reaches to her waist, the forest winds kiss the
maiden curves of her brown, flower-like bosom. She is
very young : her childhood's dolls are still unbroken, and
are being loved and nursed by her little sisters who live on
the neighbouring Savaii Isle. Her father was eaten by a
shark last year, and her mother is married to a white man
who is never sober.
Not far away sit a group of Indian women, dark and evil-
looking, with round faces. Dressed in gorgeous garments
of rich yellow and crimson, they are certainly attractive ;
earrings dangle from their ears and some of them have a
silver hoop through the nose. They loll under the coco-
palms, whisper viciousness, and mortally hate the handsome
Samoan girls.
The mail steamer arrived in Apia harbour a few hours ago.
Along the white, dusty, inland track goes the fair, handsome
white woman, Maria Mandy. She is oft to her bungalow up
the hill, a secluded, romantic spot. Her round, pretty face
is getting quite sunburnt and brown. By her side walks
an aristocratic-looking tourist ; he wears pince-nez, is deeply
religious and in a great hurry ! Maria is dressed up to
57

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
" the nines," is scented and looks fine and sweet : the " light
o' Love " of a score of German naval officers and men of
respectable repute, she has grown wealthy and intends to go
soon to Sydney. With her wit and courtly polish she will
get on well in Australia, and wiU probably get into Govern
ment House society, be extremely virtuous and so shocked
that she wiU suggest the removal from the select clique of
such suspicious characters as old Colonel B  , who will
foam at the mouth and wonder why he is snubbed. Mrs
S. A. and Lady H. B. will go into hysterics, weep, grind their
delicate white teeth, look at the ceiling of their bedroom
and ask heaven who could possibly have guessed about
those intrigues ; and they will never dream of the knowing
Apia harlot — handsome Maria Mandy.
That fat, thick-necked German official, who likes Samoa
better than the Berlin suburbs, is out walking alone ; he is
just off to see Salvao Marva and gaze upon her through those
big-rimmed, academic spectacles. He is nearly sixty, and
pretty Marva is nearly fifteen years old ! No one knows
about it though. He is a good man at home, plays the
Austrian zither perfectly, and sings in a deep religious bass
voice folk-songs of the Fatherland. Romantic Marva loves
those songs, and knows them all by heart ; she has a voice
like a wild bird, and you do not feel so hard upon the in
auspicious fall of German culture. He is due back in Berlin
soon, for his time is up in six months, so he is quite safe, and
poor Marva can place the parental responsibility for her baby
on to the back of the beachcomber. Bill Grimes, who will
say, " Well I'm blowed, if this ain't aU right," then accept
the position and make his home in the South Seas after all.
Maria Mandy is not the only lady who will become respect
able and make the devil mb his hands and chuckle with
delight. On the beach stroll other white women, and droves
of pretty half-caste girls who will eventually get jobs as
" ladies' maids " to touring families that call at Apia on the
homeward voyage to New York and London. They have
fine times those girls with the German and Enghsh sailors,
or with " perfect gentlemen," and sometimes a black-sheep
missionary who has been dismissed from the L.M.S. Oft
58

Hoi\r;is Track, Rotorua, N.Z,

O PIONEERS ! PIONEERS !
they go on the spree and forget themselves and do things
that make even the beachcomber Bill Grimes rub his eyes
and stare ; for, after all, he's not so bad ; he can some day,
in that " far-off event of perfect good," buy a new suit of
clothes ; but the beachcombers that loaf and eat the fruit
of frailty in this Eden of the South Seas can never buy
another soul.
Hark ! the harbour is musical with voices, for this is
fair Italy of the Southern Seas, where natives paddle their
canoes and sing their weird melodies as naturally as men
breathe. You can hear the splash of the paddles and oars
as they cut the thickly star-mirrored water. The native
boats are bringing sailors ashore from the ships that arrived
at twiUght. The moonlit shore and the palm-clad slopes
look like fairyland to the silent ships lying out in the harbour.
The men step ashore, pay one shilling, or one mark, each,
then off go the canoes back to the ships for other crews, as
the groups of sailors go up to Apia town. Before they get
there dusky guides offer their services, and they see the
sights — such sights too ! No missionaries could ever reform
such creatures as they see. One of them, she is one of many,
wears almost nothing, the curved, thick lips in her wide
mouth murmur forth alluring Samoan speech. Her girth
is enormous, and her brown bosom heaves with simulated
professional passion, like a wave on the treacherous deep
dark ocean of sensuality — ^whereon so often travelling men
are shipwrecked. Her eyes are large, the pupils widely
encircled with white, and warm with the sunlight gleam of
downright wickedness ; she has been taught her art in the
vast imiversity of experience with white men in the fore
most ranks of civUisation's pioneer tramp 1 Paid vice was
never known in Samoa tUl the white men came ; but now she
lures to her velvety brown arms the unwary innocence of
fragUe sailormen and tourists who come from London on the
civihsed Thames ; where the missionaries hail from, who m
our land of purity, of course, cannot exert and bring into
play their noble efforts, and so through innocence, O England,
my England, your children faU before the lure of the wicked
South ! 59

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Low-caste Samoan women are not all hideous ; some have
large, innocent eyes alive with wonder ; half angel and half
devil they look as they stand before the camera and, answer
ing the stem voice of the operator, strive to look modest
and sweet.
By the edge of the small lagoon, under those tall coco
nut-trees sit four little naked baby girls. It is dark, but
their brown faces imaged in the water can be seen by the
brilliant moonlight ; they look like truant cherubims from
Paradise out on the spree, as they sit side by side whispering
musical Samoan baby words, and kissing the rag doll that
was made in Germany. Their Samoan father is away in a
far village on a visit to a wedding feast ; if you listen you
can hear the far-off sounds of tom-toms and cymbal-clanging
coming across on the drifting forest wind that brings with it
odours of wUd, decaying flowers and fruit. Their mother is
fast asleep by the door of their native home close by ; she
sleeps soundly, and the mongrel dog's snout is couched softly
on her bare, warm, brown breast. It looks a mystical,
beautiful world, like some spiritual land beyond the stars,
as the bright eyes of those tiny faces peep through the wind
blown palm leaves ; and I watch them in my dreams to
night, though long since those little girls are women and
now meet the eyes of Indian, Chinese and European men.
Civilisation's iron foot is on the hills, and along the tracks
that lead inland where mission schools and churches stand,
to collect on weekdays and Sundays the high-class native
folk who live in comfortable Polynesian homes. The night
is hot, starry and almost windless, and handsome Samoan
youths attired in the lava-lava (loin-cloth) patter swift-
footed along the tracks imder the coco-nut and tropical
trees that shelter the primitive homes of the South Sea
paradise. Samoan girls with wild, bright eyes, round, plump,
brown faces, and curved figures as perfect as sculptural art,
pass and repass up the forest tracks. They are singing
Samoan songs that intensify the romantic, dream-like
atmosphere of the tropical night — an atmosphere not even
to be dispelled by the waUing cry of the native babies, who
give short, wild, smothered screams as they lose and then
60

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
suddenly recover the breasts of sleeping mothers in those
thatched homes by the palms and banana groves. The
vast night sky, agleam with stars, shines like a mighty mirror.
You can see the red glow of the reflection from the volcanic
crater miles away on Savaii's Isle.
If you go up the slope and stand on the plateau, away
inland, when dawn is stealing in grey tints along the ocean
horizon, awakening the birds on Vaea Mountain, and the
native homes are astir, you can distinctly see afar something
that looks like a cow-shed by coco-pahns and thick jungle
growth. It is Vaihma, the home of Robert Louis Stevenson.
One light gleams in the large shed-room, and the intellectual,
sensitive face of the poet-author moves there in the gloom.
He has come back from Apia town and is tired, yet secretly
as pleased as the two old shellbacks who have carried his
curios back, and who hitch up their trousers and cough
respectfully as the world-famous author sneaks them in and
gives each a bumping glass of the best brand. How quietly
his keen eyes gaze upon them as they drink ! On a shelf
the large clock ticks warningly. He glances at it now and
again as the belated sailors yarn on, grow more and more
garrulous and continue their strange experiences, that cling
to the wonderful, distilling brain of the listener as moonlight
clings to deep, dark waters. At last, with intellectual
delicacy, they are hurriedly slipped off ; for soon the
respectable folk, whom he gave the slip to early in the
evening, will return, and he must not be seen in such com
pany again. The old sheUbacks grip the extended, thin,
delicate hand, look into the keen eyes and wipe their mouths
as they go down the narrow track. " He's a gentleman 'e
is, d  d if 'e ain't," they say to each other, as the silent,
lonely man they have just left sits and dreams on alone,
and thinks and feels those things that no book ever did, or
ever can, tell.
A few miles away lives the great high chief Mataafa ; he
knows Tusitala, the writer of tales. Mataafa is the old King
of Samoa : his warriors have charged up those slopes and
the soimd of the guns from the enemy's warships echoed and
re-echoed across the bay. It is all like some far-oft dream
6i

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
to me that in my boyhood I should have met and flddled
to the Napoleon of the South Seas, for Mataafa was exiled,
though there the sunUarity ends. I can stiU see the hand
some, intelligent face and remember the quick, kind eyes
of Samoa's dethroned king. I did not know, or at least
realise, who Mataafa was, as he sat on a chest in the schooner's
cabin in Apia harbour. I knew he was someone important
by the skipper's behavioui: and respectful attention. Only
long after did I clearly realise that I was in at the death
at one of the most tragic periods of Samoa's history. I
helped row the exiled king ashore and went with him to
Mulinuu village, where I stayed the night, and then rowed
him back in the ship's boat again. Had I known the truth
I would have clung to the old king with all the romantic
vigour of my soul. The opportunity of my boyish dreams had
presented itself, but I knew it not. How I would have
striven to lean on that chieftain's right arm, helping in some
tragical drama of war and intrigue that would have given
me the fame that my boyish aspirations yearned for as I
read the novels of Alexandre Dumas. Alas ! I can only
remember a sad, aged face in a South Sea forest homestead,
in a schooner's dingy cabin, or earnestly talking under the
forest trees by night to loyal chiefs ere he returned to the ship.
I saw him three or four times ashore, and entertained him
in the refuge where he lived with his faithful chiefs. Also
I played the violin to him several times, while he smiled
gravely and the garrulous skipper drank whisky and sang
out of tune, or read out loudly snatches from The Samoan
Times, which was a paper something after the style in size
of The Dead Bird, published in Sydney, but suppressed and
issued again as The Bird of Freedom.
Behind the stores in Apia's street is the primeval ball
room where I played the violin to the Samoan grandees,
and to tripping, white-shoed German officials, while five half-
caste girls in pink frocks, with crimson ribbons in their
forests of hair, went through the Siva dances. Robert
Louis Stevenson gazed on, or argued with the crusty German
official, who was red in the face as Stevenson expressed his
opinions on Samoan politics. Just below too, down the
62

MEIN GOTT ! MEIN GOTT !
street, is the bar-room, where I played the violin with the
manager's wife, who was a good pianist. I only performed
there once : a trader was half-seas over and was arguing
with a German official ; suddenly he picked my violin up and
hit the German over the head with it. There was a great
scene and the trader was thrown out. Everyone laughed
to see the look on my face as I scanned the fiddle to see if
it had been damaged ; even the manager and his wife put
their fists in their mouths to hide a noisy smUe. The
German shouted: "Mein Gott ! I vill see that this mans
be arrested ! Mein Gott ! Mein Gott 1 "
It's a lively place, this Samoan isle. There sits an aged,
tattooed native from Motootua village. He is a wandering
scribe, a poet and author of the South Seas, and well beloved
by all his critics, who mostly wear no clothes ! He does not
write on paper, but engraves on the brains of his audiences
his memories, impromptu poems and improvisations ; or he
tells of Samoan history and poetic lore. He wears the
primitive ridi to his bony knees and a large shawl of native
tappu-cloth round his brown shoulders ; tall and majestic-
looking, with strong, imaginative face, when he stands quite
still and hfts one arm to heaven he looks like an exiled
scapegrace god.
With eyes shining brilliantly he tells you the tale of creation,
how man- and woman -kind came on earth. Ages ago a giant
turtle, like a fish that walked on a thousand legs, came up
from the bottom of the ocean and saw the blue sky for the
first time, and far away the coral reefs and forest-clad shores
of Samoa. Full of excitement, it slashed its tail, swam to
the isle and crept ashore. Once on dry land it could not
move and get back to its native ocean again. The sun
blazed on its tremendous back as it crouched and died, and
underneath its vast shell a plot of tiny crimson and blue
flowers trembled with fear in the sudden darkness that had
fallen over them. When the giant turtle was dead its crumb
ling flesh fed the flowers with moisture, while they cried
bitterly at being hidden from the beautiful golden sunlight.
When only the shell was left, and the sun was shining beauti
fully, the flowers peeped out and saw the green hills and coco-
63

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
palms, and found that they were able to move : out they all
ran and tripped up the shore, a delighted flock of laughing
faces, and climbed the coco-nut and pahn trees — they were
Samoan girls !
That same night a cloud was leisurely travelling across the
clear skies with a cargo of male stars asleep on its breast ;
and as it passed right over the very spot where the new girls
were climbing and clinging to the trees, the high chief of
the stars, who was old and grey, looked over the side of the
cloud and was astonished, for he saw the girls and at once
called loudly to the youthful, sleeping stars, who rubbed their
eyes and jumped up. They were beautiful youths with
bright faces. " Look down there," said the old, grey star,
and all the young stars looked and saw tbe Samoan maidens
climbing about the tree-tops. " Oh, what shall we do to get
down to them ? " they all wailed, and the old, grey star said,
" Ah, you were happy till I awoke you from sleep, but now
your passions are awake and you cry aloud for sorrow."
Then they all became impatient and fierce, and cried out :
' ' Stop the cloud, stop the cloud " ; and the old, grey-bearded
star sighed and said : " So shall it be." The moon at once
shone out in the sky and the old leader put his hand up' to the
orb and filled his arms with beautiful moonlight ere he struck
the cloud with his magic breath and the thick, dark mist
dissolving fell as sparkling rain softly to the isle far below.
The bright moonlight clinging to the falling drops made ropes
of moonbeams dangle to the forest tree-tops, on which the
laughing stars slid as they went down, down — as beautiful
youths, to fall into the outstretched arms of the surprised
maidens. And that's how man and woman first came to the
Samoan Isles !
Many more were the strange but really poetic tales told by
him and by other wandering authors, but their memories and
the children of their poetic imaginations are forgotten for ever.
I do not think many of the old-time South Sea legends have
ever been collected and translated, and so they only survive
in the biographical writing of men who visited the islands
and happened to have retentive memories for such things as
poetic lore, and so preserved some of those old fragments of
64

BEHIND THE VEIL
Samoan stories, as I have attempted to do from my
recollection of many of them.
The lore of the South Seas has faded and has been replaced
by tragic human drama and rumour. Subject matter for three-
volume novels is plentiful in Samoa ; indeed throughout
the whole of the South Seas you could draw and never drain
dry the livmg fountains of human drama.
Peaceful-looking homesteads, clean, religious and happy,
abound, but some are tense with passion. By the mission
room down at Muhnuu lives pretty Lavo ; she is only sixteen
and deeply religious. She loves the handsome white mission
ary with all her soul, but dares not speak out or confess.
EventuaUy he goes away back to his own country, and a few
days later they find poor Lavo's body in the lagoon. She
looks beautiful even in death, as she still clutches the photo
graph of the homeward-bound missionary. Her native
relatives wring their hands and wail ; they lay her in the
native cemetery just by the plateau, and sing sadly of her
childhood tiU she is forgotten.
A white man was found with the side of his head blown off
last night ; he arrived at Apia a week ago, looking worried
and haggard. All evidence of his identity had been destroyed
by him, excepting a tom, half -obliterated letter which reads
like this :
" My own dear R  . Yes, I still love you, and wiU not
beheve you did that. I read the full account in this morn
ing's Chronicle. My heart is heavy, dear ; give yourself up
and face it. Oh, my darling, don't leave the country. I
love you, and will die, I am sure, if you go away. Meet me
to-night at same place. I long to see your poor dear face.
God watch over you. Yours ever, E  ."
The German High Commissioner kept the revolver that
was found by the dead man's side, and his fat old wife took
possession of the photograph that was found on him. She
has tacked it up on her bedroom waU ; it's such a nice, happy-
looking, girlish face. They buried the suicide ui the whites'
cemetery, at the far end, among the " no-name graves."
E 65

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
On the slopes around Apia a few emigrants from far-off
countries live m comfortable bungalows. They are happy
with their wives and children. Their memory of the cities
and turmoU of the old country is sweeter for the dreammg
distance ; they were a bit homesick at first, but now they
have become contented and love the new peaceful surround
ings, and look forward to the arrival of the mails . They stiU
suffer, though, with the unrestful disease of the far-away
suburban towns of advanced civilisation, and so cannot sleep
for wondering who the strange couple are who rent the
sohtary bungalow on the edge of the forest up in the hiUs.
It is quite evident that the new-comer is a gentleman, for
he speaks weU and has pohshed ways, but his wife talks
like a servant-girl ; she's pretty, though. They arrived
suddenly in Apia, and three months after the baby was born.
He seems very fond of the baby, and the mother too, but he
often gets very despondent. He's a handsome man and does
not look a bit practical ; indeed he looks as though for the
sake of affection and his word he would sacrifice aU ambition
and leave the world behind him. He seems to hate respect
able people, and only goes down to the Apia bar-rooms to
mix with old sailors and traders and the remnants of the
beach ; he stands treat and is a godsend to them, for he
seems to have plenty of cash. One old shellback entertains
him for hours with wonderful tales of other days, and his
comrades sit by and silently smoke and drink as the bar
becomes hazy with tobacco smoke. The lights grow dim
as the old sailor's yarn rolls the world back, and in the now
romantic atmosphere of the bar shades of old pioneers dance
ghostly wise ; old schooners and slave galleons are anchored
in the harbour ; you can hear the laughter and song of dead
sailors and traders. They are dancing jigs, their sea-boots
shuffle, under the coco-palms just outside the bar-room, the
bright eyes of dark native girls shine as they whirl clinging
to their arms : how they welcome the white men from the
far-away Westem world — the men whose ships long ago died
down the seaward sunsets, and faded away beyond the sky
line into Time's silent sea ere our generation was born.
Out on the promontory sits the high chief Tuputo in his
66

BARBARMNS AND SAINTS
homestead. He has a noble, wrinkled, tattooed face, and,
though he belongs to the old school, he wears glasses. The
lizard slips across his moonlit floor, and through his door he
can see the silvered waves and the wind-stirred coco -nut trees
twinkling by the barrier reefs ; the waves are breaking and
wailing as they wailed and broke in his childhood. He has
been a sailor in the South Seas ; he remembers tribal wars
in Fiji and Samoa and has refused many invitations to secret
cannibalistic festivals. Now he sits reading the English
newspapers, for long ago they taught him to read English,
and he is a staunch Catholic. Often he reads and wonders
over the terrible crimes that are reported in the police news
of his late-dated London newspapers. He had once, long
ago, thought that England and New York were sinless lands
ethereal with Christian dreams, imparadised cities, their
spires glittering in the sunlight of the Golden Age. If not,
why did missionaries leave them to come across the big seas
to Samoa, and all the isles ofthe Southern Seas ?
The great world war has not commenced yet, but even
now his withered hands itch to clutch his disused war-club
and sally forth to take revenge on those white men who
laugh at his majestic bearing ; those men who stole his isles
and brought rum and vice to contaminate the virtue of his
race. How spiteful will he feel when he wipes his spectacles,
and, astonished, reads the truth ! But then he will cool
down, look at his innocent old war-club on his homestead
wall and offer his humble services for the vast tribalistic war
clash in the white man's lands, while Thakambau and Tano,
the cannibal kings, and Ritova and King Nauhvan, who
never heard the word culture, sigh and turn in their graves
to think that they are dead, while the very world is trembling
with glorious, bloodthirsty battle. Ah, weU, their children's
children are coming to help us : may the old Thakambau
spirit still be alive in their blood to help the advance of
culture — the civihsation of sad humanity. Let us hope, too,
that our semi-savage AUies wiU not eat the fallen foe ! But
I must proceed with my own wanderings, for I have a long
way to travel yet.
Samoa stiU rises silently in moonhght out of the sea of my
67

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
dreams. I can hear the barbarian orchestra clanging away
down in the native village, as Samoan girls and youths, and
two or three white men, waltz under the palms just below
the plateau, where groves of orange-trees hang their golden
fruit amongst dark leaves. As I play the violin the semi-
savage people whirl to the wild rhythm of the forest ball
room music of a tribal waltz.

TRIBAL WALTZ.
( Barbarian. )

Tempo di Valse.

Composed by
A. S. M.

I

Con delicateiaa.

Mlf

±f±±z

=p=p

i3=iE|3=|Efe=f^teEiE|

^^X'-r-rj:

rti^pz

=^S=S=

A P
.cL

-» — U — —I-

A
A

68

CHAPTER VII
Robert Louis Stevenson — Bohemian Incidents — I lead a Tribal
Orchestra — The Big Drum — Robert Louis Stevenson at a Tribal
Wedding — Robert Louis Stevenson in the Grog Shanty — Mr
and Mrs Stevenson — The Last Man-eater of the Marquesan
Group
I NOTICED that the brief incidents in my first book,
Sailor and Beachcomber, concerning my personal
recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson were received
with an interest which I had not expected. Had I antici
pated this, or had he struck me as an adventurous old shell
back of crime and sea -lore, I should have dwelt more on the
subject, but so much has been written about Stevenson's life
in the South Seas, by men who have devoted volumes to
their reminiscences of that novelist, that I deliberately left
the matter alone.
As far as Stevenson the literary man is concemed I, of
course, have nothing whatever to add, excepting, perhaps,
that Stevenson's books dealing with the South Seas did not
strike me as being as realistic and breezy as I had expected
them to be, coming from such fresh experience and so able a
pen. But having often seen him in Samoa and elsewhere,
out of the limelight and under circumstances that have
never, as far as I know, been written about before, I feel
that I may as well tell at length the few incidents that I
think may be of interest. I cannot do this better than by
pursuing my own reminiscences, and so I will revert to my
first visits to Samoa when I was a lad of about sixteen years
of age.
Stevenson was at that time residing at Vailima, Upulo. I
had met him several times in Apia and at sea, for at that
time I was always cruising on the trading schooners and
visited most of the chief islands in the North and South
Pacific. I eventually got on a schooner that ran between
69

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Samoa and Suva (Fiji), and it was on these return trips to
Apia, and during my sojourns there, that I saw Stevenson
frequently, which was natural enough, since he lived there
and hundreds of men became acquainted with him in that
isolated paradise, where conventionality, as it is known in
Western civilisation, was completely dropped, and all men
became hail-fellow-well-met as soon as they sighted each
other. Even missionaries practised this outward appearance
of brotherhood.
I recall how I was sitting in a German store in April one
afternoon when a Samoan, who knew me well, approached
me and asked me if I would like to come that same evening
to a grand tribal wedding festival that was to be held five
miles off, round the coast. " And will you bring your
violin ? " he inquired. I accepted, and my companion, a
young American sailor who had a banjo, agreed to go with me.
I was well known among the chiefs and natives as an obliging
violinist, for I seldom refused to perform at native cere
monies ; the scenes that I witnessed, indeed the novelty
and romance of it all, amply repaid me for all the trouble I
was ever put to, though that is saying a good deal, for my
troubles were sometimes serious ones.
That same afternoon my friend and I tuned our instru
ments up and made ourselves look as smart as possible, for
the chief who was giving the ball was one of high standing,
and a well-known follower of Mataafa, the ex-King of Samoa.
In high spirits we started oft to tramp the five miles which
had to be covered before we reached our destination. We
had not walked more than three hundred yards from Apia's
main street when suddenly Stevenson appeared with several
of his acquaintances, coming across the slopes carrying fish
which they had purchased from the natives down by the
beach. Stevenson turned and saw us, and noticing that we were
carrying musical instruments, he came up and said in a
jocular way : " Where are you hurrying off to ? The Lyceum
Orchestra ? " Whereupon I told him our destination and
he immediately became interested. " Are you in a hurry ?
I should like to come," he said quicldy. I assured him that
70

W}iANGAREi Falls, North .Vulkiand, N.Z.

THE MISSING DRUMS
we were in no hurry, and told him we would wait ; but as his
friends were becoming impatient he said that he would come
on later, and so oft we went without him.
When we arrived at the coast village where the ball was
to be given, my friend and I sat down under the palms
exhausted, for the walk was a long one and the heat terrific.
Just before us was the native village, groups of conical, shed
like houses, sheltered by coco-palms growing to the shore's
edge. As we sat wiping the perspiration from our brows, the
viUage was all astir with excitement over the approaching
festival. Native girls, dressed in picturesque style, passed
by us along the track : they were jabbering excitedly to each
other over the beauty of the bride who had been married
that day, and who was to appear at the feast that evening
to dance and reveal her manifold beauties to the village
maids and youths ere she went off on the honeymoon to the
bridegroom's home.
The shadows were falling over the palm-clad shores of the
wild coast and village of Samoa as the sun dropped seaward.
So my friend and I started off once more and arrived at
Kalofa's distinguished residence. Kalofa was the bride's
father, and a wealthy man for a native. We were greeted
with loud cries in joyous Samoan phrases as we arrived,
carrying the violin and banjo under our arms. As we
entered the large primitive ballroom, a shed that held about
two hundred people, an old Samoan at once started crashing
away at a monster wooden drum, and another drum-player
inside^ the shed did hkewise. The noise was deafening, and
the more so because the ballroom instrument was a large
European drum that had been purchased from one of the
American warships that had come into Apia harbour.
This drum was lent out at a high charge on special occasions
by the chiefs. I forget who was the original owner, but I
know that he was quite a wealthy man through the money
he received from his drum receipts, and I often regretted
that I had not known the tastes of Samoans, or I should have
arrived at Samoa with a cargo of old army drums and made
a fortune.

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Well, as we entered the baUroom Kalofa himself rushed
forward and greeted us affectionately before all the chiefs
as though he had known us for many years. I had only seen
him once before, and my cheerful companion the banjoist
had never seen him till that moment. Nevertheless we met
him as though we were the oldest friends, and bowed respect
fully as the whole audience arose and waved their dark hands
as they cheered us. It was a wonderful sight that we saw
round us, for right to the far end of the large, low room sat
in half circles the dlite of the native viUage, dressed in all the
colours and grotesque garments imaginable. Handsome
Samoan girls, half dressed and quarter dressed, were squat
ting amongst old tattooed chiefs who wore the ridi only,
while lines of old women sat with the handsome youths, who
glanced behind them at the girls who, I suppose, were being
looked after by the chiefs. The code of morals in Samoa was
becoming very strict, so many maids having been tempted
by the amorous youths to do things which they ought not to
do. In the centre of the throng was the barbaric orchestra.
I have led and conducted many orchestras and bands during
my time, but never such a deliberately planned inharmonious
ear-torturing lot of musicians as I led that night. I think
the instrumentation was chiefly strings and wind ; the former
consisted of wires strung across gourds and the latter of
bamboo flutes, old coppers and the drum which I have
previously mentioned.
I sat down in the middle of the orchestral players, squat
ting, with my comrade by my side, on a mat, and all the
native musicians around me gazed with great curiosity as I
started to tune the violin, and my comrade to pink-ee-tee-
ponk on his banjo ; indeed, so great was their curiosity that
they arose from their mats and poked their faces against our
instruments. Hitting my violin with the bow, so — tap-tap,
I made a sign to them to take their seats, and then the over
ture commenced ! My comrade and I tore away at the
strings. I forget what we had proposed to play, but as soon
as we started and the members of the orchestra heard the
violin wailing, they went completely mad with dehght, and
then tried to outdo us ; so placing their flutes to their dusky
72

THE CHIEF WITNESS AT THE WEDDING
mouths they all started to blow terrifically, and the drums
started oft and the stringed gourds twanged ! In a moment
I realised that to keep up our musical reputation we must
outdo the barbarian music, so I signed to my comrade, who
looked at me as though he had gone mad, and then started to
grind away at all my violin strings at once 1 I believe we
both caught the primitive, barbarian fever, for though the
row was terrible my memory of it all is one of some far-off
event of supreme musical dehght ! Not Wagner's wildest
dreams, no Futurist's idea of harmony could have outdone
the reality of that tribal music. Then suddenly it all changed
from thunder to weird sweetness, minor melodies of sad, for
gotten loves and dreams, for on a little elevated bamboo
platform the bride stood before us. She was a dusky,
tender-limbed maiden of about sixteen years of age. Dressed
in a blue frock that went no higher than her brown bosom,
fastened on by a red sash, her thick hair bedecked with
tropical blossoms, she looked like the beautiful dusky
princess from a South Sea novel. Her husband, a fine-
looking Samoan of about thirty, stood beside her as she
gazed up into his admiring eyes and sang a tender song of
love. It was a really beautiful melody and I at once caught
the spirit of it, and as she sang on sweetly I extemporised
a delicate accompaniment on my violin, interspersed with
minor pizzicatos. As soon as she ceased her song a tiny
child stepped forth, and kissing her feet handed her a large
bouquet of richly coloured forest flowers ; then the bride
groom stooped and kissed the child on the brow as all the
audience solenmly murmured " O whey — O whey " three
times. This child was a relative of the bride's, and not her
own chUd ; though, to tell the truth, this was often the
case in tribal weddings at which I had officiated as violinist,
where often the custom was that the bride's first-born came
as chief witness to the altar, and sometimes was old enough
to toddle all the way !
When she had sung one more island ditty to her delighted
husband the Siva dance commenced. Through a little door
behind the stage came about a dozen girls clad only in flowers
and grass, and when they had squatted in a circle on the
7Z

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
stage they started to beat their bare limbs with their hands
as they chanted, and the orchestra went tootle-tootle on the
bamboo flutes.
As the time passed the audience increased ; chiefs, half-
castes and many high-caste natives were there. Robert
Louis Stevenson arrived, with his face wreathed with smiles,
and stood just mside the door, watching and talking to the
natives. The old ex-King Mataafa, who was at that time
residing at Malie with his faithful followers, was also there
and stood talking to our host, who was, I believe, related to
Samoan royalty. Mataafa was a very intelligent-looking old
man, well dressed and with a majestic walk. About that time
there was a deal of trouble brewing between the subjects of
Mataafa and those who stood by King Malietoa,.and possibly
the old king was travelhng incognito, for he hardly revealed
himself, but stopped in the shadows.
Stevenson went round behind the audience to him and
was greeted very warmly ; they evidently knew each other
well. As the festival proceeded, and the bowl of kava was handed
round, the chiefs and women-folk became excited, while out
side under the moonlit coco-palms the girls and youths started
to dance and caper about. My friend and I took the first
opportunity to get outside, for the heat was stifling inside
" the haU."
When we arrived in the fresh air Stevenson was standing
by the doorway smoking. " Hallo ! there you are ; I'm
sorry, but I was too late to see the beginning," he said, and
then added : " That bride was a beautiful girl, wasn't she ? "
" Yes," I answered, as several native girls came up to us,
and, laughing, seized us and invited us to dance. The girl
who had gripped hold of Stevenson was a very wild but
good-looking maid, and gazing up into his face she started
to make eyes at him. Stevenson looked round laughingly
and then accepted the invitation ofthe girl to dance with her,
and so off they went ! As far as I can remember the novelist
was a good dancer and looked at his ease as he held the
Samoan beauty in his arms and gently whirled with her under
the coco-palms. 74

R. L. S. DANCES WITH A DUSKY MAID
AU the time that Stevenson and I were dancing the native
orchestra was booming and shrieking away in the festival
shed, and often we heard the old native drum-conductor cry
out " O Le Sivo," and then came a terrible crash as he
struck the old army drum with a war club !
Stevenson seemed delighted with himself for a little while,
and then we got too hot and, much to the disgust of the
maids, stopped. They were cool enough in their scanty
attire, but we were bathed in perspiration and fairly steamed
in the moonlight as we suddenly stood stiU.
Now I am coming to the comical part of it all, for Steven
son's partner proceeded to make violent love to him, and the
look on his face made it quite obvious that he was beginning
to feel imcomfortable, for he eventually walked off and she
at once followed him 1 He made several attempts to get rid
of her by talking to a native who stood by, but still the girl
persisted, till he suddenly walked up to me and said, " I say,
for God's sake get her away somewhere ; dance with her, do
anything to attract her attention." I at once went to the
rescue and asked her to dance. I was not much of a dancer,
but as a lover I have always been passable ! Stevenson
seemed very grateful, but only expressed it by walking off
in great haste as I clutched the girl tightly.
No sooner had Stevenson got out of sight than she started
on me, threw her arms about my neck and began to say
loving things about my beauty, I suppose, in her own
language. Several natives were standing under the trees,
shaking with laughter as they watched us : one of them
touched his forehead significantly and then I realised that
the girl was not quite right in the head ! "I say, Hill," I
said, as I quickly turned to my comrade, " she wants you to
dance with her ; do take her, old fellow." " Right you are,"
he answered, for he was an obliging fellow in that way, and
then I also bolted and went off, toward the chief's Fale-
Faipule (the head residence), to get my violin, which I had
left in his care for safety. As I approached the bamboo door
I saw Stevenson peeping through a chink ! " Has she
gone ? " he said. " Yes, I've got rid of her ; she is a bit
wrong in the head," I answered. Then, as Stevenson came
75

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
out into the open, ready to start away home, to our astonish
ment the girl we were talking about ran across the grass and
embraced him once more ! " Well I'm d  d I " he said,
and at that moment two natives came across the track and
collared her. I think they were her parents ; anyway they
took her off, and Stevenson hurried off also, for the hour was
late and the code of morals strict in the Vailima domestic
establisliment. My friend and I got back to Apia soon after. I slept
soundly and dreamed of dusky brides and mad lovers. So
ended that wedding as far as I was concerned.
A few days after the preceding events I saw Stevenson
again. It was in the daytime, and I and my friend were
busy packing up cases of tinned food, which had just arrived
from Sydney on the s.s. Lubeck, which generally called at
Apia every month. Adjoining the storeroom — ^where we
were assisting in packing the cases— was a grog shanty's bar
room. The reputation that this shanty had was an evil one,
for it was only visited by the beach fraternity who lived
solely on rum, and by Samoan women who welcomed German
sailors to their dusky arms after dark. In broad daylight
it was a bona-fide beach hotel, frequented by traders who had
no reputation to lose, yet who seemed the happiest of men
as they told fearless tales to their rough comrades, squirted
tobacco juice in endless streams through the open door and
drank fiery rum.
Well, suddenly Stevenson walked into the bar, and placing
a coin on the counter called for drinks. He seemed full of
glee, and laughed heartily as his two companions told him
something that was evidently humorous. These two men,
whom Stevenson had most probably just met, and who inter
ested him, were sheUbacks of the roughest type. One was
positively comical-looking with dissipation, and had a warty
grog-nose ; the other seldom spoke, but simply nodded his
head, as an umpire of truth, when his companion told Steven
son the wonders of the South Seas. They were telling him
about earlier black-birding days, when native men and girls
were lured on to the schooners and carried off to slavery
and worse. I cannot remember the things that they told
76

R. L. S. AND SHELLBACKS
him, but I distinctly remember Stevenson's deep interest as
he stood by them, with his head nearly touching the low
roof of the shanty, and called for more rum for his com
panions, though he did not drink himself.
The convivial old rogues were delighted with Stevenson's
generosity, and seeing that he listened eagerly to their yarns
the chief speaker became more garrulous and dramatic than
ever as he lifted his hands up to the roof and said : " Sir, them
things that I tells you is nothing to what I could tell you."
Meanwhile the novelist listened and looked out of the grog
shanty door, to see that no one was about who would carry
the news to Vailima that Robert Louis Stevenson was full of
glee, treating old rogues to rum, in a grog-house of mystery
and lurking crime.
There was a native woman in the bar, whom the bar
keeper called Frizzy. She had a large mop of frizzly hair
and I suppose got her name from that. She was one of the
abandoned class, had four half-caste children and was a half-
widow, for the father of the children, a German official, had
gone back to Berlin.
Whilst Stevenson was listening to his newly acquired
friends this woman approached him with her ghastly smile,
at the same time offering for sale her little plaited baskets of
red coral. Stevenson shook his head, and as she was still
persistent one of the old shellbacks pushed her away as
though she was a mangy dog. Stevenson looked at him
with disapproval, for, though he was naturally opposed to
women of her class, he was a champion for the unfortunates
who had been lured to their mode of life by white men. He
then called the woman, who had walked away, and asking
her the price of the coral bought two baskets, though I am
sure he did not want them.
At that moment a white man came into the bar and gave a
start at seeing Stevenson standing there. It was a " new
chum " from Sydney, and the last man you would have
expected to see in that place. Looking up at Stevenson, he
said : " Well, who would have ever thought of seeing you
here ! " On which the other responded in a surprised voice :
" Who on earth expected to see you here ! " Then they
77

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
both laughed, and Stevenson said something about being a
writer of books and seeking inspiration from natural sources,
and with intense amusement in his eyes he introduced the
two grimy reprobates to his friend, who shook them heartily
by the hand and asked them what they drank.
At this moment a Samoan youth rushed in at the bar door
very excited, and before we could understand his gesticula
tions a native girl came in behind him, snatched a large mug
from the counter and gave the youth a crack over the head !
As she made another rush to repeat the attack Stevenson
gripped her tightly, and she turned on him furiously, and
then, as quickly, calmed down and relented. She seemed
to regret bitterly her attack on her lover, for such he was,
though he had been paying attention to another maid. The
youth had a gash on his forehead, and though it was not a
deep cut the large flow of blood made a serious-looking affair
of it all. Out of the native's home, not far off, the children
and women came rushing to see what the row was about,
for, unfortunately, the jealous girl had screamed out when
she struck him. A German patrol came running across, and
had not Stevenson expostulated, and got on the right side of
him, the girl would have been arrested. The whole affair
would have been in The Samoan Times, Stevenson and his
friend would have been brought forward as witnesses, and
though Stevenson was perfectly innocent a lot of scandal
would have been the result.
About eight miles from Apia, in one of the coast villages,
lived a Marquesan who had married a Samoan woman, whom
I knew, as she had resided in Satuafata village. One day,
when I was walking along in Apia town, I was suddenly
greeted by her cheery laugh, and she invited me out to their
home, an invitation which I at once accepted, and so the
next day I started off alone. The weather was beautiful and
the sky cloudless as I passed under the coco-palms, and
heard the green doves cooing in the branches around me, as
the katafa (frigate-bird) sailed across the sky bound seaward.
Through the trees I could see the Pacific, bright under the
hot sun, and in Apia harbour the hanging canvas saUs of a
78

SAMOAN SCENERY
few anchored schooners. As I walked along I felt perfectly
happy in the company of my own thoughts, which were only
disturbed as I passed the native homesteads and returned
the hand-waves and salutations of " Kaoha ! " from the
pretty native girls who stood at the doors. Samoan girls
were, as I have told you, born flirts, and longed for the
romantic white youth who would love them and make them
" Te boomte Matan," ^ as they had read maids were loved in
the South Sea novels which they bought from the old store
shops in Apia. Far away along the coast I saw droves of
native children standing knee-deep in the shaded lagoon
waters that joined the ocean just outside.
I passed a beautiful spot where I had often stood at night,
when the island was asleep and the moon hung over the
water, and the view appeared like some mighty painting
done in silver and mystic colours, framed by the starlit skies.
The palms perfectly still, stretching to the slopes of the Vaea
Mountains, stood all round, only a wave gently breaking
over the far-off barrier reefs, or the wavering smoke from the
moonlit village huts, destroyed the impression of something
dream-like and unreal around me as the wind came and
moaned in the palm-tops, humming beautifully, till it seemed
the chiming of the starry worlds across the sky could be
faintly heard.
About three miles from Apia I left the track to cut across
a plantation towards the coast, when I was suddenly sur
prised to see two white people some distance off coming
toward the viUage that I was making for. Ambushed in the
thick scrub, I peered up the track to see what they might be,
and was again surprised to see that it was Stevenson and his
wife. Stevenson had a large bamboo rod in his hand, and
was waving it about violently and seemed very excited.
Indeed I thought they were quarrelling, but as they ap
proached a group of village homesteads just near the track
I saw that he was gesticulating, and pointing with pleasure
at the surrounding scenery, which was extremely beautiful
there. They did not notice me, and so I remained un
observed. Stevenson was dressed in white trousers and had
1 Wife of a white man.
79

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
an old cheesecutter cap on. As they approached the native
homes a lot of children came rushing across the clearing to
welcome them. Mrs Stevenson picked one of them up in her
arms and kissed it, while her husband in fun ran after the
rest with his bamboo stick, and they all scampered away in
delight. At the far end of the plantation, wherein grew coco-nuts,
yams and pine-apples, was the home of my native friends. I
crossed the space and passing between the lines of white
native houses arrived at my destination. Mrs Laota and
her husband gave me an enthusiastic welcome, with the usual
hospitality of Samoans, and in a very short space of time I
sat down before an appetising meal of poi-poi, taro, bread
fruit,^ yams and boiled fowl. There were two families living
in the homestead, and the native children climbed over me
as I sat down to eat, and, though I am fond of children, at
that moment they were a fearful pest. However, as in
England, I had to put up with it and assume a happiness
which I was far from feeling, while the delighted eyes of the
parents gazed upon me and on their children ; but they were
semi-savages and, of course, it was all excusable.
After I had finished my meal I stood at the door, smoking
and talking to my host, who seemed a very intelligent
native. He was a Marquesan, and his father, an old chief,
was also in our company. It was just at this moment that
Stevenson, whose wife was still visiting in the viUage, came
strolling along ; he had evidently been to the village before,
because my host and his wife at once called him and he came
across and greeted us all with a cheery laugh, accepting a
slice of pine-apple from the children and sitting down on the
bench with us.
WeU, Koro, the old Marquesan chief, had lived in the
stirring times when his tribe had suffered from the ravages
of cannibalism, and he started oft yarning almost directly
Stevenson sat down. From his lips we were told many
things that seemed almost unbelievable. Koro even darkly
hinted that Samoans up till very recently had been addicted
1 Bread-fruit is baked in the red-hot ash, like baked potatoes.
When it is cooked properly the outer rind cracks and falls off.
80

THE MARQUESAN CANNIBAL
to the awful appetite, which was probable ; but, being an
intellectual race and superior in every way to the other races
of the Pacific, Samoans had not allowed the stain of cannibal
ism to rest on the history of their people, letting the memory
of it die out with the custom. Stevenson was alert with
interest as the old chief told us of past cannibalistic orgies of
his islands, and, as the old man yarned on in pidgin-English,
kept saying " Well now, really me ! " for very surprise at
the things we heard. One tale he told us was so blood
thirsty and cruel, and the truth so evident from the manner
in which it was told, that I must repeat it here.
It appeared that in the Marquesa Group, on Hiva-oa, at a
period not distant from the time that I am telling you of,
there was a ferocious cannibal who was the last survivor of a
tribe which had ravaged the surrounding vUlages and preyed
on the flesh of the people. In Koro's time this hated man-
eater lurked in the forest, and the village was obliged to have
sentinels on watch each night. For the terrible cannibal
had a passion for the flesh of their children, and often by
night the whole village was awakened by hearing the screams
of one of their little ones, who had been seized whilst asleep,
and was being carried off into the forest. The method of this
monster was to crawl on his belly through the thickets and
watch the viUage for hours, and once or twice a girl had been
carried oft in broad daylight to be strangled and eaten. Many
of the things the old chief told us were too terrible to write
down here ; it is enough to say that he did not strangle his
female victims at once, but kept them lashed in his hiding-
place to be kiUed and eaten at leisure. The people knew
this, because a native girl had managed to escape, after
being a prisoner of the monster's for several days. It is
impossible to describe here Koro's dramatic attitude, and his
wonderful way of teUmg the story. The listenmg children
in the hut crept closer to us for fright, and Stevenson laughed
ahnost hystericaUy and said " Good Lord ! " as the old
fellow continued, " WeU, Marser Stesson, one night Chief
Swae, who had just got married, had a great dance, and we
all be happy and dance ; and that night when the moon was
getting old we aU did sleep and Swae's bride did sleep beside

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
him, for the night was very hot and we did all sleep in the
open under the fifis (palms). Suddenly we were all awake
and jumping about in the village, for Swae was shouting out
with a great voice : ' The man-eater has stolen my wife.' In
one moment we had all seized our war-clubs, old cutlasses
and muskets and rushed off into the forest, Swae the bride
groom leading the way. Presently we did hear a far-oft
scream coming from the direction of the sea. Swiftly we
turned and went toward the shore, and it was then that we
all looked through the mangroves and saw the great man-
eater holding Swae's bride in his arms as though she was a
caught bird. He was leaning against a tree and had stopped
because she did cling to one of his legs ; he was a mighty big
fellow of great strength, and his face was very, very dark and
wrinkled with wickedness. Swae ran with all his might
round the shore and got behind the cannibal, and, creeping up
behind him, with one sweep of his cutlass cut his head from
his shoulders. It fell to the forest floor and the body still
stood upright, while the cannibal's head lay on the ground
with the mouth still half laughing at the thought of what he
would do with Swae's wife ! When we got up to the bride she
lay as one dead, still clinging to the man-eater's leg. Then
Swae caUed her softly by her name and she opened her eyes
and sprang into his eager arms. We cooked the body of the
cannibal and gave it to our grunting swme. No one of my
tribe would eat the swine after that, so we sold them to the
white sailors who came in on the big ships and they were
much pleased that they were so cheap ! " And saying this
the old chief gave a chuckle in his wrinkled throat, being
hardly able to disguise his inward delight. Stevenson,
too, saw the grim humour of it and also smUed and said :
" WeU now ! "
As Koro finished Mrs Stevenson arrived on the scene,
carrying a large bunch of flowers, and when Stevenson told
her that which we had been listening to she said : " Ugh, I
am glad I wasn't here to listen ; you love gruesome things, I
know." Stevenson grmned like a schoolboy as he started
mischievously to teU her some of the most gruesome detaUs
which we had just heard. 8a

CHAPTER VIII
Robert Louis Stevenson and his Friends — Stevenson as a Road-
maker — Timbo — Stevenson on the Scihooner — The Skipper —
"Tusitala"' and the Natives — Conventionality — A Visit to
King Malietoa — Stevenson's Love of Adventure — Stevenson the
Writer — Genius in the Southern Seas — Socialism
1SAW Stevenson several times after that at society balls
and concerts in Apia, where sometimes he seemed full
of merriment and indeed the life of the party, and
again at other times strangely silent, revealing the man of
moods. I have never heard that he was fond of being alone,
but I can vouch for it that he was as often alone in his
wanderings over the islands as he was with friends ; indeed
I think I saw him more often alone than otherwise. I met
Mr Strong twice, I think, when he was with Stevenson.
Mr Moore too, who wrote With Stevenson in Samoa, was a
pleasant man, and Robert Louis Stevenson and he were as
familiar as brothers.
Almost the last time I saw Stevenson was at the Tivoli in
Apia ; he was with Mr Moore and several other men whom I
cannot recall. They were all taking refreshments and talk
ing. Stevenson was flushed a bit, his eyes were very bright,
and with his hat off, revealing a lofty, pale brow, he looked
unlike the ordinary run of men. He was in an excellent
mood, and Mr Moore and another member of the party were
so intensely amused at what he was saying that they almost
upset their glasses and spluttered as they laughed ; which
gave Stevenson very obviously great pleasure, for he was
as fond of a joke as any of them.
On that special occasion I was in the company of the chief
mate of a large schooner which was leaving Apia the next
day for Honolulu. Stevenson, or one of the party, called us
across and offered us drinks and cigars. Soon after my com
panion, who had to get on board his ship, left and I went with
83

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
hun ; and as we got outside we still heard the jovial
exclamations of Stevenson and his friends as they yarned
on, their voices fading behind us as we walked away into
the moonlight and shadows of the coco-palms many years
ago. Stevenson would often tackle rough work, such as tree-
chopping and digging ; and was often to be seen perspiring
and covered with grime as he helped the natives to make
tracks across the rough jungle and forest land that sur
rounded Vailima. Bare-footed, dressed in old clothes and
a seaman's cast-off cap, he looked like some vagabond dust
man. His manner to the natives who worked for him was
jovial enough ; he would shout : " Go it. Sambo, that's right,
te rom and te pakea ^ if you work hard " ; and then with a
twinkle in his eyes he'd stand and watch them lugging the
wheelbarrows up the slope as they jabbered like school
children and worked their hardest. Several of Stevenson's
friends also worked with him : one of them would be cutting
the trees down as the novelist smoked, and jocularly criti
cising him, telling him to " keep moving and not be such a
loafer." Mrs Stevenson arrived on the scene of hard work
once and chided him for exerting himself. " Don't do that,
dear, or you will be ill again," she would say ; and the novelist
would look up and then work harder than ever.
He was to be found in all the out-of-the-way places and
would go miles alone, usually on foot ; though he had an old
horse or ass, I forget which, he seldom rode it.
One day I was walking along near the coast when a little
native boy of about six years of age, came limping out of the
jungle scrub just by the track. I picked the little fellow up
and discovered he had trodden on some glass, and had a deep
gash in his foot. As I was carrying him down to the shore
to wash his wound, Stevenson and a boy came strolling by.
Stevenson, who was always very kind to children, examined
the wound, took out his pocket-handkerchief and bound the
foot up, after we had well bathed it : his manner to the little
outcast was one of extreme tenderness.
I was living with two kindly disposed old natives at that
1 Meaning rum, refreshments and tobacco.
84

TIMBO : A TYPICAL SAMOAN CHILD
time, so I picked the child up and carried him home. We
found out the next day that the poor little fellow's parents
had been drowned by the upsetting of a canoe in a typhoon off
Apia harbour. He was very thin and looked ill, so I gave my
hosts some money and told them to feed him up, which they
did. I became very fond of him ; he had thick curls all over
his head, and his cheery little brown face was lit up by a pair
of beautiful brown eyes. He slept near me, and every
moming he would jump off his bed-mat and caper about like
a puppy and would insist in helping me put my boots on.
He heard me play the violin and was deeply interested in it.
I was always catching him looking at my violin, and each
time he looked up at me artfully, as much as to say : " I must
not touch your wonderful music. Oh no, I'm not that kind
of Samoan baby 1 "
I only chided him once, when I caught the little dark
tinker unscrewing all my violin pegs. He gave a terrified
shriek as I ran after him, and was off like a frightened rabbit.
When I at length caught him, and regained my property, he
looked up at me with pleading eyes, gave a baby-like cry,
and in musical, infantile Samoan phrases asked to be for
given. So I at once placed him on my shoulder and
gave him a ride to his heart's delight ; and after that he
stood guard over my violin, and came rushing up to me if
even the dog went near it. I let him sleep with me some
times, and he placed his arms about my neck as though I
were some sweet-bosomed mother ; and so in that way fell
asleep the little brown savage in the arms of Western
civihsation. Of course this is not telling you much of Robert Louis
Stevenson, but to me, and in my memory of it all, it's just
as important, perhaps even more so. The old Samoan wife
became very fond of Timbo, as I called him, and he became
quite plump. So I secured a good home for him for life, or
till he grew up, and therefore you will see that I have also
done good mission work in the South Seas !
I heard when I came home afterwards that Stevenson had
seen Timbo and given him some presents, including a box of
tin German soldiers. Timbo gave me half of them. I was
85

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
obliged to accept them to please him. If he's alive stiU he
must be a fine young fellow, for he was affectionate and
plucky even as a tiny child. I remember how I once took
him for a canoe ride, and his delight as I rocked the smaU
craft in the shallow water till he fell overside, for he could
swim like a fish. Once I took him out in Apia harbour and
we went aboard a schooner that had encountered a typhoon ;
she was being overhauled, for her deck was almost washed
clean, the rigging was a mass of tangle and the galley had
been washed away. The skipper was a pleasant enough
man ; he hailed from San Francisco and had a voice that
could compete with the wildest gale's thunder, but never
theless his heart was in the right place when whisky was
scarce. I had met him ashore and, hearing that I came from
Sydney, and had lived near his home in San Francisco, he
got into conversation with me and hinted that there was a
chance of a berth aboard for me, if I felt inclined to take it.
While I was on this schooner one afternoon suddenly
Stevenson and his wife came on board ; they had been
brought out in one of the small native canoes that were
always hovering by the beach, awaiting passengers wanting
to visit the anchored crafts in the harbour. The novelist
was in high spirits and helped Mrs Stevenson up the rope
ladder in great mirth. Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson was an
excellent sailor and made no fuss about the ascent, as she
clambered up and leapt on the deck with a bounce !
The skipper knew them well and was very polite to them.
A young American or Australian lady, I forget which, was
also visiting on board, and the skipper introduced her to
Mr and Mrs Stevenson. She devoted all her attention to
the novelist, and as they were having lunch together in the
schooner's cuddy Stevenson's misery, as she plied him with
questions and reiterated her flattering approval of his books,
was very evident. ' ' Oh, I think your books most delightful ;
how do you think of such things ? Was it really true about
that rich uncle and the derelict piano ? Have you read
Lady Audley's Secret^." So she rattled on. Stevenson
looked appealingly at his wife, in an attempt to get her to
engage the girl's attention, but still she persisted in reiterating
86

R. L. S. AND HIS WIFE ON A NIGHT OUT
those things which she thought were music to the novelist's
ears. Suddenly Stevenson looked up, and with his fine eyes
alive with satire said something to the effect that " he did
not write books for ladies to read," punctuating the remark
with a look that made the garrulous visitor immediately
retire into her sheU.
The convivial equUibrium was not restored till the skipper
sat down at the cuddy's harmonium and, with his feet
pedalling away at full speed, started to sing with his
thunderous voice :
" Fifteen men on a dead man's chest,
Yo 1 Ho I Ho 1 for a bottle of rum ! '-'
The young lady who had so annoyed Stevenson joined in,
and revealed the fact that her voice as a musical medium
was a deal more pleasant than when it tried to flatter a
writer of books. Stevenson seemed delighted to find such
an opportunity insidiously to apologise for his previous
irritabUity, and so at once started to applaud the lady's
singing in an almost exaggerated fashion.
A bottle of whisky was opened, and the skipper drank half-
a-tumblerful, just to sample it and see if he had really opened
the special brand which he had been recommending to his
visitors. Finding there was no mistake, with all the
liberality of a sailor, he allotted to each a due portion ;
whereby the dimly lit cabin festival was immensely enhanced.
Stevenson's mirth was frequently stimulated by the drunken
mate, who repeatedly poked his head into the cuddy door
and, with a half-apologetic leer at the ladies, looked at the
skipper and said : " All's well, sir. I'm going ashore."
The skipper, who was half-seas-over himself, looked at him
contemptuously and said : " Clear out of it." " Ay, ay,
sir," responded the mate, and in a few minutes he was back
again, and out came the same information, " All's well, sir.
I'm oft ashore."
Suddenly the skipper arose and went on deck, and a loud
argument commenced, interspersed with those maritime
epithets which enforce sea law and are not to be found in
navigation books. After a brief interval of silence the
87

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
skipper could be heard shouting out oaths as he shook his
fist to the mate, who was being rowed away ashore by the
natives who always haunted the gangways of anchored
ships. At sunset the party left the schooner, and the skipper
went with them, and we heard their laughter fadmg away
over the darkening waters as the singing natives paddled
them away to Apia's island town.
That same night I also went ashore with the sailors.
Tunbo sat in the middle of the ship's boat ; he had been
entertained by the hands in the forecastle. As soon as I
arrived on the beach I made my way to my friendly natives'
home, for the hour was late and I wanted to get Timbo off
to bed. I was deep in thought, and as he toddled beside me
I held his hand. Suddenly I was startled by hearing the
child make throaty gurgles as though he wanted to be sick,
his little brown face wrinkling up as he made fearful grimaces.
"What's the matter, Timbo ? " I said, somewhat alarmed,
and for answer he looked up at me helplessly and dropped
several objects in the scrub. I picked them up and found
that he had been sucking away a^t a large, rank meerschaum
pipe, which I at once recognised as belonging to the boat
swain of the schooner which we had just left. The boy had
also stolen a purse with a few coppers in it and a small
leather belt purse full of brass buttons. I felt pretty wild
with the little fellow at first, because it meant that I had to
go back to the schooner and return the things.
Taking Timbo up, I sat on a log and laid him across my
knees, ready to give him a good spanking, for it was not his
first misdemeanour ; indeed, he had done many things
which I have left untold. As I laid him face downwards, so
that I might administer chastisement, he twisted his little
curly head round and looked appealingly up at me with his
big brown eyes : as if to say : " Oh, noble white man from the
far-off moral integrity of Western civilisation, may I beg of
you to overlook the sad indiscretion of a Samoan child ? "
That part whereon I was about to administer justice looked
so small and helpless that I did that which I should have
Uked to have been done to me in my earlier years, for I
88

R. L. S. AS I REMEMBER HIM
relented and stood Timbo on his feet. Then I said : " Timbo,
for that which you have done you will be arrested and taken
to Mulinuu Jail, where the wicked chiefs are imprisoned."
Hearing this, he clung to me and sobbed, and large tears
roUed down his cheeks and splashed onto his small mahogany-
coloured toes. So I said : " Timbo, I forgive you." For I
knew, deep down in my heart, that, though I was white, I
had in my childish days committed several little indiscre
tions very similar to Timbo's. He was only a tiny fellow,
and I thought of English babies who at his age were still in
arms and busy sucking dummies ; and I knew that civilisa
tion itself was a monstrous baby, devoid of wit, sucking
away at the dry, windy dummy and soothing itself with the
thought that it was swaUowing kindly feeding milk. As I
thought I looked at Timbo, and the expression of gratitude
on his little half -wild face, as he stood on his head and waved
his feet to the skies, seemed to applaud my mUd philosophy.
In all that I recall of Robert Louis Stevenson — his manner
to strangers, his ever-ready attention to those who would
earnestly tell him something, his kindness to the natives and
to all who were in a conventional sense beneath him — was
revealed a large mind with a sympathetic, human outlook.
Often little actions, something done on the impulse of the
moment, told of simplicity and tenderness and the greatness
which reveals a spirit that sees the link of fellowship between
men, no matter what their caste or position in human affairs.
At times he might have appeared theatrical to those
around him ; but it was the expression of an intellectual,
dramatic instinct, not for the stage, but for the drama played
by men of this world, as though he were ever gazing critically
on mortals before the limelight of existence and saying, half
to himself: " There you are ! I told you so. What would
you say to all that you've just heard if you read it in a book ?
You wouldn't believe it, I'll be bound."
His manner to Mrs Stevenson revealed an affectionate,
confiding nature that loved attention. I should think it was
the affection of a boy's heart, with the strong strain of a
disceming man who knew the nature of women. He would
always treat native women with the same deference that he
89

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
showed to the women of his own race ; a deference always
delicately courteous, excepting on those occasions when
women might court his criticism by criticising him, or by
casting aside the delicate armour of their sex and assuming
man's role.
His kindness and the trouble he took on behalf of the
Samoans is well known, and the natives earnestly expressed
their gratitude by listening to and following the advice of
" Tusitala," as they called him, and when he died they loudly
bewaUed his death. The poet-author's coffin was borne on
the strong shoulders of Samoan chiefs, and the sound of their
waUing, as they carried the coffin onwards up the slopes, with
slow footsteps, to the grave on Vaea's sea-girt height, was
his funeral chant.
I saw Robert Louis Stevenson in many places and in many
moods, and looking back, as I now can, the perspective clearly
shows me that he was a religious man in the true sense of
that term. In no wise bigoted, he often fell into the ranks of
Christianity and beat time, with a smile on his lips, as though
he wished to set an example to those around him, in his know
ledge that the example was better than his own half-sad,
hopeful smile. At times, too, he would fall out of the ranks
and become a harum-scarum renegade, and at such moments
he seemed to have no idea of the existence of the barrier-lines
that men, before the public, draw between the jovial rogue
and the respectable citizen. " Well, captain, how goes it ?
Got an eye-opener aboard ? " he would say as he jumped
aboard the schooner's deck ; and then he would turn to the
sailor who might be cleaning brass close by and offer him a
cigarette, or walk into the forecastle and chum with the crew,
or look over the ship's side and shy a copper to the swimming
natives who haunted the bay, with the sea-birds, looking for a
living. Such was Stevenson's manner in the isles of Samoa,
where, notwithstanding the wildness and the proximity to
primitive life, many of the emigrant citizens still did things,
or did not do things, because of the standard set by a majority.
It does not matter where you go, or how remote from
civilisation your dwelling-place may be, you are sure to have
90

MRS STEVENSON
some living illustration before you to tell you that the chains
of conventionality are forged from the natures of men. I
believe that if we could come back to this world a myriad
years hence, when the sun has cooled down to a ghostly
moon, when the seas are frozen and swinging to the tideless
desolation that precedes the final crashing of the planetary
system, and the human race has dwindled to a camp of
twelve shivering mortals wrapped in bearskins, we should find
them sitting over the last log fire without wood, with gloomy
faces, anxiously awaiting Monday — because it is Sunday !
Mrs Stevenson was as much a Bohemian as her husband.
She accompanied him on his short visits to Apia town, and
on those occasions she was generally to be seen hurriedly
rushing back to get, or inquire for, that which had been left
behind. The novelist walked ahead and, as he went on
dreaming, forgot that his wife was out with him till the
domestic voice came again. Mrs Stevenson was very pleasant
to talk to ; she invited me to VaUima, but I was not able
to go. Indeed, I was only a lad and, not being a lady's man,
would have run twenty miles to escape Vailima fashion.
I recall many men who were acquaintances of Robert
Louis Stevenson, and whom I have never heard of since. I
remember one old man in particular whom Stevenson was
always glad to meet. Indeed, the novelist's face lit up
directly he saw him. His name was Callard, and he was a
bit of a scallawag, was a character and had plenty of spare
cash. He was never silent, but talked all day long and
nearly all night, and always had some new trouble to relate.
I slept in his room one night with two other men and he kept
on and on about some friend who had swindled him out of
five dollars in San Francisco, for that was his native place.
" Yes, he did me, by heaven he did " ; and saying this he
would start reckonmg up on a bit of paper, and sit on the
side of the bed swearing till my friend and I said : " If you
won't worry any more about it we'll give you the five dollars."
About a week after he took a passage on the 'Frisco maU-
boat. I really believe that he hurried home and spent five
hundred dollars to ease his mind about that five dollars, and
would have spent a thousand dollars sooner than be done, I
91

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
am rather like that myself, but I do not let such losses prey
on my mind, for if I did, and tried to get even with the
culprit, I should be incessantly travelling off somewhere or
other. WeU, Stevenson often met Callard, and the old chap treated
him as though he was a boy, told the novelist jokes, spun
yams and repeatedly nudged him in the ribs ; and the two
would finally end up by retiring to the bar and standing each
other treat.
Callard's great ambition at that time was to see King
Malietoa Laupepa at Mulinuu. I went off with him, and with
the assistance of some Malietoans got him an introduction
at the royal court. Callard behaved with great propriety,
indeed, bowed to almost all the native servants of the court
retinue ! I played the violin to the King, who was a most
agreeable gentleman, and carried himself with a deal more
importance than Mataafa did. Callard spoke day and night
of the King's handshake, and chuckled in his very sleep at
the thought of what his friends in America would think when
they heard of Callard and the King of Samoa together.
He went especially to Vailima to tell Stevenson about
King Malietoa, and kept the novelist amused the whole
evening. Callard's eyebrows were about half-an-inch long and they
stuck straight out, and as he spoke his eyelids kept closing
as though he was in deep thought ; and what with that and
his high, bald head, he was a cheerful-looking man. He
always drank whisky, and Stevenson tucked him up to sleep
on his couch at Vailima when he was too full of it to walk
back to his lodgings ! I am quite sure if Stevenson had lived
the world would have heard of Callard.
Stevenson had a sneaking regard for vagabonds, and his
eyes twinkled with delight in their company. He was very
credulous and believed a deal that he heard. I think he
would have gone off exploring for some new country, or a
treasure island, in five minutes, if he had been encouraged
by some of the fearless adventurers whom he mixed with
through his love of vagabondage and adventure. The
questions he used to ask men of the seafaring class revealed
92

<

STEVENSON THE TONE POET
how implicitly he believed that which they were telling hun,
yet at other times he seemed alert with suspicion and in a
mood to disbelieve actual facts.
Though I heard Stevenson make several attempts to play
the violin, and also heard him pedaUing at the harmonium, I
cannot recaU that he accomplished anything that struck me
as showing musical talent — that is, talent revealmg a quick
ear to distinguish the scales and intervals of mechanical
music. Indeed the pedals made more noise and sounded
more rhythmical than the tune he played ; and he looked
like some careworn priest toUing away on the treadmUl of
penance to save his soul. But still I can say that Stevenson
had a gift that was something much greater than an ear for
light melody. He was a great tone poet ! His mind was a
shell that caught echoes from the vastness of creation, and
the murmurs of humanity in all its joy, passion and sorrow.
Otherwise he could never have even noticed, let alone
described as he did, for not in all literature will you find
another who describes sound so perfectly at one stroke as
Stevenson did. You can hear Nature's moods, in all her wild
grandeur of seas and the winds in the mountain forests, as
you read his books. The seas beating over the barrier reefs,
the vast silence of the tropical night, the starlit coco-palms
and the coughing derelict beachcomber sleeping beneath
them, become realities that haunt your mind, because they
are made and played by a great musician who was an artist
in Nature's great orchestra.
I think if Stevenson had been able to cast aside all thought
of the critical inspection of lovers of polite literature, and the
mechanical niceties of phrase and thought, and had written
his reminiscences down in a book, the characters therein
would have walked, talked and laughed with cinema realism.
Down in the magical world of words, before the mind's eye
and ear, we should have seen the vast tropical Pacific, and the
stars over it reflected in the lagoons of the far-scattered isles
clad with coco-pahns as if painted by the magical silver oils
of moonlight. We should have heard the cry of the traders
and seen the beachcombers' ragged clothes fluttering by
tossing waters, and paddled canoes fiUed with the swarthy
93

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
faces of wUd men, on the waves that were breaking over
the shores of his wonderful pages.
But, unfortunately, it was not to be, because of the great
truth that we cannot do differently from that which we do.
We are bom in the chains of grim conventionality that
become inevitably a part of us. Indeed he who professes to
be utterly free from it, and to have no regard for it in his
work, has his published book as strong evidence against his
sincerity. I've met far greater geniuses than Robert Louis Stevenson
in the Southern Seas — geniuses so intense with pathos, wit,
insight and heroic courage that though they had never even
read a book, or leamt to write, their minds were gold mines
of truth and experience and all that men have ever attempted
to tell in polite phrase. Could they, by some magical means,
have turned a handle and so written down in a book their
reminiscences, and their thoughts on human affairs, modem
literature would not have to bewail the loss of its Golden
Age, but would be absorbed with delight, filled with ecstatic
charm over the pathos and the wonderful touches of truth,
in what would be the great classic, the new Odyssey of modern
times. But to return to Stevenson. I once heard him arguing
violently on board a ship, when he was at dinner in the
saloon. At the time I was busily cleaning the brass door
handle. It grieves me to have to confess to this humble
occupation while I was seeking fame and fortune in far
countries, but it was the execution of this little detail of one
of my many professions that gave me the opportunity of
hearing the celebrated author's opinion on Socialism.
One of the diners, who sat opposite Robert Louis Steven
son, was a big red-faced man, weighing about sixteen stone,
a quantity of heavy jewellery which adorned his clothing
being included. He breathed violently as he ate and kept
insisting on the wonderful virtues of Sociahsm. Stevenson
combated with him in fine style, winning every point. All
I can remember of the conversation was that the author said :
" Socialism is based on ideas of equality and the freedom of
the individual ; yet its principal aim in practice would be to
94

STEVENSON AND SOCIALISM
destroy individuality and freedom, and the equality would
be a system producing nothing else but a nation of slaves."
I think Stevenson was right, for I have noticed that
sociahsts are not continually busy in giving away anything.
Indeed, socialists have so developed the instinct of com
mercial grab that they can always perceive, " by the cut of
your jib " (a socialistic phrase), how much you are worth and
whether you would part with it without the use of muscular
force. I am not well read in the ethics of Socialism, because
I caimot waste my time. If a burglar broke into my house,
and I caught him stealing my goods as his fair share, I
should not want to read his private correspondence and
hear his views on human affairs, or wish to know if he
had a clean shirt on ere I threw him out of the window or
fetched the police. Socialists do not like sharing their
property with others any more than I do.
I have striven to tell in the brief foregoing details my
impressions and experiences of Robert Louis Stevenson. I
hope they may be interesting. In the books that deal with
his life in the South Seas it is little short of marvellous how
tamely his life there is painted, especially when one thinks
that his island home was overrun by semi-civilised natives
and a white population of the most mixed and adventurous
people the world could well place together ; and certainly
Stevenson was not the kind of man to travel to the South
Seas and seek no other excitement beyond an afternoon walk
or a fashionable dance in an Apia ballroom.
It was somewhere about the period which I am dealing
with that a discussion was going on concerning Father
Damien, the celebrated Catholic priest who had sacrificed
his life for the sake of the lepers at the dread lazaretto on the
Isle of Molokai. In my first book of reminiscences in the
South Seas I touched briefly on the few incidents which I
heard from a native friend of mine, Raeltoa the Samoan.
And before I proceed with my later reminiscences of Samoa
and elsewhere I will tell you all I heard about Father Damien
whilst I was in Honolulu.

95

CHAPTER IX
Honolulu— King Lunalilo— Chinese Leprosy — Kooma's Reminis
cences of Father Damien — Molokai — The Leper-Hunters—
Father Damien at Molokai— Robert Stevenson's Open Letter to
Dr C. M. Hyde
AFTER Samoa I think the Sandwich Isles are the most
attractive islands in the Pacific. They are moun
tainous and the summits of Hawaii — ^pronounced
Ha-wy-ee — ^rise to fourteen or fifteen thousand feet. All the
islands of the group are volcanic, and rich both in live and
extinct craters. I should not be surprised if some day the
bowels of the Sandwich Group suddenly exploded and blew
the isles to smithereens !
When, from the sea, you sight the coast, its promontories
covered with coco-palms and gorgeous tropical trees, waving
over slopes that lead down to lazy, shore-curling waves, you
think of the Biblical Garden of Paradise. Native hut homes,
conical-shaped, with tiny verandahs, peep out of the bamboo
and clumps of bananas beneath mighty bread-fruit trees.
I stayed several weeks in the Sandwich Group. The
natives are mirthful and well dressed, far in advance
of the Marquesan and Solomon islanders. They are all
Christians, but decidedly immoral according to European
codes. Honolulu is a well-shaded city, with the spires of
advanced civilisation rising. Missionaries are there in
plenty, and possibly they feel thankful that barbarian ideas
of virtue have given them a profession on islands of tropical
beauty, whereon they can live in extreme comfort while they
work among, and are kind to, the natives.
While there I saw the palace of the Hawaiian queen, who
I think was the widow of King Kale-Conalain. She was as
polished as a Parisian prima donna. I also saw the new
king, Lunalilo, a fine-looking Hawaiian, six feet high, full-
lipped and very majestic-looking. He was dressed in a frock-
96

KOOMA THE HAWAIIAN
coat and fashionable felt hat. As he appeared before the
people and stood on the palace steps, the crowds waved and
cheered as the British do to their King and Queen.
The Hawaiian climate is healthy ; but Chinese leprosy
attacks the natives and the white population, which con
sists of French, English, Kanakas negroes. Chinamen and
ex-convicts. Swarms of mosquitoes find the Sandwich Isles
a happy hunting ground for their race, and are one of its
drawbacks. I toured on the island steamer Kilanea to all the various
isles, and then stopped near Honolulu with Kooma, who was
a Hawaiian. He was an old man, yet straight figured,
well tattooed and with intelligent eyes. His high brow
denoted intellectual qualities which were usually con
spicuous through their absence from the heads of his race.
Hawaiians are like all the South Sea Islanders, and have a
deeply rooted hatred for work. As they have embraced
Christianity, heathen songs have ceased, and now, like caged
birds on the polished perches of civilisation, they sit and
quote, parrot-like, all that the missionaries teach them.
Kooma at that time had no calling. He was aged, and
had reared up a large family, and his athletic sons, who
worked on shipping wharves at Honolulu, repaid Kooma for
his past kindness. He had several married daughters also.
I was not very well off at the time and gladly accepted the
old Hawaiian's offer to let me occupy rooms in his home at
a charge that nicely suited the state of my exchequer.
Kooma had known Father Damien ^ intimately, that
heroic leper priest who had devoted his life to combating
heathenism and nursing the lepers on the Isle of Molokai,
and had, a year or so before, died of the dreaded disease.
So I was fortunately able to hear, directly from him, details
of deep interest to me concerning the life and character of
the celebrated priest, who had emigrated from Louvain as a
' Joseph Damien de Veuster was born at Tremeloo, a small peasant
village near Louvain, in 1840; and in peaceful scenes that are now
ravaged by the relentless tramp of materialistic battalions he, as a boy,
dreamed and fed his imagination and intense genius for helping
humanity. He died on isth April 1889.
G 97

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
missionary to Honolulu, and after a strenuous life of self-
sacrifice lay in his grave near his stricken chUdren on the
lonely lazaretto isle, Molokai.
It appeared that my friend had known Damien many years
before he went to Molokai ; had officiated as his servant,
and helped the missionary build some of the extemporised
churches and homes at Kohala and elsewhere.
Sitting by his side, by the window of his humble home
stead, while native chUdren romped under the palms out in
the hot sunlight, I talked to Kooma of many things, and hear
ing that he had known Father Damien I at once plied him
with questions. "Was Damien a kind and good man,
Kooma ? " I asked, and then, with much pride that he was
able to give me information concerning such a popular white
man, he blew whiffs of tobacco through his thin, wrinkled
lips and answered : "I have cut wood and dug hundreds of
post-holes for the great white priest, and he no pay me."
" Did not pay you ? " I said, astonished.
" No," he answered. " I knew that he was poor and
had no money, and so I work for no wages." After
many questions and replies which dealt chiefly with the
Hawaiian's own character and importance, I gathered that
Kooma had collected firewood for the lonely priest, and had
done many services for him, both as a friend and a servant,
out of a good heart, for it appeared that Damien was not
by any means an austere man or master, but one who worked
with those around him in a spirit of good comradeship.
If anyone imposed upon the natives and Damien heard of
it, he would hotly resent the imposition, and with flashing
eyes shout and fight for their rights as though they were his
own children.
Years before Damien went to Molokai a handsome
Hawaiian girl, who lived at Kahalo, loved a Society Island
youth who had, with his parents, emigrated to the Sandwich
Islands. The father of the maid disliked the youth, who
was an idle, good-for-nothing feUow, and so would not
encourage the lad's attentions to his daughter. For some
tune the lovers met in secret, for love laughs at locksmiths
in Hawaii as well as elsewhere. One night, as Damien sat
98

FATHER DAMIEN AND THE HAWAIIAN MAID
by his fireside in his lonely hut having his humble meal, the
love-sick maid appeared at his door. Crossing her hands on
her breast, she bowed, half frightened, and after much
hesitation pleaded to the Catholic Father on the youth's
behalf, begging him to help her, for she was in great distress ;
and knowing that Damien was a great missionary and priest
of the white God, she suddenly fell on her knees and confessed
all. She was in trouble through the lad, and, telling Damien
this, she laid her head on his knee and cried bitterly ; for the
kindness of his eyes soothed her and made her feel like a little
child. Gently bidding her to rise, the Father told her to
cease from troubling, and said : " Go, my child, home ; tell
thy father all ; also that thou hast told this thing to me, and
I will come and see him."
The priest did all that he promised ; and the next evening
the sinful youth who had brought sorrow to Ramao, for that
was her name, appeared before the hut door wherein lived
Father Damien and, shamefaced, hung his head for a long
whUe. Kooma, who sat telling me all this, added : " And the
great white Father put the spirit of Christ in Juno's (the
lad's) heart ; for he became good, and worked hard, and was
forgiven for that which he did, and they were happy and had
many children ; and I learnt to love Juno in his manhood, for
he was a good father and kind to the maid who was my
daughter ! " And, saying all this, he pushed the window
higher up and pointed to a tall maid who, in her ridi robe,
came singing down the track by the jungle ferns. On her
bare shoulders she humped baskets of live fish which had
been just caught below in the sea. " She," Kooma said,
" is my granddaughter, and was the unborn child of the
fallen maid whom Father Damien was kind to " ; and there
she stood in the doorway and gazed on us both with laughing,
sparkling eyes, bare from the waist upwards, excepting for a
thread of beads hanging at her breast and a Catholic cross,
with a tiny figure of the Virgin Mary, swinging below. I
looked at her with deep interest, and thought of the kindness
of the missionary priest, dead in his grave at Molokai.
Kooma showed me a Bible which had been given him
by Father Damien. It was well thumb-marked, torn, and
99

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
pencilled by the priest at those pages where he had made my
friend memorise different passages. On the front leaf was
Damien's signature. On my handing the sacred gift back
to the Hawaiian he carefully placed it at the bottom of his
chest ; and I knew that it would be no use my attempting
to get it from him, however much I might want the book.
Many interesting things did I learn from my stay at this
native's house, for night after night I would get him in a
reminiscent mood. It appeared that as time wore on the
young priest, who was a handsome, healthy-looking man,
became somewhat subdued and saddened, and aged con
siderably in the space of three or four years. At times
he was morose and unapproachable, though afterwards
he would gaze with kindly eyes on those whom he might
have spoken to in anger.
" Did he ever go away ? " I asked Kooma, and he
answered : " Sometimes he would go for one or two days,
and often at night-time go off wandering alone in the forest-
lands about his house ; and night after night at sunset he
would sit with his chin on his hands and gaze toward the sea
ward sunset, with eyes that saw far away." And then Kooma
added : " And I would say, ' Master, shall I get thee more fire
wood ? ' and he would not answer, but would steadily gaze
on, and I could see the tears in his eyes, and I knew that he
sorrowed over that which I knew not of." So earnest was
Kooma's manner that, as he told me these things, I saw the
past, the lonely hut home and the exiled priest gazing into
the sunset, sick at heart as he dreamed of his childhood's
home across the world. I wondered somewhat, and thought
over the stories Raeltoa of Samoa had told me, which I
have written about in my earlier book of reminiscences.
For Raeltoa the Samoan had also known Father Damien,
as, of course, hundreds of natives did, and had told me,
unasked, of his kindness and heart-felt sorrow for those who
hid from the leper captors as they searched for the stricken
people. For leprosy had wiped out thousands of the natives of the
Sandwich Islands and elsewhere. When once the victims
revealed the purplish-yellow patch on their bodies they were
100

DAMIEN'S GRIEF
doomed, for no cure was, or is, known for the scom'ge of
leprosy. In Kooma's house dwelt a chief who lived in Oahu. He
had elephantiasis, which had swelled his legs to three times
their normal size. He used to sit under the pandanus-trees
reading his Bible as I talked with Kooma, and I was ex
tremely pleased to hear, on inquiring, that his complaint was
not contagious ; for when he squatted with his loiees up in
front of him, so swollen were his limbs that his body and head
were hidden from view.
But to go back to Kooma's reminiscences. " What hap
pened before Father Damien went away to the Leper
Isle of Molokai ? " I asked, and Kooma answered : " He
became most sad, and then wished many of my people who
had the leper patch good-bye, and promised to go one day and
see them, and made them happier with smiles and promises ;
and often he would go a long way off to comfort those
whose relatives had been taken to the dreaded lazaretto."
" Did you see Father Damien after he had gone to the
lazaretto ? " I asked. " Yes," he replied ; " and he looked
most sad and very, very much older : and I asked him of my
sister, whom he had seen at Molokai, for she was stricken
with the plague, and he said, ' Kooma, your sister is happy ;
the spirit is well, though the flesh, which is nothing, is ill.' "
Then Kooma told me much of the doings of the Flemish
priest : how he had toiled incessantly for the welfare of
his native chUdren, ministering to their souls ; and how his
influence had soothed their hearts, hearts that still half
nursed the old traditions ; for the Hawaiians were originally
a wild race, and still their songs told of heathen mythology, of
mighty warriors, of love and ravishment, and of cannibalistic
times, so Damien's task of reforming them was no easy one.
For many years the dreadful scourge had crept, with its
fatal grip, over the whole of the Sandwich Group, and as
time went on it became so prevalent that the Hawaiian
Government decided that the best step to take to stay the
horror of fetid rot which was annihilating the race was to
isolate all those afflicted with the disease and send them to
Molokai. lOI

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Molokai was a lonely, half-barren isle surrounded by
rough, beaten shores of crag and fortress reef that for ever
withstood the charges of the seas as eternally they clashed,
broke and moaned through the caves of the death-stricken
isle, echoing and mingling with the moan of memories and
deathly cries that faded on the dying lips of the plague-
stricken men, women and children who rotted till they
became lipless skeletons, stiU alive in their tomb — the grey,
gloomy lazaretto of the Leper Isle. Terrible was the grief
ofthe natives as those employed to separate the lepers sought
out all those who were spotted with the livid leper patch.
Father Damien's heart was sick within him as he heard the
lamentations of forced farewells, as, standing by their captors,
helpless men and women, gazing over their shoulders, looked
into the eyes of those they loved and went away for ever !
Father Damien, who had devotedly administered comfort
to the stricken ones who were scattered over the isle, saw
and felt deeply the grief of those around him ; but he was
powerless to help the unhappy people ; he knew the enforced
separation was decreed by the authorities, and was for the
best. It was well known that many of the unfortunate victims
were hidden away in the forest-lands, or in caves by the
shores : maidens secreting their lovers, and lovers hiding
the pleading maids, husbands their wives, and wives their
children. Often in the night, as the dread inquisition dis
covered some trembling, hidden victim, a scream would break
the silence of the jungle as the victim was muffled, gagged
and taken away ; for the leper-hunters were not the tender
est and most poetical of men. Money was their reward for
all the lepers they captured, and the men hired for the job
were chosen for their evil reputations and the expression of
brutality on their dark faces. Father Damien's heart was
indeed wretched over the fate of his children.
As Kooma the Hawaiian sat telling me all this, and the
shadows fell and the island nightingale sang up in the
pandanus-trees, I watched his earnest face and listened
attentively, for I knew that I was hearing the truth of much
that was hidden from the world. I learnt that the sad priest
102

THE LEPER HUNTERS
would sit at night for hours under the coco-palms, deep in
thought, and have no sleep, so troubled was he over the fate
of the flock that he loved ; and many times did he help the
afflicted ones, and long and deeply did he hesitate ere he told
the authorities that which he had to tell, and which his
tender heart stayed him from telling. As Kooma told me
this I saw that his memories of the priest were sincere and
loving enough. Then he called out " Pooline ! Pooline ! "
and a native girl came and poked her head in at the door
way ; it was his granddaughter, whom Father Damien
had christened. They had called her after Damien's sister
Pauline (which they pronounced Pooline) ; for the priest
often spoke of his sister in Flanders, and told Kooma that
some day she would come out to him to share his work and
help him in it, and several times he wrote home and asked
her to think the matter over.
Few were surprised when at length Father Damien volun
teered to go to Molokai and administer faith and comfort to
his lost children in exile. He taught them to be patient as
he walked amongst them and crept by the lazaretto huts of
death, knitting their shrouds and gazing with kind eyes on
their faces till they ceased to see and feel, and he buried them.
Lonely indeed those nights must have been as, alone with
grief and silence, his bent form hammered and hammered,
beating out the muffled notes that drove in coffin nails :
for he made the last beds of his dead children, digging their
graves and burying with his own hands many scores of the
stricken dead, until he at last succumbed to the scourge him
self. He lies buried with those he died for, and has, let us
hope, found a reward for his self-sacrifice in heaven.
From Kooma I heard much of Damien's true character,
his love of justice and his impulsiveness in hastening to
help the weak, regardless of all consequences. Once, while
Father Damien was eating his supper, a Hawaiian appeared
at the door and said, " Master, trouble has befallen me and
my home " ; and then told the priest of a tragedy that had
occurred. A native girl through jealousy had stabbed another
who had sought her lover, and was either hiding in the
forest or shore caves or had killed herself, all night the
103

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
native and Father Damien searched, and at length the giri
was found almost lifeless, covered in blood, on the shore
reefs seaward from Kilanea, her body lying half on the sands
and half in the waves. She had slashed herself and had
nearly bled to death. Damien carried the girl for mUes in
his arms, bandaged her and saved her life ; also the life of
the girl she had stabbed so viciously in her jealousy. When
they were both well again he brought them together, made
them embrace each other and swear to forget all, with the
result that they became greater friends through being erst
while enemies. Each secured a lover to her liking, and ever
blessed the great Father who had befriended them instead of
handing them over to the authorities at Honolulu — authorities
whom Damien hated, for they moved on material lines and
looked upon cruel force as the best means of discouraging
crime, and on kindness as insanity more dangerous than the
crime it forgave.
In a corner of Father Damien's lonely little homestead he
kept the cherished letters that arrived from his homeland
across the sea. Night after night he would take those letters
out and read them through again, and then tenderly place
them in a small pot and hide them beneath his trestle bed.
They were letters from his sister Pauline and other relatives
in Flanders.
One night he sought them and they were missing. Great
was Father Damien's grief, and even rage flushed his face as
he demanded of Kooma if he knew of their whereabouts.
For hours he searched, " and never was the Master in so
great a temper ; he look much fierce and his eyes fire and
then cry," said Kooma, as I listened. " What did he do
then ? " I asked. " Did he find the letters ? " " Yes," said
Kooma, " he did find letters : a dog that Father Damien
had been kind to had smelt and pawed them up and run off
with the pot, which we found in the scrub. The great Father
was then good to us and did ask me to forgive him for that
which he said ; which I did do ; and the dog too he forgave ;
and Father Damien once more smiled, stroked the shaggy
thief, and it sat up, looked at the Father's eyes, wagged its
tail and was happy." 104

STEVENSON'S LETTER TO DR HYDE
I often heard a lot of discussion about Father Damien's
life and work, sometimes between rough island traders, and
sometimes between men of the conventional middle class.
A few of the former had met Father Damien, or knew those
who were acquainted with him, but most of them expressed
opinions from hearsay and the low or high order of their own
instincts. Robert Louis Stevenson's celebrated open letter
to Dr Hyde had much to do with the popular nature of the
controversy and the growing enthusiasm for the self-sacrifice
of the dead priest.
For those who may not know the exact facts I relate them
here. After Father Damien's death Robert Louis Stevenson,
whilst cruising in the South Seas, happened to read a paper
that contained a letter written by Dr Hyde, of Honolulu, to
the Rev. Mr Gage, of Sydney, who in turn sent it to The
Sydney Presbyterian for publication. Here is the letter :
To The Bev. H. B. Gage. Honolulu, "Ind August 1889.
Dear Brotheb, — ^In answer to your inquiries about
Father Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the man
are surprised at the extravagant newspaper laudations, as if
he was a most saintly philanthropist. The simple truth is,
he was a coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted. He was
not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders ; did not
stay at the leper settlement before he became one himself,
but circulated freely over the whole island (less than half the
island is devoted to lepers), and he came often to Honolulu.
He had no hand in the reforms and improvements inaugur
ated, which were the work of our Board of Health, as occasion
required and means were provided. The leprosy of which he
died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness.
Others having done much for the lepers, our own ministers,
the Govemment physicians and so forth, but never with the
Catholic idea of meriting eternal life. Yours, etc.,
C. M. Hyde.
(Published in The Sydney Presbyterian, 26th October
1889.) 105

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
When Robert Louis Stevenson read the above letter,
and the comments upon it, he was deeply incensed,
and wrote a defence of the priest about which the world
knows. Mr Melville, whom I met at Apia, told me an interesting
story about Robert Louis Stevenson and his championship of
Father Damien. WhUe Mr MelvUle was a passenger on a
ship, the Lubeck, I think, he sat near Stevenson, who was
dining in the saloon. The conversation touched on Father
Damien and Dr Hyde's letter, and when a passenger revealed
by his remarks that he was half willing to believe Hyde,
Stevenson almost shouted and insulted him. The passenger,
irritated, persevered with his opinions and said something
further, whereupon Stevenson said : " Some of you men stUl
make one think of the danger of Christ's mission and His
risks on earth," or something to that effect. On this the
passenger answered : " Mr Stevenson, you forget yourself,"
and Stevenson immediately replied : "I would to God that
some of you fellows would forget yourselves and remember
the virtues of others."
When Mr Melville told me this I smiled, for from my own
personal recollections of Robert Louis Stevenson I knew that
he did not need a battalion of supporters to help him main
tain his own opinion when he felt that he upheld a noble
purpose : for Stevenson was a fearless, though gentle soul,
even apart from his literary life and work. Indeed Damien
found in him a kindred and worthy champion. Not always
are men able so well to express outwardly that which they
beautifully write and feel.
As I have said, much rumour and discussion followed both
Dr Hyde's letter and Stevenson's powerful retaliation, and
it was not uncommon for Catholic and Protestant divines
engaged in arguments on the matter to come even to blows.
Now all men admit that Or Hyde's letter of denunciation
was indirectly one incentive that drew the attention and
praise of the world at large to the heroism of the martyr
priest, and was responsible for Robert Louis Stevenson's
reply and vindication of him. Personally I do not think
Dr Hyde was as deliberately hypocritical as Rumour has
io6

FORKED TONGUES OF ENVY
painted him. Of course this does not imply that Robert
Louis Stevenson's counter-denunciation of Hyde's epistle
was unjust or too fierce ; he wrote as the first champion
voice, and wrote from the white-hot intensity of indignation
over what he felt was a deadly wrong done to the memory of
a great man. This can, too, in the consciousness of man's
fallibility, be applied to motive on the other side, for Dr
Hyde, of Honolulu, also wrote to his friend, the Rev. Mr Gage,
from a firm belief in his heart that rumour was truth and
Father Damien's memory was not deserving of " extrava
gant laudation." Many others of his own denomination had
devoted their lives to the lepers, both on the islands and at
the lazaretto at Molokai, and so Dr Hyde's great sin was in
believing that which he was told and remembering the self-
sacrifice of his own brethren who had also toiled on behalf of
the lepers.
The voice of Rumour has many forked tongues of
envy and the carelessness of thoughtless scandal. Our
religion is founded on the sorrow and disastrous result of its
tongue, for did not Christ suffer crucifixion through this
weakness in mankind ? Through doubt and envy to this
day some nations believe one side, and others the other ;
and are there not millions now who do not believe in that
which our religion is founded on ? Was Dr Hyde so
wicked ? I for one do not think so. Do we know what he
thought after he had written that mighty atom of a letter ?
What were his reflections, misgivings and regrets over his
first belief and hasty conclusions, and over that celebrated
blazing challenge of Stevenson's to the world, revealing in
words of fire the complete vindication of Damien's life, work
and Christ -like heroic virtue ? We can imagine what he felt
like, for we all make mistakes, but not with such drastic
results. The stern note of intense application to a set purpose
reveals in Stevenson's letter the fact that he felt that Damien
needed an immediate champion. Stevenson was at heart a
Christian man, in the full, true sense of the word, and I have
not the slightest doubt that after his open letter had fulfilled
the purpose which he intended it to fulfil, and the first heat
107

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
of his just indignation had cooled down, he himself would
have withdrawn it from publication, if he could have done
so, and let the whole matter slumber ; for he of all men
would not have wished vindictive roots to spread and twine
about the hearts of men who thus would strangely nourish
the very thoughts that their creed specially preaches
against. Stevenson well knew man's weakness, and the bigotry of
men who differ on religious subjects and are opposed to each
other by the difference of creed. Certainly the imputations
of undeserved praise which were suddenly hurled at the self-
exiled priest's reputation only served one end : to bring
out, if possible in brighter relief, the splendid heroism of
Father Damien's life, both before and after his going back to
Molokai. Even had it been bitterly proved that the Flemish
missionary was not a spiritual saint, but fallible flesh and
blood flowing through earthly channels, which resisted, but
did not always overthrow, temptation, still he would stand
before us a beautiful man (and he was a man) ; and to do all
that he did, and still have the weaknesses of mankind, makes
the martyr stand out greater to our eyes than if he did his
wonderful life's work through some effortless, inborn virtue
of heavenly inheritance.
The sad peasant priest of Louvain has been dead these
many years ; he lived and died without ambition, and only
in heaven may know the earthly fame he achieved. Well
may we believe how beautifully he would smile, forgive and
touch with his lips the brows of his erring detractors, with
the same spirit that made him live and die for his fellow-men
with the certainty of one final reward — a stricken leper's
grave in far away Kalawao, on Molokai Isle.
Out of grey crags by warder-seas they creep
With wailing voices as the stars steal by ;
Dead men — fast rotting on dark shores of sleep,
Their earthly eyes still shape the shadowed sky !
Poor skeletons, they moan, laugh, grin and weep ;
In loathsome amorous arms some still lie.
Entombed, they curse the sun — Time's cruel dial
Above that vault — the South Sea leper-isle.
io8

FATHER DAMIEN
Hark to the midnight scream ! Then silence after
Of desolation voiced by waves that leap
By sepulchres — damp huts of sheltered rafter,
Where dreaming dead men shout thro' shroudless sleep I
As windy trees wail dreams of long dead laughter ;
As o'er each wattle hut the night winds sweep,
And dying eyes watch ships out o'er the night,
Pass shores of death with port-holes gleaming bright I
-Twas on that Charnel-isle, with watching eyes
He toiled for dead men who stiU heard the waves
Beat shoreward : saw the South Sea white moonrise
Bathe their-to-be forgotten flowerless graves 1
Exiled pale hero-priest ! Full oft their cries
Smote his sad listening ears ; like unto caves
That voice the mournful tone of ocean's roll,
Infinity entombed sang in his soul.
Lonely as God, he sat : enthroned o'er pain
Brave music made of desolation's sorrow,
Christ-like gazed on the deathless, crying slain I
His eyes breathed light — foretelling some bright morrow
Till from their tombs they rose — the dead again 1
Dark skeletons of woe, they rose to borrow
Life from Molokai'shero :— men denied
That leper-priest — like Christ — when Damien died.

109

CHAPTER X
An Inland March — The Great Chief — A Siva Dance— A Sailor's
Party — Nina's Samoan Fairy Tale — Death — The Golden Horn
— Idols — A Marquesan Village — We ship as Stowaways
I EASILY recall to mind my farewell days in Samoa,
and the native trader with whom I lodged. His home
stead was a comfortable bungalow, sheltered by coco-
palms, and not far from Saluafata village. I had not much
money at that time, and my friendly native only charged me
just what I could afford to give him, which was, unfortun
ately, very little. He had three daughters and two grown-up
sons who were just about my age ; they spoke good English,
were good companions, and we had merry tunes together. I
gave the eldest daughter music lessons during my short stay.
Her father purchased a cheap German violin down in the
stores at Apia, and the Samoan's daughter made rapid
progress. I taught her to play by ear. Her relatives came
in from the districts to hear her play her first Samoan hymn.
I have never been so complimented for my teaching abUity
in my life as I was over that dusky girl's progress. I felt
well repaid by their gratitude. They fed me up, for I had
been ill for a fortnight with a severe cold and was getting
thin. I went off almost every evening with the sons fishing,
and lived in real native style. I enjoyed the various native
dishes, for Mrs Pompo, my host's wife, was a clever cook,
and served up the cooked fish with stewed yams and many
more island delicacies. Poi-poi was a favourite dish : a
mixture of taro, bread-fruit, yams and wild bananas.
My host had several wealthy relatives living inland, and at
last the sons, young Pompy and Tango, succeeded in per
suading me to go off to the inland villages with my violin to
visit them. I well remember the long, hot march they gave
me, as I tramped between them for mUes and miles along
tracks just by the coast, and then inland across paths by the
no

ON THE WALLABY
coco-palms. Some of the journey was over rough jungle
country beautiful with tropical trees and flowers. Merrily
my comrades sang as I plucked the fiddle strings, banjo
fashion, marching along far away, with the civilised cities
thousands of miles behind.
We slept out the first night, as indeed I often did in my
travels. Pompy and Tango lay asleep on each side of me as,
sleepless, I looked round my bedroom floor and saw my palm-
trees standing windless and still and my bright stars over me
flashing in the midnight skies.
Next day we passed across thick island jungle and then
suddenly emerged on to a large clearing, where by a
river stood several isolated huts. Through the doors came
rushing brown-faced native girls, with delight and wonder
shining in their dark eyes at hearing the music of the fiddle I
Like little dark devils bare-footed children came running
behind us, and then, just as we were passing close by the half-
open hut door, out came the picturesque bigger girls for the
second time, for they had seen my white face and had rushed
indoors with haste, all screaming out, "Papalangi ! " They
had forgotten their fig-leaf, so to speak. At the very most,
natives, boys and girls who lived inland, wore little dress
beyond the primitive ridi, and if they wore more than usual
it was some remnant of European clothes, given them in
exchange for curios, or as wages by artful traders.
On the green, scrubby slope, under a palm-tree by her hut
door, stood a fuU-figured, dark Samoan mother, showing her
white teeth as she smUed. She looked like some grotesque
statue as she stood there quite still beneath the blue tropical
sky, for she wore a delicate undergarment as a robe, which
just covered half of her bronzed figure — a present, possibly,
from some trader's wife.
As the native girls came down and walked by me, gazing
sideways with great curiosity, the tall grass brushed their
bare knees and their eyes shone as they revealed their pearly
rows of teeth and laughed, calling out to each other, " Arika
pakea ! " ^ Samoan girls are great flirts, yet I felt that I trod
some enchanted land where vice was unknown. The faint
^ White man.
Ill

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
inland wind stirred their loose, bronze-coloured hair, wherein
they had stuck white and crimson hibiscous blossoms or
grass. Several little mites, with tiny wUd faces, came close
up to us and stood with boastful bravery a moment in front
of me, their little demon-like eyes anxiously striving to
examine my violin, and when I suddenly struck all the
strings together — ^r-h-r-r-r-r-r-r r-r-n-k — off they rushed
back to the hut doors and gave a frightened scream. Out
poked the frizzy heads of all the mothers to see what the
hullabaloo was about. When they saw me they waved their
dark hands and shouted, " Kaoha ! " or " How do you do ? "
as I tramped by between my two comrades.
About a mile farther on we came across another small
group of huts, not far from a grove of orange-trees, where we
picked the golden fruit out of the deep grass ; it tasted like
pine-apples and oranges mixed. Only two old native women
were in sight. They were very busy, it was their washing
day, and one of them stooped over an old salt pork ship's
barrel, washing the village clothes : on a line hard by,
stretched between two coco-nut trees, hung a row of newly
washed ridis, steaming in the hot sun. As we approached,
Pompy and Tango intimated that it was the abode of one of
their great relatives. On the ground beneath a clump of
bamboos, stretched out flat, was an old Samoan chief. " 0
Le Tula ! " Pompy shouted, and the old fellow slowly lifted
his wrinkled face and welcomed us. My comrades, his
grandsons, jabbered away to him in native lingo, and intro
duced me with pride, telling me that I was gazing on one of
the past great chiefs who had been King Malietoa's special
favourite. He had a classical profile that was slightly spoilt,
for one of his ears was missing ; it had been blown off by a
gun-shot in a tribal battle some years before. As I gazed
upon him with reverence his eyes looked straight in front of
him and he pulled himself up majestically. His large frame
was well tattooed. Suddenly he signed to me and said some
thing over and over again in broken English. When I at
last understood I forced a smUe to my lips and handed him
my last shilling. I could not very well refuse, as I had
walked many miles to see him. He grabbed the coin, and
112

SIVA DANCERS IN THE FOREST
his face went into a mass of wrinkles as he gmnted oiit
" Mitar." On a slope about five hundred yards off was a
tin-roofed mission room, and a missionary's homestead close
by. There was only a half-caste assistant there ; "the Boss "
had gone off to Apia. The half-caste seemed a decent
fellow, and gave us a cup of German tea ; for Malietoa's old
chief had bolted oft to the nearest rum shop, miles away
probably, directly he had got possession of my shiUing, to
get te rom.^
' That night I witnessed a native dance, resembling in
character the dances which I have already described in my
first book of reminiscences. But this dance slightly differed
from the dance scenes of my previous experience. It was
more rhythmical and, instead of being grotesque, was a
weirdly beautiful sight ; for as the large, low moon, half sub
merged by the distant hill, sent a flood of light through the
coco-palms and banyan-trees, it lit up the moving, dark faces
on the forest stage floor, which was a cleared patch. A
picturesque Samoan girl stood swathed in a girdle of festival
flowers and sang, while the squatting Siva dancers rocked
their bodies to and fro and clapped their hands. I stood
close by and played on my violin a minor melody ; and its
silvery wails were accompanied by the full orchestral moan
of the whole forest of giant moonlit trees as the wind blew
fitfully through them. Then came the wUd chorus, as the
circle of girls rose and, like a crowd of wood nymphs made of
moonshine, embraced each other and then divided, whirling
and waving their arms fantastically in the glimpsing moon
light that poured through the pahns. As for me, I stood in
the middle of the dancers playing my violin and firing away
double forte, and presto velocity, to keep in with the barbarian
tempo. About a mile off was the spot to which I had been
dragged by a tribe of natives, who had forced me to play at
a cannibalistic feast during my previous sojourn in Samoa.
After the forest ball had closed, and the performers were
dispersing and going oft to their homes, a weU-dressed
native, who had known me when I was in Samoa before,
recognised me, and I was extremely pleased to see him. He
1 Gin or rum.
H 113 •

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
was a trader and an intimate friend of Homecastle's — ^my
convivial old friend of earlier days. I learnt from him that
Hornecastle had gone away to the Gilbert Group, or to the
Solomon Isles, I forget which. The trader invited us to his
house, where we spent the night. We had no sooner got
under the shelter of his welcome roof than clouds slid over the
sky and a terrific storm came on . It lasted weU into the night
and nearly blew me off my sleeping-mat, for the Samoan's
house was open all round. To ease my restlessness I rose
and looked out on to the sleeping vUlage. The rain had
ceased and the moon, low on the ranges of Vaea Mountain,
looked like a globe lamp wedged between the sky and the
earth. Space was quite clear for miles, but far away was a
travelling wrack of foaming cloud that looked like a serried
line of mighty breakers sUently charging across a shore of
starlit blue. I well recall this particular night, for I was
greatly impressed by a sad sight. Under some coco-pahns
just below I saw a light glimmering in one of the natives'
shed-like huts, and I heard native voices. Going down the
slope, I spoke to a Samoan who was standing by the door, and
from him I understood that a native youth was dying. He
had been ailing for some time and had been suddenly taken
worse. The relatives had fetched the priest, who was kneel
ing by the bed-mat giving the last benediction. I saw the
outline of the sick boy's face and the half -conscious smile of
faith on his quivering lips ere he died. I will draw a veil
over the rest, which would make very uncheerful reading.
The following day, on our way back, we met a crowd of
English sailors going inland. They had several natives with
them who had been drinking rather heavily down in Apia.
As we approached, the sailors, spying me and my violin,
shouted out : " Hallo ! matey, where did you get that hat ?
Any girls round these parts ? ", and then all started to do a
double shuffle. Not far off was a small village, and when I
offered to go there with them Pompy and Tango jumped
about and laughed with delight ; and the eldest seaman of
the crowd, the boatswain, I think, smacked me genially on
the back with such force that I looked up at him a bit wildly
at first; but I quickly recovered as he gleefully gave me
114

BRITISH SAILORS ASHORE
another nudge in the ribs, saying, as he winked with good
fellowship : " Don't kill me, youngster."
As they approached the village, loudly singing the latest
London hit, and emerged from the thickets of bamboo, a
covey of native boys and girls came running dovm the slope,
from a group of native huts, to welcome the jolly white men :
two of the wild crew were blowing their hardest, mouth
organs at their lips, and the eldest, who had goatee whiskers,
and wore a Tam o' Shanter kind of seaman's cap, sang
lustily, with wide opened mouth, just behind them; at
intervals he stumbled slightly through being half-seas-over.
Sunset was fading on the horizon out seaward and touch
ing the coco-pahns and the distant mountain range with
golden light as the shadows fell over the island. From the
hut doors the naked children peeped and clapped their
hands with delight. The primitive town fairly buzzed with
excitement when, under the palms, Samoan maids whirled
around, clasped in the arms of the joyful sailors, who made
the wild island country echo to their singing voices. A
crowd of stalwart Samoan men left their work on the banana
plantation close by and came to watch the sailors ashore.
Dressed in their ridis only they stood, with their white teeth
shining and their eyes sparkling merrily to see the novel
sight. The pretty Samoan girls screamed with laughter, and
their long brown legs went up and swung across the grass
and fern-carpeted floor of the primitive ballroom, as they
twirled round and round in the sailors' arms, and looked
over their brown shoulders at a corpulent, fat native woman,
who hailed from the Solomon Isles. For she imitated the
drunken boatswain's high kicks and fell dov^Ti, purposely, on
her heavy bareness, to the shrieking delight of the whole
onlooking village, as I played the fiddle. " Birds of a feather
flock together " is a true saying ; and I must confess I enjoyed
myself seeing my countrymen so happy.
At the far end of the village was a native store, run by a
half-caste who sold kava and terrible stuff called the " finest
whisky." When the first dance was over, with their bashful
partners on their arms, dark eyes looking up admiringly into
blue ones, they all went across the slope to get refreshments.
"5

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
The sailors had money and treated the natives, who were aU
on their own, for the missionaries were away on the coast
somewhere, attending a festival. So the mission rooms were
deserted, and the lotu songs unsung that night, and the
sailors were welcomed by them all as missionaries had never
been. Pompy, Tango and I followed the crew about and
they treated us to lime-juice drinks ; we refused the whisky.
When they were all primed up again with native spirit, and
the stars flashed over the windless palms, they had another
dance, and six native women, who did not care a " tinker's
cuss ' ' for anyone on earth when the missionaries were away,
stood opposite the sailormen all in a row, mimicking them
in a jig, the hibiscus blossoms stuck in their thick hair
tossing about.
The missionaries somehow got to hear of it all and there
was an awful row. Some of the women were taken before
the fakali, or native judge, and fined a dollar, one month's
wages, and they sat with shamed faces for hours in the
mission room, counting their beads (about the only dress
they had worn that night), doing penance, while the real
culprits went on to their ship out in the bay.
When we got back, in the early hours of the morning, old
Pompo jumped off his sleeping -mat and started bellowing at
his two sons for overstaying their leave. I took all the
blame, and explained that the old grandfather, the late high
chief Tuloa, had been so pleased to see us that we had been
compelled, through sheer courtesy, after his enthusiastic
welcome, to accept his invitation to stay on. Hearing this,
the old chap toned down, and we went to bed and slept
soundly. I went on the tramp steamer S  next day and applied
for a berth. The chief mate promised me a job ; so I went
back to my friend the Samoan's home and stayed there tiU
the matter was settled.
Nina, the youngest daughter of my host, who was about
twelve years of age, was an extremely pretty girl, and very
romantic. A day or two before I left Samoa I came across
her sitting by the shore holding a sea-sheU to her ear, listen
ing attentively to its murmur and singing to herself.
ii6

NINA'S FAIRY TALE
"Why do you listen to the shell's voice, Nina?" I
asked.
" They are singing to me," she said, as she looked up into
my face with earnest, wondering eyes.
"Who is singing to you, Nina?" I responded, rather
surprised at her remark and the assurance in her manner
that someone was singing to her in the shell. Then I heard
from her lips an example of the poetical Arabian Nights of
the South Seas. Crossing her legs, she arranged her pretty
yellow frock, then put her finger up as though to tell me a
great secret, and as I sat by her on the rock she told me the
following story : — " There still lives an old heathen god deep
down under the sea. His home is a large cavern, so big that
its roof is the floor of all the ocean. In this big cavern is a
beautiful country, lit up by the light of all the sunsets that
have ever sunk down into the great waters out in the west.
For it is in the west, deep down in the sea, where the old grey-
bearded god's door is. Every night, just as the days are
going to bed, the lonely god stands by his door, with his big
watching eyes gazing up through the waters, as the sun
sinks slowly down into the sea. For he knows it is on the
sunset fires that he wUl catch the shadows of dead Samoan
sailors who have been drowned by the upsetting of their
canoes when the great storms blow. For when they die
their shadows swim away to the sun directly it commences
to sink, and then, clinging to the golden light, they go down,
down, and are caught by the big god as he stands by his door
under the sea, pulling the sunset in as a fisherman does his
nets." " And what does the god do with them, Nina ? " I said,
as she sat hesitating and looking up at me with her pretty
brown eyes.
" Well," she continued, as she put her finger to her lips
and dabbled her little brown feet in the waves that crept up
the shore in foamy curls, " for thousands and thousands of
years he has been watching and catching the dead sailors,
and all those who are drowned in the storms ; and as he stalks
along through his wonderful countries, his endless forests
under the sea, moving through the light of yesterday's sunsets,
117

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
all the shadows of the dead saUors foUow behind hun, singing,
and begging him to catch also the dead girls and women
who have been drowned. But in a deep voice that echoes,
and is the thunder you hear when the storms blow, he says :
' Mia fantoes ' (my children), ' you must only love me and
not love mere women.' But stiU the shadows follow him, im
ploring and singing, ' Oh, bring us the beautiful dead girls
and women' ; and their voices, for ever echoing through the
cavern roof, come up to the top of the ocean shores and
caves, and you can hear them, though they are far away,
faintly calling, caUing to the big god under the sea. So all
the girls and women come down to the shore and, if they
have no one to love them, they put the shells to their ears
and listen to the calling voices of the dead sailormen."
" Do you believe that, Nina ? " I said, as I looked at her.
Then she nodded her pretty head with absolute conviction ;
and I too listened to the shell's murmur and pretended to
be astonished and convinced. "Nina, and what becomes
of the dead girls who are drowned ? "
For answer she looked up at me sorrowfully for a while,
then said : " The big sea-god is jealous of women, so he takes
them out of his nets of sunset and throws them back into the
waters, just as a fisherman does with the fish that are of no
use to him."
" And what becomes of them then, Nina ? "
" They turn to ruios " (sea-swallows), " and you can see
them very early after dawn flying away into the fire of the
rising sun, whence all that is beautiful comes " ; and saying
that she looked up at me with her pretty eyes staring
thoughtfully. " Who told you all those beautiful things, Nina ? " I said.
Then she looked up and told me that when she went to see
her grandfather, who was that old chief, " O Le Tula," he
told her many wonderful things about the sea-gods, and the
old heathen gods who once lived in the clouds and the forest
of Samoa. So I tell you that which Nina told me, though I
could never infuse into her beautiful, simple story the earnest
ness of her pretty eyes, the note of certitude in her innocent
voice, or the poetry of her chUdish imagination.
ii8

DISTRESSED LOVELINESS
I liked that little Samoan maid. " Good-bye, Nina," I
said, after bidding the others farewell.
" You go away on te kaibuke ^ and never come again ? "
" I may come back some day," I answered. I saw the
tears in her eyes as I left her. She's a woman now. I
wonder if she remembers me.
Before I proceed I must relate an adventure I had while
passing along a forest track after playing at a native dance.
It was a beautiful evening ; the coco-palms, mangroves and
dark orange and lime trees were bathed in the sunset's light,
and the soft wind from seaward drifted sweet scents to my
nostrils. I was hurrying towards Apia town before dark
came on. Suddenly I heard a scream ! The knight-errant
fever of other days leapt like lightning to my eyes : a woman
was in distress. I stood still and cursed inwardly, for I had
only my violin as a weapon. I threw my shoulders back,
looked swiftly at the skies, then rushed up to the slope's top.
A white man stood under an orange-tree ; in front of him
was a beautiful Samoan girl. He seemed to be a large-
framed, well-knit man, and I felt a tiny thrill of hesitation ;
but in the forest shadows just behind me my old heroes, with
dauntless eyes, seemed to be shouting: "Forward to the
rescue of distressed loveliness — onward ! "
The white man had once more gripped the native girl and
was shaking her. Her eyes looked around appealingly.
The supreme moment to do or die thrUled me. I dropped
my violin-case and, longing for a comrade, with a bound I
was on him ! For a moment we wrestled sUently. " Aeh
Gott ! " and " D — n ! " the vUlainous seducer muttered as I
gripped him by the throat ! Crash ! On my head came a
blow — ^the Samoan girl had struck me on the back of the
head with my violin-case ! I heard the fiddle within hum
trr-err-rh, as the four strings vibrated to the blow. They
were jealous, quarrelling lovers, and the girl, seeing that I
was getting the better of the German, had suddenly relented.
I had a thundering headache all night and have never
rescued a woman since.
I saw an old Mataafan chief die of old age in Saluafata
* A ship.
119

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
viUage. I shall never forget the sight, or my feelings at the
time. He lifted his aged, shriveUed face from the sleeping-
mat, whereon he died, and begged the heavens to save him.
Around him waUed his chUdren and grandchUdren ; he was
well loved, for all seemed earnest in their grief. I saw his
eyelids close ; I heard him murmur in Samoan a prayer to the
gods of old, for the child's belief revives at death. His dying
frame tried to sit up ; the tattoo engraving on his breast, of
warriors and weapons, went out of shape as his skin wrinkled
in agony, and then his eyelids closed for ever. His death
forced me to wonder on the mysterious cruelty of the
Universe. Theologies give death a divine intention, but
that sight affected a sense in my innermost soul, and death
did not appear to me as a boon.
Soon after I joined the ship in Apia harbour. We stayed
in port a few days, and then I shipped on the Golden Horn,
bound for the Marquesas Islands. I had been there a year
or two before and had a fancy that I should like to see the old
spots once more. The schooner's crew were mostly Samoans,
the cook being a German. The skipper, Alfred Richardson,
an Englishman, was not more than thirty years of age. I
slept in the cuddy. The " Old Man " took a fancy to me, or
at least to my violin-playing, so he, the English mate and
I had a fine time together.
The weather was squally for a week and kept the crew
busy, and then a calm fell and we hardly moved. The boat
was a splendid sailer and ran like a hound with the yards
almost squared. I remember the beautiful, calm nights as
the sails half filled and flopped and the rigging rattled. The
ocean about us was drenched with mirrored stars ; so calm
and bright was the water that we could look over the side and
see the shadow of our ship and all the silent heavens over it,
and the mirrored, beautiful katafa (frigate-bird) saU across
the sky on silent wings.
The Samoan saUors squatted on deck and sang weird
ditties ; I played the violin, and even the skipper joined in in
good-fellowship. Sometimes we fished and caught bonito,
a beautifuUy coloured fish. Soon the wind sprang up again,
and we made rapid headway across the wonderful world of
120

HIVA-OA AND SAM SLICK
waters. One moonlight night I was standing on the star.
board side thinking, and gazing at the sky-lines, ghostly bright
in the moonlight for mUes around us, when the great ocean
silence was broken by a complaining monotone, such as you
hear when you place a sea-shell to your ear. I instinctively
gazed over the side and saw far off, opposite the weather side
of the moonlit sky-line, curling and tossing breakers, where
liquid masses soared and dissolved on the coral reefs of an
enchanted isle ; for enchanted it looked to me as the tiny
wind drifted us onward. Slowly the inland palm-clad
mountain ranges rose, and the groves of coco-palms and dark-
leafed tropical trees, and out of the creeks and bay came
native canoes fiUed with paddling, singing savages ! Pre
sently we saw their dusky faces as they raced across the
moonlit water, bringing their bargains of fruit, pine-apples,
wild bananas and corals ; and alas, two or three of them,
who had no wares to sell, were accompanied by their immoral
wives !
Up the side they came, clambering like savage mermen
out of the ocean depths. Their frizzly, wet heads came above
the rails and, puff 1 they leapt on deck and pattered about
on naked feet. They were pleasant, bright-eyed, shaggy
fellows and the world's greatest talkers : they jabbered and
jabbered till sunrise burst over the ocean, and before us,
over the bows, half-a-mile away, lay Hiva-oa.
I asked the skipper to give me a long leave of absence
ashore. " Very well, Middleton, we are not going for a fort
night. You can go off ; and mind you behave yourself and
bring that fiddle back."
" All right, sir, and thank you," I said gratefully, for he
really did treat me as thoughl were a passenger. I had played
cards with him and taught him melodies by ear on the fiddle.
" Come on, Sam Slick," I said to my comrade, who was an
American fellow and came from 'Frisco. I was reading
Sam Slick the Clock-maker, and so gave him that name, for he
was a kind of Slick. He was about twenty-six years old,
but as boyish as I was ; a merry-looking fellow, with a little
straw-coloured moustache, grey, kind eyes, thin lips, good-
natured and determined, and his long legs balanced on
121

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
enormous feet. We went oft, and I had not gone far before
I met a Frenchman who had known me on my previous
visit. I understood from him that a lot of the people I
had been friendly with before were still living there.
Slick, who had not been to the Marquesas before, was
enraptured with the sights we saw. I made him go up to
Turoa village and see the natives en deshabilU. He made a
splendid pioneer forest breaker, as his boots crashed down
and levelled the jungle scrub, and I followed cautiously in the
track he left behind him. The heat was terrific when we
arrived, at last emerging from the thick tropical scrub and
dust into the native tovsm's open space.
There was a store erected by the village, a new wooden,
one-roomed shed. We fairly steamed as we loosened our
shirts and stood drinking native toddy, and the little wind
blew through the pandanus and dark spreading palm leaves
on to our bare breasts. Out from their beehive-shaped huts
came the Marquesan girls, dressed in their undraped beauty.
Their fine dark eyes shone and their somewhat sensual lips,
laughing, revealed their pearl-like teeth. The Marquesan
girls are slightly darker skinned than the Samoans, and do
their hair very attractively, almost with a Parisian effect.
Some of the youths also bunch their hair up, and it is im
possible at times to tell the difference between the youths
and the maids till they stand in the grass smUing before
one, and one sees the straight limbs of the males and the
feminine curves of the dusky, smUing Eves. Sam Slick's
eyes twinkled with curiosity and very evident pleasure as
they spoke to him in pidgin-English and by signs. One
pretty girl, about fourteen years old, held her own baby up
for our inspection. Slick held it in his hands. It was not
much larger than a green coco-nut. Its skin was a pretty
red-tinted brown colour. I held it on one hand and, to please
the admiring mother, kissed its tiny bald head. Then all the
little native children, who had crept up to us and were
watching our white faces with childish interest, rushed back
under the forest palms, screaming with delight. Oft they
went to tell the whole village population that the big white
man had kissed Temarioa's fantoe (chUd) on the head. I
123

MARQUESAN MAID AND IDOL
gave the girls a coin each, and they clapped their hands and
said: " Yuranah ! " '
Man's imagination could never picture a paradise to out
rival the beauty of that Marquesan vUlage. But on we
tramped, and as we turned up the winding tracks we sighted
the sea, and the waves breaking in the hot sunlight over the
reefs by the palm-clad shores, and far away we saw the
masts of our schooner, the Golden Horn. We got hold of a
half-caste, who took us off to the various tribal districts and
then left us. In the solitude of the bush-land, sheltered
by an enormous tree, we saw a large wooden god. As we
approached, and our feet snapped the twigs, a frightened
Marquesan girl, who was kneeling before the hideous, one-
eyed, grimy wooden god, rose and fled like a frightened
rabbit. We saw her hair flying in the wind over her bare
shoulders as she faded away in the forest glooms, just look
ing over her shoulder once with awestruck eyes as she ran,
and then disappeared !
Slick and I were quite impressed by the sight of the
running wild girl, and then we stood and looked up at the
heathen idol. It was about eight feet high, broad shouldered,
and the acme of ugliness. It was considerably decayed, for
one eye was gone, and swarms of large white-bodied ants filed
in and out of the curved wooden lips. " Fancy praying to
that thing," said Slick. " Yes, seems strange," I responded.
My comrade caught hold of a large bough, and standing a
little way off swung it back ; and then crash ! he smashed
the old heathen deity's head in ! Then we stood and gazed
upon it, and across the forest silence came a low wail of
anguish, as once more we saw the heathen girl run across
a cleared patch, running so fast that we could only just
see the twinkle of her bare legs as she fled in terrible
fright at seeing us crash her god's skull in, and yet both
stand unharmed !
Slick wasn't anything of a poet, or even of a reflective tem
perament, but the silence of that spot, the broken god and
the poor, terror-stricken girl made him say : " Well now, did
you ever, mate ! " ; whUe I too looked round half frightened
^ Thank you.
123

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
and said, " No, I never ; but I'm off." When I explained to
him that the girl would rush and tell some more of her tribe,
who were Christianised but worshipped idols on the sly, and
that they would come into the forest and get their own back,
probably by strangling us and serving us up at the next
cannibalistic feast, he too agreed. Just as we turned away,
and I had carefully placed the god's eye in my pocket as
a valuable curio, we heard a noise and looked over our
shoulders. About twenty stalwart Marquesan savages were
leaping towards us, not half-a-mile away ! I am tall, and to
this day I thank God that my legs are long. I know not
what my primitive ancestors were, or what deeds they were
capable of, or what barbarian strain they have infused into
my blood, but I always feel thankful that they gave me the
capacity for fast running ! I never knew that Sam Slick
could show such swift movement either, as simultaneously
we made an unprintable remark and like two race-horses,
chin by chin and neck by neck, we bolted off. I had been
to the Marquesas before, and I knew that the inland tribes
still nursed old cannibalistic appetites, and an intense hatred
for those who hurt their gods, and that knowledge electrified
my feet. Only the mechanical pumping of our breath could
be heard as we raced across the slopes. Presently I saw
that I was gaining in the flight ; my nose was moving
through space just about one inch beyond Slick's nose !
The savages were shouting behind us ! I distinctly heard
the wild, savage wails, and looking back I saw their dark faces
coming through the forest of palms. Slick's face had gone
white ; mine, I think, had turned ashen-grey ! The sound
of running in the forest just behind us grew louder. If we
did not reach the village before they overtook us we should
have to fight for our lives. I had by then gained the courage
of resignation, and turning slightly I gazed back through the
great beads of perspiration dripping from my eyebrows. I
told Slick to " P-p-pp-ick — ^up — sti-ick — as — ^you — r-mn."
Each word came out in jerks, for at that time we were
almost tumbling down a steep slope. As we rushed up the
next incline I spied some stout branches, and together we
stooped and gripped one each. " I'm done. Slick," I
124

A BATTLE WITH THE HEATHENS
muttered. " So am I," he breathed out, as we stood on the
top of the slope and entrenched ourselves behind a lot of
bush, prepared to seU our lives dearly. We both felt nearly
dead as we leaned against each other and prepared to give
battle to the semi-savage men who were rushing down the
opposite slope.
Then the strangest thing happened, but one which I beheve
happens to most men. When we found that we had to fight
a splendid delirium thrilled us. We piled the dead logs up,
gripped our weapons and waited with a grim feeling of
exultation at our hearts : we would go down to the festive
board game !
Slick stood by my side, a real brick. " Let 'em come, the
brutes," he said. Up came a stalwart fellow and almost
leapt over our branch parapet. I lifted my club and down
it came, crash ! on Slick's head ! I shall never forget that
terrible miss of mine, or poor old Slick's cry as I fell, and the
savage buried his teeth in my leg, while with both my hands
clutching his hair I called loudly to Slick to help me. Down
came my chum's club on to the foe's shoulder, and in a
moment we had him up bodily and between us swung him
and hurled him over the dead wood ; and down the slope he
went roUing '.
All this had only taken a minute to happen, and the re
maining members of the horde were all standing at the
bottom of the slope to see the result of their leader's attack.
When we retumed their chief to them half dead they stood
perfectly stUl, hesitating, and looking up to us tried to call a
truce, " Got any tobacco plug with you, Slick ? " I said quickly.
To my delight my comrade pulled out two plugs of ship's
tobacco. I broke it into four pieces and holding it up in my
hand I said, " Tobac ! tobac ! " and made friendly signs.
In a moment the grim, savage faces of the foe were lit up
with smUes. All the dusky lips grinned and, incredible as
it may seem, they came rushing up the slope with out
stretched hands. I at once made signs to them not to come
too near, and then called the best-natured-looking one ;
and, as he came close up to me, I stretched forth my hand and
125

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
said : " I give you te pakea." ^ Then I put a bit of tobacco
plug in his dark fingers and signed to him that if they aU
went away I would give him a lot more. Upon which he went
back ; and presently all his companions went away up the
slope opposite us, and standing at the top of the hill watched
the truce-bearer return to us for the promised tobacco.
" Don't you give it him tUl they go another mile off," said
Slick ; and after parleying again we got them out of sight,
and then, to make doubly sure, gave them only half of the
remaining tobacco. As soon as the truce-bearer went oft
with it to his companions we took to our heels and did not
stop running till we arrived at the viUage where we had left
the half-caste guide. Outside the guide's homestead we lay
and rested for two or three hours before we recovered from
our exertion in the sun, and the fright. We told the guide
about the idol, and he said that if we told the authorities
they would go and arrest the Marquesans. Then he asked us
if we would be witnesses and not say that he had anything
to do with giving them away. I at once declined, and so did
Slick : we did not want the whole tribe to swear a vendetta
and seek our lives.
We made ourselves comfortable and happy in the village.
Many of the old chiefs lolled about by the huts, pretty little
homes made of twisted bamboo, elevated on crossed pahn
stems. Scarred with old wounds which they had received
in tribalistic battles, they looked grim, wonderful warriors.
Some were tattooed extensively and had large hairy warts
on their cheeks and ears. They loved to talk of the good
old days ere the bloated whites came across the seas and the
Marquesan Rome fell. Sly old native women, hideous and
wonderful looking, peeped at us, then sighed, and went on
chewing their tobacco or betel-nut. Pretty girls, with hats
made of palm leaves and clad in a mumu ^ trimmed with
flowers, passed along the tracks that lead from village to
village. As we went on after resting we heard the confusion of
noises in the native huts. In some the occupants were
^ Tobacco.
* A tappu-cloth chemise that reached to the knees.
126

SLICK AND I STOW AWAY
singing happUy and in others shouting with hot rage in famUy
squabbles. Often a youth or a girl suddenly rushed forth
from the den door, flying for dear life, as the old chief's
gnarled, tattooed face peered forth, ablaze with anger that
his own children should dare argue with him and say the
heathen gods were only wood and stone ! Sometimes
babies disappeared in a mysterious way, and the native
mothers wandered about the villages beating their hands
together and wailing most mournfully. Terrible rumours
floated about in those days, for some of the old chiefs had a
taste for " sucking long pig " : no man who had any respect
for his soul would swear by it that the grizzly old chiefs, and
old concubines, did not sit by the festive fires far away inland
and gnaw the bones of those very missing chUdren !
Slick and I bathed in a lagoon and felt greatly refreshed.
I rubbed the bruise that my club had given him with palm-
oil, and though he moaned a bit the lump soon went down.
Next day we went to our schooner and slept on board. The
skipper was away for a week, so we once more went oft
wandering, and when we returned to go aboard, to our
surprise the Golden Horn had gone 1 She had been origin
ally chartered to take a cargo of tinned meats and food
stuffs to Papeete and many of the isles and groups scattered
about, and had suddenly received orders to sail. The
skipper had sent oft to try and find us, and then left word
that he would probably be back in three weeks. Three days
later, being stranded, we went aboard a trading steamer and
asked for a job. She was bound for the Carolines, and then
across to Samoa and Tonga. They did not want any hands,
so at dusk, just before she sailed, Slick and I went down in
the hold and stowed away. They put the hatch on about
ten minutes after we had got below and we were then
imprisoned in darkness. We lay side by side against some
barrels and bunches of green bananas and unripe oranges,
which are always plucked green for cargo purposes. We
had a terrible time together. The days and nights became
a blank. We lived on the bananas and green orange juice.
At last in our desperation we climbed up over the barrels
and thumped the decks, but no one heard us. As we lay
127

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
dovm, trying to sleep, large hairy ship rats jumped at us
and squeaked. I struck at them with my violin-case and
smashed it, and as I lay half asleep I felt their soft snouts
poke and sniff in my ears. Slick swore that they were flying
rats, because they seemed everywhere and flapped about.
We found out after that large island cockroaches were flying
about us and the rats were leaping at them !
Slick became as downhearted as I did, though he was a
good fellow and brave too. " I'd sooner have stopped in
Hiva-oa for years than go through this, mate," he said. One
night, when the steamer was rolling and pitching, I sat on
the barrel by Slick's side and played the violin furiously,
" Perhaps they will hear that," I said. " Go on, scrape
the d  d thing," said my comrade, and I tore away at full
speed. " It's no good. Slick. It's blowing hard. Can't you
feel her rolling ? We must wait tUl it's calm."
Next day, or night, it was silent, and we only heard the
screw-shaft revolving, so I got the violin out and started
scraping again. I must have torn away for two hours.
Suddenly a stream of light flooded over us ! The man-
hatch had been lifted off ! And the crew of astonished
sailors, and the skipper, mate and chief engineer, were looking
down !
" God d — n it ! I wonder what next is going to happen
on this old packet ! ' ' shouted the astonished skipper. ' ' Come
up, you men." Slick went up the iron ladder first and I
followed after, while the chief mate looked grimly down at the
bare banana stems and at heaps of green orange peel. They
had heard the violin through the storm, during the first
night's orchestral appeal for help, and had come to the con
clusion that a ghost was aboard. For, as the mate told me
afterwards, it was only a wail that sounded faint and far off
above the storm. The skipper forgave us and we were
treated well — considering our sins. I was placed in the
stokehold and Slick was put to coal-trimming. When we
arrived at Upolu (Samoa) Slick made up his mind to stay
and go off with her to Honolulu. I left. Nina, Pompo and
all my old native friends were delighted to see me again, and
took me straight off on a fishing excursion round the coast.
128

A GOOD COMRADE
I never saw Slick again ; but if ever he chances to gaze
upon these reminiscences he will see I have remembered him,
and still feel that I could not have found a better comrade
the world over for the escapades that we went through
together.

129

CHAPTER XI
At Sea — A Fo'c'sle Argument — A Native's Confession — Sydney
Harbour
THERE was a steamer in Apia harbour and I was
lucky enough to get a berth aboard her. I think I
had only been in Apia two days when she got steam
up to leave for Fiji and New South Wales. I berthed for
ward in the forecastle. She was a tramp steamer and carried
sail to help the decrepit engines and take the vessel to port
when they broke down. Just before we left we took on a
cargo of natives bound for somewhere ! They were a mixed
lot, most of them Samoans or Malay -Polynesians, and among
them some Solomon Islanders who had arrived in Apia a
week before, waiting to be transhipped. They were berthed
forward between decks. Most of them were dressed in dead
men's clothes, collected in the South Sea Island morgues,
after the first occupants had no further use for them : dead
sailors, beachcombers, coolies, suicides ; indeed all the
derelict corpses of life's drama who lay in their final resting-
place in the unvisited cemeteries of the Pacific Islands.
These natives were a cheerful, indifferent lot of people — at
least when they got over the first pang of parting from their
relatives. But that grief was soon over, for they each be
lieved that they were leaving their native isle to return some
day with fortunes from the promised El Dorado : hope is as
intense in natives of the South Seas as it is in white people.
Next day they started to sing cheerfully, and came up on deck
in shoals to cadge from the galley, and get the cook to bake
their bread-fruit ^ and yams. Some had their wives with
them, big fat women with glittering eyes. They were
supposed to keep down below after dark, but they came up
on deck and went pattering by us as we stood by the fore-
1 The name bread-fruit is more poetical than the flavour of the
fruit, which tasted to the writer like sweet turnips.
130

INTERESTING CHARACTERS
peak hatchway smoking with the sailors. About three days
after we left Apia, bound for Suva (Fiji), a hurricane came
on, and the boat rolled and pitched till we thought she would
turn a somersault, or turn turtle. The natives between
decks were shut down ; we heard their yells as the mass of
clinging arms and bodies were hurled about as the boat
rolled and shipped seas over the bows.
At midday next morning the wind suddenly ceased and
the sun burst out. Only those who had experienced the
howling chaos of mountainous seas, blackness and wind
would have believed what the weather had really been a
few hours before.
The boatswain and the carpenter were interesting char
acters, both typical shellbacks of the island trading type.
The boatswain looked like a priest : his face was weather-
beaten and his nose twisted ; he had no hair on his face, head
or neck, and wore a cap to hide his polished skull. His chum
the carpenter fairly wallowed in hair, had bristly eyebrows,
a bristly beard, head and neck, and a vast moustache ; you
could only see his fierce, twinkling eyes as he sat arguing in
the forecastle with the boatswain. Those two never agreed
on any subject, but were inseparable companions. The boat
swain, I believe, loved to be contradicted by his shipmate,
and if no sudden response was made to any assertion he
might make, he at once looked round fiercely and said that
silence was equivalent to disbelief, and they might as well
call him a liar and be done with it.
I recall how he sat by his bunk on his sea-chest and said :
"Remember 'im ? I should think I does. Very old man.
He had been a skipper on the trader between the Samoan
and Marquesas Group ; a nice old fellow ; he was blind,
quite blind in both eyes." At this the argument commenced
immediately, as the carpenter looked up and said : "Of
course he was blind in both eyes ; he wouldn't be blind if
he could still see with one eye, would he ? " Then, as he
hammered at the hinge of the sea-chest he was mending,
the boatswain shouted : " Stow yer gab, yer clever son
of a nigger, d — n yer. Isn't a man blind if he's blind in
his eye ? " 131

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
" Course 'e ain't, he's only lost one hye ! "
" Yer d  d swab ! To h  with yer ! If 'e's lost his
eye, ain't 'e blind in it ? "
At this the carpenter's unshaved face fairly steamed with
heat as he appealed to the sailor standmg by : "A man ain't
blind if he's lost 'is one eye, is 'e ? "
" Well," slowly answered the saUor solemnly, "if he
couldn't see out of the eye that was blind, I should say
that he was blind in it."
At this the boatswain spat on the deck, the carpenter
thrust his bearded chin forward, and they started to bet
heavUy on the matter ; and the Norwegian cook, who had
come in to see what the shouting was about, wiped his
mouth with his dirty sack apron and said :
" Mein tear frients, vich eye was the mans vlind in ? "
" Yer son of a German sea-cook, I said the man was stone
blind in both eyes, so, d — ^nyer, he hadn't any eyes at all ! "
roared the infuriated boatswain.
" Veil, now," said the sea-cook, as he stroked his short
Vandyke beard and looked astonished, " he vash not vlind
then ; he haf no eyes to be vlind in at all ; for how cans a man
be vlind in zee eyes if he haf no eyes ? "
The boatswain turned purple, spluttered out " Yer God-
d  d cheeky," then suddenly lost his temper, made a mn
and pushed the cook, who nearly fell to the deck.
" I vUl show you vat a vlind eye is," shouted the enraged
Norwegian sea-cook.
" Bear witness," shouted the boatswain, looking at the
sailors and members of the black squad, who were all stand
ing around to see fair play. " The cook has insulted me by
saying that a blind man has no eyes." Then the Norwegian
made a rush at the old boatswain. It gave the whole crew a
lot of trouble to separate them. Then the boatswain cooled
down and said it was his own fault for not simply saying the
man was blind, and saying nothing whatever about his eyes
if he hadn't got any. Then they all had a drop of nun
together, and were good friends till the next argument
cropped up and they took sides once more.
At other times they would sit yarning, and as I listened,
132

THE OVERSEER'S STORY
sitting on my sea-chest, I heard many terrible and in
describable things : true enough too, I have not the slightest
doubt, but only fit to be told here after considerable prunings
from the facts. There was an old Solomon Island native just
by us, down in the fore-peak. He was a kind of overseer,
and had to look after the natives in the hold, and separate
the various tribal characters if they fought, which they often
did. Now this overseer was a garrulous chap, and though
he was hideous enough it was interesting to hear what he
said. He was over fifty years of age, and we gathered from
what he let out that he had eaten " long pig " in his youth.
One calm, hot night, when the engines were clanking steadily
away, whUe the skipper walked the poop and the steward
slept, we were all sitting in the forecastle ; some of the sailors
were in their bunks, and a few others smoking and playing
cards beneath the dim oil-lamp. The garrulous native
overseer was talking away for all he was worth, when
suddenly the boatswain leaned over his bunk and said :
" Shut up, yer son of a cannibal."
" Me no heathen, I good Christian man. Once long ago
I eat ' long pig ' ; but since then I have saved white sailor
from being eaten, and been friend to white girl."
" Eh ? " said the boatswain, as he pricked his ears up ; the
carpenter said, " Gor blimey, you've eaten  " ; quickly
a sailor nudged him, so that we might hear all about it,
and one of the crew who had been playing cards
shuffled the pack and said quietly : " Tell us all about it."
The grim-looking, half -naked savage nodded his head and
started off.
" Many years ago now a terrible hurricane was blowing
off the Solomon Isle of Bourka, when the islanders suddenly
sighted a full-rigged sailing-ship in distress. Sunset blazed
behind her, and they could see the torn sails and the decks
taking the seas over, as she helplessly drifted before the gale
that was bringing her shoreward. That night, when the
stars were flashing through rifts in the clouds, which had
broken up and left pools of blue in the sky, they saw the great
ship within a mile of the shore, with walls of living waters
breaking over her. One or two sailors were just discernible,
133

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
clinging to the spars aloft ; and then suddenly a mountain of
water rose and the masts disappeared.
" In the early morning the natives gathered the bodies of
the dead sailors together, put them in old salt -beef ship's
barrels and hid them on the sands just under the water near
the shore. For the bloodthirsty tribe who found them were
cannibals. Four of the crew were still alive — ^the boatswain,
the chief mate, the cook and the ship's doctor ; and a girl, who
was the skipper's daughter." The boatswain dropped his
pipe on the floor, the sailors all looked round and left their
cards, and one or two went phew ! then listened, and the
half-savage native continued to this effect :
" They took the four living men up the shore and put them
in a cave, and hid them so that a rival tribe they had lately
been fighting with should not get hold of them before they
could eat them. The chief of the tribe claimed the pretty
white girl ; she was not more than seventeen years old.
They took her up to the stronghold, made a big festival fire
and had a feast from one of the dead sailors who had been
washed ashore.
" While the whole tribe sat squatting in a circle, watching
and waiting while the flames of the fire flickered and hissed,
the white girl, tied to a coco-palm by the hands, looked
round at them all with staring, frightened eyes. Then the
hideous cannibal chief caught hold of her and told her that
if she would be his wife he would save the four white men
who were alive in the cave. For a while they could not stop
her screaming, and then she looked up at the chief and said :
' Bring me the white men first ' ; and he shook his head and
said, 'No.' Later, when they were eating, and dancing wUdly
round the terrible fire, another chief, of a tribe inland, came
suddenly out of the forest close by and joined in the feast.
When he saw the white girl staring, tied to a palm just
behind them, he looked at her longingly, and offered to buy
her from the first chief.
" I was a young man then, about twenty years old, and I
had been a servant off and on to the white missionaries who
lived twenty mUes away round the coast. I made up my
mind to steal away at daybreak and tell them about the
134

"LONG PIG"
white girl and the four sailors in the cave. For that old
chief who had come and tried to buy the white girl was a
bloodthirsty cannibal, and he only wanted to buy the girl
so that he could eat her. It was well known by all the tribe
that he loved the flesh of women, and would risk his life to
eat a white girl's breasts.
" In the shadows by the trees she still sat, with her wildly
staring eyes, appealing to the glittering eyes of the chief and
to dumb heaven. Most of the tribe squatted or lay at full
length round the dying fire, their hideous appetites satisfied
and their bellies distended. I saw the two powerful chiefs
stand arguing ; and then the chief who longed for the white
girl turned away from the other and looked with fierce,
hungry eyes at the shivering girl a moment, ere his dark,
naked limbs strode away into the forest. My heart leapt
with joy as I saw his big form go. I felt that I could now
easily save the white girl ; for I knew that white men were
brave and would come directly I arrived before them and
told them all that had happened. Walking as near as I
dared to the white girl, I spoke to her in English. I said
four words only : ' I see white men.' I could not see her
glance, as I dared not look her way ; for the chief sat close by,
rubbing his chin and grunting sleepily. I sat myself down
by a tree and slept, thinking to go oft and get help before
the day broke. Suddenly I was awakened by a great noise
of shouting and running. I jumped to my feet. The tribal
chief was lifting his war- club and dashing it to the ground
to ease his terrible rage ; and then crash ! he smashed the
sentinel's skull ; it cracked like an egg-shell. The man had
slept instead of watching ; the white girl had gone ! At
first I was delighted, for I thought she had escaped ; but
instead of that she had been carried off by the great girl-
eating chief ! "
Directly he said that all the forecastle swallowed their
tobacco smoke and said, " Well, I'm  " ; the boatswain
muttered, " Holy heaven ! " ; and then one of the sailors said,
"How did you know the stinking swine of a chief had
her ? "
We all somehow listened hopefully ; for the overseer looked
135

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
so earnest, and we did not want to think we were hearing the
tmth. A yarn was all right, but this made the hands restive
and the eyes blaze. However, he continued :
" Some of the tribe, who were camping by a lagoon not
far inland, were suddenly awakened by an agonised scream.
Looking through the jungle, they saw several canoes being
rapidly paddled across the moonlit waters, and in the fore
most canoe they recognised the feared, bloodthirsty cannibal
chief, Torao. He was a giant of a fellow, nearly seven feet
in height and of tremendous girth, and so there was no mis
taking him. He was paddling with one arm, and held the
white girl under the other as you would hold a strangled
rabbit." " Lummy ! " said one sailor ; as one or two others wiped
their perspiring faces with their red handkerchiefs, listening
as they held on to the stanchion in the middle of the
forecastle, while the tramp steamer rolled and pitched
along across the Pacific, heaving at intervals to the heavy
cross-swell. " Veil, veil now," muttered the Norwegian cook, as he sat
on the side of his bunk taking his trousers off. The Solomon
Islander continued :
" I was young then and could run with the swiftness of a
horse, and, knowing that there was no time to lose, I never
stopped once as I ran across country and round the coast for
miles. At length, about midday, I arrived at Tooka village,
which is on the coast, rushed up the shore and thumped at
the door of the first white man's bungalow that I saw. They
all came rushing from their houses when they heard what I
had to say. Directly they heard all they rushed back to
their homes and got their guns and revolvers, and in no time
were all astride on horseback galloping across the country.
" At sunset we arrived at the village where the caves
were. I was brave, for I knew the white men would protect
me, so I led the way at once to the caves ; but we were too
late ; they were deserted ; the sailors had been taken away.
At once the leader of the white men, who was a big man with
a heavy grey moustache, shouted to me that I should take
them to the spot where they had eaten the sailor. Quickly
136

THE DOCTOR'S FEET
I ran on in front, and they all came behind, their faces stern
and white-looking. When we reached the place they said
nothing, but all quietly tightened the reins of the horses and
then, dismounting, crept together to the edge of the forest.
The white man who led them made a terrible oath when they
all peeped through the bamboos ; for the savages had just
clubbed two of the sailors and a great fire was blazmg in the
middle of the cleared patch by the huts ; and not far off from
the dead bodies stood the chief mate, bound hand and foot,
waiting to be clubbed too. The white men hesitated one
moment, then rushed across the cleared patch, firing their
revolvers. Several of the natives fell dead as the tribe
scampered oft into the forest. They only saved the chief
mate out of the four men who had survived that shipwreck.
They burnt the vUlage to the ground and buried the bodies
of the boatswain and the cook. Not far from where the
fire had been they found some shrivelled clothes and a small
peaked cap ; in the pockets were some little medicine phials,
and, close by, the ship's doctor's feet — stUl in his boots !
I told them about the ship's salt-beef barrels hidden under
the shore sand. They dug them all up and took the bodies
mUes away and buried them. The skipper's daughter was
never heard of any more. About two years after that high
chief Torao, who stole the white girl, became a Christian,
and taught the native children lotu songs in the mission
rooms. I went and lived with the white men at Tooka ;
they gave me good clothes, and I was their servant, and found
them good and kind masters."
" Clear out of this fo'c'sle, yer God-d  d son of a
cannibal ! " shouted the boatswain directly the overseer
had finished ; and though he had befriended our countrymen
we too felt a bit disgusted, and knew how the boatswain felt
as we looked up at the thick-lipped Solomon Islander's face.
The foregoing is as much as I can tell you of the main facts
of the native's story. I have left out all the gruesome
embellishments and the heart-rending cruelty ofthe native's
description of the white girl's grief in the hands of the
cannibal monsters. Let us hope it was not true ; but I must
admit many things made my heart thump as I listened to all
137

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
that seemed too true. The boatswain and his shipmate
never argued over that tale. The Norwegian cook at last
pulled his trousers right off and said, "Veil now, it's too
terrible to tink of," and swung his legs round into his bunk.
I turned in also, just opposite him, and said : " Let's keep
the lamp on ; I don't feel sleepy to-night."
Next day we dropped anchor in Suva harbour and stayed
there two days. I had previously been to the Fiji Group
and stayed there for a considerable time, having various
experiences with the natives and traders, experiences which
will appear in the second half of these reminiscences.
The crew went ashore and had a fly round, walked the
parade and visited all the drinking establishments. The
boatswain and his mate came back arm in arm, arguing
at the top of their voices ; they had been drinking rather
heavily. When they got on board the boatswain sighted
the natives poking their heads out of the fore- peak hatch
way, and, thinking of the tale the overseer had told us, he
shouted at them, " Get down below, yer d  d cannibals,"
and then made a rush for them. We were obliged to hold
on to him to keep him from going down between decks. At
last we got him into his bunk ; but none of us had any sleep,
for he shouted about cannibals all night and swore that we
had got thousands of them on board.
Next day, just before we left Suva, a passenger came on
board. He was an old gentleman with bristly eyebrows,
who wore a monocle. He carried two large portmanteaux
and came puffing up the gangway, and directly he got on
deck he started shouting : " Stew-ard ! Stew-ard ! " Spy
ing the boatswain by the main hatch, he mistook him for the
steward, and, looking through his eyeglass, said : "Where's
the saloon ? " At the same time he handed him the largest
of the portmanteaux. With disgust wrinkling his florid nut
cracker face, the boatswain pointed forward. Off went the
old man, muttering something under his breath about the
discourteous behaviour of sailors. " Down there," shouted
the boatswain, as the passenger got up against the fore-peak
and caUed once more : " Steward ! " Then down the fore-
peak he went. In a few seconds we heard a wUd yeU, and up
138

WELCOME TO AUSTRALIA !
came the old fellow, hatless, with his face pallid with fright.
He had landed in the middle of the huddled natives below.
" Help, help ! " he shouted. I told him it was all right,
put his hat on for him and went down quickly and fetched up
his portmanteau, which he had dropped in his fright. He
was " all of a-tremble " ; his hand shook visibly as he
clutched his property. The German steward came hurrying
forward and, when he sighted the old gentleman's massive
gold chain and jewelled fingers, almost fell forward on his
face, bowing and scraping in his apologies.
When the old fellow recovered he swore he'd sue the
boatswain, in Sydney, for damages.
We had a fairly fine passage across to New South Wales
and in a week sighted Sydney Heads,
We dropped anchor out in the stream, and the old
passenger went off in a tender. He had got over his
adventure, and shook his umbrella good-naturedly at the
boatswain, who grinned at him over the fo'c'sle head.
I was pleased to see the lovely shores of Sydney harbour
again. That same night I stood on deck and saw the
beautiful sea-board city rising grandly, with her spires and
walls, as moonlight crept over the horizon.
Sydney by night is a sight that makes you easily under
stand the Cornstalks' pride in their beloved city. Next day
we berthed by Circular Quay. It was fearfully hot, real dog-
day weather. Hospitality abounds in Sydney, and one
never need feel lonely, for on stepping on to the wharf I
was once more enthusiastically welcomed by an immense
crowd of mosquitoes ! We can joke after, but I did not see
life then as I do now.
How I recall it all, my beautiful youth — ^aye, as a woman's
heart secretly remembers her first love, and gazing back feels
the old passion, sees the rosy horizon of dreams, the absolute
certitude of old vows, spoken by that voice that expressed
all the happy Universe ! Yes, so do I remember the sleep
less, hungry nights under the stars that shone over the trees,
nights radiant with dreams !

139

CHAPTER XII
Circular Quay— Figure-heads— A Derelict's Night— The World's
Worst Men— Off to New Zealand — A Violin Prodigy— In the
New Zealand Bush— My Maori Girl— A Pied Piper— A Recipe
for the Happy Vagabond — The Philosophical Sun-downer
1HAD lived in Sydney five or six years before, when I had
run away from a ship in Brisbane and had come across
to Sydney fuU of dreams and hope. I was then only
fourteen years of age. How vividly I recall those days and
nights. Once more I stand on old Circular Quay and seem again to
breathe through my dreams the turbulent poetry of emigrant
sin and sorrow ; for ah ! how many cargoes of human lives
have been brought across the world and then dumped down
on the quay. I dream on, and see the sUent wool clipper-ships
lying alongside the wharfs, the tall masts and long yards
at rest beneath the sky. The fine carved figure-heads look
alive, their grand, allegorical faces gazing, their out
stretched anns pointing, towards Sydney's silent streets.
They seem to express dimly to me some substance of great
poetic thought, as though I stood on the mysterious shores
of the heaven whence those spiritual minds that conceived
them drew their inspiration, when with creating brain and
moving fingers they carved such sad, wonderful faces ; faces
destined to be exiled for years on voyages across wild oceans.
I am a boy again, and am thrilled with such a feelmg as a
poet has when he treads visionary worlds and forgets his sad
reality. How happy I feel as I move along in the white
moonlight from wharf to wharf, gazing on each wooden ship
and wondering on their past voyages, what seas they crossed
ere I was born, and what the seaports looked like when they
came sailing down, with weather-beaten sailors staring frora
the fo'c'sle head.!^*:
How distinctly I remember it all ! I cannot move from
140

CARVED ROMANCE
one ship's side : the figure-head is that of some beautiful
goddess with a crown of bronzed hair, wherein a dove
flutters. Her face represents, exactly, my romantic ideal
of all the tender beauty of woman as I dreamed of it in
my early boyhood. It is a beautiful face. I gaze from the
wharf at it with fascinated eyes : all is sUent except for the
plomp of the waters against the ship's side as the tide ebbs.
Still I gaze at her praying hands, as with wide -opened eyelids
she stares across the moonlit quay at the sleeping city.
I went back to my room and dreamed of that perfect face.
So strangely was I impressed by its beauty that I felt a long
ing to find some living type resembling it. The next day
I walked up the Sydney streets and eamestly scanned the
faces of the Colonial girls. None of them seemed to me as
beautiful as the thought of the artist who had fashioned the
perfect outlines of my figure-head. The next night I went
down to the quay and gazed once more at her, and then again
the foUowing night ; but when I arrived on the wharf to my
great sorrow I found her gone. She had left her beauty in
my soul, and though she was only an insensate figure-head,
the memory of her features and expression stirred and fired
some devotional dream within me, and gave me a poetic
reverence for womanhood, a gift from out the great
strangeness of things, that I have ever cherished. Often in
seaports, on my travels from land to land, my comrades
wondered why I stood a moment and gazed at the silent
saUing-ships by the wharf. But, though I searched, I never
saw that figure-head again. I suppose they have broken those
old wooden ships up now and burnt them on the hearth fires
of the cities, and by them other boys have probably dreamed
of strange lands, and lovers gazed in the curling flames with
shining eyes. Ah ! little did they dream what their log of
firewood had meant to me ; and whUe they kissed with cling
ing lips the substance of my boyhood dreams, those features
that lived spiritually in my imagination fell to ash as the
flames faded in the homestead hearth fire.
The poetry of Sydney harbour, with its sights and turmoil
of sound, lives in my memory as though to-day is far-off
yesterday. I even remember, and feel again, my strange
141

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
romantic loneliness as I watch the sUent ships lying out in
the bay. Night, like life, is on the deep, tide-moving waters ;
in the dark depths the fixed mirrored stars shine steadfastly
like Eternity, while over them the waters ebb seaward
or flow towards the shore. The outline of North Shore,
like another continent, rises across the wide harbour, and
exactly opposite are the spires of the grand, silent, sea -board
city. Some drunken sailor's song floats across the bay from
the wind-jammer that is lying at anchor out in the stream.
Several lights are twinkling across by Miller's Point. The
Orient liner, the giant aristocrat of the quay, is agleam with
shining port-holes ; her funnels belch forth smoke that ascends
to the silence. We creep by — three homeless men and a
boy — looking for a place to sleep ! Our shadows suddenly
huriy on with us, as in the moon's gleam we spy the quarter
master on watch at the gangway. No hope there for us, we
think, so we go round to the anchored ferry-boats and leave
the great liner behind. She's off for England to-morrow,
dear old England ! O magical word to how many exUes
in the sleeping city, and especially to us, with our stomachs
rumbling with emptiness. The big Manly Beach ferry-boat
is moored by the wharf ; our frightened eyes look carefully
around, then down on board we go to seek the cushioned
settees of the saloon. We slept there last night. Again we
creep into the saloon, four of us : Roberts, the ship's stoker,
villainous -looking, old, with unshaved face ; Ross, the son
of the Right Honourable, and the third man, who is a late
schoolmaster from a school of great distmction. He is a
pessimistic-looking chap, perhaps because he lent Ross his
last ten shUlings on the promise of five hundred per cent.
interest when Ross got an expected cheque from England.
" Ah, woeful when !" The night is getting old and cold ;
how comfortably the warmth of the dim saloon strikes us
as we four derelicts creep across. The moonlight is stream
ing through the port -holes. Ross smothers a note of irre
sistible exultation, for he has spotted a large bunch of bananas
on the saloon table ! Such sudden unexpected affluence is
too much forme, and even as I wonder why the saloon smells
so strongly of fresh tobacco smoke, I sit down plomp ! on the
142

NI25

DERELICTS
stomach of the ferry-boat's night watchman, who is asleep
on the settee !
A terrible yell of pain escapes the official's lips ; like four
shadows in one headlong leap we cross the saloon and rush
up the gangway. How we scampered across the quay space
and then rescued poor old Roberts, the stoker, as he puffed
behind and stumbled on the kerb -side and fell with a crash !
Under the trees in the domain he sat swearing terrifically,
but calmed down as we held his blood-splashed face up
and examined it by moonlight. The schoolmaster lent his
handkerchief of other days to stanch the blood -flow. Ross
promised another fifteen shillings when the cheque came.
Then, under the big -leafed tree, with our heads pillowed on
our coats or caps, we lay with our faces side by side to sleep.
I can still see the many huddled derelicts under the gum-
trees of Sydney's Hyde Park, disreputable old men, and
young men, good and bad. I watch by my chums on our
big bedroom floor and hear the far cry of the wUd animals
in the Botanical Gardens Zoo, and smell the dew-damp leaves
and domain grass, as dawn steals over the windless trees
away back beyond the horizon of more years than I like to
count. Some inexplicable kind of sadness comes over me as I look
back to the lost splendour of my derelict days. How wealthy
I was with all niy youthful unfulfilled promises, and what
security I found in the hopeful, manly eyes of men who went
doAvn to the sea in ships. How I stuck to them as they
yarned together, or sang till the shore cave echoed. The
shanty was a paradise, filled with men of mighty deeds, as I
gazed with the eyes of boyish inexperience at the stalwart,
unshaved men from 'Frisco and London, and listened to the
stories of sad self-sacrifice, or great deeds on land and sea,
performed in the valiant imagination of those wonderful
brains of the world's worst men,
I often wonder what I have missed through the inherited
taint of vagabondage that is in my blood. Should I have
been happier and gained some wealth had I gone ashore in
some far country, scorning vagabonds and marching down
the track on honest feet, like some Dick Whittington, looking
143

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
for the lights of some distant city, with my violin slvmg
beside me ? I doubt it. If one is really honest, one is sure,
some day, to trust the wrong man through not being dis
honest oneself. But to go back to my reminiscences at the
moment when I arrived in Sydney from Samoa.
I did not stay in Sydney very long. I had three or four
pounds in my pocket and did not want to get stranded, so
once more I looked around and was lucky enough to secure
a berth on a steamer that was going to New Zealand for a
cargo of meat, and from there to London. I got a job down
in the engine-room as a kind of snowman to look after the
refrigerators. The chief engineer was a terrible pig ; he was
a Dutchman, and gave me no peace, but made me paint the
lower -deck iron roof. We eventually had a fight, and I
received a black eye which took a considerable time to cure
itself. I made up my mind to leave at the first opportunity.
I smelt the freshness of the sea -water and tar when we
dropped anchor in Oriental Bay. After the first old loafer
who is always waiting in every Colonial seaport to say
" This is God's own country " had said it, I looked about.
Oh ! the splendour of those days, the glorious homelessness
and the thrUling imcertainty of everything ! I stood on the
wharf with my violin in my hand, and, though I was almost
pennUess, I felt like a monarch gazing on his multitude of
toUing subjects. Ships of many nationalities lay alongside
discharging their cargoes, and the crews mingled with the
crowds of embarking or disembarking passengers, arriving
from, or bound for, Austraha, China, Japan, India ; in fact
everywhere wealth and poverty massed together. I saw white
faces, black faces, yeUowish faces, mahogany faces ; glittering
eyes, blue eyes, black eyes, bUious eyes ; Dantesque profiles,
turbaned heads, thick, black lips, expressing carelessness
and humour, and thin, cynical lips ; also self-exUed, broken-
down, sardonic-looking poets, authors and musicians from
the British Isles. It seemed that the drama of life was being
enacted on that wharf, with its hubbub of uncouth voices :
Hindu men, and women with rings in their ears, multitudes
from the Far East, South and West. A kind of miniature
parade of existence, ere Time's hand swept the whole lot like
144

THE DRAMA OF LIFE
pawns off the board, it seemed to me as I watched them
embark on the ships to go seaward.
I eventually secured a position as violinist in the orchestra
of the opera house in WeUington, and I had comfortable
diggings with an English family. I think I should have
settled down there, but, just as I got to like my landlady and
her family, the old father made up his mind to go back to
England again. This unsettled me, and I started off on my
wandermgs again. I got to know a man who hired concert
halls. I played at many of his shows, performing Paganini's
Carnaval de Venise, also De Beriot's and Spohr's concertos.
I was received very well indeed, and I should have stopped
on at the game, but I was very unfortunate. I could not live
on the applause which I received through being bUled as
" The Sailor Violinist." I wore a cheesecutter cap, at the
request of my employer, who indeed tried to go on the same
lines as in London, where foreign prodigies of twenty, with
baby coUars on, appear 1 I barely got any wages ; my
employer secured the profits.
I never knew a man who could promise so much and give
so little as that particular employer of mine did. And what
he did give he gave with such an air of munificence, as though
he was conferring a favour on me that I had never expected,
or earned, that for the moment I was completely disarmed
and my protest died on my lips.
So one day I started oft with my violin " up country."
The turmoU of the crowded city streets, and my commercial
inabUity, had sickened me of trying to do well. When I got
on the lonely roads the old knight-errant fever gripped me.
As I stood on the bush track I saw the primeval forest trees
all brightening in the sunlight, while singing winds, bending
their tops, blew through them, and wings glittered where,
overhead, flocks of cockatoos sped across the sky.
At midday, tired out, I came across a small bush town.
It was by a river where, on the banks, Maoris camped. I
stopped there only for a day and night, and I lodged with
two old men who lived in a small wooden house by a paddock.
They were grizzled, retired shellbacks, not from the sea, but
from the trackless bush-lands. I unfortunately paid them
K 145

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
for my lodging in advance, and they at once bought some
rum and sat at their little wooden bench table yarning away
till their mumbling voices seemed deep down in their duty
beards. As the rum fumes got more and more to their brains they
ceased telling me their experiences, grew argumentative, and,
with fierce eyes, glared at each other till they fell asleep at
two o'clock in the moming. The next day I heard from the
farmer who lived in a shack just across the flat that they
were always drunk, and that the whole bush town thought
I was some relative of theirs who had come from abroad to
see them, otherwise they could not think anyone would lodge
with them. Once more I tramped off, and after doing about
ten miles I " put up " at a homestead in which an Irishman
and his wife lived. I was getting short of cash and was half
inclined to sleep out ; but though it was very hot by day, a
cold wind had blown for several nights. I have quite for
gotten the name of that little bush village, but I easUy recall
the picturesque Maoris who lived by a creek in their pah
(stronghold), a beautiful spot, sheltered by karri-karri trees.
I played the violin to them ; and two old Maori chiefs, aged
and wrinkled, squatted, with delight beaming in their deep
eyes, listening to me. They were tattooed with dark blue
curves from their lips to their eyebrows, and some of the
girls were also decorated with tattoo. The Maori women
were very cheerful, and brought me food, fresh water, fish
and vegetables. An extremely beautiful Maori girl, dressed
in picturesque Maori style, sat on the grass beside me and
sang as I played the violin. The surroundings were wUdly
romantic, and I must confess that I almost fell in love with
her. I kept thinking of her eyes as I lay sleeplessly on the
extemporised bed that the Irishman's wife had made up for
me in a shed adjoining their homestead, I went across to
that pah several times ; indeed I stopped at the Irishman's
all the next day and night. When I went my Maori girl
bade me good-bye, and then, with some little Maori chUdren,
she came to see me off, and crept by my side along the track
till the pah was almost out of sight. Her eyes gazed earnestly
into mine as she looked up to me ; the wind fluttered her
146

A WANDERING TROUBADOUR
blue frock ; in her wealth of hair were stuck crimson and
white flowers. I seemed to live once again in the romance
of my faded dreams of boyhood. How beautiful she looked
as simset deepened the mystery of her eyes. Gallantly I
kissed her and then, on the top of the hUl, waved my hand
back to her, and she faded away, and mad Don Quixote,
carrying his violin, faded away also.
Before it was quite dark I sat down on the bush grass and
played the song she had simg to me on my violin. I half
wished I was a Maori and lived in the old days. I am sure I
should have gone with a tribe of warriors and attacked that
pah and ridden off into the forest with that pretty Maori
girl 1
I slept out that night. I did not fall asleep till midnight,
but I made a small fire in my forest bedroom and managed
to keep warm ; for I opened my violin-case out and with
some bush grass made a good shelter, though the slight trade
wind on the weather-side blew cold. In the moming I got
up without bother as I had slept " all standing," had
a wash in the stream just down by the gullies, and then
tramped across the hills to where the smoke arose from a
group of homesteads. I counted my money ; I hadn't
much, I know ; but people in the New Zealand bush proved
as generous to me as I had found them in the Australian
bush a year or so before.
As I emerged from under the gum-trees I saw that the
village was a decent-sized place of some fifty houses. A main
road separated wooden shop buildings, and just behind were
the small homes of the population. I had slept late, and the
sun was blazing over the forest trees and shining on the tin
roofs of the township.
As I went across the paddocks the cows lifted their heads,
stared at me, slashed their tails and moved off. I heard the
voices of romping chUdren running about in the scrub of
their fenceless gardens. Summing up my courage, I took up
a position in the centre of the sUent main street. Only one
or two shops had their shutters down as I stood erect and
started to play the violin ! I was a good player, and before
the first strain of the sentimental operatic selection waUed
147

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
to a close the doors of all the shops and houses around me
suddenly opened, and out came rushing the chUdren, rosy
girls and boys, and women and men, who gazed at me in
astonishment. I felt like some Pied Piper of Hamelin ; but the Mayor did
not turn blue " to pay a sum to a wandering fellow with a
gipsy coat of red and yellow " as I fiddled away. The
bushmen and the whole population grinned, as though with
one mouth of delight, and sunburnt little chUdren mshed
up to me with shillings and half-crowns as I moved along
and they scampered behind me.
I was well dressed ; my grey suit was stUl new looking and
my collar passably clean. I appeared outwardly to have
a social standing that outrivaUed that of my delighted
audience. The vagrancy in my blood made me perfectly
happy ; and when the old storekeeper tapped me on the
shoulder and invited me in, I accepted with alacrity and
without a blush the breakfast he gave me. The little
children's bonny brown faces looked in at the open door as
I ate like a horse ; then they all screamed with delight as I
tossed the cat to the wooden ceiling and caught it with one
hand. By midday I practically owned the township ; for
I played in the houses and the chUdren invited me to stop.
When I went away and passed up the track the whole
population came to the end of the main street to see me go !
They all waved their hands as I faded along the bush path.
One never forgets those few hours in life when one has
been really happy, and so I have never forgotten that bush
township. To the thousands of literary and commercial vagabonds
living under the guise of respectability I give a recipe — ^how
to be happy in vagabondage. First, you must have a firm
belief in God and be able to keep the belief to yourself. This
belief wUl help you when each great scheme unexpectedly
faUs ; for if you be a true vagabond your schemes wUl only
benefit others. Ere you go to sleep on the grass look upon
the forest about you as your bedroom ; examine the moon
as though it were your lamp, trim it so that the shadows
fall glimmering through the trees on to your face, and keep
148

A VAGABOND'S PHILOSOPHY
saying to yourself : " I am better off than anyone else ; the
world is certainly mine." In time you will believe this, and
people will see the belief in your eyes and respect you. Be
kind to little children you meet on the tramp, and write on
your brain the wisdom they speak, for they are the cheeriest of
vagabonds ! Avoid luggage, and throw away your conscience
with all your unpaid bUls. When you have cast your socks
into the bush, place palm or banana leaves in your boots as
substitutes : they are cool. I've walked for mUes quite
happUy in banana-leaf socks. If you can possibly play a
musical instrument, well, take it with you ; at the worst
you can pawn it. Never worry ; and when you have no
money keep saying to yourself: "There was no money in
the world for millions of years before money was invented."
Have plenty of tobacco with you ; and when you sit imder the
trees by your camp fire recall pleasant memories only ; then .
the birds will serenade you cheerfully ; and if you have a
good comrade by your side you wUl be as two kings, your
sentinels the stars, your domain extending to the sky-lines
around you. Remember that when beggars die, before they
put them to bed they wash their feet and place half-crowns
on their eyelids so as to keep them closed in deep sleep. If
they do that for the dead, what will they do for the living ?
As I tramped along the sun blazed down, and I left the
track for the shade of some majestic trees. Across the gullies
I saw a camp fire burning and a man cooking food on it. I
had run across a New Zealand sundowner !
" HaUo, matey, how goes it ? " he said as I approached.
" All right," I answered cheerfully, as he looked at my
violin and then up at me and said : " Want some tucker ? "
I accepted a lump of damper and, as his old dog greeted me
affectionately and licked my hand, I sat down beside him.
We tramped along together all that day and slept in a guUy
oft the track. He was an experienced bushman, and made
up two splendid soft mattresses of leaves and moss, and with
the dog's soft muzzle crouched to the ground, its sentinel
eyes agleam between us, we slept, and I dreamed of the
Maori girl.
My companion did not seem extremely gifted, but he was
149

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
a philosophical and kind companion and never argued, only
listened. He had little thought of the morrow ; dead
yesterday was the land of his dreams, for he was generally
retrospective in his conversation. Nevertheless he was
agreeable, and though I understood little of what he said,
the note of the mumble in his beard sounded pleasant. I
gathered that he had been tramping for several years, and
was off to see some friends who lived up country on a farm
of their own. We had a sad misfortune together : about an
hour after we had left a cattle yard that was just oft the
track, we were tramping along, and the old fellow was
mumbling, when suddenly his dog ran in front of us and
started to whunper and yelp, and then fell down. It had
evidently eaten something that was poisonous. Before sun
set it died in great agony. My friend, mdeed both of us,
were very much upset. The poor dog had traveUed with
him for some years. Before it got dark we went into the
forest under the gum-trees, and I dug a hole at the foot of
a large blue gum, then covered our sUent sentinel over, as
possums leapt overhead in the trees. I did everything, for
my companion was too upset. I also cut its name, " BiU,"
on the tree trunk. He lent me his knife, and when he spoke
his voice sounded husky. " I'm a bit of a fool," he mumbled.
" No, you're not ; I understand," I said. Next day I gave
him a large tobacco plug and some money ; but stUl he walked
along by my side, looking in front and never even speaking,
as the flocks of parakeets shrieked across the sky.
We came to a river with rushing falls, and a lagoon beside
it caused by the overflow when torrential rain fell in the
mountains, which rose miles away, brightening behind us in
the sunset. I bathed my feet in the cool water. The bush-
man looked on, and when I asked him to bathe also he
mumbled out that he had bathed like that once before and
was afraid. That same evening we came across a deserted
Maori stronghold. The whares (huts) were in ruins and
overgrown. Where the garden had once been, among the
tall grass and crowds of everlasting flowers, blossoms like
vividly coloured crimson and yellow parchment, stiU grew
rock melons, tomatoes and other fmit and vegetables, which
150

THE DESERTED PAH
the Maoris had cultivated. The silent old bushman, to my
astonishment, joined me in my reflections as I stood and
gazed on the relic of the once prosperous pah. " I guess we'll
camp here to-night, for it's not too warm these times," he
said ; and so we went into the one hut that had withstood the
rotting encroaching of time and still had a roof on. The
floor was carpeted with weeds and flowers ; even the hollow
that had served for a fireplace had burst into bloom ; and as
my quiet old comrade, bending by the door, gathered dead
scrub and gum wood to make a fire to boil the billy-can
water, the wind moaned fitfully through the forest boughs
overhead : I fancied I heard the dead Maoris' voices calling
and echoing in the forest depths, and the laughter of girls
who were long ago dead.^
As the shadows closed, and sunset left a gleam out west
ward, we sat together. In the corner of the whare the sun
downer had made our beds, so placed by the bushman's
instinct that they were completely sheltered from the
draughty weather-side. My comrade, who was so methodical
in his habits, and had the night before pulled his boots off
and " turned in" punctually at sunset, seemed wakeful and
started talking to me. I understood all he said, for I had
got used to his pronunciation, odd though it sounded, owing
to his having lost all his teeth. I had been playing the violin
to him, and as he sat intently listening, with his bearded
chin on his hands, I played on, very pleased to find that he
appreciated music. First I had played a commonplace jig,
thinking that it would appeal to his uncultivated mind more
than direct melody. But when I played a melody from some
operatic selection he at once lifted his half -closed eyelids and
said approvingly : " That's right." I inwardly said to my
self : "He's an ignorant, low old fellow, but there's some
thing in him ; he's got feeling anyway," and I thought of his
manner when I buried his dog. I had been reading a little
book — I forget the name of it — but it quoted the phUos-
ophers a good deal, and dealt in such subjects as the human
^ I was told by my comrade that it was the ruins of a pah
stronghold that had been attacked by an enemy tribe, all of
the defenders having been killed. .151

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
mind and the Universe as it appeared to the senses. As I
looked up at the stars I pondered, and, half in eamest and
half with an idea of showing the old bushman how clever I
was, I said, "All those stars out there are other worlds";
and then I used such phrases as "infinite extension" — a
lot of high-toned phrases that I did not understand myself.
He listened sUently, and that was sufficient. I felt that,
though he had no imagmation, he would look upon me with
wonder in his eyes and think " how clever this youth is."
So I rattled on with enthusiasm about the vastness of things
and how, but for man's consciousness, there would be no big
or little, sight, sound or time, and how the immensity of
space was a mighty ocean of nothingness, a fungoid growth,
wherein like jelly-fish universes floated in the eternal waters
of darkness, and as they twirled and flashed, their sparkles
were the stars !
Still he listened ; and with pride I agam delightedly
attacked his profound inferiority, striving to explain that
all material and immaterial things were chimeras of the
mind's madness, that crept on shadowy feet through a vast
Nothing, which was the Universe ! I told him that he was
not then listening to me by the camp fire, but was as the
image of myself, an image that I saw at that moment in his
wide-open eyes, as he suddenly looked up at me and said:
" That'll do ; if there's nothing, then your opinions, and those
of all the phUosophers, are nothing ! " My hearmg seemed
to have gone wrong. He mumbled off a Latin phrase ! I
knew it was Latin, but that's about aU I did know. His
grey, deep-set eyes looked steadfastly at me. The lightning
rapidity of intuition telegraphed to my brain a startling
message, which in human speech would go this way : " Tick !
tick ! your old bushman, whom you think you are teaching,
knows more than you think he does!" Two feelmgs
struggled within me ; one mockmgly laughed at my dis
comfiture at bemg such a fool, and the other smUed with
pleasure to find my old man was not one. I quickly re
covered, and in my heart thanked the " fungoid universe "
that it was dark, so that the old man could not see my blush
as I dropped my pipe and groped for it in the shadows.

Old Mauri, said to be 105 years old

TEACHING AN OLD MAN
And then I received another shock ; for he quietly picked my
violin up and very quietly started to play ! His fingers were
stiff, and the bow once slid over the bridge, but it was very
evident that somewhere, back in the past, my mumbling old
bushman had been a decent violin -player. Removing the
fiddle from the depths of his dirty beard, he said quietly :
" That's a French -made fiddle ; not a bad tone either; you
can teU that by the curve of the back and the shape.
Savez ? " Then he held it up in the moonlight and, moving
his wrinkled finger along the fine curves of my violin, laid it
down beside me. " You've been a good violin -player in your
time," I replied,
" Yes," he said, and not a word more did I get out of him,
except, as he knocked the ash from his com-cob pipe, " It's
getting late, chappie" ; then with a sigh he lay down in the
comer on his bed and almost immediately went off to sleep.
He snored vigorously as I lay beside him, quite sleepless. I
looked at the outline of his sleeping face, which I could just
distinguish by the stream of moonlight that came through
the broken wall opposite us. Whether it was because of my
just acquired knowledge that he was not an uneducated
derelict I don't know, but I fancied the outline of his face
looked decidedly refined, notwithstanding the grey , unkempt
beard and sweaty grime.
Next moming we rose early, and the bushman cooked
the breakfast on a fire which he built by the deserted
whare's doorless passage ; and as he poured hot tea into a
mug from his big billy can, and handed it to me, he placed
in it the last remaining bit of sugar, going without sugar
himself. I noticed this ; but when I remonstrated he simply said :
" Never you mind, chappie ; you'renot as hardened as I am."
I tried to leam something of his history, but to all my inter
rogations he was either silent or evasive. One thing I did
leam, and that was that he was by birth an Englishman.
That same day, after crossing some very rough but wildly
beautiful country, we arrived at a homestead where there
were several outhouses being built. It turned out to be
my comrade's destmation. The owners gave him a great
153

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
welcome, took us both inside and in no time had a table laid
ready and a good feed of meat and pumpkin for us. They
also were emigrant English folk. As we sat at that grand
table d'hote a venerable old blind man, who had been a sailor,
sat at the shanty door, secured from the blazing sun by
the shade of the thickly clustered grape vines, and sang :
"Oh, ho! Rio! We're bound for Rio Grande."
He had retired, in England, from the sea many years before,
and was the father of our host, who had sent home for him
and paid his passage out to New Zealand. He was a jolly
old fellow and, though over eighty years of age, danced a
hornpipe and sang, in spite of being quite blind. How his
white whiskers and red beak nose tossed as I played the fiddle
and he shuffled his feet and sang, and the boys from the next
homestead, a mile over the slopes, watched with delighted
eyes. " Avast there ! Turn to ! " he would say, as he asked for a
bit more of anything at the table to eat ; and he loved to say
that his rheumatism had given him a twinge on his weather-
side, or on his starboard-side or his stern, as he moved his
sightless eyes about and swayed, as though he walked a
rolling deck, across the shanty floor.
The last I saw of my travelling comrade the bushman was
when he was sawing poles in two and carefully measuring
them with his little rule. Several new outhouses were being
buUt, and his friends gave him a job for a few days. When
the job was finished I have no doubt he went off once more
on the track, with his home on his back, I never heard why
he lived that life, or who he had been away back in the
" has been " past, but I took good care after my experience
with him not to try and talk philosophy or teach shabby-
looking old men.
Very soon after I bade the New Zealand " bush-faller "
good-bye I went off visiting various townships with my
violin and became a wandering troubadour. I grew so well
off that I was able to go on, devoid of all worries, and see a
great deal of New Zealand's romantic scenery.

154

CHAPTER XIII
Matene-Te-Nga — A " Bush-faller's " Camp — A Maori Village— The
Canoe Dance — Song of the Night — Mochau's Tale — An Open-
air Concert — Violin Solos — The Brown-eyed Girl — Boyhood —
Onward to the Past t
I VISITED many places during my wanderings in New
Zealand, among them the beautiful Bay of Akaroa,
and many other romantic scenes. The New Zealand
bush is wUd and grand enough, and the Maoris deeply inter
ested me. I visited one aged Maori warrior, called Matene-
Te-Nga. Samoan tattooing was nothing compared to the
engraving on his big frame. He spoke English perfectly,
but said little. He had kind, deep-set eyes and a wrinkled
face that was also deeply carved ; indeed he looked like a
stalwart bit of brownish Greek sculptural work, covered
with hieroglyphics, when he moved with majestic precision.
Curves of artistic tattooing joined his stern, straight nose to
his chin and upward to his eyebrows. He was the one surviv
ing warrior of a time when New Zealand was a real Maori
land, when the beautiful legendary lore of to-day was poetical
reality to the land's original race. Matene had fought with
the tribes whUe fleets of canoes were ambushed in the gulf.
At Rotorua too I interviewed Maoris in their native pah.
They wore but few clothes. The girls and women had good-
looking, stoical faces.
The Maoris strongly resemble the islanders of the Samoan
and Tongan Groups ; indeed so pronounced is the likeness
that one cannot help thinking that the two races are allied
by blood ties, and probably drifted from New Zealand to the
Pacific Isles, or vice versa, ages ago. For several weeks I
went off on my wanderings, accompanied by my beloved
comrade — ^my violin, I had still a pound or so in my
possession, which I intended to keep for the rainy day that
would be sure to darken the blue sky of glorious vagabond
age. So, while the skies were bright, I made my bed in the
155

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
bush, and by the light of the moon read Byron's Poems. I
had bought a paper-covered edition of them in Wellington
and carried them in my violin-case. Oh ! the romantic
splendour of those days and nights, when I drank in the
Byronic atmosphere. The glorious Ulusion of youth, the
rosy glamour that is not what it seems and seems what it's
not, hung about me, as I sat under the giant karri-trees by
the track, or approached the Maori stronghold with Don
Juan sparkling in my eyes.
On the west coast ranges. North Island, I came across
a " bush-faller's " camp. I walked across the slope and in
troduced myself to the solitary occupant, an old Irishman.
He turned out to be an interesting and congenial member of
the wandering species. His camp was pitched by a creek
that led to a lake, the banks of which were surrounded
by beautiful ferns, eucalyptus and trees covered with fiery
blossoms musical with the moan of bees. As we sat together
and sunset touched the lake waters with fire, and primeval
silence brooded over the forest, broken only by the weird
note of birds, I could easily have imagined that I and my
comrade occupied a new continent alone. Parakeets went
shrieking across the forest and over the lake ; we only saw
their shadows in the still water and heard the tuneless
beaks scream as they passed overhead and left a deeper
silence behind. I stopped with the " bush-faller " one night.
" Good-bye, mate," he said, as he looked up to me with his
grateful, round blue eyes and placed my gift in his pocket.
He had told me where there was a Maori pah several miles
away, and had come stumbling with me through the under
growth for a long way, to direct me to the track that led to
the main road.
That same evening I came across several old whares by
a sheet of water, at the foot of a tremendous range of hUls
that rolled to the southward. It was extremely hot weather,
and, as I followed the track round by the water's edge, I saw
the little Maori chUdren paddling by the lake shores as the
native women were fishing. On the other side of the lake
were several wooden homesteads where some whites lived.
I walked into the Maori village, and the chUdren stared
156

CANOE-PADDLING !
stolidly at me as they stood by the shed doors. Presently I
came across an old Maori chief sitting under a mangrove.
He looked very aged, possibly more so through his face being
carved with dark blue tattoo. He spoke English well, and
as I approached he welcomed me and said : " Play me your
music." I at once sat dowm by him and began to talk. As
we were speaking a crowd of Maori girls came round us, and
some men, who wanted to hear me play the violin. The old
chief took me into his dwelling. It was strikingly clean. I
saw his wife squatting in the corner, reading a book printed
in the Maori language. She was a very ugly old woman and
when she smiled revealed bare gums that seemed to reach to
her ears. Her hideousness intensified the youthful beauty
of the Maori girls, who came rushing into the pah while I was
speaking to the old man. They were beautiful girls, with
the usual fine eyes, and a marvellous wealth of hair that
glistened over their bare shoulders and fell to their bosoms.
The sight of them reminded me of my pretty Maori girl, who
had long haunted my dreams.
I stayed near that settlement for several days and attended
the rehearsal of a canoe dance. The weird beauty of that
scene in many ways recalled memories of the fantastic sights
I had seen in the South Sea Islands. One night, when the
moon was shining over the lake and forest, the Maori girls
came forth from the pah, attired in scanty robes of woven
grass and flowers reaching to their knees. Across the forest
patch in front of the pah they ran with bare feet, waving their
arms and singing a chant in their native language. Then
lying down in a row, prone, in the deep grass, they moved
their bodies and arms as though to imitate canoe-paddling,
all the time chanting a Maori melody. It was an unfor
gettable sight, the moonlight glimpsing over their bodies
as the night wind lifted their luxuriant hair. They looked
like mermaids paddling in seaweed at the bottom of an
ocean of moonlight. All the while the Maori men gazed
with admiring eyes.
I heard many Maori songs. They stmck me as being full of
a wild, poetic atmosphere that suggested tribal battles and
the legendary sadness of far-off deeds of passion and love.
157

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY

I give here a few bars of melody which may faintly express
my memory of their music :
HUMMING CHORUS, or Whistle, ad lib. A. S. M.

Andante moderato.
1st VoioE. Espressivo. , , . »»_ ,

Ei=^:

r

f=r

2nd VoiOK. I

(Hum, witli closed lips.)

±1

32:-iT

*--  »i-

fcSE

^.

^

I recall the solemn grandeur of the New Zealand bush,
the cry of the melancholy curlew in the forest as I tramped
along the wUd tracks to Rotorua. I had my violin with me,
and in the strange perspective of memory I still hear and
see the romping, sunburnt bush children rushing out by
the bush homesteads to welcome the troubadour who had
suddenly appeared. Once or twice I got pretty hard up
and had to resort to my violin's appealing voice for help.
Not far from a little bush township, by a range of hills
that rolled to the westward, I came across another pah,
where my fiddle and I were welcomed by the old Maori chiefs,
whose blinking eyes lit up their tattooed faces. I remember
I was warmly received by that primitive community. It
seemed hard to believe that they were descendants of blood
thirsty cannibals as I sat among them and accompanied
158

MAORI ]\IUSIC
their songs, songs that breathed tenderness and poetry.
The character of their music strikingly resembled Samoan
melodies I had heard sung by the Siva chorus girls
in the South Sea villages. The following suggests the
atmosphere of Samoan or Maori music : —

SONG OF THE NIGHT.
{Samoan Entr'acte.)

Moderato.

Composed by
A. S. M.

1

^*

Ted.

^EP'tt

Fed.

Fed.

Fed. * Fed.

$

-f-P-,

 1  SGSC  tMmJSS  —^ — ^11^ I.J — SSS^  — -B-« — =J — I-
apiacere.

\h-

etc.

Sfe

Ped. ^ *
Reproduced by kind permission of Messrs. Boosey & Co., London, W.

159

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
I will tell you a native fairy tale, as nearly as I can re
member just as the pretty mouth of Mochau, the Maori girl,
told it to me. One evening she was singing sweetly while
I strummed a tinkling accompaniment on my violin. The
shadows were falling over the forest karri-trees and across
the slanting roofs of the whares, and the sunset fire blazed
the lake waters until they seemed a mighty burnished
mirror that reflected the Maori viUage, with its sloping
roofs and the romping children on the banks. " Good-bye,
Mochau, I must go home now," I said at last, and the old
chief, Mochau's father, looked up as he squatted with his
back against a tree and said, his tattooed, wrinkled face
smUing : " You stay in pah till to-morrow ? "
" All right," I replied ; and then Mochau's eyes shone with
pleasure, and her bunched hair flew out in the soft forest
breeze as she ran across the patch into the whare to peel the
potatoes and boil corn-cobs for supper. After supper the
kind old chief and his pretty daughter sat by me on
the slope ; the moon shone over the lake and was reflected
in the stiU water, wherein the gum-trees stood upside down
in a shadow world.
Sittiag on the grass, with her chm on her knees and her
romantic eyes staring straight in front of her, Mochau started
to chant to herself. " Come on, Mochau," I said, " teU me
some more fairy tales." She laughed, then grew very
eamest, for she always imagined she was the heroine of the
tales she told. Then, facing me and lookmg mto my eyes,
she began :
" Long, long ago out of the sea rose the head of a beautiful
youth, Takaroa. His eyes were two stars, which he had
stolen one night out of the sky. Runnmg up the shore, he
looked on the land and clapped his hands with delight to see
the beautiful trees and aU horahia te marino " (so peaceful) ;
" and as he stood lookmg, the water dripping from his body
in the golden sunlight, he said : ' Where is she ? Where is
she ? ' Then aU the warri flowers on the big trees suddenly
heard and looked down, for they had tumed mto the faces
of beautiful giris, and they opened their mouths and cried
together : ' I am she ! I am she 1 ' Then the beautiful
i6o

MAORI LEGEND
youth of the sea looked up at them closely with his wide-
open eyes, and said : ' You are not beautiful enough, not
any of you ; she whom I love has eyes made out of the sun
sets, and the stars all shine in the dark night of her hair ; so
go away, go away.' And all these beautiful girls cried bitterly,
and shrank up and were only flowers again. Then the boy
from the sea, Takaroa, shouted once more : ' Where is she ?
Where is she ? " and all the caverns along the shores and the
mountains echoed back sadly to him : ' Where is she ?
Where is she ? ' Then Takaroa lay on the shore in the
deep grass and cried to himself and fell asleep.
" In the moming, when the great sunrise was shining over
the sea, and all the mountains inland were on fire with golden
light, he was awake, and, jumping up, he lifted his hands
to the sky. ' O god of the sky, where is she ? Where is
she ? ' And at once a little hihi bird came flying across the
forest sky and, sitting on the pohutukawa tree just above
the beautiful youth, started to sing sweetly on its twig.
Takaroa listened, and looked up and said : ' Are you my
love ? ' And the little bird started at once to swell, its
feathers all puffed out, and it grew and grew ; then lo ! out
jumped a beautiful girl !
" Oh, so lovely she was," said Mochau, as she stopped and
looked at her imaged face in the moonlit lake ; for, as I told
you, she always would believe that she was the beautiful
heroine ; then she continued : " Her hair was like the
tangled forest with the stars shining in it, and her eyes more
beautiful than the sunset. ' Oh, oh, you are my love, you
are my love ; sing to me, sing to me,' the immortal youth
said ; and side by side they sang together. Then he plucked
a bamboo cane and made a magic flute, and she sang and
danced. ' Oh, how beautiful you are,' he said as he looked
upon her lovely body. And she said : ' Do you love me,
Takaroa, or my body ? ' And he said : ' Oh, Tamo mi
Werie, I love you, not your body, but your beautiful
eyelight.' Then all day they danced and sang together.
" Then night came, and he made a lovely soft bed for her,
and she lay down on the grey moss and curled up her warm
limbs. The beautiful youth lay down beside her and kissed
L i6i

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
her red coral lips and said : ' Oh, my love, place your arms
round me.' And she said : ' I dare not, oh, I dare not.' But
still he pleaded, and he was as beautiful as was his voice, so she
relented and put her arms out and sighed ; and he clasped—
a little bird! Oh! how he cried, and cried, for in the
grey moss was stUl the impression of the beautiful girl's
body ; and though the little bird had flown away, he still
kept looking down at the grey moss bed and crying out :
* Oh, come back to me.' But the little bird came not back,
and he was alone with the sUent night ; and all around hun
the old giant trees, with gnarled trunks, sighed and moaned
in the moonlight with deep, windy voices as the wind blew
through them ; for they were the stalwart warriors, the long
dead tattooed chiefs who had once lived in the world of love
and grief."
Then Mochau looked once more into the lake water at
herself, and the tears were in her eyes ; and the old tattooed
chief's eyes blinked in the moonlight as we sat together and
looked at each other. I cannot show you the surrounding
forest and the deep stUlness of the waters, or paint the
moon that shone over the lake, or Mochau the Maori girl's
romantic eyes and face.
Presently Mochau looked up into her father's face and said,
" Parro, tell us a tale also " ; and immediately the old chief,
who longed to outrival his daughter, for the Maoris seem to
live chiefly that they may dream of far-off battles and teU
weird legends, began and told me how this world got into
our Universe.
" Before the very beginning of things a mighty god was
walking across the clouds in the sky. He had not slept for
thousands and thousands of years. So he put his giant feet
against some stars that twinkled between his toes and,
with his head pillowed on the roaming cloud, sat and
rested; and his shadow moved across the sky like a
mountain-man wherever the cloud moved along, and
obscured the fixed stars in its passage. On and on he
went for thousands of years, resting, which to the mighty
god was only like a tiny rest of one minute. Then he
suddenly said : ' Oh, I do feel tired ' ; and as he slowly rose
162

PARRO'S STORY OF CREATION
to his feet and obscured aU the MUky Way he yawned, and
lo ! out of his mouth, to the mighty god's own surprise,
jumped thousands of tiny boys and girls. Round and round
the god they swam in space, with gleaming eyes and laughing
voices ; and then, suddenly growing tired, they too cried :
' We are tired, give us something to sit upon.' The old god
sighed, and on his breath came all the stars of the lower
firmament ; and he shed tears at the thought that he had
become sleepy and yawned, and made boys and girls come,
and those tears made the great seas beneath him ! Then, as
the chUdren cried again, the great earth heaved up silently
under him also, and he threw the moon into the sky. Still
the children cried out : ' Oh, we are so cold ! ' So he tore out
one of his eyes and threw it into the sky, and lo ! the great
sun shone and warmed them ! Then they said : ' Oh, dear
god, we are hungry.' And the god sighed again and touched
a fleecy cloud, and out jumped thousands of woolly sheep ;
and from his new clouds of moonlight he plucked bunches of
glittering wings ; and birds soared, singing across the new sky.
Still they cried : ' Oh, dear god, we want something else,
and then something else.' And the great god became terribly
fierce and shouted the thunder ; then the rain fell ! Still the
children were unsatisfied, and the god said : ' All right, you
shall grow old and ugly ' ; and when they understood what
that meant they cried loudly to the god for forgiveness. So
he relented and said : ' Though you must grow old and ugly,
you shaU have little chUdren to take your place.' And they
clapped their hands for joy. But still they were unsatisfied ;
and he got fierce again and said : ' You shall fall asleep, and
your bodies turn to flowers, and trees, and dust.' And then
at last they felt a little more satisfied ; because, when they
found that they had to leave the beautiful world for ever,
the stars, the flowers, the trees, the ocean and the sunsets
became sad and seemed more beautiful to look upon : and
so the first old Maori men and women got very ugly and crept
into the earth to die quite satisfied ! " Thus finishing, the
old chief licked his dry lips and sang me a chant, as he lived
on in some past age ; and Mochau looked at him tenderly
and sang softly with him. They looked like two chUdren
163

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
together, and not father and daughter at all. They lived
in a dreamland and cared for nothing else, for they lived
within themselves.
Eventually I bade the Maori world farewell, and arrived at
Christchurch, where I was forced to stay for two or three
weeks, for whilst gazing, at a derrick that was hauling
up a huge coping-stone I slipped and sprained my ankle,
and was laid up for a week, and thereby got into low water.
In the house in which I was lodging there was also staying
a retired actor, who was, like me, in extremis through the
lack of the essential wherewithal. This old actor was an
amusing man, always cheerful and a good companion. He
was a man of about sixty years of age ; and when I sat on the
side of my bed and played my violin to him one evening his
eyes gleamed with intense pleasure. " Bravo, youngster ! "
he said, and in his extreme delight his clean-shaved face
wrinkled up with happy thought. " Fancy you talking
about being hard up when you can play the fiddle like that."
Immediately he unfolded a plan, which was to give concerts
in public without any preliminary expenses ; in common
parlance, we agreed on the spot to go " buskin."
The idea of playing in the streets of a city was not con
genial. It lacked all the romantic troubadour element of
my previous experiences in the little bush towns up country.
But nevertheless my companion's cheerfulness and optimism
gave me courage. He had a remarkably good voice, and in
our room we rehearsed aU the songs that he knew. Together
next night, Avith our wUd harps slung behind us, we sallied
forth. My comrade had bmshed his antiquated tall hat up
tUl it shone with renewed prosperity. He had also cut out
of paper a pair of new white cuffs, for he had a great belief
in looking respectable. "My boy," he said, " we must let
them see that we are not aUied in any way to common
plebeian street players. How do I look ? " Then he gazed
at himself in our looking-glass with pride, whUe I told him
that he looked the last kmd of man to be singing in the street.
I meant what I said too, for he had a very distinguished look,
and his speech had the intonation of bygone polish in it.
In the heart of the city, by the kerb-side, we started the
164

HAMLET !
first open-air concert. It was after dark, and the well-lit
street was thronged with people, who generously dropped
coins into my partner's tall hat ; for as soon as he bad finished
singing he went into the crowd, as I played on. Whether it
was my comrade's melodious voice, or my violin-playing, or
our respectable appearance, I know not, but I was astounded
at the money he collected. After each " pitch " we retired
mto a bar and counted out the proceeds and shared alike.
My comrade smacked me on the back with delight as he
contmually had another drink. " Don't you think we had
better finish now ? " I said, as I noticed that he was getting
a bit excited ; but he would not hear of such a thing. At the
next pitch, by the arcade, he started to shout out, going
through his old parts ; he even opened his mouth and went
through Hamlet ! The vast crowd that collected to watch
his antics stopped the traffic, and the police moved him on.
" We had better get oft," I said to him, and to my great
relief he agreed.
Just as we were turning a corner an aristocratic-looking
old gentleman came up to us and, touching me on the back
and saying, " You play the violin rather well for the streets,"
got into conversation with us. He invited us up to his
residence, where we had a good supper, and my friend enter
tained our host with reminiscences of better days. We were
invited to stay the night, and left next morning as respected
guests. I did not go out with my friend any more, but at
once sought for a post.
I eventually secured a good orchestral job as violinist. I
also got into " society," and played drawing-room solos at a
residence where the hostess was a person of very high stand
ing in Christchurch. One day whUe I was playing a violin
solo to her daughters in the drawing-room the door suddenly
opened and a loud-voiced lady swept into the room, bring
ing a pungent odour of scent with her. She looked at me
hard for a moment, then put on her pince-nez and once more
surveyed me critically, saying : " Dear me, how you do
resemble the young man who was playing a violin in Queen
Street with another awful man ! " I do not recommend
violinists to go " buskin " if they can do better and wish
165

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
to rise from the vagabond state. If they do they wUl be
recognised long after they have forgotten the incident
themselves. To have even your abUity recognised is sometimes dis
tressing. I remember being awarded the first prize in an
amateur violin solo competition at Bathurst, in New South
Wales. I played Paganini's Le Streghe and his violin concerto
in D. I was awarded the first prize by the adjudicator;
then someone recognised me as a professional and I was
immediately disqualified. I remonstrated, but an old pro
gramme was produced, whereon it was stated that I had
been special Court violinist to the kings, queens and high
chiefs of the South Sea Islands ! I think that is the only
time in my career that my position as first violinist and com
poser to royalty has ever been recognised ! also the only
occasion when the musical and critical abUity of the royal
houses of the Southem Seas, through choosing me as their
Court violinist, has ever been acknowledged.
Many things happened during my New Zealand wander
ings, and one incident stands out in stronger, yet sadder,
relief than many of the others as I dive and grope back,
deep down in the silent waters for my dead sea fruit.
You wiU admit, I am sure, that I have not gone into
rhapsodies over my virtues, but verily I believe the worst
of us are better than we seem !
One day I was resting agamst a tree by the track. I was
on my way to WeUington, to reply personally to an adver
tisement that offered a good salary to a violin dance player.
It was a long, weary road and I was very tired, but happy,
for I had about a sovereign in my possession. I had been
reading my Byron and Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, to which
I had written music, notwithstanding that the ode was the
utterance of music itself, for when we are young we msh
forward to pamt the cheeks of the gods and teach wise
old " bush-faUers " philosophy. I was feeling lonely and
poetical, which, in the worldly sense, means slightly insane.
The worid seemed to have a glamour of poetry about it
after all. The grandeur of the sombre forest bush seemed
a part of me as the old gnaried giant trees stood sUently in
i66

ON THE FOREST TRACK
the gloom, like wise old friends staring at me, who would
protect my homelessness if they could. The sun was blazing
hot, and, just as I was thmking that I only had the sUent
butterflies for companions in a magic world of bright flowers
and wise old trees, a tired-looking girl came round the bend
of the track. As she was passing me she looked quietly into
my face and smiled. I had never seen her before, so you
may guess a good deal about that smile, and not be far
wrong in thinking that Mrs Grundy's unprivate opinion is
a correct one.
It was a wan smUe, and as weary looking as the feet of
the owner of the smile as they dragged along the dusty bush
track as though they cared not where they led the wretched
body. I looked up and retumed the smile, for the eyes of the
girl were brown and earnest-looking. She came straight up
at once and sat down beside me ! "I suppose you haven't
a shiUing or so to spare, sir ? "
I looked at her kindly, I am sure, and, with the quick
intuition of her sex, her manner immediately changed. She
saw that I retumed the smUe in a spirit of woeful fellowship
only. She was a good-looking girl, about twenty-four, two
or three years older than I. Her hair was glossy and thick,
and to this day I remember her fine brow and the look that
lighted up her face. She had a pretty, yet weak, mouth,
but the star shone on the dim horizons of her eyes. As
she looked long and eamestly at me, I got up and said:
" I'm off ; I've got to get to Wellington " ; and away we went
along the track side by side. I asked her a lot of ques
tions about herself and she answered me truthfully, telhng
me that she was a three-quarter caste Maori girl. I should
never have noticed it if she had not told me so. Her father
was an engineer and had been killed in an accident, and her
mother had taken to drink and gone to the devil. I saw by
her manner and by all she said that she wanted to impress me
with the disadvantages she had had in her brief career ; also
that she regretted that first famUiar tell-tale smile. I looked
much older than I was, for I was tall, well made, with thick
bronzed hair, grey eyes and sensitive, curved nostrUs and
lips. Indeed I possessed all those physiological defects that
167

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
have made me what I am ! For to get on in this world one
should have square nostrUs and a protruding, bull-dog jaw,
and eyes with a mental squint that can scan north, south
east and west of one's world of prospects all at once.
Yet I was happy enough, untrammelled, and out of the
grip of conventionality — ^that relentless old man of the sea
could not cling to me. My soul roamed at will, like a rider
less wild horse, across the plains of life. And as I was
romantic, and the glamour of Byron's gallant corsairs
sparkled in my head, attuned to the tenderness of Keats,
I spoke of the beautiful sunset and the goodness of God,
and gazed down on the frail derelict beside me trudging.
along in her dilapidated shoes. How I remember her earnest
eyes as she looked up at me ! Most assuredly the great poets
are really the sad, truthful Bibles of this world. For the
tenderness, the atmosphere, of their inspired minds still
sighed out of their graves into my heart, like the scent of
the flowers growing over them. Her voice became soft and
sighed with mine, and, God knows it's tme enough, I was
never so proud and religiously happy as when that " bad
woman's" eyes gazed up into mine with admiration — ^my
eyes indeed ! Oh, we men, who write as though she would
do that which we would never do !
Presently we saw the wooden houses of a township ahead,
and as we entered the little main street, ignoring the curious
looks ofthe stragglers who were leaning against the verandahs
of the few shops, sheltered by their big-rimmed bush hats, I
took her into an eating-house, where we ate together. She
became very sUent, and when we started off again, down the
main road, I noticed that tone of respect in her voice that
we give to those who we think we realise are better than our
selves. So I started to smg cheerily and made her laugh.
We arrived at the outskirts of WeUington at dusk and
stood under a lamp-post. I gave her several shUlings ; she
refused to take them at first, untU I said : " That's all right,
I lend it to you." She clutched my hand, looked up at me
quickly and then hung her head and cried like a chUd. I
soon cheered her up and made her promise to write to me,
saymg : " I am a musician and can make plenty of money ! "
i68

THE MAORI GIRL
" I thought you were something great like that ; you've got
the look in your face," and she looked at me as though I was
some wonderful being. We were standing outside a third-
rate theatre, and I asked her if she would like to see the play.
As she said she would, we went in, the " loose street woman "
and I.
When we came out I said good-bye to her, and she got
on a car to go to some friends. She seemed so happy as
she looked back at me. She did write to me, and I gathered
that she had obtained a situation in a boot factory. They
were neatly written letters, and ah ! how I recall the soul,
the woman part of those letters, and what they really meant ;
but suddenly they ceased. How I pray that her life after
, that was a happier one than that of the gallant corsair she
met on the bush track in New Zealand long ago.
As I look back I see again the weary face of that neglected
girl ; her eyes are looking at me. I did not love her then, but,
strange as it may seem, I love her passionately now. Her
shabby skirts and the bit of dirty coloured blue ribbon round
her throat are sacred memories to me, and the old dilapidated
shoes are shuffling a dusty song on the weary track, a song
so unutterably sad that I think Christ must have composed
it. I think God gathers all His beauty from grief ; that,
enthroned in loneliness. He gazes eternally across His stars
and across His dark infinities and sees some Long Ago !
For not in the vastness of things, or the mighty ocean of
space, can we see or feel so much of Infinity as we can see in
the derelict eyes of the friendless ; as I saw, and see now, in
the tramping Maori girl of my spiritual passion.
Ah ! how I love the memory of those imaginative boyish
days. I often wonder if many boys were, and are, as I was,
and see the strange things that I saw. My earliest recollec
tion is of the little bedroom at the top of the house where
I slept when I was six or seven years of age. On moonlight
nights I could see the poplar-trees swaying to the wind out
side my window as I lay alone in bed. Just beyond the
trees was a stable, and its chimney had a large cowl on it.
That cowl was shaped like a helmet and had ribbed marks on
it, like deep wrinkles on an old man's throat, and as the wind
169

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
blew it turned slowly and majestically round. I used to
peep from the sheets out on the moonlight night with
frightened, awestruck eyes ; for my chUdish brain firmly
believed that it was God's head moving against the sky —
watching me whenever it turned towards my window !
I told my mother about it, and they all assured me that it
was only a chimney cowl, but still I did not like the look
of it, and I was delighted when they shifted my bed into
another room. At another time I stole some green apples
off a tree in our garden and got very sick and ill. My dear
mother made me promise to steal apples no more ; and she
said to me : " Though I cannot always see you, God can,
for He is always walking about everywhere."
" What is He like ? " I asked, and then she described
Hun. Not long after that I was going up a lonely lane near our
house when I suddenly spied some green gooseberries in a
long front garden. Being a born vagabond, I opened the gate
and crept in, and kneeling down by the bushes I stole a
pocketful of the unripe gooseberries. Just as I was bolting
off an old gentleman with a long white beard, who held a
walking-stick to help him along, quietly opened the gate,
walked in and looked at me with solemn eyes. I stood
before him trembling like a leaf, quite certain that God
stood before me ! I hung my head with shame and said :
" Oh, God, I am so soriy, please forgive me " ; and then I saw
a kind look in God's eyes. I promised never to steal again.
He let me out of the gate ; and I rushed off home, thriUed
with excitement. I almost burst the door open and, rushing
up to my mother, shouted : " I've seen God ! He's such a
kind old man. He's given me a penny ! " Sometimes now I
think that God is dead, that He has died of sheer loneliness
and grief over the sad lot of His lost chUdren.
I have often wondered what I have lost through embrac
ing scallawagism with its visionary splendours. Probably,
were it not for that, I should be the proud possessor of a brick
house in a decorous suburb, and oh ! vast ambition, wear a
white collar and cuffs. And, who knows, be pushing my
lawn-mower, hiding my sarcastic grin over its ostentatious
170

A VAGABOND'S EXCELSIOR
hum — as I watch my envious neighbour cut his grass with
shears !
Even so, I think the greater prize is in being able to sit
over the hearth fire or the camp fire with one's comrades,
revelling in the realism of the " Not Permissible," turning
the Universe the other way and singing the reminiscent
vagabond's Excelsior — Onward to the Past ! Ever back
to some happy past, back to the miser hoards from the
glorious Past to the loaded wine cellars of dreamland's
infinity. To uncork the bottled dead sunsets, foaming cham
pagnes of forgotten forest moonlights and blazing camp fires,
bubbling laughter and friendly eyes. Drink deeply to her
lips of other days, renew the old vows, clasp her tightly, gaze
in her eyes ere the desert wind blow her from your arms — as
scattered dust ! And, if she be old, if her face, her loveli
ness, be changed to the wrinkled map, the sad parchment
whereon Time's hand ever toils to write creation's grief, kiss
her passionately, dip her in the bath of old cleansmg imagina
tion, rewhiten her limbs and make her beautiful ! Watch
her happiness ! Make the only future man ever knew, or
ever will know ; gladden and become rich with life's old wine
of the beautifully unreal ! Friend, shut your eyes and look
at the past ; see sunsets and sunrises, the mirrored blue
days of silent skies, soaring birds, ancient cities, nations and
their histories, empires of splendid chaotic violence, laughter,
love and intense tragical drama. Now shut your eyes and
look at the future — can you see one moment of its reality ?
No, you cannot. So make your spiritual creed some dim,
long-ago remembrance of your own happmess, and cherish
and make the old the new ! Make yesterday, and to-day,
and to-morrow shining planets that came, and are coming
from the illimitable past to swim into the happy skies of
your ken. And let the lawn-mower's triumphant, respectable
humming go by !
Probably we vagabonds are mad, and the great majority
who laugh at sentiment are the really sane ones. How
strange indeed if, after all, the poets are wrong, and the great
and glorious aim and end of the Universe is — affluence, with
flabbiness, grand pianofortes, Brussels carpets, retinues of
171

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
wooden servants and gold ! Gold ! Indeed, for all those
things we vagabonds must hold the candle to the devil. For
alas ! the body cannot live on sunsets and the memory of sad
derelicts, dead sailors and forgotten heroes. But mentally
we are wealthy. We have explored the gold-fields of the
universe and struck a rich vein. It is rough gold, truly,
but perhaps our Creator never meant it to be reforged
and rehallmarked after He scattered it among the stars.
Certainly it has always appealed to me in the rough state,
more so than in the polish of strange, unmusical voices, high
collars and a great lack of appreciation for shabby men.
We vagabonds are not conscientious judges of worldly great
ness. We are strangely biassed in favour of those lost out
casts who drift on the waters of infinity, singing chanteys to
the wandering stars, and not caring so long as " God's in
His heaven — all's right with the world ! " What matters
if men are happy ? Yes, even though " they fall by the
roadside and die," with no obituary notice and the " cause
of little crape," as one of my critics said. He and I, I
think, would tramp the world together if we had a chance to
live our life over again. We may live again ; I sometimes
think I have lived before. And what greater truth is
there in the hearts of men than their own belief in all
that they believe ?

172

CHAPTER XIV
Memories and Reflection — A Picture of Robert Louis Stevenson —
German Appreciation — Of Norman Descent — A Cannibal's
Execution — An Australian Sundowner — A Voltaire of the
Southern Seas — Tjrpes
DREAMING over New Zealand days and the many
types and characters I have met destroys the
continuity of actual events : my thoughts digress
for a moment to various experiences and pictures which my
memory has recorded. Memories, in the perspective of
dead Time, vary with our moods. Sometimes the figures
and events stand out vividly, and at other times are illusive,
and seem some sad, intangible thing far away in the back
ground of life.
The old bushman's red beard and twinkling eyes ; the
squatting savages by their huts ; the sensitive mouths and
wondering eyes of the native girls ; old scallawags ; beach
combers ; the noise of sailors on ships in the bay ; Horn-
castle's jovial face aglow with joy and drink ; the palm-clad
shores, and Apia's primitive town, seem far-off dreams. I
can still see Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa ; his tall, bony
form, attired in white trousers, shirt and old shoes only,
stands on the beach. His hand is arched over his watching
eyes, his loose scarf blows out behind him to the gusty trade
wind, as he stares seaward at the fading schooner that takes
some friend away for ever. He looks like some memorial
figure, the statue of a half poet, half pioneer gazing with
aching eyes across the sea. The wind stirs the wisp of dark
hair on the high, pale brow ; the head is hatless and perfectly
still, but the fine eyes are alive and full of far-away thoughts.
Now he moves away and goes up the shore, and does not
even see the smile of recognition on the face of the trading
ship's skipper, who passes with a Samoan sailor and one
other. Like the memory of some tragical living picture
173

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
it all flashes across my mind. I could think it all unreal,
some far-oft rocky, beautiful unknown isle, set in the seas
of my imagination, as I paint the stars, the skies, the break
ing waves, the ships and the sailors coming into the harbour,
or once more going seaward. At other times Samoa's Isles
come back vividly, and just as a sailor, far away at sea, stands
on the fo'c'sle head and watches the big clouds shift on the
horizon as they break and suddenly reveal blue tropical
skies over the outstretched, unknown continent's shores of
singing waves and palm forests, so I see the past, and the
figures move. The winds stir the trees, and the magical,
musical voices of savage men and women sing and laugh, in
a world that is now The Arabian Nights' Entertainments of
my boyhood.
As you can imagine, I have met many strange types of
men and women in my travels, types both good and bad. I
tramped many, many weary mUes in the Australian bush
when I was fifteen years of age. Often I tramped alone,
when I could not get a congenial comrade. I was some
times very lucky ; and my reminiscences of those good
comrades are the lights that shine down the dark tracks far
away as I remember their eyes. One was a man of about
thirty years of age. He was exceedingly cheerful and full of
song and devilment. I can still see his refined face aglow
as he sits under the scorched gum-trees smashing swamp
mosquitoes on his hand or singing his favourite songs in a
quiet, manly voice. We stayed together for two or three days
at a sheep station, where the boss was a German. He was
all right. But there were two German women and a son
there too. When I played the violin to them, and turned
around for the welcome and expected applause, they said :
" Veil, dat vash little nize " ; and then they shook their
Teutonic square heads and, with their eyes and hands lifted
to the shanty roof, said: "But, 0-ez! you shoulds hear
zem play that tunezz in Germanhy — 0-o-o-o-e-z-z-z-z-z ze
diff-er-enze ! "
Then my boyish blood warmed up and I said : " Gennans
can't play the violin. Paganmi wasn't a German. No
German ever played except by science."
174

GERMAN GREATNESS
" Mein Gott ! Mein Gott ! O, haves you never vash
beards Vons Kriessburgh ? He play that same tuenz vich
you just now play so — ^phoo ! " — ^here they shrugged their
shoulders with disgust at my performance — "like dis," and the
two German women, who had faces like pasty pumpkins with
glass eyes stuck in them, and the son, with his big moustache
twirled at the ends, lifted their hands and eyes to the roof to
express the ecstatic memory of the German's violin-playing.
Their mouths went " O, o-ez-e-z-z-z-z-z-z-ez," emitting a
strange sound that faded away in complete exhaustion as
they sank down on to the three chairs like three puppets.
Not only violin-playing, but everything, was wonderful in
German art. If one said, " What a nice picture," or " What
nice butter," they'd raise their eyebrows and sigh out that
old crescendo, " O, 0-e-z-z-z," and say : " Have yous never,
never tasted German butter ? " It was the same with eggs,
beef, pork, men, boots, girls or any d  d thing !
My congenial comrade went off to New Zealand, and I ran
across another one, who was most uncongenial for a time.
We were tramping across the bush-lands, looking for work
on stations and secretly hoping that we were not wanted.
My friend was a short, thick-set, thick-necked fellow about
two years older than I, with a slightly elevated, protruding
chin and a mouth that talked from mom till night about his
ancestry. I forget now whether he said they were descend
ants of Julius Caesar's invading horde or of William the
Conqueror. Anyway our friendship was one incessant
argument. I was just on six feet high, full of health and independent
strength, and I found that I was supposed to walk beside
him with my head hanging for shame because I was only a
" common Englishman." We were on a lonely bush track ;
ragged gum-trees fenced the broken sky-lines for miles and
mUes around us. The only onlookers were parrots and
cockatoos, like vividly coloured leaves overhead. There
was no sight or sound of human habitation in that vast,
sombre solitude as we tramped along together. A feeling
of grim exultation seemed to suddenly seize me. Once more
I swallowed another pill of insult, and I looked down sideways
175

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
at my blue-blooded companion. I thought of my ancestral
forefathers, and wondered if his ancestors had robbed my
ancestors, and ravaged their lands and castles — ^my possible
birthright !
He did not know what I was thinking of as he talked away.'
His short legs strutted along the track with the toes turned
up, his nose and chin also inclined skyward, as once more he
reminded me of my plebeian origin. Suddenly !  Well, I'll
not tell you all, for why should we be proud ofthe animalistic
strain that sometimes dominates our natures ? Why be
proud that suddenly a bolt seemed to fall from the blue, and
one of the reputed descendants of the first Kaiser Bill got his
deserts, and lay with his back in the dust, his Imperial nose
and semi-conscious eyes staring half vacantly up at the
Australian sky, while plebeian, old pioneer England, with a
swag on his back, tramped away and faded on the horizon
— triumphant — alone !
Ere sunset darkened the sky I lay ambushed in a clump
of wattles by the forest, then peeped and saw my comrade
coming slowly down the track with his toes turned down. I
repented and thought : " Even if it's true, he cannot help
being the descendant of bloodthirsty ravishers, who kUled
old men and robbed my country's churches. No, even he
cannot help himself. " Sol crept out and told him I repented,
and once more we tramped along as comrades. So sUent
was he about WUliam the Conqueror that you would have
thought such a man had never lived. He admitted that
night, as we sat by the camp fire, when I had explained my
feelings to him, that his descent was only a famUy rumour.
Hearing that, I truly forgave him, and we lifted the bUly can
of cold tea and drank a united toast to the memory of
Caractacus and Boadicea, and death to all descendants of
the first great bloated Kaiser Bill who dare prove to us their
murderous, cowardly ancestry !
I met yet another gentleman of ancient emigrant blood
in Tahiti. He was a gigantic old chap, a chief. I slept in
his hut with four American runaway sailors, who were wait
ing with me for the next boat to caU, so that we could clear
out. Night after night that old chief would sit and tell us of
176

Lake RoTORiiA anh Mokoia Im.anh, N.Z.

ANCIENT BLOOD
the wonderful earlier days, when he was the great king ofthe
inland dominions, loved by all the tribes for his bravery and
justice, and had had a special envoy sent out by Queen
Victoria to represent her appreciation to the one true
Christian monarch of the Southem Seas.
He had fine eyes, and they flashed as he told of these old
days, and his tattooed frame swelled majestically over many
a wild memory. He even shed tears as he sang to us old far-
off songs of dead heroes, mighty chiefs and tender maids he
had eaten at the cannibalistic festive board. One night we
returned to the hut and found that the great monarch had
bolted oft with all our possessions ; even my last shirt had
gone ! Two weeks later he was caught by the gendarmes ;
then we heard that he was a ferocious cannibal of low origin,
and that they had been trying to catch him for twelve months.
He had killed a native boy, strangled him in the forest, and
eaten him. Before we left we heard that he had been shot
by the French Commissioners. About six weeks after,
while I was walking along the beach at Apia, I met him. He
ran for his life, before my friend and I got a chance to recover
from our astonishment and run ta the opposite direction.
The hired native sharpshooters had deliberately missed him,
and the old scoundrel had fallen dead till nightfall only !
Another time I met an old dUapidated sundowner, a real
specimen of the Australian bush-lands. It was mUes up
country where I first met him, sitting under his gum-trees
by a creek making his billy boil. He gave me a hot drink
and I gave him a tobacco plug ; and as the billy boUed up
again he said : " Where yer bound for ? " " Anywhere," I
answered. " Wall, yer better come with me to Coomiranta
Creek, ten miles oft the westem track, by Wangarris Yards ;
we can get plenty tucker there ; and then on to the Sandy
HUls and across Dead Girl's Flat into Hompy Bom, that
leads across Gum Creek into Dead Crow's Paddock, two miles
or more from Dead Man's Hollow. Then strike the gullies by
Riley's ranch, and there we can get another stock of tucker.
He's a real all right 'un RUey is, and not too bad either."
And so he rambled on, as he wiped his grizzly grey beard,
a beard so thick with spittle and tobacco juice that it acted
M 177

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
as a kind of fly-catcher for him ; the buzzing insects flapped
their wings and stmggled with their tangled feet in that
awful hairy web tUl they were swept into Eternity by his
brushing hand. Indeed his companionship was greatly
esteemed by me, for as we tramped along under the swelter
ing sun I walked beside him untormented by the mosquitoes
and the myriads of hissing flies that like a swarm of honey
bees kept on his side, following his monstrous bushy beard
as we travelled south.
His whole life was centred on the various stations by the
known tracks and the grades of generosity in the hearts of
the overseers and stockmen. These sundowners arrive at
the stations at sunset and appeal for work just as the day's
work is finished and bolt off at daybreak into the bush, with
their old brown blanket on their backs. Stolid old men
some of them, they are real derelicts of the old days. They
look like grey-bearded figure-heads of ships, fixed on weary,
ragged bodies, as with their pipes in their mouths they pass
and fade across the oceans of scrub, spinifex and sand,
buccaneers on the high seas of Australian bush. My old
sundowner hardly ever spoke as we wandered along under
the gum-trees, as the magpies sat on the twigs and chuckled,
and bees moaned in the bush flowers of the hoUows. We
arrived in a bush town of about twenty wooden houses and
two shops that sold all humanity requires. I played the
violin, and he was delighted when I gave him all the money
which he collected in his vast broad-rimmed hat.
" I say, matey, chum up with me," he said, as his long-
sleeping commercial eye opened and stared at the money.
But I didn't chum up with him ; I was not built for a sun
downer. I recall how he always said his prayers after he
had tucked his blanket around his body and laid his head
on the heaped bush grass. He was old then. I suppose
he's long been dead now, and lies somewhere in those
far-away bush-lands.
I've seen some strange types in my time ; but what are
those types compared to the normal tribes I've seen and
played to, laughed, loved and squabbled with. Little
brown children clothed only m moonlight and sunlight,
178

SOUTH SEA PHILOSOPHERS
singing cheerfully by the South Sea breakers under the dark-
fingered coco-palms. Sad little faces, some like deserted
baby angels, looking up into my face — my children ! Dis
hevelled, strange old bush mothers, crooning to their buds
of humanity, tiny brown clinging hands and moving mouths
at their kind, softly feeding brown breasts — ^my mothers !
Old tattooed chiefs and grim-looking kmgs ; rough-haired
semi-savage girls ; and youths jabbering in strange tongues,
with hushed, secret voices, over the terrible white plague
that had entered and stricken their primitive city of huts ;
the white-faced, fierce-looking invaders from across the seas.
Ravishers of their maidens ! The scum of the Western cities
prowling about the villages that had become the hot-beds
of lust and sin's terrible paradise. Missionaries, with
melancholy, hollow voices, who seldom knew anything of
the intense inner life of humanity and the great phUosophy
of happiness. Superstitious, bigoted old chiefs cursing the
white man's Bible. Philosophical old brown men with
high brows and keen dark eyes reflectively nodding their
heads. South Sea Oldenburgs striving to convince grim
South Sea Spinozas. Stalwart, dark tattooed Schopenhauers
shouting about wind-baggery.
I can see again the ironical heathen chief sitting by his
palatial hut. He is clever, a Voltaire of the Southem Seas.
His strong face is tattooed ; grim-looking are his little eyes
as he grins and looks at the Marquesan coat-of-arms which
he has invented and placed at his door — a large empty rum
barrel and on top of it a Christian Bible !
I see the pretty Samoan girl, Millancoo, with lovely dream
ing eyes and thick bronzed hair, with a red and white
hibiscus flower stuck in at each side. Her brown
limbs and figure are the perfection of graceful beauty,
dressed only in a little blue chemise. She eloped with a
"noble white man" to the Gilbert Isles, and committed
suicide when he left her, ere her first-born could creep to her
bosom and taste the only milk of human kindness it would
most probably have ever known.
Earnest-faced Tippo, her sister, sits on the slope. Happy as
night with its stars is she, with six little dark, plump chUdren
179

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
with demon-like eyes romping all round her. She has married
an uncivUised nigger from Timbuctoo ! O happy girl !
How the natives chided and sneered at her at first for not
marrying a great white lord as her sister did !
Beautiful women, and men also, I have met in strange
places. I have found them in the hovels and among the scum
of life, and sometimes in the palatial home of affluence. Con
victs of New Caledonia in the calaboose or toiling in chains,
breathing, yet as dead as dust, with hollow, sad eyes, corpses
from La Belle France — ^my poor brothers ! Old men and
women begging by the kerb-side in the far-away civUised
Isle of the Westem Seas ! The old man in rags, a skeleton
on tottering feet, shivering, going down the cold, windy,
main road of the lighted suburb, singing, with a palsied old
mouth, some song that God composed ere Christ came. He
is my beloved comrade ; bury me with him, so that the flowers
over us may twine in our dead dust and find mutual
sympathy. I have seen multitudes of commercial burglars, wealthy
villains, who fought so valiantly to save their own lives that
they have received the commercial V.C. for valour — and
pennUess, profligate angels, fighting side by side in the battle
of nations — that battle wherein the bullets cause mortal
wounds, though many years pass before they send the
bloodless corpses to heaven — or hell.
I have seen old, ragged, hideous, long dead women stUl
sitting by the attic's hearth fire, sipping the gin bottle —
sweet-fumed opium for their spectral dreams. As they stare
at the embers burning in the red glow they see their own
girlhood faces smile once more back into their bleared
eyes, with remembered beauty, happiness and glorious faith.
Old roues too dream somewhere — ^the men who made the
vows to those drunken old women and never kept them —
may they sleep well, but never wake I
I have heard the majestic cathedral organ thunder its
rolling music to the roof as the beggar passed by the massive,
nail-studded door on swollen feet, rubbed his cold skeleton
hands together and spat viciously. No food in his body,
and his soul — weU, why should he worry about his soul ?
i8o

VIRTUE
I have seen the great shocked multitude open their eyes
aghast, and heard the tremendous crash, the clatter of the
haU of stones, when the voice said : " He that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her." O wonderful
goodness ! O icy, stony virtue.
Ah ! not only in the wUd Australasian bush or in the
Southern Seas is the great drama of life enacted ; the great
drama that makes your heart cold, and the old warm belief
become encrusted with icicles, as you dream over the strange
lot of the wandering, lost chUdren.
I've laid me down deep in the bush to sleep,
And wrapt my body in the sunset's blaze.
Then wondered why He made sad wings for days
To fly away — and all our world to weep.
Like to a myriad birds blown round sunset
In song, I thought I watched God's careworn Face
Brushed by bright wings — the unborn human race
Who did not want their mortal birth — just yet I
I heard the growing flowers cry in the night,
And trees — that whisper of old cherished things.
And stiU the startled, hurried rush of wings —
It was the stars sighed out — upon their flight.
O Troubadours, O Stars, what sing you of ?
O wandering minstrels, is it to God's plan
You sing 1 — or to the exiled heart of man
Who pays with death's blind eyes and cherished love ?
But stiU the children cry upon the plain
Beside a grave ; and still the cheerful king
Grows fat ; and sad old men say : " Anything,
O God, except to live this life again I "•

i8i

CHAPTER XV
The Lecturer— The Italian Virtuoso — Disillusioned
BEFORE I left New Zealand I secured an engagement
to play the violin at a concert hall where the district
assembled to applaud the talent of youthful piano
forte players and maidens who had cultivated voices. I
was engaged to play violin solos, accompanied by the piano,
and to perform suitable tripping melodies for old feet when
the parents danced after the entertainment.
One night, when I was hurrying back to my rooms after
the dance, sick at heart (for, believe me, I do not tell you of
my many aspirations and the disappointments of those days),
I heard a wheezy voice behind me call : " Hi ! you, Mr
Violinist." I immediately turned, and an old gentleman
with a benevolent, cheerful face stood puffing and smUing
at me. " Pray excuse my interruption," he said as he bowed ;
then he continued : " Ah, my dear boy, you are a real
musician and play your instrument as though you have a
soul ; you remind me of my own youthful days, when I
played the violin, by special command, to Queen Victoria."
Hearing this, I at once became inwardly attentive. I had
several manuscript songs that I wanted to get published,
and no publisher in New Zealand or Australia would look
at them unless I paid for the expense of engraving, so, not
knowing what influence the old fellow might have, I
speedily got into conversation with him — ^not from ambitious
motives only, for he seemed a kind-hearted and intellectual
old man, and therefore commanded my respect as well
as my hopes. Inviting me into an hotel, he offered me
a drink, and seemed very much surprised when I asked for
" shandy gaff," which is a mixture of ginger-beer and light
ale.. I flushed slightly and reordered whisky at his sugges
tion, and, though it tasted like kava and paraffin oil mixed, I
182

CHARITY AND ART
bravely took sips of it, whUe the old chap told me of his
violin engagements and the praise accorded him by the
musical critic of The Times and by personages in the royal
courts of Europe. As I listened, and nodded approval and
surprise, I observed him carefully.
He was innocent looking, with a cheery round face and
eyes that were small, but vivacious and blue ; his hat was
neither a tall hat nor a bowler : it had a small rim, which gave
it that clerical contour which seems to be worn especially to
allay any suspicion that might fall on its owner. I would
not reflect upon the appearance of this gentleman so much
if it were not that his appearance helped him enormously.
I am not going to be hard upon him either ; notwithstand
ing his sins, he was at heart a kindly man ; but Nature had
mixed his dough with too much yeast, so that his aspirations
to do well rose far beyond the range of his intellect and solid,
commercial honesty. This was a fact that helped me con
siderably ; for this commonplace failing of our race, shown
in him, put me on my guard in the future and saved me
much pain and many misfortunes in after days. I do not
mean to be sarcastic in the foregoing remarks, though it may
sound like it. I only intend to convey to those who have
not experienced much the fact that all individual types of
good and bad men you meet in civUised lands are just
teachers in the university ; that you must face, if you are
not blessed with wealth, and go off to seek it. They give you
experience, and make you a critic of your race, so that
you can know and appreciate goodness, if in your lifetime
you are fortunate enough to meet it. They also teach you
to be lenient in your judgment of others, and by compari
sons and pondering over their sins you will recognise your
own. Though the old fellow tried to impress me with his great
ness, and praised my many virtues, I instinctively felt that I
did not possess them. I also noticed that, though he told
me that he had just arrived at Christchurch to give lectures
to increase the funds for orphanage children, his fancy waist
coat had been brushed to death and looked shabby. This
fact damped both my hopes and vanity ; for I perceived that
183

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
his praise of my violin-playing was inspired by very much
the same feeling that made me repeatedly nod polite approval
over his erstwhile fame in the royal courts and concerts of
Great Britain. In short, we were both hard up for some
thing that we needed, and saw that we could help each other
by being polite and awaiting events.
I was young, and he was grey and old, and possibly had
been a really good man in his day, till the soulful melody of
heart-beats, called life, had gradually resolved itself into a
minor key, and that drama of grey hairs and a wheezy voice
that praised my youthful melodies in that saloon bar off the
main road in Christchurch, New Zealand. He fingered about
in his pocket, and I at once ordered him another drink, and
inspired with bravery, through his shabby waistcoat, I
boldly called for shandy gaft and pushed the whisky aside.
We were now, by observation of each other's deficiencies,
brothers, and though Queen Victoria's praise of his talent
still lingered in my memory, I noticed that he gave a sigh of
relief as I paid for the next drink, and at once I felt that we
were at last equals. I will not weary you with any more
details, but on the way home that night he walked beside
me, and I agreed to be the solo violinist at the lectures which
he was about to give in various halls that he was hiring. I
was not to get a specified salary, but was to receive, which
was better still, he said, shares in the collection and in the
tickets sold, after the bulk of the proceeds had been put by
for the New Zealand orphanages.
Next morning he called at my rooms at the time appointed.
By daylight my clothes did not look as affluent as they did
by gaslight. In a moment he noticed this and without any
overture said : " Put your hat on, my boy, and come to my
tailor's and get fitted out." I was astonished to hear him
say this, and, not thinking my prospective abUities in his
service might deserve such kindness, my best instincts got
the momentary upper hand of those inclinations which are
usuaUy the strongest in men who have endeavoured to earn
their livelihood by musical accomplishments. So I at first
demurred, and then, overjoyed, went with him to his tailor,
who lived not a half-mile oft. He even bought me India-

THE RT. HON. S. MIDDLETON
rubber cuffs, and the day before the first lecture came off I
looked as well dressed as anyone in the district.
On the morning before the first lecture at the Suburban
Hall I strolled down the main road and to my astonishment
saw my name in large type on big white bills. If I remember
aright, this is how the advertisement went : " Signor Safroni,
the celebrated Italian violin virtuoso, has kindly consented to
perform at the Orphanage Fund lectures " ; and then followed
an account of the lecturer's philanthropic and stirring speeches
on behalf of helpless children. At first I felt annoyed at this
being done without my permission, for I had a kind of sus
picion that the old lecturer thought more of himself than of
the orphan children, and I did not want to be mixed up with
anything that was likely to look shady, both for my own
self-respect and my youthful principles. I at once sought
my new employer and told him, as delicately as possible,
that I did not care to be bUled as a celebrated violinist from
Italy, and, moreover, not so very far off was the very place
where I had been playing. " My dear, dear boy," he said,
opening his eyes as though with amazement, " you call your
self a violin-player and are afraid to be billed ; you must be
mad ! "
" Well," I answered, considerably mollified by the force
of his arguments, " your bill says : ' The Right Honourable
S. Middleton will take the chair.' How can I be both ? And
I know nothing about taking chairs either." " Leave it all
to me ; all you've got to do is to play the violin and make
money," he said ; and I went off, feeling a little guilty of in
gratitude, for I certainly had a good suit of clothes on, and
my expectations, financially, seemed very good.
Before the concert night my employer canvassed the
streets, and indeed the whole district, and sold some hundreds
of tickets. Girls even stood at the mission rooms and church
doors and sold his tickets ; they were given special permis
sion by the clergy, because of the noble cause which my
employer lectured upon.
When I arrived at the hall at the opening hour I saw a
vast crowd waiting by the door. The old lecturer was with
me and rubbed his hands as we went round to the back
185

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
entrance to prepare for the concert. His personality was of
the masterful kind, but, mustering up my courage, I at last
said to him : " Shall I have to take the chair and make
a speech ? " — for I was stUl a little suspicious of my dual
personality as an Italian violin virtuoso and the Right
Honourable S. Middleton.
To my intense relief he patted me on the back and said :
" Play the violin as well as you are able and I wUl do all the
rest." My feelings were relieved, and the thought of how
much I should get from the shares of tickets sold cheered me
up considerably. Before I proceed I may as well tell you
that though he professed to lecture for the benefit of little
children and was deeply " religious," for he prayed so
fervently before meals that I also prayed, out of sheer respect
for his religious earnestness, as far as I knew he never paid
one cent to any fund ; neither did he pay for the haUs that
he hired, nor for the printing of his preposterous bUls, nor
for anything that became his.
There was a special dressing-room in this hall ; it was like
a box, and just at the side of the stage door. When the old
lecturer was ready he gave the little door-boy twopence and
told him to open the entrance to the hall and let the crowd
in at the front ; whUe the professor at the back groomed
himself before his little pocket mirror and I combed my
hair. My heart began to beat a little faster than usual, for I heard
the audience starting to stamp and cheer with impatience
just behind the small door in front of me. The old rogue
said hastily : " Go in and take the chair and I will walk in
behind you." " Perhaps you had better go first," I said,
and stepped aside. " No, no," he responded quickly, in his
masterful voice, and, not wishing to appear nervous the first
night, I took a bold plunge and suddenly appeared before
the vast crowd of bronzed faces that made up that New
Zealand audience. Had it been an ordinary solo engage
ment I should have had something to do and so have been
completely at my ease. But when the vast crowd rose in a
body and cheered me, thinking that I had appeared first to
make a preliminary speech, ere the great philanthropist
i86

POTTED PATHOS
lectured about cmelty to orphan chUdren, and aU the other
lies on his bill, I felt very Ul at ease, and could only bow
repeatedly and gaze at the little door, hoping my employer
would step on the stage. He did not appear, and I think I
must have bowed several times after the last clapping hand
had ceased among the smUing ladies in the front seats, who
were gazing upon me with evident approval, and at last,
bewildered, I stooped to open my violin-ease. I was about
to let the lecture go to the winds and start a solo when
suddenly the door opened at the side of me and the pro
fessor stood bowing to the audience. They rose en masse
and cheered him, as I nearly tumbled over my violin and
sat in the little chair which was the only furniture of the
platform. I felt like one in a dream as I sat there twirling my fingers,
watching the old fellow as his arms swayed and lifted with
his grey head toward the ceiling, and in fervent tones he told
the audience that the Right Honourable S. Middleton had
been suddenly taken ill, and that I had kindly consented to
take the chair, as well as perform solos on the violin. I have
found out since that this ruse is a commonplace excuse for a
one-man lecture and entertainment ; it saves expenses, and
is practised at lectures and concerts throughout the world.
He was really a clever professional liar, and the way he held
his arms aloft and passionately pleaded for the helpless
chUdren touched the audience as though it throbbed with
one large heart. It is a memory that I think would make
the most credulous nature become sceptical when listening
to shabbUy dressed men who appeal for charity beyond their
own immediate requirements. Though he had bought me
a new suit — -on credit I found out afterwards — ^he did not
trouble much about his own clothes, but depended on the
pathos of his voice and his grey hairs. I felt suspicious of
the genuineness of his orphanage appeals, but as I sat there
listening to him a sense of intense shame came over me, for
I, as well as the whole audience, was touched by the pathos
of his phrases and the descriptive figures which he gave of
poor little starving orphans that had appealed for bread.
Then, with his hands lifted to the ceUing, he held the whole
187

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
crowd spellbound as he described a dying chUd's last look
and words in a London workhouse.
As he finished a great sigh echoed through the hall, as
though it was one sound from a thousand hearts that were
bursting with emotion. His voice ceased and he turned to
me, and as I lifted the glass of water to his lips I noticed
that he had tears in his eyes ; for his imagination had carried
him out of himself and touched him as well as me. Then I
stood up and played a solo, after which I extemporised an
accompaniment to a sacred song which he sang ; for though
he was old and sinful his voice was mellow and sweet.
He told me he was the last living member of the Old
Christy Minstrels of London, and from his manner and
general conversation I still believe that assertion of his was
a true one. I asked him once to play the violin, but he would
not do so, though he could play the banjo well.
I have never been so cheered by an audience as I was that
night. I was called and recalled. I do not believe it was so
much for my playing, or for the opinion of Italian royalty and
the Queen of England on my " wonderful " playing — it was
on the programme — as for my being thought a friend of that
old lecturer on dying orphan children. For before we played
the National Anthem he told them that I had consented to
go with him through New Zealand and play solos purely for
the sake of helping unhappy children, and that I was to
receive no salary. I did not know how true it was when he
said that, but I often think how fortunate I was not to have
been arrested with him ; for, though I was quite innocent,
I believe that we were both liable to penal servitude for
giving those charitable concerts.
Before the audience dispersed the lecturer made an extra
collection, notwithstanding the fact that each member of the
audience had paid one or two shillings for admittance, and
given sixpence for a programme !
At the hall door, after all was over, he interviewed many
of the ladies who sought a personal introduction ; we also
received many invitations to call at their homes, and my old
employer seemed quite touched by the many sjrmpathetic
phrases they poured in his ears. When we were alone he
i88

I AM RELIGIOUSLY TOUCHED
stood under a lamp-post and counted out the collection, and
though I lounged by him, and gave many hints, he did not
offer me a portion, so I asked him for my share straight out.
He had promised me some money just before the lecture.
" I dare not give it to you," he said. " I must first pay for
the haU, the printing and the amount due to the orphanage ;
then, rest assured, my boy, you shall get your share."
Next day he got fearfully drunk, and I became convinced
that he was not genuine, though the night before I had left
him thinking that I must be mistaken in my suspicions. The
very boldness of his bills and his plans would have disarmed
older men, and I was then only about twenty-one years of
age. I had given my other job up and so, for the time being,
I was compelled to stick to him. He rebuked me for not
saying grace before my meals, and I discovered that he really
was religious in the common sense of the term ; we even had
arguments together because I would not agree with all he
said. He was extremely happy and sang to himself all day,
rose at five o'clock every moming and splashed water all
over the room as he washed, while I complained and begged
for another hour's rest. I felt envious and yet sorry for him,
and myself too. When a man dimly realises his abjectness
in the flesh he has begun to realise his divinity ; the night of
his mind, that was dark, becomes unclouded, and the stars
glimmer forth only to sadden him. He does not feel any
longer so ready to criticise the dark of his neighbour's mind,
which is still happy in that night of intellectual blindness
which is such a blessing to men who inherit the heavens
through an acute squint. My swindling old employer re
joiced in this squint to an abnormal degree ; he really did
believe that he was a pious and good-living man. When I
refused to work for him, and told him he was a rogue, he
was so shocked that I even relented a little, and took his
proffered hand when I said good-bye. He seemed to value my
opinions, though he did not agree with them, and I honestly
believe that, had he not had his religious aspirations to fall
back upon, he would have fallen back upon himself and been
a really good man.
When he left the district his creditors came down on me,
189

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
and I had a lot of trouble to prevent myself being arrested.
The taUor who had supplied my suit of clothes stopped me
in the street ; I lost my temper, and we nearly came to blows,
and I was almost locked up. Next morning I called upon
the taUor and told him the truth ; he apologised for his re
marks and refused to take more than half the money due for
the clothes, which I paid him. I never saw the lecturer on
orphanages again ; and as it was years ago, and he was old
then, I feel that he must have given his last lecture, closed
his stage door for ever and gone away.

190

CHAPTER XVI
Homesick — Off to England — At Colombo — The Stowaway — Home
Again — The Wandering Fever returns — Reflections — Out
bound for West Africa — On the West Coast — King Lobenguela
— A Native Chief speaks — -The Jungle — King Buloa and the
Native Ceremony — An African Caprice — Music — A White Man
among Wild Men — Nigeria — A Native Funeral — Night in the
Jungle — Gold Mines — The African Drum

A

BOUT this time I became homesick and tried to flnd
a berth on one of the homebound boats. I eventu
ally secured a job on a tramp steamer, the s.s. P — — .
There was nothing exceptional on the trip except the mono
tony of the ship's routine. We called at Hobart, Tasmania,
and after experiencing stiflingly hot weather crossing the
Indian Ocean eventually arrived at Colombo. The natives
came clambering on board and attempted to take possession
of all our portable property. They are a dark mahogany-
coloured people, a cheerful-looking folk. All their actions
seem to be guided by a strong commercial instinct. Loaded
with bunches of bananas, and baskets of oranges and limes,
they ran about the decks, bargaining for old shirts and cast-
off clothing. Over the vessel's side floated their outrigger
catamarans, swarming with dark, almost nude men and
women. Swimming in the sea were their children, shouting,
" I dive, I dive," as they looked up to the passengers on deck,
who threw pennies into the sea. As the coin reached the
water down went their heads and up their legs, as like frogs
they all dived down into the depths in a mad race to secure
the coveted coin, which is never lost. At the moment
when it seems impossible for them to live so long under the
water the calm surface of the sea trembles at the spot where
the coin was thrown in and up come a score of frizzly heads
from the ocean's depth, and the winner holds the prize
between his teeth. 191

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
About a week or so after leaving Colombo we entered the
Suez Canal. It was night. As the boats enter the canal a
searchlight is fixed on to the fo'c'sle head to illumine the
narrow waterway that flows ninety miles across the desert.
It must be an impressive sight from the desert, the steamer
going across like some mammoth beast, with a monster eye
in front and the port-holes pulsing light in the iron sides as
the steamer moves along.
I remember one incident that happened before we passed
the canal that night. I was standing by the starboard alley
way dreaming, and watching the stars glittering over the
desert, as the engines took the steamer along at about four
knots an hour, when a rustling noise behind some barrels
startled me. It was quite dark, and the decks were sUent,
for most of the passengers were asleep. Wondering what
on earth could be stirring in the gloom, I leaned forward and
saw two bright eyes looking out between some casks, and a
soft voice crying out said something to me in a language which
I did not understand. It was a pretty little Arab maid, a
stowaway, who had crept on board at Ismailia, where we had
stopped for one hour. I lifted her up tenderly ; she was as
black-skinned as night and only wore a tiny loin-cloth. She
raised her bright eyes and was crying ; but I took her along
the alleyway and down below, and by kindness reassured
her. We gave her a good feed and then, tired out, she feU
asleep in my bunk, and I slept on the sea-chests in the cabin.
In the morning she danced to us in our berth and caused us
sreat merriment. We sneaked her ashore at Port Said, where
she had friends ; she had stowed away so as to reach them.
We gave her plenty of food to take off with her, and we were
sorry to see her go ; she was only about seven years old !
Three weeks after leaving Port Said we arrived in England
and berthed at Tilbury Docks. The atmosphere of primeval
lands, shining under tropic suns and glorious stars, faded
to a far-off dream as the dull, drab-grey of English skies
drenched the wharves and the shouting dock labourers.
As the days wore on once again the roaming fever tumed
my thoughts to the sea, with all the splendour of its grand
192

THE GREAT HARLOT
uncertainty, its devUish irony and vicissitudes. Though
the glamour of romance had faded, yet my wanderings and
turbulent experiences had completely unsettled me ; indeed
they had unfitted me for the humdrum commercial exist
ence which I should have had to follow had I made up my
mind to settle in my own country, assume respectabUity,
and hide, as beneath a cloak, my inherent vagabond
nature. The feathered quiU pen at the desk would have
fluttered to fly, held by my sympathetic hand.
The old wandering fever stUl gripped me. I was always
wanting to be off into the uncertainty, to be buffeting roimd
the capes of vmknown seas, exploring for the marveUous
unexpected, standing on the decks of imagination, under the
flying moonlit saUs of glorious illusion, singing wild, mad
chanteys over wonderful argosies of schemes that could
never be reahsed !
Yes, to be ashore on some far-away isle, clasping the
savage maid in your arms by the coco-palms, gazing in the
delicious orbs of the Universe — infinity in beams of eyelight.
To breathe the present, yet be alive in the past, far away
down the centuries of the modern dark ages ! To walk by
primeval forest and tumbling moonlit seas where they break
over coral reefs. To rest by camp fires and huts, talking with
bush women and men, and girls with sparkling eyes, eyes
clear as heaven with her moon and stars. To be back in
the splendid aboriginal darkness of — ^as it was in the
beginning. Yet alas 1 as I dream the faint, immodest blush of dawn
tmts the distant sky-line. It is the birth of grief and beauty ;
awakening sunrise is agleam in her warm eyes ; her sandals
are dipped in fire and the stars are in her hair. Onward she
creeps, in the beauty of her maiden nakedness, cloaked in
glorious, unreal tinsel and grief. Blushing like a goddess she
comes, treading the sky ! The glorious, wonderful harlot —
Civilisation !
It was a grey day when I next found myself outbound,
going down Channel on a tramp steamer for the Canary
Isles and Sierra Leone. I had often wished to go to
N 193

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
West Africa, and so, when the opportunity came, I did
not hesitate.
I wUl not dweU at any length on the events that preceded
my arrival on the West Coast, but wUl briefly give my im
pression of things as they appeared to me in those days.
You caimot, however imaginative you may be, imagine
you are elsewhere than on the Gold Coast. The atmosphere
of the moist jungle, the barbarian hubbub of excited native
voices, the beating of the tom-toms in the far-off vUlages, the
toUing natives, driven by the loud-voiced white overseer of
the gold mines, continually remind you that you are in the
barbarian paradise of unconventionality.
For mUes and mUes the primeval jungle stretches ; and
standing on the hUl-tops you can see the far-off native huts
looking like groups of peg-tops against the sunset.
On the higher slopes, by the gold mines, stand the bungalows
of the white men. They are comfortable inside and weU
fumished, sheltered from the blazing sunlight by mahogany
and palm trees. The white men who are employed on the
mines loaf about near them and the Gold Coast natives supply
their wants. For a brass ring, or a piece of sham jeweUery,
they can purchase native labour, and for a pound or so buy
dusky female slaves, whom they call " Mammies." Virtue
is not the most prominent characteristic of Gold Coast
natives. As the white men sit in those bungalows by night they can
hear the native drums beating far away, and watch the
lizards and scorpions slipping across the moonlight of their
bedroom walls, and, maybe, hear their comrade in the next
bungalow raving in the delirium of fever. Malaria, black-
water fever and other things often end the exile's career.
At night the living can dream and think of home, and watch
from their bungalow doors the little white stones and crosses
glimmering in the African moonlight in the hollows where
the homesick dead white men lie asleep.
Though the gold mines lay all round, gold was not the
essential requirement. A bottle of English beer, placed on a
post by a bungalow or graveyard, would make a dead white
man sit up and grasp it. Missionaries had been on the
194

_ *
Settler's Home, Gold Coast

THE GOLDEN AGE
Gold Coast for years trying to reform the natives, who many
of them had embraced Christianity. They often asked us
mysterious questions about the white man's land, as though
they were puzzled and could not fathom the meaning of it
all. They had a faint idea that England was a land of some
beautiful Golden Age, where sin was unknown ; otherwise,
why did the white men come across the seas to preach to
them when the natives were so contented with their lot, and
wished the missionaries to hell ? So spoke King Lobenguela.
He was a powerful fellow and when he walked looked very
majestic, as he trailed his heavy blanket behind him. He
lived in a palatial kraal and had a multitude of slaves, who
washed his feet continually. He had embraced Christianity,
and went off across the jungle to the mission room three
times daily, and all day on Sunday. He was a typical
specimen of African aristocrat and spoke fairly good
English. His one intense wish was to see English royalty,
and confer some honourable degree upon them for bringing
to his dominion salvation and Sacramental rum, which he
drank by the barrel. The one ambition of the chiefs seemed
to be to take the Sacrament. There they are out there, with
all the old instincts very much the same, notwithstanding
the introduction of Christianity. When the white races
have educated them, and equipped them with scientifi,c
weapons of warfare, who knows ? They may assert their
individuality, and strive to get their stolen countries back
again. The truth is often spoken in earnest ! It is as well
to remember that in those vast African territories many
mUlions of fine native men dwell, with a muscular power and
patriotism equal to that of the peoples of civilised lands.
The moving finger of Destiny has always suddenly pointed
to the hour of mighty events, with an ironical grin at our
unprepared consternation.
The West African bush-land is the wUdest under the sun.
Nothing but short bush jungle and vast forests meets your
gaze as you wander on from sky-line to sky-line in your
caravan, and, as a ship passes islands on the trackless South
Seas, often you pass a native village and hear the tom-toms
beating away at their mysterious sound codes.
195

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
In those isolated villages, far beyond the outposts of
civUisation, you will sometimes come across a white man
who dwells alone with his memories. Sunk to a semi-
barbarian state, they live with the natives, who have a deep
reverence for them and their superior knowledge. They live
on mealie broth and nut mUk, and dress in the native style.
When the white stranger from far off is seen approaching the
native vUlage he is carefully scanned through a telescope
by the white exile ere the latter shows himself outside the
native kraals.
Men of the civUised Westem cities do not dream of the sad
dramas of life that are hidden away from their knowledge
far beyond the outposts of advanced civilisation. London
audiences cheer and weep in the theatres as the curtain drops
before the footlights over the mock-hero's grief. But oh ! if
they knew of the great unknown, the sorrowful dramas
behind the awful curtain of reality.
While I was on the coast I made the acquaintance of an
elderly tourist who was gathering material for a book of
experiences. He was extremely fond of music, cheerful, and
a keen observer of character. When he proposed to me that
I should accompany him on his travels I was very delighted
and at once agreed. We went by boat round the coast — ^he
paid all my expenses — ^and visited a host of villages, finally
going as far as Bamban and Krue, and many places whose
names I have now forgotten.
I remember many incidents of those early days, especially
a white-whiskered old chief whose name was Tamban. He
was about seventy years of age, and had a wrinkled, wise-
looking face and a bald pate. He loved to sit by his
kraal, Avrapped in his big brown blanket, and speak native
wisdom. He was dead against the white men, and at heart was a
genuine old heathen, and no fool either. Though he pro
fessed to have embraced Christianity, and possessed a Bible,
he had sold many square miles of his dominion to white men,
over and over again signing the documentary deeds, with
many expressions of loyalty and blessings on the great white
Queen. It was afterwards found out that he had sold the
196

A HEATHEN'S WISDOM
same land to scores of different white speculators, who
opened syndicates in London and sold shares to the
unwary. When he was in liquor he would reveal the true thoughts
that bumt silently within him and longed for utterance.
" Heathen, me 1 forsooth, ah ! ah ! measly, white-faced
goat ! " he would shout when the missionary approached him.
" Bring forth the mealie broth and rum, that I may toast
these white skunks speedily to their hell ! " And saying
that he would turn his dark, wrinkled face to the blue tropical
sky and lift his war-club, and oft rushed his womenkind from
the kraal to do his bidding.
Then he would turn to the white missionary, who stood
with his broad-brimmed Panama hat tilted forward to hide
the grin on his lips, and thunder forth, his big black lips
fairly flopping with drunken passion : " Who is this white
God that you prate about ? Liar ! Show me this one
shadow that is better than my fifty gods ! Show me Him,
and I wUl crush Him as I do this struggling flea ! " and say
ing this he pulled his dirty blanket the tighter round him
and then held up to our gaze a flea between his thumb and
forefinger. Then, with a sneer on his lips and much blas
phemy, he would continue : " Give up my fifty gods and
trust to one indeed ! " and then down he would crash his
club, as all his old wives, squatting by the kraal, quivered
in their skins. " Ah ! ah ! " he said, and his bright eyes
winked humorously at the harem queen, a dusky beauty as
black and bare as starlit night swathed in a wisp of vapour ;
" pass me the bowl full, filled to the rim, mind you." Then
he would smack his big lips together and mutter : " Tribes
men, the white man's rum speaks more truth than his God of
lies." The foregoing gives a pretty fair example of the real
character of those old native chiefs and kmgs, who stiU
cling to their old beliefs and yet profess Christianity in
much the same manner as they do in the islands of the
South Seas.
My friend and I were always on the move, sometimes
riding and at other times walking. We tramped along
jungle track for many miles and often passed natives who
197

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
came by us in their primitive caravans. We would wave
our hands to them and watch them go out of sight ; for the
tracks wind along by deep gullies, swamps and impenetrable
forest lands.
We hired two hammock boys. I was pleased, for they
carried my violin and my friend's camera ; also a load of
photo plates and curios. South Sea Island heat is wintery
compared to the dense, muggy atmosphere of the West Coast.
By night a white mist creeps out of the primeval jungle
glooms ; and at dawn the sunrise looks ghostly, as it gleams
across the glimmering slopes and gullies, and sparkles a blaze
of forked chameleon light on the jungle world. Far away
the natives are beating the tom-toms in the hidden viUages
as you walk along like a man asleep and scratch yourself;
for each night was a nightmare of restlessness : though we
wrapped our feet up and sealed all the holes in our mosquito
nets, we did so in vain. The mosquitoes got at us somehow,
and their bodies were bloated with our blood long before
dawn. Ants, too, abound, and they are as big as half-a-
walnut shell, and go moving along in vast battalions, attack
ing friend and foe alike. There are centipedes also, and
when one rises from one's extemporised bed they rush
off on a thousand legs to hide from the sudden blaze of
light. Thick grass ten feet high, and fern-trees a foot higher,
grow on the jungle slopes, and at dusk they are afire with
crimson and yellowish blooms, tropical orchids and flowers
one has never seen before.
One evening at dusk we arrived at a vUlage called, I think,
Kafolo. King Buloa ruled the dominion, and the priests
consulted Ju-Jus. The Ju-Ju is a hideous idol, carved to
satisfy the heathenish ideas of the African natives, who stUl
worship wood and stone, as the Islanders did in the South
Seas years ago. Polynesian Islanders are educated gentle
men compared with the usual mn of West Coast and Nigerian
natives. As we crossed the river by a bridge of logs that divided
the vUlage from the jungle, we sighted a tuiy city of huts.
We waved our hands and approached slowly, with a httle
198

A KING AT HOME
apprehension. The King (or high chief), dressed in an old
pink striped shirt, came out of his kraal and welcomed us.
His face looked like a black, gnarled tree trunk carved into
human shape, tUl his thick-lipped mouth opened with a
smile, revealing three or four remaining teeth. He held
over his frizzly head a large white umbrella, a present
from some trader, which intensified his dusky shade. Out
of the huts under the jungle palms came the ebony-coloured
population — good-humoured-looking men, women, girls and
piccaninnies. The King invited us into his palace. The
skulls of fallen foes ornamented the door. We stepped
inside the royal kraal and were somewhat surprised by the
comfortable surroundings. Native tapestry, made of fibre
and woven grass of various hues, covered the walls, and the
floor of the first apartment was hidden by thick mattmg,
on which squatted several ebony-coloured females, who
belonged to the royal harem. As we entered they started
jabbering and rolling their dark eyes. Chairs and tables
covered with matting made up quite a decent amount of
furniture, evidently purchased from traders. A Ju-Ju,
surrounded by empty gin bottles, stood in the doorway of
the next room. It had fierce-looking glass eyes and a face
that looked half human and half crocodUe. We expressed
delight at aU we saw, for we were alone there and felt that by
being friendly with the chief we were keeping on the safe side.
Then the old high chief stood erect and had his photograph
taken ; he was as pleased as a child with our attentions. I
played the violin to him, and he was greatly delighted as I
scraped away ; his eyes glittered with pleasure and curiosity,
I made him hold the violin, and he made several scrapes ; his
fat lips widened with fright until they reached his ears when
the strings wailed. That night, as sunset smudged with a
yellowish gleam the misty, heat-laden horizon, and a myriad
creeping insects came forth to hum and buzz, Mr T  and
I graciously accepted King Buloa's invitation to attend a
village ceremony. He made signs to us and said, " Much
good you like see," wrapped a large brown blanket, red
striped, about him, the very sight of which made us perspire,
for the heat was terrific, and majestically slinging one end
199

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
over his shoulder walked in front of us, to lead the way to the
jungle ballroom.
I saw a sight that night which outdid, in grotesqueness
and lewdness, anything which I had seen in the South Seas.
The royal opera box was a square-rigged set of bamboo poles
lashed together with strong native fibre. Mats slung over
the cross-bars made comfortable seats, elevated about six
feet, whereon Mr T  and I sat, and the chief with crossed
legs in the middle.
Four native girls had just reached maidenhood and
had been sold to four respective husbands for so many
bullocks. It was the custom to confer on such maidens
an honour which, to Westem civUisation, was one of great
degradation and shame. Afterwards the girls were brought
forth to stand in the middle of the cleared jungle, so that the
whole tribe could gaze upon them as the festival dancers
whirled round them. There they stood before us, revealing
a similar timidness to that seen in a young bride at an English
wedding. The King started the applause by striking a huge
bamboo rod on the side of the primitive opera box as he
drank large bowls of palm wine. He was soon drunk, reeled
and shouted : " Fu Fu, Ki Ki ! " The glimpsing moonlight
streamed through the palms on to the maidens' faces and
on to the dark hordes of shrieking natives who whirled
around them. Those erstwhUe maids stood embracing each
other, then unclasped, chanted and clapped their hands in
rhythmic motion, and then, to the delight of the assembly,
imitated every gross gesture.
My friend kept close to me and I to him as the besotted
King slipped off his seat and fell on to the next rung, stiU
shouting : " Ki Ki ! " One of the maidens was really hand
some for a negress ; she had fine eyes, full lips and a well-
rounded figure of light mahogany colour ; the curves of her
body resembled a Grecian bronze. She stood for a moment
perfectly stUl in the moonlight, with one knee timidly cross
ing the other, ere she tumed to show her comeliness to the
admiring audience ! As they sang the native orchestra
crashed away on tom-toms and wooden drums. Some
plucked strings that were stretched across gourds; others
200

AN AFRICAN FESTIVAL
blew, with their big black lips, at bamboo flutes. They
played out of tune, but the tempo of the primitive strains
suited the dance exactly. " Mvu ! Mvu ! " shouted the
King, and then he made signs that I should play. Without
a moment's hesitation I held the violin to my chin and
played like a happy barbarian, though my heart thumped
with apprehension.
Again they danced as I played on, and through my brain
flashed reminiscences of my tribal solos in Samoa and else
where. Suddenly the circling ring opened and from a hut
close by came the dancers for the second act. By the throne
they ran, dressed in grotesque festival costume, painted in
hideous lines of white from head to foot. They looked like
hordes of skeletons from the tribal cemetery jumping round
living maidens. So rhythmically did they whirl, and so fan
tastic was the sight, that they seemed monstrous puppets
strung on wires puUed by some mysterious hand in the dark
jungle ; for often they would stop perfectly stUl, and then
in the moonlight once more whirl away. How the audience
of men, women and children stared and clapped as they
squatted on their haunches on mats ; and they encored just
as they do in the music halls of London town when the
ladies in tights whirl and jump before fascinated audiences.
There I sat with T  , gasping with curiosity as the
King thumped, and playing on, far happier than when,
dressed in an evening suit and tight, high collar, I fiddled in
city orchestras, playing every night the accompaniments of
the poor hits of the day to affected stage voices.
Notwithstanding the apparent lewdness, their innocence
almost sanctified the smiling scene of dark faces, and I
realised that it was but a custom truthfully expressing
primeval man's original idea of the beautiful. So we were
not shocked, though we drank deep from the whisky flask
to steady our nerves ere the head chief sucked at it.
The tribe encored me, and I played again. To my surprise
they got hold of the wild chorus of the Scotch reels and
whirled around, shrieking it ! They had musical voices and,
I believe, good ears. The melodies they sang resembled
wUd laughter tn song ; the tom-toms banged and the flutes
201

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
screamed between. This is the mirth music as I memorised
it:

AFRICAN CAPRICE.

AS. M.

Laughter.

f Vivace.

!«•

I I J

4^

Tom Toms.

It:

j^^S^sElEfEgS^TS

^^i. > 'L.^^^-'^B^

Beproduoed by kind permission of Messrs. F. Fiiman Hakt <Sc Co., Ltd., London, B.CI
Next day we were taken round the viUage and entered
many'of the native homes. They were snug enough, with
sleeping-mats and bamboo furniture, and many boxes with
little mats on them. In the corners were maize, yams, kola-
nuts and gin bottles ; the chief ornaments were the skulls of
dead relatives. Comfortable kraals they were, though the
furniture seemed scanty and reminded me of the homes of
struggling authors, poets and musicians in the large cities of
the world. But these were happier homes ; for the heads
of the famUies were unambitious, save that they prayed for
copious rains to fall on their yams and mealie patches. The
richer natives wore ornamental garments and had honours
202

AN EL DORADO FOR POETS
conferred on them, such as foot-washer or mosquito-squasher
to the King. Real poverty seemed unknown, and decrepi
tude and the complainings of old age ceased with the blow of
a war-club. Artists engraved pottery, and musicians were much
appreciated. Poets were applauded, and in all the villages
I came across were looked upon as exiled gods. When they
spoke their wisdom and native lore were listened to with
rapt attention, as though the great god Abassi had spoken :
a strong contrast to the neglected poets of civilised lands,
where poetic voices cry in the wilderness to deaf ears.
WUliam Watson, Robert Bridges, Chesterton, Blakemore,
and all the other voices of modem music would have found
a large measure of appreciation in that land, had they been
bom there ; for it was an El Dorado for poets. As for John
Masefield and Kipling, they would have stood on stumps
and sung tUl all the coast villagers, through sheer poetic
delirium, put out to sea for other lands and wild, poetic
adventure. Lovers of Wagner would have rejoiced to hear the strange
primeval music, music that expressed the true barbarian
note of joyous or waUing humanity ; and after hearing that
which I heard they would more easily have understood the
deeper meaning of the celebrated maestro's compositions.
I played several solos to the King next day as he sat in his
hut-room, and he touched me with a dead king's thigh bone
on the neck, and so gave me the equivalent to a British
knighthood. We were taken before the favourite harem
queens ; they blushed and smiled, showing their white teeth,
as T  and I bowed and gesticulated our appreciation of
their dusky beauty.
With all their apparent sins they seemed deeply religious.
We knew not what their creeds expressed, or on what
mythology they were founded. We only knew that Abassi
and Sowoko were great gods, and their subjects were life and
death, as in all creeds they must be. Their Ju-Jus were
hideous enough to express the agony and ultimate end of all
we know and all that is bom of flesh. The Ju-Jus they knelt
before were as deaf to their appeals as the images of the Virgin
203

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Mary and other idols of Catholic and Protestant high
churches are.
When we left King Buloa we wandered on mUe after mUe
and continually entered other countries ; for you cross
frontier lines at every river and swamp, and come across
tribes who speak a different dialect and worship off-shoot
gods: the Akanaka tribe, Egbosh, Apiaongs and many others.
On the rivers sailed dug-out canoes, long enough to hold
from twelve to fifteen natives, and smaller canoes wherein
ebony youths paddled their sweethearts and sang the latest
tribal hits.
All the villages were famUiar with white men, for traders
came long distances, from Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast,
and from Calabar, to bargain for copra and palm-nuts and
many other things.
Slavery was in vogue, and rich chiefs bought young girls
and youths and took them into their homes. I saw a witch
scene, much like the scenes I had seen in Fiji ; hideous old
women and men consulted the Ju-Ju, then haunted the
credulous natives with lying stories and prophecies of good
and bad things.
I played the violin to several tribes, with the special idea
of seeing how my music appealed to them. Some were
curious only, and others seemed to enjoy the melodies. A
native girl from Sierra Leone sang as I played, and had a
really fine voice, with an earnest note in it. I think the
West African natives, on the whole, have good, musical ears
and a genuine love for music, greater than that of the English
people. I have heard native military bands perform, and
heard no difference in the playing when compared, of course,
with amateur bands in Great Britain.
In one native village we discovered a white man living.
He was about fifty years of age, and very grey and sunburnt.
At first he was reticent, but T  got him on some interest
ing topic, and I played the fiddle, and then he opened out.
I cannot tell his name or what he said. He was not hiding,
but was sick of life and wished to end his days out there
with those wild men. I can still see his blue eyes gazing
at us, among the black ones, as the natives stood by
204

<

<
u

aX
H

MY COMRADE AND I BLUSH !
their village huts and waved good-bye as we tramped
off. The population of Ashanti was very mixed. Moors,
Mohammedans, negroes, Arabs and many more, who had
emigrated across the Sahara to the West Coast in ages past,
had left their tjrpes in the blood of the natives.
We went to Accra, Akamabu and Sekondi, where we
stayed with an old chief who was about eighty or ninety
years of age. He had white whiskers, and was shrivelled up
like a mummy, but he was a most interesting man and spoke
good English. He had fought under King Osae Tutu, the
Ashanti king who in 1822 defeated the British, who in turn
revenged themselves in 1826 on the Pra river.
Finally T  and I took boat for Lagos and arrived on
the coast of Nigeria, where we saw native life and tropical
bush that differed very little from that which I have already
described. All the villages were simUar, and their semi-
barbarian population lived under their old customs, modified
to suit the requirements of the British Commissioners. The
natives all seemed prosperous and fat ; rent and clothes did
not trouble them, so they traded, and kept the proceeds for
their immediate requirements. The bush was dotted with
mahogany, ebony, camwood and yellow-wood trees ; rubber
and oil-palm were cultivated.
Long stretches of dry weather prevaUed, and then a
thimder-storm came along and seemed to shake the very
mountains ; the natives put their gourds and calabashes out
and the deluge fiUed them in five minutes. Rivers that were
tiny brooks rose in half-an-hour and tore along in foaming,
swirling torrents, washing a village away. T  and I
saved the life of a native child as it passed us on the thunder
ing flood ; it was still in its sleeping-basket and looked up
and yawned, only that moment wakened from sleep, as we
grabbed it and pulled it ashore. The naked mother came
flying towards us, waving her arms ; when she saw her baby,
and realised we had saved it, she embraced us and wailed
with gratitude. We blushed, and after the storm T 
got his camera ready and took her photograph. She
was extremely self-possessed ; indeed semi-savage African
205

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
women lack the virtue that white women have — their colour
does not reveal their blushes.
One day we saw a native funeral; I think it was at a
village called Awakar. We were walking along a jungle
track some miles from Ediba, on the Cross river, when we
came to the village. It was the evening, in drought weather,
and we smelt the village as we approached the clearing.
The village orchestra was in full swing. Drums, native
pipes, clappers, tom-toms and bamboo rattlers, horns made
of elephant tusks, all were being used, and made, as you can
imagine, a weirdly impressive combination of sounds. A
chief was being carried to his last resting-place. We were
deeply interested in the scene that met our curious gaze.
Wailing old men carried the coffin slowly along, and kept
spitting, for the weather was muggy and hot. The chief had
been dead some days ; the coffin lid was unfastened, and we
could see the dark, frizzly hair of the dead chief's head at one
end and the toes at the other. Myriads of winged insects
and flies buzzed above the body and the procession as it
moved along. The head chief, who was just behind, kept
drinking tumbo (palm wine), which an ebony girl handed to
him ; and they followed him with a large calabash full to
supply his thirst. T  and I kept to the windward of the
procession, and puffed vigorously at our pipes, and holding
our noses we walked just by the side of the native military
band, that played the death march behind the group.
Right ahead of the procession, just in front of the hearse of
wailing natives, walked eight elderly, stalwart chiefs, who
carried a monstrous Ju-Ju. Its hideous, half-human face,
with big glass eyes, stared backwards at the coffin and the
procession as the whole group moved along. " Give me a
pull at your flask, T  ," I said ; immediately he handed it
to me and then took a gulp himself. Presently the procession
stopped at the far end of the vUlage before a large hut. We
made inquiries, and found it was the corpse's late homestead :
the custom was to bury him under the floor.
As they stopped, the sweating hearse of twenty mouths
spat, and they lowered their grim burden before the hut-
tomb. All the mourners commenced a weird monotone of
206

A HEATHEN FUNERAL
melody, a melody that had bars in it resembling an English
hymn. As we stood at the end of the village watching that
heathenish burial, and the high priest lifted his hands and
chin up to the big Ju- Ju's wooden face in earnest supplication
to the gods for that dead man of his diocese, the scent of the
jungle blooms came in whiffs to our nostrils. Sunset was
fading, and as the coffin disappeared in the doorway, and
darkness drifted over the whole scene, I seemed to be standing
in the dark ages, alone in some vast dream of life's sad drama.
But the jungle bird in the mahogany-tree started to sing
sweetly, and then reality stole over the village, and I heard
the wails of the mourners sorrowing over the blight of creation ;
real sorrow it was, and for all its grotesqueness the same as
the sorrow of the civilised races. Still the bird sang over my
head ; it was a jungle nightingale passionately pouring forth
melody as the native voices afar died away ; and I dreamed
on till T  touched me on the arm, for it was getting late
and we did not wish to stay on in that particular village.
We slept that night in another village called, I think,
Eko. I shall always remember it because of the look on
my friend's face as I shaved him. We only had one razor
between us, and that was rusty. T  was terribly scrubby
and he said : " Can you shave, Middleton ? " " Yes," I
said ; and I lathered his smiling face with a mixture of fat
and swamp water for twenty minutes, to make up for the
razor's bluntness, and then started on him. He was a hand
some fellow, but as I pulled the hairs out in batches his face
twisted and contorted till he looked like a Ju-Ju, and the tiny
black piccaninnies of the native vUlage jumped and screamed
with joy to see the white man's terrible grimaces. " Be
brave," I said, and away came the skin of his chin. Then
he performed on me ; but I was younger, and only suffered
half as much as he had done as he scraped the down from my
cheeks. A few weeks later we bade each other good-bye. I
promised to write to him but lost his address. I never saw
him again, but I have not forgotten him, as he will see if
ever he reads this. I have seldom had a more cheerful or
intellectual comrade in my travels than T  was, and I
207

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
am sure he created fame by his facial contortions among the
viUage chUdren in the African village Eko years ago.
You are never really lonely in the African bush, for as you
tramp along the bush tracks with your swag — a flask of
whisky and insect powder wrapped up in your mosquito net
— strange things foUow you, singing and blowing tiny flutes in
your ears as they circle round your head, a dancing ring of
tiny bodies on wings. Some of them hum at sunset, and if
you feel poetical you can fancy you are out on the lonely
track, with all the stars singing round you, as like some
burdened creator you mumble to yourself and move along
with your myriad satellites following you. At night you
are not companionless, for the festering heat makes you
feverish and imaginative. As you lie down to sleep, after
closely fortifying yourself from all living, creeping things,
the African moon steals up the sky and noises sound in your
ears. The hideous Ju-Ju faces that you saw yesterday in the
native village emerge, grinning, from the jungle, to peep and
dance all round you ; some of them bend over you, put their
wooden mouths to your ears and whisper : " Englishman,
Englishman, go home to your people before you are dead."
The fat lizards, gliding up and down the moonlit mahogany
tree trunks, swell to a monstrous size as you watch, and
jump right through your head ; but pale shadow faces creep
out of the jungle, faces with blue, kind eyes, and you recog
nise your own memories as caressing fingers, made of home
land dreams, touch your brow and at last you fall asleep.
I have often rested by the track in the lonely bush whUe
birds puffed their throats and sang to me some sweet refrain
that winged my heart overseas to England ; and often at
sunset a bird would sing a strange song that made me feel
as though I had been dead for ages, and the sounds of the
native drums in the distant village came from ghostly batta
lions of the Pharaohs, calling me across hills of sleep. My
dreams have made me one of the wealthiest travellers on
earth. If I can take my best dreams to my grave I shall be
happy enough, for I shall own my own heaven and the
memory of life's hell will pass away.
I remember once when I was tramping the Australian
208

DREAMS
bush alone I fell asleep in a hoUow, and my dead brother,
who was lost overboard at sea whilst going out as a saUor to
Australia, crept out of the gum clumps just by my camp bed
and lay beside me. I was happy, and put my arm round him
all night long ; but I felt very miserable when I awoke and
tramped on alone at daybreak. I tell you how I felt, because
men feel as well as see when they travel the world.
If we could only creep across the years, and gather in a
harvest of our boyish dreams, and live them all again, how
happy some of us would be ; now our days rush away like
the waters of the rivers to the sea : we stUl call the rivers
by the old names, but the singing waters of yesterday have
gone for ever.
Our dreams are spiritual and beautify our brief existence.
When we cease to dream we are truly dead ; the memory of
yesterday's dream gilds the hoUowness of to-day as flowers
sadly beautify old graves. I have often met the dead walk
ing the streets, avaricious skeletons without real eyes, and
have touched their cold hands and felt the chUl of death. I
have also met the living where I least expected it — ^in savage
huts, in wUd lands, where the inhabitants gave me their
primitive food, with brotherhood or sisterhood breathing
through their kind eyes, and then cried and sang as I played
my violin to them. A bird smging at sunset, up in the
banyans or coco-palms, would appeal to their wild brains ;
its tuneful throat expressed the voice of some infant god
dess of their innocent mjrthologies : the winds stirring the
forests, the noise of waves, all were voices calling to them
from shadow-land. When the forests of those isles have
disappeared, and the spires of the cities rise everywhere,
the thundering wail and crash of the Fijian cathedral organ
wiU fail to do that which the small bird did with its tiny,
tuneful throat.
I have written of the seamy side of native life, both on the
Gold Coast and elsewhere, but as in everything else the
bright side of the sorrow is also there. Years have changed
many things and the advancement of time has swept much
of the dross away. The name of " The White Man's Grave "
now sounds as primitive as " Kmg of the Cannibal Isle " in
0 209

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Fiji. Where once the swamp mist lay yellowish in the
hollows, sparkling atmosphere now shines ; drainage is
plentiful, so the evils have departed. The gold mines are
run on advanced scientiflc and medical lines ; forty miles
from the coast are the Abbontiakoon Mines, and the Abosso,
Broomassie, Anglo Ashanti Gold Fields, and many others.
Right up to Nigeria, with its tin mines, all is now healthy
and cheerful. Elevated bungalows stud the heights round
the mines ; they are well drained, and as you enter the tent
door of those dwellings, half hidden by jungle bananas and
palm, you see the white man living in comfort and cleanli
ness that would often outrival the homes of his native
country. The mine-owners pay excellent wages to the
whites, and the natives are ruled by fines and kindness ; to
whip a native, or to strike one, is a dangerous offence.
The gold mines are a blessing to the West Coast natives.
The wages they receive provide them with plenty for
their primitive requirements ; but they have to be strictly
watched as they dig, for they hate work and wUl try all
possible subterfuges to save digging to the proper depth.
Gold is found almost everywhere, but not in payable work
ing quantities. The country is chiefly owned by native
kings, who sell their territory to the whites who go that way
prospecting. I have met men in London who owned large
tracts of jungle-land in West Africa, wherein gold, four
ounces to the ton, lay. They showed me the deeds, signed
by the native king. But the next day I have met another
man who owned the very same land and did not know the
other owner ; for those artful native kings sell the same tract
of land to every white man who wants to buy it. So it is
well to be careful in buying shares in Gold Coast mines,
though the mines I have mentioned are equal to any in
the world, and are equipped with the latest machinery. The
managers from London go out there at frequent intervals,
and the whole business is worked by educated white men.
But for the black-faced natives and the surrounding jungle
and bungalows it might be in London's highest commercial
centre. Indeed men employed by them are better off than
in London, for they give splendid wages, palatial bungalows
210

TRIBAL DANCES
and medical attention, as well as paying fares out to
the coast, and home again when their employee's time
is up.
The bungalows are all on elevated country and are conse
quently healthy, and now, wherever mines exist on the Gold
Coast and in Southern Nigeria, you come across smiling
Englishmen enjoying the wild jungle life and smoking by the
bungalow doors, while natives rush about waiting on the
Gold Coast potentates — ^for such they are. Often they go
motoring, and the delighted natives go with them in the
white man's wonderful train. When they reach the out
lying villages the whole population rushes forth to see
the car tear along the jungle track, and if the hooter
soimds their black bodies fly off into the jungle in all
directions, the piccaninnies too, all frightened out of their
hves. Often one hears the tom-toms and native orchestra playing
in the distance. The music drifting on the hot night wind
across the jungle is impressively weird and carries one away
back, back to the barbaric ages.
The African natives for centuries have had a kind of
mysterious wireless code. Warnings of the approaching
enemy are drifted on the winds, from tribe to tribe, travelling
through the medium of drum sounds, a tone code of quick
taps and slow booms, for hundreds of miles down the coast
and across country. If a great chief dies mysterious drums
beat and are heard miles away in the next village,where the
villagers beat their drums in turn and pass the^sounds on ;
and so it goes onward, to fade with the sunset into the last
friendly kraal of the dominion. : .

TRIBAL DANCE.

A. S. M.

211

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY

I

J ! J ! J ! J

idztizd

z^^zMzMi

p:==P

-m.

J< J I.. I l^^=

z^!:MtUt=M:

f r — f — f

etc.

=ti

[From the Author's Military Band Entr'acte, Mght in the Samoan
Forests^

212

CHAPTER XVII

A Negro Violinist — Sierra Leone — Some Violinists — Wagner — A Sea
Chantey — Old Memories
WHEN I got back to Sierra Leone I was glad of a
rest and stayed at the English hotel for a couple
of weeks. At Freetown I heard a negro play the
violin really weU. He held the flddle to his breast, instead
of to his chin, and played Raff's Cavatina and La Serenata,
very expressively. I complimented him on his playing, and
discovered that a Hungarian violin-player had given him a
course of lessons. He played African dances and melodies
wonderfully well. We had a glorious time, that negro
violinist and I,
In an old bungalow by a native village where soldiers and
white men congregated we gave concerts night after night.
The men came from far and near and joined in the sing-songs ;
our smaU, extemporised orchestra played homeland songs ;
the exUes shouted themselves hoarse. We made up part
songs and put our own words to them, and the natives came
from the village and peeped into our bungalow with delighted
eyes and ears as we scraped away. It was there that I wrote
the melody that is now the trio of my military march. Sierra
Leone. This is how it went in the original setting ; a few
years later I made a military march trio of the strain and
sold it to a London publisher. I heard it performed by
Sousa's Band at several commemoration festivals in New
York city.
SIERRA LEONE.
[Extract] {Military March.) A. S. M.
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m

P=t:

3BE

:^=E:

it

3
-Pt-

We'll

.#

all go march - ing back to Sier-ra Le -
 W— I  W  W-i — B — ^  "  1

-P 

213

:*=i:

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY

^^f^F

- one, Sier-ra Le one  Sier - ra Le - one,.

etc.

^1

.j^_^

-P 

Teio.

" Sier-ra Le - one belle, Sier-ra Le - one belle,

^

^B=!i

-^_-_^

f^

=&

It

n:

i^

un-der your palm - trees

^SJES^

^

^f#

g

I would dw - ell  "ff etc.

2H

El:

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^

Eeprcduced by kind permission of Messrs. BooaBT b Co., London, W.
I have heard many violinists, among them Joachim,
whom I heard when I was a boy. WhUe on a ship in the East
India Docks I obtained leave from the skipper for a Saturday
afternoon off, and full of excitement went to Sydenham and
heard the great violinist perform at the Crystal Palace. To
teU the truth, I was disappomted. He played a Viotti con
certo, stood like a statue, and his fingers and arms moved
with the ease of machinery. His bearded face was raised
toward the ceiling the whole time, as though he saw some
beautiful sight in the sky above the palace roof. It
struck me as a very refined and inteUectual-looking face.
His playing revealed perfection in the trained artistic
sense, but lacked the fire and emotion born of the singing
stars. I heard Sarasate play at his vUla near Biarritz. His
nostrUs dUated and pinched in as he played, and he had aU
214

THOUGHTS ON MUSICIANS
that Joachim lacked (when Joachim played in public), for
he was a spiritual player; you could have thought that
the angels were wailing and fingering his own heart-strings.
M. Ysaye played rather like Sarasate, but seemed more
conscious of his own ability, which destroyed the atmosphere
of the public performance which I happened to hear.
Kubelik I have heard twice, at Bournemouth and in New
South Wales. He performed with Joachim's machinery
like ease ; his double-stopping revealed the perfection of the
performer's ear and the dexterity of the fingers that seemed
to outdo the player's own heart ; but it struck me as cold
playing, as if the player's command over technique was
greater than his musical temperament.
I have often heard it said that the marvellous technique
of Paganini is to-day the technical equipment of all violin
virtuosos. I doubt it. Certainly they are not mentally
equipped with his way of playing. When you look at
Paganini's compositions you see something that is the
outcome of one personality, the white heat of genius who
first discovered the musical gold mines in the depths of
the violin. What must the man have been whose genius
was so intense that he invented that which all others
imitate and call their equipment ? Paganini could not leave
his playing to posterity, but a true critic can look at those
individual compositions and dream of the tremendous passion
that inspired the maestro to leave us those fugitive echoes
of his playing, for that is all they are. Paganini played like
an inspired, deep-feeling barbarian ; his style was not artifice
and did not represent, by artistic bowing and phrasing, the
niceties of polite emotion and the artistries of civilisation.
We have no compositions as he played them. He stood
before his awestruck audience and extemporised melodies,
chords, sparkling arpeggios and staccato and cadenzas, that
were all half forgotten when the intense musical fury of his
heart ceased and the magic fingers were silent ; and so we
have only hints of his style. His imitators scrape out phono
graphic records of his published compositions and say they
are equipped with Paganini's art.
I heard an English violinist, Henley, in London. I was
215

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
off to Jamaica next moming and only heard him by accident.
A friend of mine said : " Come in this hall." We went in,
and I was astonished. I thought at first that the violinist
whom I saw playing, with Joachim's ease and Sarasate's
passion, must be some foreigner ; but he was an Englishman.
His double-stopping was superb, with a passionate fire in it
alien to Kubelik's temperament, I should think. Altogether
he was really the most artistic and passionate player I ever
heard, Sarasate excepted. VThile he played I realised that
note that tells of genius, which makes you feel that the per
former's violin and fingers are imperfect instruments, are
not as great as the heart that is trying to express its depth
of feeling upon strings.
I went abroad after that. I have not heard since of
Henley the wonderful violinist. He was English, and I
suppose London's fashionable musical world positively
refused to go mad about an Englishman when so many
German and Austrian violinists were about.
I heard " King BUly," the Australian Aboriginal King,
play the violin by the kerb-side in Sydney. He was the
world's worst " great violinist," made a squeaking row and
thought more of the cash the Colonials dropped in his tin
pot than of the melody which he performed.
An artistic public performance on the violin is widely
divided from the poetry of violm-playing in sohtude,
out of sheer love to express the performer's feelings
and relieve the tension of sorrow and joy that is oppress
ing him. When I was a boy, staying at Leichardt, in
Sydney, I heard someone playing the violin and accom
panying his playing with his own voice. The sound came
from a little wooden house on a flat. I stood stiU and
listened. It was dusk. On the window was a bit of
scribbled paper : " Room to let, cheap," That gave me a
good excuse, for I was intensely curious to see the man who
played and sang so beautifully. I knocked at the door and
was asked in, and I got in conversation with the player. He
was a Norwegian with a handsome face, but unshaved and
worried-looking. His wife was about thirty years older than
l^e was, and as he played to me she sat near and her old
?i6

MY GREATEST VIOLINIST
wrinlded face beamed with delight as I praised his playing.
He played by ear and was self-taught. I could easily see
that. But he was a great violinist. He expressed his very
soul as he played, in a weird, peculiar style, Norwegian
melodies. I felt greatly drawn toward him as he played
and sang to me, looking past me with steady, dreaming eyes
as he extemporised sweet strains. He had hard, rough
hands, through working on the roads. I saw him night
after night. I thought at first that his wife was his mother,
and I said, " Your son is a real musician," When he smUed
at me and said, " My wife, not mother," I felt very un
comfortable. He took her old wrinkled hand and led her
into the little kitchen and kissed her tenderly, I suppose
Norwegian women age quickly, or they had fallen in love
with each other when he was quite a lad ; but it was beautiful
to see their sincere, sweetheart-like affection for each other.
He secured a job on the Broken HUl SUver Mines, packed
up and went off to Melbourne. I never saw him again. I
often think of him and his clever, handsome face as he sat
breathing heavUy and playing and singing to me. He
would have been better than Joachim and Kubelik if he had
had their technical equipment and no road stones to break
and ruin his hands. I cannot remember any special feelings
when I heard the great violinists, Joachim, Kubelik and
Kreisler, except curiosity and momentary admiration, but
the memory of the stone-breaking Norwegian's playing is as
vivid to-day as then ; and when I think of it all the poetic
atmosphere of his playing still haunts me. So if it's true
that "Time is the great critic of poetry and music, then
assuredly, as far as I am concerned, my Norwegian friend
was the greatest violinist I ever heard.
It is difficult to define art. I suppose anything that
appeals to the best emotions in men and women is art. A
good deal of what is known as art to-day wUl soon be cast on
the rubbish heap of the mediseval ages with the old ideals
and idols. People move in the realms of art as they do in
frock-coals ; it must be just so, and must have three buttons
on the front only ; if it has four buttons it's not art. Art
should be natural and oblivious of fashion, and, like true
217

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
religion, beautiful in rags and tatters, pale-faced, walking
the streets of humanity, singing with the birds and stars,
and looked down upon by affluence.
Do the thousands who hear Wagner understand the
depth and meaning of the music as Wagner thought they
would understand ? Do they hear the barbarian note in
his music that tells so well of the savagery of the German
people, the barbarian shriek, the exultation over the fallen
and the tramp of bloodthirsty warriors driving the helpless
victims of the fallen cities before them ? I do not think so.
It's fashionable, and to have heard Wagner is to be in the
fashion, and so off people go and hear and see " Wagner."
Most of them would more thoroughly understand and enjoy
a phonographic record of a Solomon Islander's cannibalistic
dance, accompanied by living pictures of the scantUy clad
native men and women, beating their drums and whirling
round the blushing bride, clad in half a coco-nut sheU and
her hair only. Their funerals are conducted with the same
austere art that makes them all go and see Wagner.
I like Beethoven and Mendelssohn's concertos, also Schu
bert's music, indeed all the really good classical compositions,
but my memory of the old chantey. Blow the Man Down, as
I heard it sung, and sang it myself, with crooked-nosed old
sailors as we rounded Cape Horn, with seas crashing over the
decks and the flying scud racing the moon, the old skipper
on the poop shouting, muffled to the teeth in oilskins, his
grey beard swinging sideways to the wind as the full-rigged
ship dipped and rolled homeward bound, is something of
music, singing and haunting my soul, that will only die when
my memory dies. I can still see the crew climbing aloft
and along the yards, their shadows falling softly through the
moonlit grey sails and yards on to the decks. Melodies from
the sails aloft, gliding under the stars, still sing beautifully to
me as I watch the sleeping sailors, far out at sea, in their
tossing bunks. Then they stand by the galley door, with
their mugs for the hot coffee, while the chief mate tramps
away the night to and fro on the poop, humming Soon
we'll be in London Town. Then, as I dream, the saUs
crumble in the moonlight, the decks are awash, sink and
218

THE GREATEST SYMPHONY
disappear; sailors are struggling in the moonlit waters.
Their white hands are tossed up as they sink, one by one ;
and now daybreak steals over the sky-lines that fence that
vast grave of wandering waters.
Often memories play on the strings of my heart as I stand
listening to the great orchestra of the winds fingering the
giant forest boughs, or to the noise of seas on the moonlit
shores.

219

CHAPTER XVIII
My many Professions — I turn Poet — On a Tramp Steamer — " Shiver
ing Timbers '-' — Modern Seamen — Struck by Lightning — I leave
the Ship
I HAVE been almost everything in my travels. Stow
away, sailor before the mast, bandmaster on a maU
steamer, wet-nurse to Samoan twins, ^ bushman,
boundary rider, woodcutter, sundowner, post-digger, snow-
sweeper in North America, painter, deck hand, " shUling-a-
monther " in a liner's stokehold, messroom steward, native
overseer, private grave-digger, author, violinist to South
Sea kings and chiefs, solo violinist and orchestral violinist
in the large cities of the world, music teacher, song
writer, cornet-player, composer of music for mUitary bands,
actor and singer, trader, canvasser for crank patents and
medicine, banana planter in Jamaica, nut planter in the
South Sea Islands, gold miner in Australia, violinist to
Geisha girls in Japan, and the leader of numerous splendid
schemes that mostly faUed. Glorious schemes they were ;
but you can never be sure of anything except that you will
be certain to attend your own funeral.
I have also been a poet. I wrote a little volmne of Australian
lyrics which are all bumt now. I was so pleased with the
first proofs that I put them on my bedroom mantelpiece, so
that I could see them ere I slept and directly I awoke at
daybreak. The reviews m the newspapers and journals thriUed
me. " FuU of sincerity, spirit and impulse." " Marvellous
1 Their mother, a native woman, was drowned by the upsetting of
a canoe. A Norwegian sailor and I found the infants, screaming, in
a hut on the coast. We secured a ripe coco-nut, and opening the
eye-hole in the shell, we placed it in turns at the mouths. They both
tugged away and pressed the shell with their hands as though they
were at the breast ! and soon went ofiE fast asleep. In the moming
we gave them into the charge of a native girl, who took them both
away to the dead mother's relations. 220

POETIC ASPIRATIONS
descriptive abUity." " A real barbarian poet of the South
Seas." I thought my fortune was made, and I could not
sleep through thinking of coming fame and fortune. I thought
surely such reviews in the newspapers wUl sell thousands of
copies of my book, and I was very happy over my bright
outlook. It was summer-time. I became restless, and with
the reviews in my pocket I went off, walking very fast in my
excitement. I soon arrived in the country at a beautiful spot.
A windmUl on the hill-top whirled its big black hands
as though trying to catch the winged music of skylarks
in the deep blue morning sky. By the lane-side stood a
cottage for sale. The very place for me, I thought. I wUl
buy it and write there. What glorious poems of Australia
and the South Seas they will be ! The bird singmg in a
clump of firs just by my future front door rippled out
notes as though its little body would burst with joy.
I took an old envelope from my pocket and started to
write a lyric — ^how happy I was — even the lyric was good 1
A month later I wrote to the publisher and said :
" Dear Sir — ^WUl you kindly send me a cheque in settle
ment for copies of my Australian Lyrics sold. I would not
trouble you before the quarter, but unexpected calls on my
purse have arrived at an inopportune moment."
Two weeks later I received this reply :
" Dear Sir — ^In reply to yours of the 16th, no copies of
your book have been sold, and we would caU your kind
attention to balance of £2, 10s. overdue for bindmg, and
£1, 18s. for corrections in proof, etc., and 9s. 4d. for postage
in sending out review copies."
So ended my volume of poetry, though I must add that
the publisher turned out a good sort. I would sooner deal
with publishers, some of them, than with stokehold bosses
and concert managers. Music and book publishers cannot
publish authors' inspirations that do not sell and keep the
author as well, I wish they could. As for the reviewers of
my poetry, they made me the happiest of aspirants for four
weeks, and I feel grateful for that four weeks of greatness.
221

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
I think it was after a voyage to the Cape that I stayed in
London for a week, and then secured a berth on board the
s.s. Port Adelaide, a tramp steamer. We called at Las
Palmas, and then went slap, bang across the world for
Sydney. It was a monotonous voyage. We had a stow
away on board ; they sent him down into the stokehold.
He had been a London street arab and street singer, was a
jolly youth and sang The Ivy and the Myrtle were in Bloom.
Then he came round with the hat and got tobacco from the
amused crew. The saUors encouraged him to tell his experi
ences and were delighted to hear how he carried parcels for
passengers at the railway stations, and often bolted with
the parcel if it looked valuable ! He would finish, and
then take his tin whistle out and blow it, do a jig and sing
some moumful street prayer.
We had very bad weather after rounding the Cape,
" running the Easter down." There were four passengers
on board, and one died of consumption. He lay on the
hatchway for two days and nights : the weather was so bad
that we couldn't stop the ship and decently bury " It."
He was canvassed up and weighted with lead, and seas came
over the body all night long ; we crept by it on deck like
frightened shadows. When it was calmer the captain said
the burial service, and then all the crew, standing round the
tied canvas length, said " Amen." Then gently, with the
chief mate, I pushed it forward into the grave of wandering
waters and heard the awful plomp as it touched the sea. At
once the bell in the engine-room rang full speed ahead, the
engines started banging and we were off again.
About a week after that we sighted a full-rigged saUing-
ship bound for New Zealand, a Shaw Saville boat painted
with white squares. She was doing about twelve knots and
coming right across our bows. The main-mast was snapped
off by the main-yard and two of the boats were gone ; she
had been through some terrible weather. She came dipping
and rolling by, so close that as we looked over the side we
saw the apprentices wave their hands ; we all waved back
as she passed by, dipping her flag to us, and we saluted back
with ours. I felt a choky feeling as I watched her pass, with
222

IN THE FORECASTLE
her broken spars and torn saUs, flymg away towards the mist
of the sunset, the figure-head with hands stretched in prayer
at the bows. The white-crested, curling waves lifted their
arms and plucked at her sides as she went roUing and
pitching by. There was something in the sight of that
beaten ship that inspired me with more tenderness than
anything I have ever seen at sea.
I would often sit in the dim, oU-lit fo'c'sle as we swayed
and dipped along. The tiny round port-holes lifted to the
fall and rise of the bows, revealing the tossing blue moonlit
seas outside. In that roaming home of merchant saUor-
men, at regular intervals, came the steady-drawn, thundering
music of the steamer's onward plunge as the screw urged
her across the world. From the middle of the deck roof
swung the oil lamp, its faint beams showing the outlines of
the huddled sea-chests on the deck floor and, all around,
the narrow coffin-sized bunks wherein lay the sleeping or
wakeful crew. Some snored, their bearded mouths wide open ;
others smoked and made ribald remarks, as Jim English
the boatswain, a typical sailor of the old school, yarned
of long-ago voyages on windjammers. A real old shellback
he was, and the only saUor whom I ever heard use the
expressions " Shiver my timbers I " and " Avast there ! "
I had voyaged in many sailing-ships and tramp steamers,
and mixed with many crews in foreign seaports, but never tUl
then had I heard a living mouth utter those ancient nautical
phrases so familiar to me in my old sea novels. " Stow yer
gab," " Holy Moses," " Who the heU ? ", " Gawd lummy "
and " Gorbluny " were almost the only typical remarks in
which saUors of my experience expressed their various moods.
This old shellback, Jim English, was about sixty-five years
of age, and had saUed the seas before most of the crew were
bom. Sitting on his huge brown sea-chest, he would half
close his eyelids as I played,
" Give us that again, matey ; my old mother sang that to
me when I was a nipper," he would say as I scraped some
old melody out of the carpenter's cheap fiddle, and his thin,
wrinkled lips smiled as though he dreamed pleasantly in
sleep, I never tired of listening to his yams as he sat and
223

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
took bites from his tobacco plug, his kind grey eyes moving
quickly as he brought his fist down with a crash to empha
sise the main facts of his wonderful tales. At night, when
the wind was blowing and you could only just see the out
lined forms of the watch tramping to and fro on the bridge,
he would sit and tell us eerie things — ^how he had seen the
phantom ship off the Cape on moonlight nights, dead ship
mates climbing aloft among the grey sails, singing chanteys.
" Chummy," he would say, " my wife's been dead these
'ere twenty years, but often at night she sits on that old sack
by my bunk there, looks at me in the old way and sez :
' Jim, keep off the booze, and don't make the round trip a
dead 'orse.' And never a drop have I touched these ten
years ; and the old girl comes with me and sits there and looks
at me with her laughing grey eyes on every trip now."
So earnest was he that our. heads instinctively turned as
we looked at the sack in the dark comer. We half expected
to see his dead wife sitting there staring. He believed im
plicitly in dreams, for all the dire disasters of his life had
been foretold in them. He was a kind of old priest of the
sea ; he wore an oilskin skull-cap and looked upon all of us as
mere chUdren ; and we felt like children as we listened to his
advice and experiences. He had cures for all our aUments,
and was most superstitious. Once while he was yaming
and sewing his socks he put one of them on inside out.
Suddenly discovering it, he whipped it off, then turned almost
purple to the centre of his bald head and said : " Now I've
done it, mates ! Some cursed thing's sure to happen before
the trip's over. I've lost four shipmates overboard and all
through them putting their socks on inside out ! " As he
said this anguish wrinkled his sea-beaten face, and I too
almost cursed the unfortunate mistake. The sailors
shuffling cards at the fo'c'sle table looked over their
shoulders through wreaths of tobacco smoke and wondered.
As for me, I believed all he said. My awestmck eyes
watched him as he yarned on and fed my imagination tUl I
was a chUd again. His personality filled me with admira
tion ; I almost worshipped him. I really think if he had
mutinied, and secured the old tramp steamer, I should have
224

THE SEA PRIEST
followed hun, as a son his father, and thrown in my lot with
him. Nor do I exaggerate in saying this, for his weird personality
took me out of myself and away back. He refired the magic
blaze, the stiU smouldering embers of my boyhood's romance,
and I was romantic, almost to madness, as a boy. Old
bearded heroes, with unflinching eyes, stared through my
memories, and feU, striking that last brave blow for right !
Beautiful women, running by the magic moonlit sea-foams
of undiscovered shores, stretched their arms seaward as
the wooden gaUeons with reefed topsaUs stood inland for
the shore. Forlorn, lovelit eyes shone like stars through the
dead sunsets on the sky-lines of vanished yesterdays, tUl I
heard the windy poplar- trees waUing in the lanes outside my
bedroom window and the robin singing on the leafless apple-
tree. Once more the stolen candle shone, and the light never
seen on sea or land blazed through my eyes as I travelled
across magic seas and enchanted distant lands, lands
peopled with warriors and the beautiful creations of the
tom novel by my bedside.
That old sea priest loved hymns. He was truly religious,
and often sat turning the leaves of his well-fingered Bible.
Abide with me, fast falls the eventide was a favourite hymn
of his. I think I must have played it to him a hundred
times, so that now the melody to me suggests ships far out
at sea ; and the old shellback, whom I loved, used to sit on
his sea-chest telling us boys of the wooden ships that went
down the seas and came back from other lands laden with
scented cargoes, and that have faded away into the romantic
dreams of this generation.
The remainder of the crew were a mixed lot, not very
different from the usual run of sailors on tramp steamers.
They were quiet men, and had little to do with the firemen
and trimmers, who inhabited that half-fo'c'sle that was
portioned off for them. I remember one of them was a
" shilling-a-monther," working his passage to the Colonies
for his health. He was a fine, broad-chested fellow, but in
consumption, and whenever he was off duty he seemed to
be busy rubbing his chest with oils. He had quite a dozen
p 225

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
bottles at the foot of his bunk, which he had purchased in
London from quacks : each bottle held oU that was a certain
cure for consumption ! We were very friendly with each
other, I often helped him and, following his instructions,
rubbed his back with the oils tiU the flesh was red. His
little hacking cough would disappear for several days and
he would be quite cheerful ; then the cough would return and
blood-spitting follow, and I felt very sorry for him, especially
as, when he felt better, he would hit his chest with his fist
and show me that he was at last cured.
Playing cards or dominoes, sleeping and smoking were the
usual excitements of the crew. On duty, they washed the
decks down with the hose, tramped their watches, rolled
ropes, cleaned brass work, and followed the most mono
tonous life under the sun. After rounding the Cape to run
the Easter down they became busy with the saUs, which
helped the engines, when the wind was fair, to urge the
vessel on the. lonely voyage. A trip across the world on a
saUing-ship is very different from a voyage on a tramp
steamer. She rides the waves and seeks the winds, and like
a mammoth bird thing, with men singing chanteys climbing
along the bones of her spread wings, she races the clouds
that fly overhead, and seems to sway the moon, stars or
sun as she rolls and pitches along.
The crews of saUing-ships when I was a boy were a differ
ent type of men from the crews of tramp boats. They were
real sailors, or young fellows who had taken to sea life to
leam to be sailors. A few of the old-time men among
them, with their weather-beaten faces and old sea ways,
gave that atmosphere to the fo'c'sle that has now gone
for ever.
It must have been the romantic dreamer's paradise to go
down to the sea in sailing-ships before the world was worldly.
I can imagine those old saUors, uneducated and superstitious,
on the great ocean waters, watching the sky-lines and the
dying sunsets as they dreamed of undiscovered shores, or
by night on deck fancied they could hear the breakers beat
ing against the starlit sky-line where loomed the shores of
Eternity. Time and science have swept aU that away from
226

CHANGES AT SEA
the sea for ever. To-day the seaman stands on the deck
and thinks of the latest trade union grievance.
The ways of the ocean no longer suggest eternity behind
the stars, or undiscovered lands afar inhabited by strange
peoples. To him the ocean tracks are simply the main high
ways to New York, London and the Colonial cities, and
to ports that are like raUway stations of the high seas.
Passengers get off at Suez, Colombo, Sydney or Apia and
catch the next boat or train as the quartermaster shouts :
" All aboard ! Make haste, ladies and gentlemen." Rich
puffing ladies and gentlemen with their daughters reship
with their touring luggage for the next port, and they drag
their deck-chairs and pet poodles behind them.
Old-time romance of thought has hardened and petrified
into our stone carved, grey terraced cities; but the blue
horizons of dreams sparkle on for ever ! Yet withal,
I have enjoyed two blessmgs in life. One is to have been
born civUised, for I have never wanted to hurt a man or
do anything reaUy outrageous. The other is to have been
bom in civilised times that have enabled me to wander
the world unarmed and safe ; to have sniffed the tropical
winds, seas and flowers of far-off countries, and gazed across
primeval plains or on the mountain peaks of lonely isles ; to
have heard the mighty sUence of vast forests and peered into
the eyes of semi-savage peoples.
The cook of that tramp steamer was a strange old seaman,
who drank gin and seldom spoke. He had a gnarled, stolid-
looking face and expressionless eyes, very deep set. The
green and flower of his youth had left him for ever ; not a
sentimental leaf or faded flower lingered in his memory.
He reminded me of the mummified, blackened face of an
old native I saw once, who stUl stood erect, just as he had
died, in the hollow of a huge tree tmnk in a forest of New
Caledonia, a tree wherein he had taken shelter just before
it was struck by lightning I Heat had bhstered the dead face
tiU it resembled gnarled bark. There was stiU a glassy
gleam deep in the eye-sockets, for though the eyes had gone
ants had eaten the back of the head away, and so light crept
through from behind, where there was a small decayed hole
227

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
in the tree trunk. It was very faint though, and as I stood
a little way off that awful facial expression reminded me of
some hideous living mortal, whose soul slept, mole-like, in
the cold, winter sleep of age, dead, yet stUl alive long
after the real owner had committed suicide by strangling
all his passions.
It is strange how such sights impress us and cling to our
memory, for we meet dead men daily, whose faculties are
fungus growths ; we see their moving lips, shake their dead
hands and wonder on the stony expression of their eyes, eyes
that have not even the light of heaven behind them, as it lit
up that Caledonia mummy's eye-sockets.
Our captain was a Naval Reserve man who carried himself
with incurable haughtiness. He saw life's great drama and
the light of creation only by being awestruck at himself
and measuring all vastness from the soles of his feet to the
crown of his head. The chief engineer was a jolly Scotsman,
who tipped the convivial chief steward and so always had
a bottle of whisky under his bunk. When he was " half-
seas-over " he sang Ye Banks and Braes and Will Ye No'
Come Back Again ? as the engines thumped and the tramp
steamer rolled and pitched along the highway of the world.
We ran into terrifically bad weather, and with the sails set,
for the wind was fair, the old engines crashed away as she
pitched and the screw blades bobbed up behind.
I have never followed the sea directly as a profession, but
I have lived and communed with the hearts of sailors, held
their hands in warm comradeship, as well as shared their
hardships at sea and ashore. And so I have read them as
they cannot read the sea or themselves. To the majority of
sailors to have been to sea, say for twenty years, simply
means to them, " I've been to sea for twenty years," and
means nothing more. To have been able to go to sea
mentally, as well as physically, and to have been thrUled by
the wUd poetry of the wind's songs and the romance of the
sea, is to be in a strong sense a sailor of saUors. While the
average sailor can stiU chew tobacco and tell you the names
of ropes, women and grog shanties in distant seaports, I
cannot even chew tobacco ; but I can sit in my little room
228

ADELAIDE
and watch the thundering seas tossing by my bedside,
ablaze with the true light of sea romance, while saUing-ships,
with their crews aloft smging chanteys full of joy, pass and
repass through my bedroom door, outbound for the seaports
of the world.
About a week later the albatross that sailed the winds
with restless eyes behind us night and day wheeled round
and put out for the open sea, for we were nearing the coast
of Australia. I went ashore in Adelaide and got two
shUlings' worth of tomatoes for a treat. The man on the
wharf helped my chum carry them. They gave me half-a-
himdredweight for two shiUings !
Adelaide is a real old Colonial seaboard town. I bought
a good violin there and a lot of strings. We left next day
for Melbourne, and I played the violin the whole way. In
Melbourne the stowaway bolted, and the donkeyman swore
all the way to Sydney, for the careful London arab started
life in the new land with his " go-ashore boots " and shirts,
as well as taking, in case of emergency, about forty plugs of
the crew's allowance tobacco. We did not feel sorry for the
stowaway in his venture in a new life ; he had the annexing
instincts of the old British stock, and we all felt he would do
well in Australia,
I very seldom made a round trip and so, bidding the old
boatswain good-bye, after taking him ashore to hear him
mutter for the last time " Shiver my timbers," I left the
ship.

229

CHAPTER XIX
Yokohama — A Japanese Family — Pretty Sarawana — A Tea-house
Festival — A Geisha Orchestra — Sun Worship — Stowaways in
the Stokehold — Reflections— The Kind Skipper
I STAYED in Sydney for a few weeks and finally got on
a Japanese ship, the Maru, and eventually arrived at
Yokohama, I had never been to Japan before, and
after tea I hurried ashore. On the wharf stood rows of
Japanese low-caste women, dressed like guys. They had
black teeth, and faces that looked as though they were
carved out of yeUow wood, and voices that went "honk-ki-
hong-ki-ko koo ko," as though they had an orange in their
throats. Their toes tumed inward and their eyes outward,
and Japanese flies built their hives in their thick, matted
hair. It was hot, muggy weather. I was very disappointed
at first, but when I got up into the city and foimd myself
walking among crowds of fascinating Japanese people, all
jabbering and shuffling along in clogs, I became interested.
I had some dim expectation of seeing bamboo dwellings
and Oriental fairy-land trees, with Japanese lanterns hang
ing on them. Instead of which I saw fine buildings, weU-lit
streets and beautiful parks with lakes in them, surrounded
by maple and cherry trees. Boats were being paddled on
the lake by Japanese girls dressed in pale blue kimonos and
with hibiscus and cherry blossom in their hair. You can
never forget that you are in Japan because of the strange
language that hums in your ears as you pass along, dream
ing you hear the sandalled, shuffling feet of some old
ghostly Assyrian city and the hubbub of the population
talking across the silent ages.
Next day I went to Tokio ; it was only a few miles away,
about twenty, I think. There I saw real old Japan, and
went off into the Oriental dark ages. I saw painted, red-
lipped beauties with slit-shaped dark eyes and faces like
230

IN JAPAN
doUs, being carried in sedan-chairs in copper-lid- shaped hats.
Fanning themselves, they passed by and were carried to the
palm-house and down corridors to their mats. I made the
acquaintance of a Japanese sailor ; he was a genuine fellow,
and took a lot of trouble to satisfy my curiosity. 1 was in
troduced to his family ; they lived at Suraka, if I remember
the name aright. I went into their house, a wicker bunga
low, and was greeted with, " O Hayo ! " ' Two daughters
in kimonos, pink and orange-yellow, waited on me, bowing
and curtseying in Eastern style. The old mother was
intelligent-looking ; she had a face like a South Sea idol,
with kind, dove-like eyes. The room was covered with soft
mats, and the walls, of matted panels, were carved with
Oriental designs. I felt exceedingly happy as I sat by the
Oriental maidens and ate savoury rice and fowl and drank
saki. The daughters screamed with laughter as I used chop
sticks instead of the fork which they gave me. I slept there
that night and went with the family next day to see the
sights, among them the Asakusa Temple, where they
worshipped the goddess Kwannon. Beautiful green lands
surrounded the Oriental city. Sarawana, my Japanese
sailor's sister, shuffled beside me, chatting away in Japanese
as hard as her tongue could go, and pointmg to the cherry
and plum trees in full bloom ; the quaint old mother and the
others came on behind. They think a great deal of their
cherry and plum trees, but as I gazed at them I thought of
dear old England. I did not hear the blackbird singing in
those cherry-trees ; I only saw large crimson butterflies
flitting over the boughs, and, on the fair slopes, strange
bamboo-fenced bungalows, instead of the country cottages
and smoking chimneys of Kent.
They enticed me to a tea-room festival, where I had a
large bowl of tea, the national beverage. I sat cross-legged
on a little mat by Sarawana, whose bright eyes sparkled and
whose red lips often parted in a cheery laugh, revealing her
pearly teeth. Geisha girls played samisens and biwas, and
danced in Oriental curves round us. They were mostly
pretty maidens, with small white teeth and eyes that peeped
' Glad to see you.
231

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
beneath their pencilled brows like the frightened eyes of
squirrels. They had beautiful hair too, with a bit of the
national cherry blossom stuck into it. As they sang and
strummed on their stringed, lyre-like instruments they
seemed perfectly oblivious of all around them ; their oblique
eyes seemed to gaze on something miles away.
Sarawana had been a Geisha girl and played for her living
as I had, and so we became comrades. Next day I took her
and her sister down by the river. It was a beautiful spot ;
the banks were smothered with cherry and plum trees,
camphor woods and bamboos. " Why are you so sad,
Sarawana ? " I said as I sat by her side. Her sister sat
with a Japanese lad among the bamboos just by. " Me litee
Samaro, and he dead " ; and then she sang a little Japanese
song, after wiping her eyes with the big sleeve of her blue
kimono. We were quite alone, only the little yellow birds
twittered in the plum boughs overhead. " What does that
song mean, Sarawana ? " I said, and then she told me, in
pidgin-English, its meaning.
" Unblown the cherry blossom blooms
Are hid in the cold of dead lips, weeping to blossom.
And crescent moons of coming springs
Are pale for ever in thine eyes — O my love,
Kwannon sits on her throne, Samaro,
Pale as chrysanthemums waiting thee
As camphor .trees sigh over thy grave,
O my Samaro."
" Did you love him much, Sarawana ? "
" Me litee him as the birds the boughs ; the river cry of
him : ' O my Samaro ! ' " Then I tried to comfort her.
" Laugh and be happy, and come on the river in a pleasure
junk," for as I spoke a Japanese boatman beckoned us,
laid his rowing-poles down and started to bargain with me.
Then Sarawana answered : " Me litee you-ee ; Geisha girl
want be ap-pee little whUe."
" Of course," I replied ; and then she said : " Samaro dead,
but he know me good-ee and white man know-ee too ! "
Then she lifted her pale blue kimono and revealed her tiny,
232

GEISHA GIRLS
clogged feet and ankles as she stepped into the junk ; and by
my side, singing melody and words that I could not under
stand, she went down the river. I thoroughly enjoyed my
self, sympathised with the sad little Geisha girl, and admired
her modesty and poetic tenderness for the dead youth that
she loved,
I saw many Geisha girls and Japanese women of all classes,
but they were not all like Sarawana, and so I tell you of her.
Japanese men and women are very much like the white
races ; just one difference marks their characters with a ray
of spiritual light : the girls, boys, women and men of Japan
are poetic, everything about them is a symbol. A butter
fly sat on Sarawana's hand : it was a kiss of her dead lover,
and when it flew away it went back to his grave to kiss the
flowers and make him happy.
The birds in the plum-trees sing old love vows ; their
wings fading in the sunset are the beautiful thoughts of the
dead or the living flying home to heaven again. Japanese
eyes shine with tears of joy as they think of those things
at which English girls and boys would toss their heads
back and scream with laughter.
I did not retum to my ship, but stayed at Tokio tiU my
money had aU gone. For a whUe I stopped with my Japanese
saUor friend ; he was a generous fellow, and invited me to
stay with hun and his people as long as I wished. I taught
Sarawana to play some easy melodies on my violin, and I
was surprised at the quick way she picked up fiddle-playing.
She taught me to play one or two Japanese tunes, and I sat
outside her bamboo bungalow and played as she sang, and
the cherry blossoms dropped on us from the branches over
head. I wUl not tell you all my experiences at Tokio, but I made
a bold bid to get a living out of my violin and secured several
good pupUs. A Japanese lady of note was one of them ;
she was connected with the Mikado's Court and had relatives
in Tokio. She paid me well, and I made good headway with
her, and she was exceedingly kind to me. I also had a few
Englishwomen as pupils, and went to Yokohama to give
two of them lessons daUy. 233

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Sarawana persuaded me to get up a kind of Geisha
orchestra. She played second fiddle and the cymbals. I
ventured forth to a grand festival with my Japanese Geisha
troupe. When it became known that I was friendly with
the Geisha girls I lost my best pupUs, though there was
no harm in anything that I did. Sarawana's mother was
pleased with our venture, and was delighted when she saw
her daughters dressed up in brUliant kimonos and decked
out in sashes of rich yeUow and blue, with red flowers in
their hair ! I thought more of the novelty of it than I did of
the money I might make. How romantic it all seemed as we
marched along, laughing, under the white-blossomed cherry-
trees in far-off Japan. I did not know that professors and
teachers of English ladies should not go about with Geisha
girls. However, I enjoyed myself, and my memory of Sara
wana and Tince, her sister, as I caUed her, and her Geisha
friends is sweeter to me than the memory of those pupils
I lost. My Geisha troupe faUed, and I secured an engagement
as violinist at a missionary hall. Sarawana and her family
attended the meetings. I worked there for about three
weeks and received a good salary ; it was easy, but un
musical, work. I had to play the mission harmonium twice
a day, on Sundays three times. The hall was always crammed
with converts : old men, young men and girls, some of them
dressed in Japanese costume and others in European. Some
wore tall hats and white collars ; they sang English hymns,
though the words were translated into Japanese. The old
men and women sang very much out of tune, but looked
very eamest ; their wooden mouths opened and shut as I
scraped away. The mission was conducted by English
women missionaries, as well as by men. The Japanese
women were very decent people, and when I left they made
a coUection for me and handed me quite a considerable sum.
I composed a hymn and dedicated it to the society, but
whether they ever published it or not I do not know ; they
said they would. When I bade my Japanese friends good
bye they seemed sorry to see me go, especiaUy Sarawana and
my saUor comrade. He had a wooden- looking face that smUed
234

THE AUSTRALIAN'S SHAME
eternally, like a carved idol. When he was fast asleep on
his mat beside me he still smUed, and so he was a good
comrade, for I was subject to fits of depression, and
when the little Japanese maid would play her lament and
sing of her dead lover I used to wish she was not so
faithful. I was then about twenty-two years of age and had seen
much of the world. Very often I would lie awake for hours
thinking of things that should have happened, considering
the great faith I had in them.
I sometimes thought of going back to England and settling
down as a violinist, but then the thought of my country's
terrible decorum quashed my longing. I had been a good
deal in Queensland and had several good friends there ;
sad memories, too, of a bush girl's grave by the swamp oak
gulhes. Sometimes I longed for Australian bush scenes as
a lad longs for his own country. I had been to Sydney,
Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane several times since I first
saw them, but things even in one short absence were rapidly
changing. As the ships came in crammed with emigrants
from all parts of the world the surrounding bush- land of
the seaboard cities and towns was cut down and up went
thousands of wooden houses. And so old spots disappeared
with the bush-land which the Australian hates. If you say
to a Colonial " I have been across hundreds of mUes of
your bush- land with my swag, camping out," he hangs his
head with shame, blushes and says : "I know, I know ; but
we hope soon to cut it all down. I suppose you've seen our
towns ? "
There is no doubt about it, the majority of Austrahans
bom are ashamed of the wUd bush- lands, and love the streets
and spires and walls of bricks and mortar. Up country it's aU
emigrant Englishmen, and a few Australians who were born
there and so could not help themselves. As for me, I loved
the bush and my memories of the bush, and when I went to
the old spots and saw wooden homesteads standing on the
slopes where I camped by my bush fire I felt sad about it,
even world-weary and old as I looked across the few years
and saw the hollows and far-off forest trees waving in the
235

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
moonlight dusk for mUes and mUes along the shores of my
memory.
So I began to think of Australia again as I lay in bed at
the Grand Hotel, Yokohama, and dreamt of my old days
there. I could not go back to Tokio, at least anywhere
near the mission folk, for I had told them I was going straight
back to England. I had really intended doing so, but I
thought I could get a berth on a ship and save my few
pounds instead of paying for my passage. In the end I was
left almost penniless and stranded in Yokohama. I lodged
for a while at a European's house. He had married a
Japanese woman and kept a kind of saUors' lodging-home.
I had some strange companions in my rooms ; I think they
were Moslem, Buddhist and Brahmin men. They were fierce-
looking fellows, wore white turbans and had swarthy faces
with curly, close-cropped beards. They knelt on little mats
and prayed and chanted day and night. I found out after
that one or two of them were Mohammedans. Their ancient-
looking faces wore an Omar-Khayydm-like expression ; from
them I heard about Astoreth and Osiris, Allah, Mahomet, and
a lot more about Oriental and Eastern creeds. I noticed that
they were all very earnest in their prayers, and when I walked
suddenly into my room to fetch my violin one evening two
of them were kneeling in prayer at the window, worshipping
the sunset. They never turned a hair at my intermption,
but went on pouring forth solenm, strange words to the
dying fires of Japan's horizon. It seemed to me then and
now that all the so-called creeds were but one vast mono
theistic cry in various dialects, each creed a different ex
pression only, aU of them instruments in the vast orchestra
of life's drama, playing for the same end — ^universal, hopeful
harmony. The stars vary in magnitude and position, but
they are all singing the same earnest melody ; for they
too are finite, and sing on as those strange men did m the
Japanese doss-house at Yokohama.
I stroUed along the wharfs at Yokohama harbour with a
young English sailor whom I met at the lodging-home. We
were both extremely hard up. Alongside the wharf lay the
s.s. Port Piree, and we resolved to make a dash for it and
236

IN THE STOKEHOLD
stow away. She was due to leave at sunset. The funnel
was belching forth smoke ; the saUors were standing with their
friends on deck. With my violin in my hand I walked
straight up the gangway, my comrade just behind me. I
was weU dressed, and the quartermaster bowed as I slipped
on deck and asked to see the skipper. " He's in his cabin, I
think, sir ! " " All right," I said, and beckoning my friend
as though he were my valet, I walked across the deck and
along the starboard alleyway. We stood by the stokehold
entrance and waited our chance. The hatchway to the coal
bunkers was open. " Now ! " I said. In a moment we had
taken the final plunge and disappeared in the ship's bowels.
Scrambling across the coal, we huddled close together and
waited. It seemed ages before she went, and then we heard
the rattling, rusty chain of the anchor coming up and the
throb of the winches, and the engines started ; we were off.
My dear old comrade beside me, breathing in the darkness,
was worth his weight in gold. " We're off now. Jack," I
said, and he answered : " God knows where to, I don't ! "
and laughed. We had some boUed eggs and a cooked fowl,
so we ate something and then slept. When we awoke the
boat was rolling heavUy ; it was dark, though possibly
daylight up on deck. I curled up by my chum and slept
again. Tluree days after we emerged, starving and sweating,
choked with coal-dust and looking like two dissipated negroes.
The chief mate said " HeUo ? " and we gave a grim smUe
as he said : "I shall have to take you fellows up to the
skipper." Up we went and stood on the bridge. The
skipper gazed at us through the hot sunshine for a moment
stemly. No land in sight as the boat cut across the Pacific
at twelve knots. " Put them in the stokehold," he said,
and then tumed on his heel and started tramping the
bridge once more.
By heavens ! I was not buUt for stokehold work. For
a week we shovelled coal, and became like skeletons, sweat
ing all our vigour away. Then I played the violin to the
engineers, and their chief got the head steward to appeal for
my services in the saloon. My comrade had to work still
in the stokehold, but I took care that he had good food. I
237

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
commandeered tins of stewed Californian pears and meat,
and buUt his strength up. He swaUowed them down with
coal-dust and repaid me with grateful eyes.
For out at sea with saUors a fellowship exists that is
almost unknown in the cities of the world. I suppose a ray
of the illimitable gets into their brains. The vastness of the
ocean, its endless sky-lines, and the ships appearing through
them with singing sailors aloft, then passing away, just as
stars pass singing something in the uncounted ages of God :
these things unconsciously influence their souls and they
become children again, forgetting the respectability of civihsa
tion and feeling the humanity that makes men die for each
other in the desert spaces and oceans of the world.
Men slumbering in affluence and the tribal pride of some
dubious ancestry often appear soulless. Suddenly stricken with
some grief or poverty, they reveal something really decent
in their natures, something that longed for recognition when
the body waxed fat on food and pride — pride in the barbarian
deeds of their ancestors, deeds which done now would get the
doer ten years in Sing Sing or Wormwood Scrubbs. There's
nothing like living on " hard tack " in a tramp steamer's
fo'c'sle, or on crab-apples in the Australian bush, or in cities
by playing the violin, to bring out the best or worst in men.
Sorrow writes the true Bible of the universe and expresses
all the poetry of existence.
Though I have seen much of the world and had many
downfalls, the atmosphere of my boyhood and its ideals re
mains. I still have deep faith in God's merciful Providence,
in the friendship of men, and in the earnest love of women.
The old heroes of my dreaming boyhood still move with me
as I travel on ; the kindly eyes of eamest men and women
shine through the mists of my memories and sweeten with
light my dreaming existence ; not till I die will they die.
I love to hear the laughter of chUdren ; their innocent voices
and little waUs of grief express to me cries from the great
heart of music, tUl I fancy I can see the flowers growing over
their inevitable graves. In that feeling I love all men and
women ; and those who have sinned have my unknown
sympathy as well as my unknown love.
238

lioTANn.Ai. Gardens, Ballarat, X.S.W,

IE!
Could I have my own way I would lead a vast army to
demolish the mighty cathedrals and churches of Europe, and
to rob the wealth of the altars, selling the debris and giving
-the proceeds of the glorious battle in the cause of true religion
to the thousands of starving little city chUdren, providing
covering for their tiny emaciated bodies. God would be my
best friend in fightmg for his helpless family and providing
comfort for deserted women and fallen men. There is more
true unselfish religion in saving a butterfly's life than in
moaning for many years in a cathedral pew about your
next lease of life.
But to retum to my travels and troubles.
I well remember that stowaway trip. The boat was
bound for Sydney. We had beautiful weather, and when I
was a legitimate member of the crew I did not regret my
headlong dip into the stokehold. My comrade and I were
treated weU, and my violin brought me respect and applause
when I played in the saloon concert. My flddle has always
been a dear friend, and waUed passionately on my behalf
when I have been in disgrace. I don't think I could find
a more trustful and soulful companion if I started off to
tramp the world again to-morrow.
As we were flying through Sydney Heads we received a
message from the captain. He wanted to see my comrade
and me on the bridge. He was an elderly, short-bearded
man with kind eyes. " Well," he said, " I shall have to
hand you two over to the authorities when we get in.
Have you anything to say for yourselves ? "
" No, sir," I said ; " only we are sorry for stowing away,
and wish to thank you for your kindness to us under such
circumstances." He said " Um," and then stopped walking to and fro to
say : " Have you got any money ? "
" Yes, sir," I said. " We'll go ashore and clear as soon
as we get alongside."
" I'U let you off this tune."
We both thanked him, and half-an-hour after the chief
mate came up to us, and saying, " Here you are," handed us
ten shUlings each. They do not always do that when you
239

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
stowaway, but that was my lucky experience. I can assure
you that seafaring men are the bravest and kindest in the
world ; they know it and its ways by instinct. Whenever
I hear of a captain going down with his ship a lump comes
up in my throat.

240

CHAPTER XX
Bombay — My Brother's Grave — London Streets — Outward Bound —
I play at Government House — Ballarat — Mosquitoes — Sight
seeing in New Zealand — A Maori Dance
MY next trip took me to Bombay, where I stayed for
a few days at the English hotel by Fort HUl.
The tropical scenery struck me as very simUar to
that which I had seen at Colombo, and the heat as terrific,
though feathery tamarisks and palms shaded the tracks.
The white population were waited on by the natives. My
father was correspondent for The Indian Times and my
parents had lived in Bombay before I was born. They knew
a great many people there. In my pocket I had a letter
from home. " If you go to Bombay do go and see Mr and
Mrs C  , and whatever you do, dear, be well dressed."
I had heard a lot about those great people when I was a
schoolboy, so I did as I was bid and dressed up like a prince.
When I arrived at the aristocratic, verandahed building
I carefully dusted my boots with my handkerchief and
knocked. When the door opened, and I gave my name to
the native servants, an old man, the great C  himself,
came forward. He was polite to me, and I was the best-
dressed man in the house, so I did not begrudge the money I
had paid for the loan of the suit at the Bombay taUor's !
Before I left Bombay I went to see my little brother's
grave, Gerald Massey S. Middleton. He was buried at
Colabba Point, and I discovered his grave at last. A tama
risk tree was growing on it and a few strange flowers. I felt
the kinship of that little grave in a strange land ; the earth
did not hide from imagination's eyes the little dust beneath,
which would have been my big brother if he had lived. I
remembered my mother and father saying how they had felt
when their ship went by Colabba Point, homeward bound for
England, and they stood on deck and gazed inland and
Q 241

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
thought of their chUd being left behind. I knew how they
must have felt as I stood there alone and gazed upon the
little stone set between two large vaults. I felt intensely
lonely. The Indian bees moaned in the flowers and palms.
I saw my mother, a girl in years that day, standing weeping
by her lost chUd ; she still stood there in the sunset and
shadow as I dreamed. I kissed her, picked a flower and
then walked away, the one solitary mourner that had come
after many years, and probably the last.
Next day I joined my ship and arrived in London six
weeks later, only again to get a berth and go seaward, for
the grim respectabUity of the city soon haunted me with its
stony, nightmare eyes. The very atmosphere seemed to
whisper : " Englishman, Englishman, are you respectable ?
Where's your Bible, your rent -book and your marriage
certiflcate ? " I seemed to hear that humming in my ears
as I walked through London's streets, miserably cold. I
shivered, and jumped into a cab at Waterloo and mshed off
to Poplar. There was a man who lived there, in Abbot's
Road, who was a crack hand at gettuig berths on the ships
for us.
In a week I was off down Channel, on a Shaw-SavUle boat,
bound for New Zealand and Australia, as happy as a swaUow
flymg South. The music of the saUs, bellowing out and
flopping to rest, the rattlmg rigging, the saUors talking and
smging on deck, made me feel mtensely happy, and yet half
miserable as I thought of the ship saUing across the world
to a civihsed port. I stood on deck wishing there were un
discovered shores where waves sang, never seen by human
eyes, and dreaming of old pioneers and heroes of far-off ages.
I seemed to realise at a very early age that the light of the
Universe, the sun and stars were my religion, and their
mystery my unfathomable mistress with divme eyes.
When the tramp steamer, after toUing along for weeks at
sea, sighted land I stood on her deck the longest, as the far-
off shores shaped themselves, and fancied I could see the old
wooden pioneer ships and gaUeons that discovered them
stUl hugging the misty shore as sunset died. Often when
far out at sea I would stand on the poop by night for hours,
242

NEW ZEALAND
gazing astem, watching the star-like eyes of the albatrosses,
flitting on the restless winds, till they seemed old heroes, my
comrades out of their graves, on beautiful wings foUowing
the new ships. Then the mate would touch me on the
shoulder and say : " Now then, young man, you didn't
come to sea to dream." The crew holystoned the decks,
the cook swore in the galley as only a sea-cook can swear,
and the cabin-boy, who had never been to sea before, said,
" Is that New Zealand ? " and pointed shoreward. As
we rolled along, with all sails set, he stood on his head as
soon as my back was turned, for I saw him in the glass of
the saloon port-holes. I knew how he felt.
I returned to England on the same ship and then got a
berth on the Seneska and went to America. A few years later,
and I was again in Australia, on the P. & O. liner Britannia.
A strike was on, and we lay out in Sydney Harbour for two
weeks and used to go ashore in a tender every evening.
One night I went ashore and played at a private concert out
at Pott's Point, and stayed the night as well. It was a
wedding festival, and my host and hostess were kind,
Bohemian folk, relations of Sir Henry Parkes. I cannot
remember their name. They used their influence and
secured me a position to play at the Govemment House
balls in Sydney. I did so well that I got my box off my
ship and left.
At Govemment House I played as a solo my own com
position. The Monk's Dream, which I had arranged for
violin and pianoforte, and A Soldier's Dream Waltz, with
variations. Among the audience was the present Lieutenant
James Ord Hume, who was on a tour through Australia, as
adjudicator for the great military and brass band contests
of Australia and New Zealand. Hearing me play, and find
ing that the solo was my own composition, he complimented
me, and asked me to go to see him at the Occidental Hotel.
I had a very good time there, for he was most hospitable.
He was then about to leave Sydney for Ballarat. " Would
you like to come on a trip with us ? " he said. " Certainly,"
I answered, for I had a considerable amount of money just
then and felt that a holiday would do me good. Mr Hume
243

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
had not been to Ballarat before and was delighted with the
scenery passing over the Blue Mountains.
In Ballarat we had various experiences, and I worked,
digging for gold, down the chief gold mme, the War-Hoop
Mine. We went outside the town and got into the bush
too ; for though Ballarat is a beautiful town, with splendid
buildings, one can walk in a very short time right into the
bush and see scenery equal to the Queensland landscape.
The Botanical Gardens are also very beautiful and reveal
patches of primeval Australia. We took snapshots of the
Wendowee lakelet, because of the pretty little plump
Colonial girls standing by the banks ; they were nut-brown
with the sun.
Mr Ord Hume went out to see a friend who lived in the
bush, but we only stayed two nights. There was a stable and
swamp near our bedroom wmdow, and when, after enjoying
the squatter's hospitality and a musical evening, we went
to bed, though we mbbed ourselves with kerosene oU and
smoked, the mosquitoes charged down on our feet and faces
in Himnish regiments. At midnight we called our host, and
he came to our door in his nightshirt and told us to rub some
whisky on our faces and on our feet, and gave us a full bottle
of the best brand. Directly he had gone we closed the door,
wiped the sweat from our perspiring brows and drew the
cork to rub our ravaged bodies.
" Don't you think if we took the stuff internally and then
smoked that our breath full of the fumes would keep the
cursed mosquitoes off ? " I suggested. Mr Hume quite
agreed with my suggestion, which eventually tumed out to
be a most disastrous one for the mosquitoes, for we drank
the whole bottle and then went to sleep, and never felt one
mosquito bite the night through, nor did we wake till long
after sunrise.
I think it was four days before the great band contest,
which Mr Ord Hume was in Ballarat to adjudicate on, came
off. The whole of Ballarat came to it. It was at that
contest that I first became enthusiastic over bands. I felt
the fire and go in the Australians' performances ; theh*
bands cannot be beaten the world over.
244

TOURING
We saw a good deal of life in Australia together before I
left Lieutenant J. Ord Hume, a few weeks after the Ballarat
concert, arranging to see him later in New Zealand, where
he was going to adjudicate at other band contests.
I went as a passenger on a boat to New Zealand, and when
I had been a few days in Auckland I saw by the newspapers
that Mr Hume had arrived to judge the great New Zealand
band competitions at Masterton and elsewhere. I managed
to be there. The weather was glorious, also the applause of
the New Zealanders as the bands marched by.
I travelled with Mr Hume by train over the Rimnatuka
Mountain from Wellington to Masterton. It took three
engines to take the train over the rocky ledges and slopes.
The grade is one tn fifteen in many places. The bush-land
and mountain scenery is equal to anything in Australia, for
the scenery of New Zealand is wildly magnificent.
After Mr Ord Hume had judged and conducted the massed
band performances at Auckland he kindly invited me to join
him, and we went off sight-seeing, visiting bush- lands, rivers
and hot springs, old tribal battle spots and Maoris in their
pahs. Maori guides led us up mountains and across volcanic
chasms, and took a great deal of trouble on our behalf.
They knew that Mr Ord Hume had specially come across
the world to judge the bands, and so they took us every
where as their guests.
. Things had altered a good deal since my New Zealand visit
of a year or so before. We went across the bush, on the way
to Wanganuis river, and passed through thick, jungle-like
forest and scenery that made us forget the world behind. I
remember we came across one Maori pah where we got the
Maoris to stand and have their photographs taken. I played
the violin again, as the thick-haired Maori girls chanted
and danced. They have many kinds of dances, and the
rhythmical movement of their bodies is equal to the weird
beauty of the South Sea Island Siva dances.
Some of the Maori girls are exceedingly handsome, but
they fade at an early age. I remember one girl who was
both handsome and intellectual-looking ; her features were
delicate and soft, refined through not being too perfect.
245

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
She had a clear voice, and I extemporised an obbligato on my
violin as she sang m the pah. The chiefs and women were
enthusiastic in their applause. One ancient chief was thickly
tattooed in engraved, omamental Imes and looked exceed
ingly majestic. He spoke English perfectly, and I was deeply
interested m the many thmgs he told us of his younger days.
He was a prince by blood and, like the old chief whom I told
you of in a preceding chapter, remembered the days when
the rival tribes met in battle, or his tribe resented the white
man's encroachment on the tribal lands.
I visited North and South Island and saw many of the
geysers. Waimana Geyser is often m emption and throws
up volcanic steam and matter nine hundred feet, and then
quiets down. I tramped along in tourist fashion with my
gay companion ; helped take snapshots, and spoUt a good
many ! We saw, too, the Waunango Basin, the hot springs
and the " Devil's Frying Pan," where one could stand up to
one's ankles in fire. We stopped with a guide called War-
buck and had a fine time. From there we traveUed every
where, and camped out for several nights, just for the romance
and fun of it. We cooked our potatoes and boiled eggs in
the hot springs of the Kerem Geyser, Rotorua.
After that I secured a position as violinist in an orchestra
at Auckland and bade Mr Ord Hume good-bye, for soon after
he left New Zealand.
• •••••••9
I will now retum once more to my old Bohemian days.
Away from respectability that whitewashes men, back away
from the mighty orchestra of moving cogs and wheels, and
from the crowds of cold eyes, thirsting for the gold which is
necessary to keep them warm in white-collared respectability,
back over the seas to the forests of Maori land, to the cry of
the curlew and huja in the trees, by the old pahs of Orakan,
where Herowera, the old-time warrior, sat by the mshing
river waters. His tattooed, engraved face is alive with
memories. Once again he tells me of the mighty Rewi
Maniapoto and the esprit de corps that bound the tribes
together m their fierce battles, when Maoris fought as bravely
for their rights as the old Britons stUI do. StUl I fancy I hear
246

.¦yt

A HUT IN THE BUSH
pretty Rewaro, the Maori maid, singing her chant as she listens
to the old chief's reminiscences of mighty deeds and battles
of yore. In the birch and eucalyptus trees sigh old winds,
and from the mysterious glooms of moonlit Arcadia come
soft, weird sounds of Maori musical instruments. I could
write chapters about the Maoris and their habits, and their
wonderful poetic legends of dead chiefs singing in the forest,
and maidens made of sea-foam brightly dancing in the
glimpsing moonlight of forest rivers. I have seen Maoris
stare down the main streets of Masterton and swear that
they could see the rivers rushing along in the moonlight,
and the canoes bearing the tribes over the swirling falls,
while Maori maids, with their beautiful hair lifting in the
winds, danced on ghostly, primeval waters.
I have felt as they feel when they see the city spires rising
over their enchanted lands, for I can dream as they dream
and awake to the same reality. Were I to rise, as a man in a
dream, and go back across the years and pitch my tent on the
old spot in Queensland where I camped, I should be moved
on for obstructing the tramcars, and yet I am still a young
man, so you will see how great is the change in a few years.
I remember my self-made hut home, fashioned by my own
hands, my comrade pulling the thick bush grass and boughs
for the waUs. How happy we were in that little room as the
river sang, travelling onward. Just below we picked the
ripe yeUow oranges from the deep grass under the scented
trees, where often my parrot raced me across the slope and
flew by me sideways with its cut wing and won the race as
I let it pass. I remember how, before the parrot died, it
walked up our cabin walls screaming, with its tongue hanging
from its beak ; how great was my grief as its tiny jewel eyes
opened and closed for the last time. That death was the
great sorrow of our hut life, and we buried the poor bird, as
parents do a beloved child, by the riverside. We went that
same night over the slopes to the camp of aborigines, who
cheered us up as they danced the corrobboree, while I played
the fiddle under the moonlit gums. The old women were as
black as ebony, and they also jumped and beat their hands
on their skinny thighs, while old and young men, almost
247

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
naked, whirled round the smouldering camp fire, with their
ribs painted white, looking like hideous, screaming skeletons.
We gave them cakes of plug tobacco, and in retum they would
dance. Sometimes they would just begin and then stop and
say : " Me no dance, want more baccy first." I used to
answer : " You no dance ? Then me no play music."
Then their thick lips would flop together, as they all grinned,
and off they would start, whirling round in the old brown
Government blankets which they wore over their shoulders
something after the cavalier fashion of romantic ages. One
old fellow had a tremendous head and was the tribal
musician ; he played a bone flute, the thigh-bone of some
ancestor. He blew four notes on it and played them re
peatedly ; and the dusky forms chanted and jumped round
him, beating their black breasts with their hands. This is
how the thigh-bone waUed to the lips of its posterity :
Aboriginal, . s — * — • — •-

fgj

r?

^

Those wild black men had creeds and poetic legends of
their bush world, much the same as the wUd white men.
For some historic ancestor's deed with the boomerang filthy
old men and women were waited on by the low-caste tribe,
who gazed upon their aboriginal gentry with awestruck eyes,
and pushed hot, cooked white gmbs and eel-like snakes
into the big black lips ofthe aristocrats, who sat by the camp
fire and opened their huge mouths in a listless way, their
black, protmding bellies heaving in the bloated affluence of
their high lineage.

248

CHAPTER XXI
At Sea in Dreams — In London Town — Ofi to Bordeaux — Our
Chateau — In Biarritz — Old Madrid — I am a Spanish Trouba
dour — Mercedes — My old Comrade ceases to sing
I am a rolling, rolling stone ;
Stern-fashioned in the mould
Wherein God recasts sand and bone,
I ghtter with pure gold —
His workmanship, of course, not mine.
So still I roll along,
A sad old stone, half gem-divine,
Gathering moss and song.
God made me ; yet I am weak throughout —
I feel this as I roll.
By deep wild waters knocked about.
But like my friend the mole.
Hid 'neath the earth and flowers, I peep
Up through a crack and spy
Another world, from darkness deep
I see a great blue sky.
So on I'll roll and roll; until
On some wild torrent's leap
I fall into the mighty mill,
Sink in the ocean's deep.
To lie quite still as ages fly
'Neath stars up o'er the main,
Till, brought up by the Diver, I
Go rolling on again !
FROM those wild bush-lands I passed away into the
cities and on to ships, then again back to the cities
and seaports of the world.
I have often thought of the old crews that I sailed with as
a boy. I've met them sometimes in grog saloons and sailors'
homes in seaport towns of far-away countries ; only some of
them though — ^for many went down to the sea in ships and
never retumed. I have stood alone at night, in the far-off
seaport's little street, and heard the drunken laughter of
249

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
saUormen by their ships at the wharves below as I gazed into
the windows of the second-hand slop-shop at the relics. Old
binoculars, compasses, oUskin caps and big sea-boots hang-
mg on pegs, in rows, for sale. As I looked a mist crept
under the rotting rafters of the dingy, musty, oU-lit room,
the old oUskins swelled, and bearded wraiths of dead saUors
danced. The big sea-boots tumbled about in a jig by the
broken window as I watched, and sounds of long- dead
laughter echoed in my ears. Then up the little seaport
street, from the bay, came a gust of wind and blew me
into the fo'c'sle of a ship far away at sea. I played the
fiddle to the dancing dead men and climbed aloft as their
hollow voices shouted a muffled, windy chantey. The old
skipper, with his hand arched beneath his oUskin sou'wester,
looked up aloft and shouted, and we all echoed back : " Aye,
aye, sir," and my comrade touched me on the shoulder and
said : " Come on, Middleton, you don't want to buy any of
those d  d old oUskins."
Once more I found myself off, homeward bound round the
Horn, crashing and rolling along, the howling sails aloft
singing to the humming winds that we loved to hear, for the
harder they blew the sooner we should be in England.
When I arrived in London the autumn rains were falling,
and the population of the mighty city of pavements and
stone walls moved along under a myriad umbrellas, as old
St Paul's at flying intervals voiced forth from its meUow,
iron throat the flight of Time,
Some musical friends in the city had suggested to me that
I should do a wise thing if I went to the fashionable winter
resorts in France. The idea struck me as a very good one.
I was told that instrumental players had gone to France,
Spain and Italy and come back wealthy. I had seen a good
deal of the world, at its outposts, and had not succeeded in
making even a portion of a fortune, so I resolved to get
out of England without delay. Before I went I felt that I
must have a comrade. The thought of old age with its boon
companion, decrepitude, had always filled me with a strange
horror, as something worse than death, and so for old age
250

BONNIVARD
I always felt a commiseration and tenderness which gave me
confidence in grey hairs, which often got me into trouble,
but more often brought advice and sensible comradeship.
When in London, a year or so before, I had made friends
with a gentleman whose name was Bonnivard. He had
been educated in France, was a clever man and could speak
French, Spanish and Italian. It struck me that if I could
find out his whereabouts I might persuade him to come with
me, for he was a jovial man, and his knowledge of French
would help me in my travels. To tell you the truth, too, I
was rather short of money and thought perhaps he might
even lend me a little towards the expenses of the trip. I
was getting older, and experience had taught me that too
much money was not so inconvenient as too little. I went
off to his villa in the suburbs ; the old place had " To Let "
in the window. No one in the district knew of his where
abouts, but at last, just as I was almost disheartened and
giving up the thought of finding him, I met a gentleman who
had known him. He at once gave me his address — inmate,
Homerton Workhouse, Hackney ! I was very much up
set. I knew too well what trials, insults and sufferings my
friend must have experienced before he sought a haven of
rest in that terrible inquisition, the English workhouse.
I went to Homerton. The officials treated me most
politely directly they discovered the reason of my visit.
When I told my old comrade I wanted to take him to France,
as my guest and interpreter, I was considerably affected by
his delight. He had aged since I had last seen him ; the
old stiff mUitary moustachios had turned white and had lost
their aristocratic, upward twirls. Next day they were once
more alert and alive with renewed majesty, and the hand
some old face, though deeply wrinkled, was boyish-looking
with delight. He was a new being in his frock-coat and tall
hat, which I purchased remarkably cheaply at a pawnbroker's
shop. The gloss of his hat was perfection, and as he
smoothed it with his sleeve, in the old way, he laughed almost
hysterically, with a schoolboy's laughter, but my ear de
tected the wizened, high note of age in it, and it made him
more pathetic than ever. 251

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
The next day, with his dead wife's photograph and his
travelling kit in my box, as steerage passengers we went
down the Thames together, both happy, on board the s.s.
Albatross, bound for Bordeaux.
Arriving at Bordeaux, we found it advisable, owing to the
state of our exchequer, to live outside in the suburbs, so we
rented a pretty little chateau in the Rue V  , Cauderon.
The weather was bitterly cold, and we spent a good portion
of the day in trying to make our coke fire burn. Every
night we walked into Bordeaux and got a good feed in a
restaurant ; one franc fifty centimes secured us several
courses, with a bottle of wine each included. I wandered
about Bordeaux a good deal, and went down the leafy path
ways of the Botanical Gardens, but could not appreciate
anything owing to the cold winds. I had thought to visit
spots associated with the old French philosopher, Montaigne,
who doubtless in his day wandered over the historic streets
where I now walked looking for violin engagements. In my
sea-chest at our chateau I had Montaigne's Essays, and I
satisfied myself by lying in my bed and reading the deep,
innocent wisdom of the great Frenchman. Near where we
lived there was a wine merchant and many residents who, I
think, worked in the vineyards. From the merchant we got
credit, and things eventually became so bad that we lived
for some time on wine and haricot beans. At last I secured
a course of concert engagements at English and French clubs
and concerts.
My comrade and I invited the wine- seller and several
Frenchmen to supper every night, and the little chateau
with " Zee Engleise gentlemen " in it rang with song as a
French harp-player and I played. Long after midnight the
noise went on : they aU lifted their arms and opened their
mouths, whUe Mr Bonnivard told those chivalrous French
men of his experiences in the Siege of Paris. They were
delighted with my comrade's yams, and he went on spinnmg
them vigorously. I could not speak French, so I could only
watch their faces expressing horror or surprise as he fired
away. About two weeks later the smash came. The rent of the
252

DISASTER
chateau was a hundred francs a month and was due ; we
also owed the wine-seller for about a hundred bottles of red
and white wine. It was cheap enough, fourpence a litre.
We could not possibly pay the rent, but we held a hurried
and private council and resolved to give our friend the wine-
seller fifty francs and send the remainder after we arrived at
Biarritz. We dared not give him more, otherwise we should
not have our fare. We intended sending the rent to the
agent, who was a little Frenchman and lived round the
corner, directly we had some luck, and we did do so.
Before we went away we invited them all to a grand supper,
which ended at midnight with the stirring Marseillaise.
We had to be at the Midi station by ten o'clock next morning.
The cab arrived ; we first went to the agent to tell him we
were obliged to leave for the English season at Biarritz and
would send the rent on, but he was out, so off we drove. We
had no sooner turned the comer of the street than the agent
passed us in a small chaise and spied us and our boxes.
About five minutes after we saw him chasing after us, about
a quarter of a mUe behind, shouting at the top of his voice.
" Hadn't we better stop and explain ? " I said to my com
panion. But he would not do so ; a whole regiment of
gendarmes with drawn swords behind us would not have
disturbed him, but would have simply supplied more excite
ment to the splendour of his " La Belle France." He com
pared everything that happened around him to his life in
the Homerton Workhouse, and so rubbed his hands with
delight, and shouted in French to the driver, who at once
whipped up the horse, and away we rumbled at full speed. I
painfully felt that we were not in the South Seas, and began
to feel uncomfortable when I noticed that the little agent
was gaining upon us. I had come to France to make my
fortune, and the prospect did not appear much better than
it did when I was seeking wealth in the Australian gold-
fields a few years before. I stood up and shouted " Two
francs more " in the driver's ear. He seemed to understand,
and gave the poor horse another slash, and as we flew by the
French people rushed from their villas and shops, thinking a
fire engine was passing through the maze of Bordeaux's
253

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
streets. We eventuaUy lost sight of the agent, caught the
train and arrived ui due course at Biarritz.
In Biarritz I did well : played at the Casino and gave
private concerts at the different clubs and hotels where the
wealthy English visitors stayed, the Hotel de Paris, Hotel
d'Angleterre and Hotel du Prince. The British residents
consisted of titled folk : high chiefs, princes and princesses,
descendants of old tribes of blue-blooded Imeage. My com
rade was worth his weight in gold ; his engaging manner
enabled hun to take liberties with old colonels and the
austere English "set" which would have been strongly
resented if perpetrated by anyone else. I saw aristocratic
old gentlemen flush and clutch their faUing eyeglass with
astonishment as he smacked them on the back, but they
recovered and were amused by his manner, for his appear
ance and address revealed a personality and inteUectual
quality equal to their own.
We also went to Bayonne, an old-fashioned city surrounded
by crumbling ramparts. They had a splendid mUitary band
there and played brUliantly. My companion was so de
lighted with the change in his affairs that he sang my songs
and no one else's as he walked and hummed by my side.
Before we left Biarritz we stayed for a week at the Hotel
St Julien. Mr Morrison, who ran it, gave a fareweU concert
on our behalf and refused to accept anything for our stay in
his hotel. My comrade loved singing, but had no voice for
expressing the love. Mrs Morrison heroically presided at
the piano as he sang, over and over again, the one song
which he sang other than my compositions. It was The
Heart bowed down with Weight of Woe. Mr Morrison would
clench his teeth and drink a stiff glass of cognac, and then,
as the old fellow bowed in a courtly way, encore him ! Our
host was a clever literary man, and had all the kindness and
sincerity of a true Bohemian gentleman. My old friend and
I were sorry to bid him and his kind wife good-bye. They
made us up a hamper of savoury food and told us to write
to them if we ever got into a tight corner.
With about flve hundred francs in our possession we
crossed the Pyrenees, and after a month's traveUing, playing
254

SPANISH BEAUTIES
at various concerts and Spanish festivals, we arrived at
Madrid. We secured apartments in the old Moorish quarter,
then saUied forth and mingled with the swarthy population.
The avenues and parks were alive with youths and beautiful
dark girls with Arab eyes and glorious dark or bronze hair.
Groups of roystering men stood about smoking cigarettes.
They looked like a mixture of Italian, Moor, Turk and Arab,
so reminiscent were they of those races. We wandered by
the Puera de Sol and m the crowded streets near by, and
aristocratic, sharp-bearded hidalgos, with large-brimmed som
breros on the heads and cloaks thrown over their shoulders,
passed us like cavaliers of the mediseval ages. TUl I became
used to the scene round me I felt that we walked the streets
of some old, lost city ; that the saUors of the Spanish Armada
still had lovers among the Spanish beauties who sang in
groups as they passed us, wearing short, ornamental skirts
and coloured kerchiefs loosely swathing their heads of thick
dark hair. The Spaniards gazed over their mantled
shoulders with admiring eyes, and the laughing, flattered
Spanish maidens reciprocated their gallant attention by
gazing back with amorous eyes at their handsome figures,
with black velvet breeches, slashed at the sides to reveal pink
drawers and friUs. The fajas (sashes) of the men vied in
vividness of colour with the gay swathing of the fair, bronzed
maids. We stroUed on the banks of the Manzanares river by
moonlight and seemed to walk through fairyland, though by
day hundreds of Spanish women used the river as a washing-
tub, and forests of clothes props and stretched lines
blossomed forth with delicate and beautiful undergarments
of sUk material. The hUdagos' velvet breeches and the
maids' fajas fluttered cheerfully side by side in the
winds among the chestnut groves, and often the cavaliers
and dark-eyed maids that owned them lay tucked in
bed tUl the laundress brought them home, so poor were
they. My comrade could speak Spanish fairly well, and kept
excitedly telling me so many things that I remembered none
of them. In the cheap quarter of the town, where touring
255

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
violinists and poets generally reside, mysterious smells of
garlic and cooking steams killed the romance that hovered
about the beautiful terraced architecture of Madrid.
I looked in vain for a position as violinist, but it was not
to be had, or the salary was only sufficient to enable one to
live on garlic. So I was forced to become a Spanish trouba
dour and go off seranading affluent hidalgos. Fortunately
I very soon replenished our dwindling exchequer. My com
rade, having been educated in France, could bow as royally
as the Spanish seiiores, and conducted all the financial part of
the business. We went into partnership with our landlady's
daughters, who played the guitar and mandoline, and I con
ducted the troupe. When the festival camivals began a
week later we had a glorious time and made enough money to
enable us to live comfortably. I played my Samoan waltz,
arranging it for two violins, guitar and mandolines, and
the wild barbarian note of the strain was very popular.
Maidens, who looked like Arab girls with shining eyes,
whirled and swayed in the arms of their Don Juans, as under
the Spanish moon my cheerful troupe tinkled away and I
played the violin. Except for their artistic gowns and the
sashes flapping as they danced, I saw the South Sea Islanders
dancing before me; the same abandonment was there.
Their musical voices, as they sang the refrain, brought back
to me wUd tribal dances of the South Sea forest, where a few
years before I had conducted the banging war-drums and
wedding music for cannibals, high chiefs, dethroned kings
and discarded queens.
Pretty Mercedes and Mary, her sister, sang minor melodies
in duet style as I extemporised an obbligato on my violin.
They then danced the Jota Aragonesa and other dances, a,nd
little chUdren romped about and imitated buU-fights, singmg
wildly aU the time.
After the carnival was over my comrade and I strolled
about the sleeping city, and visited the old quarter of alley
ways and gloomy buildings and hidden dens where suspicious
characters met and loose lovers played guitars and mando
lines. We watched old priests shufflmg along to visit the
sick senores, who had fed on garlic and walnuts, and lived
256

DON QUIXOTE
in Madrid's East End, but dressed in the blue, open days in
majestic splendour and vivid colour.
We went to the many temples of Madrid. They are
seldom silent, for up their aisles creep gentle Spanish girls,
who come in, cross themselves and kneel in prayer to Jesus
and the Holy Virgin. The earnestness of it all would soften
the hardest cynic. Old priests abound, and revel in the con
fessions of those innocent girls as they bow their heads with
shame and confess that they have thought more during the
week of Don Juan's stalwart, lithe figure than of the Holy
Virgin. As they pass one sees them crossing themselves
and murmuring their prayers. At the doors wrinkled old
women pester one with little boxes of wax matches, walnuts
and photographs of Madrid and the Blessed Virgin. If one
buys a cent's worth of anything from them they follow on
for three hundred yards, calling down the blessing of God,
Jesus and the Virgin on one's head.
At night-time, when the moon is high and the olive-trees
and palms are windless and stUl, down the white-terraced
avenue goes Don Quixote astride his ass, twirling his
moustachios, tUl far away, with Sancho Panza by his side,
he fades under the moonlit chestnut groves. From the
forests of alleyways steal appealing figures, with eyes that
beg for an admiring glance, and in strange, soft tones
wail of sorrows and no food or place to lay their weary
heads. Give them a coin and pass on, they cross
themselves and mention the Holy Virgin's name, and you
realise there is something wrong with the world, for the cry
of the Virgin's name sounds sincere. All the cities have that
fraU woman begging the world to be her husband, because
she never secured one good man to love her and rear those
bonny boys and girls who waU to be born in the infinite
shadows behind her. It is a sorrow that has even spread
across the world and reached the island tribes of the South
Seas. Standing on the garden roof of our house in Madrid we
could see the country round, a barren coimtry, and looking
like the Australian Never-Never Land in a civilised state. It
is dotted with dusty tracks and old isolated inns ; herds of
R 257

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
goats and mules fade far across the tracks, lookmg like droves
of rats in the desert distance.
There are beautiful spots in Madrid, on the banks of
the Manzanares, and firs, beeches and chestnuts shade the
waters and the slopes by the Royal Gardens.
At night I used to lie m my attic room and listen to the
nightmgales singing in the chestnut-tree outside my window,
its mate piping back approval from another tree at regular
intervals. My old comrade lay fast asleep on the next
trestle bed, for the Spanish hidalgos gave him cognac, and
on the way home from the festival concerts he would clutch
me tightly by the arm, as little Mercedes and Mary laughed
by my side. In the morning he used to say : " Dear boy,
whatever was it that overcame me last night ? It's that
wretched garlic."
Sometimes when we were short of money we lay on our
beds smoking, and he would tell me of the Siege of Paris,
his terrible experiences there, and how he ate his share
of the elephant and lion steaks from the Zoo. Becoming
philosophical, he would tell me of his boyish aspirations, the
happiness he got out of them and the worry from the events
that never happened. I would say : " Supposing we run
right out of money, what about food and a bed ? " Then
he would cheer me up by saying : " My dear boy, all's sure
to be. well ; we are certain to be somewhere and sleep some
where whatever happens." Then, as was his wont, he would
lick his thumb and push the old cigar stump into his pipe
and hum my last melody — a melody that no publisher would
buy — ^till I, secure in his philosophical comradeship, fell
asleep. He never professed or spoke on religious matters,
but each night he knelt by his bed before he got in and lit
his pipe.
We were very happy in the house of Seiiora Dolores ; she
treated us as though we were dear relatives. In her little
attic room I spent the happiest hours of my Continental
travels. I lay half the night reading my beloved Montaigne's
essays. The old French Shakespeare was my best dead
learned friend. If ever I was worried and could not sleep
for thinking I went to my sea-chest and brought him out.
258

UNFINISHED SONGS
I read some of his essays over twenty times, but they were
always fresh, wise and sincere, and I still read them. In
that little room I also read poetry's legitimate child, Keats.
As my dear comrade slept on I fell in love with Madeline
and roamed with Endymion, Lamia and Hyperion. The
nightingale singing outside
" Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn "
as the moonlight glimmered through my little room. I have
read somewhere that Keats was earthly. I think if he had
lived his intense genius would have fought for the sorrows of
humanity, and his marvellous mind made literature and our
country even better than it is. It may be centuries before
earth, capable of bringing forth such spiritual flowers as his
earthliness did, will be born again.
Poor little Mercedes ! She crossed herself and murmured
the Holy Virgin's name many times as we bade her and her
sister good-bye, and I thought of Madeline, and felt sad that
the days of gallant knights and amorous warriors were gone
for ever. I can still see their eyes shining through sorrow
as we said farewell ; even the old mother's wrinkled face
blushed as we kissed the three.
We went from Madrid to Valencia, where we stayed for
three weeks, and then left by boat for Marseilles, and then
on to Nice, and finally to Genoa. My comrade was the
happiest of men as he tramped beside me ; he loved to carry
my violin. We started to write an opera together, entitled
The Siege of Paris. He was delighted as he gave me thrilling,
realistic details of all he had witnessed. I tried to place them
in lyrical form and wrote suitable melodies round the tragic
events. He knew as much about authorship as I did, but I
believe, with the help of his clever head and earnestness, we
should have amply made up for our artistic deficiencies and
lack of literary method.
The manuscript still remains unfinished, as we left it, for
not long after he ceased singing my songs. The brief sun
light between the workhouse and the grave faded and dis
appeared. When I turned away from his last resting-place
259

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
I was the only mourner, and as I went away into our
mysterious world once more I felt very lonely.
So end the intimate reminiscences of my wanderings, most
of them experiences up to my twenty-second birthday.
Whether I have succeeded in giving the reader an insight
into the personality of the writer, such a glimpse as an auto
biography is supposed to give, I do not know. Personally, I
think it is a hard thing to do in a thorough sense, especially
for a vagabond at heart. Each individual is a multitude
of struggling ancestral strains, and real active life is mani
fested in the fight, the fierce hunt to find ourselves ; which
we can never do, for we die every moment that we live. So
all we can attempt in a book is to tell truthfully those things
that impressed us deeply at different periods of our life, so
deeply that they still remain imprinted on the mind. Also
to tell of our experiences for better or worse in this life of
ours, where one footstep taken out of the track that we have
known and write about would have altered the whole book
of our life to another colour.

260

CHAPTER XXII
I arrive at the Organization — Bones and his Officials — Mabau, the
Maid — Chief Kaifa— Mabau in trouble — I advise her — Thakam-
bau's Harem — Chief Kaifa on Christianity — Enoch — Escaped
Convicts — Music — Witchcraft — The Hermit Missionary
. . . While sweetly some
Play on soft flutes and lyres, I, by gum !
Beat with delight the big barbarian drum
Before this drama of the great Limelight
Of stars — and dancing shadows infinite.
THE best part of truth is hidden in the heart of
humanity. How different is that which we reveal
from that which we think of in sUence. Our outward
demeanour is civilisation ; our hidden inward cravings are
barbarism. To some extent these pages will deal with the
savage instincts of the natives of tropical isles, and with men
who have found refuge in those lands far from the cities of
the Westem world.
To tell you of the semi-heathen is much akin to telling you
of ourselves, for are not the barbarian instincts which we all
have within us our own tiny, savage, dusky children ? We
chide them for their waywardness, but do we not encourage
them in secret, as the savage outwardly does, expressing joy
ously that which we are ashamed of ? One has the virtue
of truth and the other of polished deceit. Notwithstanding
this, I think civilisation the best of all possible things. Truly,
however, civilisation is built on a quicksand, and now that
the Fijian forest battles and cannibalistic feasts have become
fierce and gruesome history the great tribalistic clash of
nations, in full swing as I write, reveals more than words the
relentless link that binds white and brown men together.
Once when I was wandering in the Marquesan Group I
suddenly came across the ruins of an old cannibalistic amphi
theatre standing lonely by the forest palms. The stone
261

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
cooling-shelves, whereon once lay the dead men and women
in hot weather, were still intact, but thickly overgrown with
moss and sheltered by bamboos ; the festival arena and
its surroundings of artistic savagery were aU gone ; the
barbarian log walls had fallen. WUd tropical vines,
smothered with wUd flowers, thickly covered aU that tomb
like place, where savages once ate their foes and whirled in
the cannibalistic dance, revealing the shapes of the stone .
edifice, the pae-pae,^ the turrets and log walls. The savage
tribes with their sighs and laughter lay dead, silent dust in
the forest hard by. I looked up through that amphitheatre-
shaped growth. It was night ; I saw the stars glimmering
through the dark palms as the trade wind stirred them.
Now I think those vanished waUs were as civilisation, and
the green clinging boughs remaining and revealing the
amphitheatre's shape sad humanity clinging to the best it
has left.
The simile may not be perfect, but neither is anything that
is human. But I must ramble on my way, for I am now well
on the road to my reminiscences of Fiji.
Years ago, just off the Rewa river, which is navigable
fifty or sixty mUes inland, there was a wooden shanty. It
had two compartments ; the walls were made of coco-palm
stems tied strongly together with wUd hemp. Situated at
a lonely spot, surrounded by primeval vegetation, coco-
palms, backa-trees and wild, tropical, twining vines, it was
eminently suitable for the purpose for which it was used, for
in its snug rooms lived the men who were members of the
Charity Organization of the South Seas ! The officials did
not mn the place on Western lines, for it was a tme home
for the fallen : no questions were asked when suddenly the
hunted, haggard, unshaved face appeared ; to be hunted
was a sufficient reference to enable the applicant to be at
once enroUed as a member. Twelve fierce-eyed, rough-
looking men, attired in big-brimmed hats and belted
trousers, would greet the new arrival, and with the instinct
of bloodhounds stare, and reckon up the new visitor's pedi
gree. If he looked sufficiently vUlainous and haggard, and
1 Altar. 262

THE GREAT MISSING
pathetically told the woe of some criminal ambition that had
been frustrated by the vigUant eye of civilisation, he was
immediately given the first grade diploma, a tin mug of the
best Fijian rum ! If he stUl possessed any part of the spoil
he could have an extra mugful, for the Organization was not
a rich one. A little off-side room was artistically arranged ;
a small looking-glass, brush and comb, and all those things
that tell of gentleness and frailness completed its furniture.
There it was, silent, clean, tenantless and ready, for often
from other lands, with the spoil, the missing man would
arrive with the cause of his downfall weeping beside him,
and in there she slept !
No one could tell the individual histories of these men.
It wUl be sufficient to say that they were there.
Ere I proceed I must tell you that when I speak of the
Organization's whereabouts I mislead you in the name only ;
the true vicinity characteristically resembles my description.
It is obvious that to be faithful to those who befriended me
I must be secretive in some of the details which tell of this
isle of the South Seas, where men sought, and probably still
seek, a harbour of refuge safe from the stern law of civUised
cities. To-day this institution exists and still carries on its
varied work of extreme humanity. The low-roofed den, the
old bench surrounded by the swarthy, unshaved faces of
the secretive crew, like bending shadows in tobacco smoke,
breathing oaths as the cards are shuffled, has disappeared;
but stUl the game is carried on, though in more magnificent
style, for as the cities rise the aristocracy of crime fortifies
itself, becoming more guarded and respectable in outward
appearance. Be assured that I dip my pen in stern
experience for that which I tell you.
When you see these headlines in your daily paper, " Bank
Manager Disappears. Officials in the Dock", "Mayor
and Vicar Missing," be sure that the head of the Charity
Organization of the South Seas has read the Colonial cable
in The Marquesa News or Apia Times, and has rubbed his
hands with delighted expectation, and that his agents are
watching at the warden gates of the high sea ports of the
tropic world. Forest lands, caves and mountain fastnesses
263

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
and unknown isles of security are fast disappearing from the
world as it becomes polite.
Where the bokai feast roared and reveUed, and the Fijian
war dancers in the moonlight of other years whirled, in
bloodthirsty revelry, by the Rewa river, now rise the church
spires ! Where the ambushed tribe once watched from the
jungle with gleaming eyes pass austere university men clad
in gowns, with Bibles in their hands, to lecture on Christianity
to open-mouthed natives. So things have changed, and the
heathenish creeds of the old days faded, and it is my wish to
give you one glimpse of that which has been.
It was my lot to stay in the Organization I speak of. A
mile off was a smaU native village, where Mabau, a Fijian
maid who helped Bones, the Organization overseer, to keep
the rooms clean and tidy, lived. Bones was the descendant
of one of those old Botany Bay convicts who, escaping in a
boat, put to sea, and eventually drifting ashore in Fiji, made
their homes there, and inculcated in the islanders' minds the
first contempt for the white race : contempt which, by an
age of vigorous striving, missionaries have at last removed.
Bones told me much of his convict ancestor, who had been
transported from England for stealing a hammer, and so
Bones was born in the South Seas. He had a firm, open
face, grey, English eyes and a Fijian mouth. He was a
fairly well-educated man, and though he looked rough, at
heart was kind ; he kissed Mabau's pretty face as though
she were his own child. In fact Bones in every way struck
me as being most suitable for his job of running a South Sea
Charity Organization, which was run upon exactly opposite
lines to the charity organizations of the Western seas, where
the officials have stony eyes and steel-trap mouths. As I
have told you. Bones had neither ; and as I sat by him and a
strange bird in the coco-tree sang to the sunset, I felt drawn
to him, and told him more than I would tell most men. It
was a beautiful night ; most of Bones's friends were away,
some at work and some at sea on trading schooners. Bones
played the banjo and I the fiddle, and after indulging in
some European and native folk-songs he lit his pipe and I
strolled off under the palms. 264

A CHILD OF THE FOREST
It was on this night that I met Mabau again. Now
Mabau was a Fijian maid of rare beauty. She had shining
dark eyes and a thick mop of hair ; the graceful curves of
her bare brown body as she glided 'neath the sunlit palms
made many Fijian youths gaze enviously upon her. The
Chief Kaifa, her father, sat by his hut door ; he had been
one of the high chiefs of Thakambau, the last of the Fijian
kings. Kaifa was a majestic-looking man ; in spite of his
thick lips he had fine features, with earnest eyes, and was
straight-figured as a coco-palm. As he sat there, dressed in
his native sulu, he smiled as I spoke to his daughter Mabau.
I knew more of her doings than he thought. She was a true
daughter of Eve, for her glance gave no hint whatever that
we had met before.
For in my forest wanderings, about two days before the
evening I have mentioned, I had met Mabau. She did not
know at first that I had perceived her in a lonely spot. She
knelt on her knees before a rotting, cast-off wooden idol.
Sunset had fired with red and gold the tops of the coco-palms
and forest trees ; overhead a few birds were still whistling.
As I approached, and the dead scrub cracked beneath my
feet, the heathen-hearted little maid looked hastily over her
bare shoulder and, seeing me, arose swiftly, as though for
flight. My voice must have had a note in it that appealed
to and reassured the guilty forest child, for I called softly,
and then smUed to let her know that from me no harm
should befaU her. " Why do you pray to that wooden
thing ? " I said, and then I gave the monstrous effigy a kick.
With a frightened sigh she looked up at me and said : " O
Papalangi, I love Vituo the half-caste." Then with a blush
she told me all, and it seemed that the soul of innocence
peered through her eyes and asked for mercy as she looked
down at herself and then up to me again, one hand resting
on her brown breast. I gazed silently and knew all. The
perfidious Vituo had stolen her heart.
" Me kUlee Vituo ; your white God no help me, will he ? "
she said. I gazed awhile and said : " Yes, He will, Mabau."
I would not have told this thundering lie but for the fact
that her appealing eyes awoke the best that was in me, and
265

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
it was my earnest wish to attempt to stay her from inflicting
any vengeance on her sinful lover which might bring sorrow
to her afterwards.
Encouraged by my kindness, and misunderstanding my
gestures as I endeavoured to explain that she should pray
to the Christian God instead of to the gods of her fathers,
she suddenly lifted her arms and started to chant into the
wooden ears of the old idol again. On her knees she
went, swaying her body and arms gently all the while in the
mystic, Mebete charms. She sang on eamestly, and I gazed,
astonished to see the heathen age before my eyes and to feel
my ear-drums vibrating to the primeval lore of the South Seas.
Through the forest boughs just overhead crept the lingering
rays of the dying sunset, and two golden streaks fell slant
wise over the praying maid's brown body, glimmering in her
thick dark hair as her head moved to and fro whUe she
chanted her despair.
" Mabau," I said, " where does Vituo live ? Why not go
and find him, teU him of your love and offer your forgive
ness ; he wUl doubtless take you to his arms." In truth I
felt this might be, for she was a comely and pretty maid.
At my saymg this she answered in this wise : "0 white
mans, I long die and go to Nedengi, or Mburanto the great
goddess, who love deceived maids and make gods of
chUdren." Then, with a fierce look on her dark face, and
with heaving bosom, she continued : " Mburanto wiU blow
the breath of the big wind that wiU kiU him, the wicked
Vituo, and then him once dead will love me again, for good
is his soul, though his body is whitish and wicked." I saw
the depth of her love flame in her eyes, and I answered :
" Mabau, go home, and I wiU pray to the white God for you,
and wiU see what can be done to bring this treacherous
Vituo back to you again." At this, with delight, she rose
to her feet, her eyes and face shinmg and expressing pleasure
at my promise; her sulu-cloth of woven coco-nut fibre
revealed her trembling thighs as, with the unpulsiveness of
the Fijian temperament, she started to sing and do the
equivalent of a step-dance.
As I stood there, and the shadows of night thickened, I
266

CHIEF KAIFA
heard a voice, and Mr Bones suddenly stepped from a clump
of tall fern growth into the clearing where we stood.
" What's up ? " he said, and I knew then that he had been
watching the whole performance. Mabau, who knew him
well, started off, with feminine vivacity, to tell him all her
trouble. He knew her language, and so she was able swiftly
to tell her tale. Now Bones, as I have said before, was a
decent fellow, and he listened attentively all the while that
she spoke. Then he turned towards me and said : " Vituo
is a treacherous skunk, and if he plays her false I will see to
it that he gets his deserts. Go home, Mabau, for old Kaifa
will be suspicious of your being out this late hour." Off she
went, and I had not seen her again till this meeting by her
parent Kaifa's home, when I digressed to tell you that, not
withstanding her greeting me as though I were a stranger,
nevertheless all that I have told you had happened between
us. The chief, as I said, gave me a friendly greeting. I had
seen him once before, when he had called at Bones's home
stead and borrowed a mugful of rum. He was a genuine
survival of the old cannibalistic days : though he had em
braced Christianity as best calculated to serve his interests
and requirements, for the Protestant and Roman Catholic
ecclesiastics were very kind to him — ^he had embraced both
the creeds — ^he still, deep in his heart, clung tenaciously to
old memories and the heathen mythologies of his tribal
ancestors. By his side sat Mabau, busily weaving a new fringed sulu
gown, with varied patterns decorating its scantiness ; for it
was the Fiji fashion to reveal as much as possible of the maid
without her being accused of being absolutely nude. His
only surviving wife was a full-blooded Fijian, and as I sat
by his side she squatted on her haunches, busily blowing,
with her thick-lipped mouth, the embers of a tiny fire that
flickered into a thousand stars, to be scattered by her breath,
as the evening meal spluttered.
Chief Kaifa could speak excellent English, and as I stayed
on, and the hour became late, he told me many things of the
old days, of dark beliefs and also of the mighty cannibalistic
267

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
warrior, Thakambau. As he spoke, and the moon rose and
lit the forest, his eyes brightened as the old splendour
thrUled him, and Mabau, who sat by us alone, for the old
wife had gone to bed in the hut near by, rested her chin
on her hand and looked up with sparkling eyes, listening
eagerly, and I saw who encouraged her and why she had
prayed so earnestly to the old forest idol.
" O white mans," he said, lifting his dusky arms as he
spoke, " the old gods watch me to-night, and when I pass
into shadow-land I shall be great chief, for am I not stiU
faithful to them ? Do I not cling to those who watched over
my birth and gave me life ? " As he spoke a strange bird
screamed afar off in the forest palms, and with his dark
finger to his lips he said : " Woi ! Vanaka ! the dead speak !
and they who were unfaithful to men and maids are being
punished by the gods " ; for ere he finished many screams
came to our ears, as a flock of migrating wings flapped
under the moon that was right overhead.
Mabau, who had heard this, clapped her hands with delight,
and I knew then that she had but little faith in Vituo' s
promises; for I understood from Bones that he had seen
Vituo, and he had pledged his faithfulness to poor Mabau.
I say " poor Mabau " because this is no romance that I teU
you of, but simply an incident in the sad drama of life that
came about through Vituo's unfaithfulness.
Much that Chief Kaifa told me that night, and on foUow
ing nights that I spent in his interesting company, stUl lives
vividly in my memory, and I think it wiU be interesting to
tell here some things I heard concerning the monstrous
deeds of Thakambau ere the awful royal cannibal embraced
Christianity. It appeared that Thakambau had six Fijian maids, who
were kept in the royal huts, sheltered and closely guarded by
his high chiefs ; and though the missionaries had landed in
the Fijian Group, and had even made homes on the isle, he
managed to keep all that which the old chief told me a close
secret. For some time these six maids formed his harem,
and they were proud of the royal favour. In time two of
them became mothers, and when the babies were six months
268

IN SHADOWLAND
old the high chiefs came in the dead of night and took them
away. As time wore on, and Thakambau sickened of the
secret tribal harem, the mothers disappeared one by one
also — only a scream disturbed the forest silence. Then the
bokai ovens, wherein the dead were roasted, were made hot,
and great were the rejoicings of the cannibalistic natives
and the tribal grandees who were favoured by being
admitted and presented at the Court functions.
At last of the six erstwhile maids two only were left, and
one night they too disappeared and ceased to weep, and the
harem huts were silent.
Nedengi, the great Fiji god, blessed all those who had
joined in the grand festival whereat the maids had been
sacriflced ; and as the assembled tribe sat in the terrible forest
arena, drinking kava and gorging the dead, the Mebete
spirits could be heard running, as their shadow-feet sped
across the midnight moonlit forest that surrounded the
bokai ovens ; and the cannibals looked affrighted over their
shoulders as they heard the waUing cries of the souls of
the dead motheis and maids whom they were eating being
pursued by the souls of dead warriors and lustful old
gods, who hungered after the shadows of beautiful dead
women !
" How terrible ! " I suddenly gasped, being unable to
control my utterance as the old chief told me these things.
Quickly he looked up at me, and swiftly I recognised my
mistake, for he was very proud of his dead king and all the
horror I have told you. Continuing, I said : " Thakambau
was a great warrior, and the mighty Nedengi approved of his
doings, and sanctioned them, as the white God does ours."
Though I said that, the old feUow seemed to understand
my feelings, and looking at me half kindly and half fiercely,
said : " Nedengi did not sacrifice his own son ! Nor does
he send the helpless, blind souls of his chUdren to the bokai
ovens of hell fires to burn in agony for eternity ; nor did he
hide in the dark of ages. Why did your mighty one God
not come before ? Why did He send you cursed whites
to our isles to shout lies, ravish our maids and steal our
lands ? Wao ! Wao ! Why smash our idols ? Show me this
269

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
great white God ! Where, where is this Thing you prate
about ? Where ? " Saying this, he lifted his eyes to the
skies, and so vehemently did he rattle on, and so many
things did he say that smacked of the truth, that for a
moment I hung my head and felt as though I were the
heathen and he the Christian.
Bidding the fierce old feUow good-night, I went swiftly
across the flats, crept into the Home of the Fallen, by Rewa
river, and slept.
It was the next day that I met the treacherous Vituo.
Bones introduced me to him, and as I nodded my friend gave
me a wink and so I assumed more politeness. I was much
surprised by Vituo's appearance, for though he was a half-
caste his complexion was almost European. Certainly he
was of a type which would appear handsome to Fijian
womenkind, and from his manner I saw at a glance that he
was a mixture of the swashbuckler and cavalier. I pitied
little Mabau exceedingly, for she would, night after night,
come over to see us, and I knew that she came full of hope
that she might meet Vituo, who often came down the Rewa
to help the traders, and to take up cargoes of copra and
many other things that grew on the plantations which
were cultivated and toiled over by the natives.
I stayed with Bones for some days ; he was extremely
kind to me, and I was glad of the opportunity of getting
a rest, and, moreover, the men who lived with him were
strange characters and extremely interesting. Often new
arrivals came, some with heavy beards and some clean
shaven, ostensibly for the purpose of disguise.
One old man, whose name was Enoch, was a quaint old
chap and fondly loved rum. . I do not know what he had
done in his native land — ^which I believe was Australia— but
at night he would shout in his sleep and, suddenly awaking,
sit up and gasp, and gaze with relief on the bunks around him,
wherem slept the weary heads of the fallen. Now Enoch
was very artful, for he found out that I was the rum-keeper
and so it was my duty to share out, and night after night I
was obliged to get out of my bed and give him tots of rum to
allay the awful pain which a toothache was giving him. For
270

MY LITTLE FRIENDS
several nights this kind of thing went on. I advised him at
length to go to Suva and get the offensive molar pulled out,
but no, he would not hear of it. At last, after a wretched
week of nights disturbed by his groans and appeals for
rum, I happened to teU him a joke, and as he opened his
mouth wide with laughter I saw to my disgust that he was
toothless !
Often I went out into the forest and, placing my music in
the fork of a tree, stood and practised my violin. The native
children would hear, and come peeping through the tall
fern and grass to listen. They became my little friends. I
taught them to dance around me, and they screamed with
delight !
Several times Mabau came to see us, but Vituo did not
keep his promises. She would stand at the Organization
door for hours watching the sunset fade over the hUls, and
then with staring eyes look down the long white track,
where once he had so eagerly come singing, to fall into her
arms. Bones and I, and even old Enoch, would strive to
cheer her up. I used to play the violin and get her to sing
with her soft, plaintive voice some of the lotu hymns, and
so in this way divert her mind from thinking of her faithless
lover. For, to tell the truth, Vituo was now only interested
in a white woman who was staying at Suva. Bones loiew of
this, and told me all about it, and so we all felt deeply sorry
for Mabau. In my heart I hated the treacherous half-caste
for his heartless behaviour. Time was going on, and Mabau's
open disgrace fast approaching, and, as Bones said, it would
not be weU for her, or Vituo either, when the truth was out.
The old chief, her father, stUl had a huge war-club which
was the equivalent of Fijian law, and there was no telling
what might happen when her condition was no longer a
secret. Poor Mabau ! I stiU remember her melancholy as I
made her sing whUe I played the low notes on the violin, for
she could follow easUy the chords on the G string, but as the
bow travelled up the scale to the higher notes her ear seemed
to faU her. It was interesting to listen to her wUd voice,
which so easUy sang melodies in the minor key, though as
soon as I played in the major key her voice seemed to grip
271

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
hold of the notes and slowly drift the strain from the major
to the minor.
One night we were suddenly surprised by one of our com
panions appearing at the Organization door with two new
members. They were dark-looking men ; one was extremely
handsome and very polite, indeed almost courtly in his
salutations as he gently brushed the mug's rim and swallowed
the proffered rum. Enoch, Mabau and I, sitting on our tubs,
watched them intently as they stood side by side and spoke
in broken English to Bones, who seemed quite satisfied with
their credentials, for they were escaped convicts from
Numea. They were unshaved and very disreputable-look
ing, but after a wash, shave and brush-up were considerably
changed for the better, and I discovered that they were as
gentle and intelligent as they looked. Reviere, the younger
— that was not his real name — ^had, in a fit of jealousy, shot
a rival in Paris, and so had been transported to New Cale
donia, the French penal settlement, from where convicts
often escaped to live exiled lives in the islands or Australian
cities. Reviere fell in love with Mabau. He and I became very
good friends, and though I told him of Vituo and all the
trouble, stUl he gazed upon Mabau as she softly sang with
eyes that seemed never to tire of gazing in her direction.
Reviere had been exiled in a convict prison for over five
years, and Mabau being the first woman whom he had spoken
to since he escaped from incarceration, his infatuation for the
Fijian maid was not so surprising as it would have been under
normal circumstances. Alas, though Mabau approved of
his tenderness to her, and seemed somewhat flattered at his
admiring gaze, she did not encourage him ; for, notwith
standing the undress costume of the islanders and the loose
ness of the sexes in the native viUages, Fijian maids were as
modest as, and if anything more faithful to their lovers than,
the maids of civUised lands sometimes are.
For two nights Mabau disappeared, and Bones being away
on a trading trip, Reviere and I left the Organization officials
playing dommoes and drinking rum and went off south ofthe
Rewa river exploring ; for we had heard that the natives
272

Dart Valley, Lake Wakatipu, N.Z.

THE MEKE FESTIVAL
were having high sprees inland and that the Meke festival
dances were in full swing.
It was nearly dusk as we wandered along by the tropical
palms and fern that grew thickly by the tiny track which
we foUowed. Going across a pine-apple plantation we once
more got on to the native road, and before the stars in heaven
were at their brightest we emerged from the thick bush
growth and entered a clearing that extended to the native
vUlage homesteads that stood under the palms and banyans
across the flat.
It was a wonderful sight that appeared before us ; for the
old chieftains, and native women also, were dressed in war
costume, their bodies swathed in bandages of grass and
flowers, and as they danced wUdly they made the scene
impressively weird. The general musical effect sounded hke
a Wagnerian orchestra being played out of tempo and
tune, but the legendary atmosphere was perfect. It also
possessed the barbarian note of Wagnerian music, which
so wonderfuUy expresses the German nature and shows
that Wagner was a genius for true expression and an
ticipation. The moon came up and intensified the barbaric atmosphere
that pervaded the excited village. From the hut doors
peeped the tiny dark faces of the native chUdren, who
applauded with vigour the escapades of their old grand
mother or grandfather, who, back once again in the revived
memories of heathen days, threw their skinny legs skjrward
and did many grotesque movements that seemed impossible
to old age and the stem decorum which those little chUdren
had erstwhUe been used to from their august parents.
Round the space, to the primitive music of thumped wooden
drums (lais) and the hooting of bamboo reeds, they whirled ;
and then suddenly the vigorous antics would cease and all
would start walking round in a circle, as the maids, almost
nude, except for a blossom or a little grass tied about them,
joined in, opened their thick-lipped mouths in unison and
chanted some old strain that smacked more of heathenism
than of the Christianity which most of them were supposed
to have embraced. Under the coco-palms hard by sat
s 273

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
several old women who dealt in South Sea witchcraft. I
never saw such pathetically hideous old hags as they were.
Their faces wrinkled up to a breathing-map of sin and vice
as they put their fingers to their shriveUed lips and warned
the innocent girls of sorrows to come, foretelling dire dis
aster, or the reverse, to those who appealed to them for
prophecies. Many of the maidens from the surrounding viUages came
running up the bush track and delightedly joined in the
circling ring of dancers. A few of the latter, who belonged
to the low-caste toiling natives, availed themselves of the
opportunity to show their figures off, and though the
majority of the dancers were innocent enough, in their
way, these looser ones swayed about and went through
preposterous antics, endeavouring to please the eyes of the
semi-savage native men who squatted round as sightseers.
Great was their applause at frequent intervals, and deep
the pleasure of those women who eagerly sought to please
the eyes of prospective husbands.
Reviere and I stood watching this scene ; neither of us
spoke, so deeply were we interested in all about us. Then I
touched Reviere, and told him to look behind him ; there
sat Mabau at the feet of a vUlainous-looking old witch who,
responding to her pleadings, was doubtless telling Mabau
how to win back Vituo's love. There she sat, that artless,
deceived maid, rubbing together the magic sticks and repeat
ing word for word all that the old witch told her. It
sounded in this wise : " O wao, we wao, wai wai, O mio
mio, mio mi " ; and so on, over and over again. Poor little
Mabau, how fast she rubbed the magic sticks as, unperceived,
Reviere and I watched her from the shadows and the old
crony picked her two black front teeth with a bone skewer
and thought over some new phrase for Mabau and the other
maids to repeat after her. Many maids appealed to her and
rubbed the sticks, some crossways and some downways, as
they thought of the bonny promised babies that would be
theirs. Two ugly old divorced wives, who had been fore
told new husbands and chUdren if they rubbed the magic
sticks the right way, rubbed and rubbed so hard that their
274

THE OLD-TIME MISSIONARY
dark bodies were steaming with perspiration in the moon
light !
Neither of us approached Mabau as we watched ; we saw
why she had been absent from us for two nights. We had
no doubt that each night she had sat at the black crone's
feet, listening to her prophecies and doing all she told her to
do with those bits of stick, whUe Vituo, away in Suva, made
love to the young white woman and thought no more of
Mabau, who was to bring down vengeance on his head for
his sins.
Next night Mabau watched at the trysting-place for the
old witch's prophecies to be fulfilled, but found that Vituo
did not come as had been foretold, so as she knew of an old
and lonely missionary who lived some eight mUes from the
spot where Reviere and I witnessed the native fete, she told
us that she would go and visit the good white man and see if
he could help her in her sorrow. Finding out from Bones
where the recluse lived, I, being deeply interested, went off
the following afternoon to see him. After four hours' hard
walking I inquired from some natives, and following a track
which was thickly covered with thangi-thangi and drala
growth, arrived at Naraundrau, which was situated south
east of the Rewa river and not far from the seashore. There
in a secluded spot close by a stream was a small, neatly
thatched homestead. As I approached all seemed silent,
deserted and overgrown ; the trees that shaded the hut-like
home were heavy with thick, human-hand-shaped leaves,
which intensified the gloom and isolation. I coughed
purposely ; the door opened, and there, framed in the door
way, stood a tall, stooping, grey-bearded man of about
seventy or seventy-five years of age.
" Welcome, my son," he said as I introduced myself, and
he noticed that I was tired, for the heat of the sun had been
terrific and I was parched with thirst. I had brought my
violin with me for companionship and safety ; though I had
great faith in the Organization officials, I did not wish to
tempt their integrity by leaving my instrument behind.

275

CHAPTER XXIII
Father Anster — Fijian Legendary Lore — Forest Graves — The Blind
Chief — Mythology and Love-making — Falling Stars — The
Change — A Drove of Native Children — The Village Missionary
— A Native Supper — An Old Chief's Reminiscences — Fijian
Poets and Musicians — A Tribute to the Humbug of Civilisation
I SAT and gazed round that little lonely homestead by
the shore-side at Naraundrau. The scent of the jungle
blooms and dead grass crept into my nostrUs as soft
winds came up from the sea, blew in at the small doorway
and fell asleep in the leafy hollows. Opposite the doorway,
by his broken coloured-glass window, sat the missionary to
whom Mabau had appealed. He had already given her his
advice. He was a venerable-looking old man, with eamest, sunken
grey eyes. As his aged, bearded lips moved, and he spoke
in a sensitive, musical voice, I at once felt a liking for him,
and I seemed to be back in the days of an age that had long
since passed away. For this lonely old missionary was the
sole survivor of the first white men who had exUed themselves
from their native lands with the one intense motive only in
their hearts — ^to endeavour to preach the word of Christ and
better the conditions of heathen lands. No ambition in his
mind had craved for recognition ; he had done his day's work,
and there, weighed down with years, he waited sadly, yet
patiently, the last act of life's drama, the call of his Creator,
to whose service he had devoted his earnest existence. He
died, quite unknown to men on earth, for if men do not
strive for fame it seldom will come to them, unless they do
not deserve it.
" My son, what brings you this way|? " he said, and his
grey eyes gazed kindly at me.
" Father," I said respectfuUy, " I heard of you from
Mabau, the native girl who sorrows over her faithless lover,
276

A FEATHERED PHILOSOPHER
and since hearing of you it has been my wish to meet you,
and here I am."
Hearing my answer, the old man looked intently at me,
and to my great pleasure I saw that I had impressed him
favourably. " Art thou hungry, lad ? " he said. " No, not
hungry, but I am exceedingly thirsty. Father," I answered ;
and at that he at once brought out, from a little wooden cup
board by his side two coco-nuts, and with trembling fingers
pierced the holes with a screw. Very thankful I was as I
drank off a tin pannikin full to the brim of the refreshing
fmit mUk. After that I felt much refreshed and more at my
ease, as I talked to my host.
At his bidding I took my violin from its case and played
the Ah che la morte from II Trovatore to him. As the strain
died away, and silently I laid the fiddle down, he crossed his
hands over his breast and sat in the gloom, for night was
falling fast. He looked like an old, grey-bearded apostle
carved in stone as he sat there.
" My son, thou playest well, and I am thankful for thy
visit," he murmured ; and I was touched and highly pleased,
for deep in my heart I suddenly felt a tenderness for the
lonely old missionary. I saw by the way he crossed his
hands that he was a Roman Catholic. I am a Protestant
by birthright, but his sincerity made me feel more attached
to his denomination than my own.
As night feU and the stars came out he became more
talkative and unburdened himself to me, a fact which I
always remember with pride, for he would not have done so
if he had not felt instinctively that my heart was in sympathy
with his.
Rising and lighting an old oil lamp, he stood it on the
window-shelf, and its faint flicker lit up his room. In the
corner was a sleeping-mat, for he slept on the floor in native
fashion^ His furniture consisted of two wooden stools, a
small bench table and a few cooking utensils. Outside the
door in a cage was a large grey parrot ; it looked as old as its
master, was almost featherless and seldom spoke. But now
and again it would gaze sideways at me and without open
ing its tuneless beak say in a sepulchral voice, " Good-bye,
277

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
good-bye," as though it were jealous of my conversation
with its lonely master. It was a wise old bird, mistmsted
strangers and realised that old age could be tempted and
led away from old friendships by the voice of youth.
As we sat there together the moon came out and shone
brilhantly over the sea, outdoing the dimness of his oU lamp ;
so brightly did it shine over the palms that one could easily
have read ordinary print.
Taking an old flute down, he started to play upon it, and
then with a sigh laid it back on the shelf and asked me if
I should care to stay the night. " Yes," I immediately
answered. We went out and strolled in the moonlight, and
he told me much of Fiji in the old days. Though he was a
poor and aged man, with only the moonlit forest flowers as
his friends, flowers that would some day blossom over his
fast-dissolving dust, the largess of his sincere heart, all
that he told me, has been vast wealth to my memories
through the years, and his dead voice has haunted my
dreams at times.
He too told me of Thakambau ; he had known him in
his worst days, and spoke with the famous warrior king
when he had at length, after many councils with his chiefs,
decided to embrace Christianity.
As we strolled under the straight-stemmed palms the
silvered moonlit waves splashed over the coral reefs below,
and across the waters, like a weird shadow, passed a canoe
filled with singing natives.
" Who sleeps there ? " I asked him as we passed a mound
of earth whereon was a cross half hidden in drala weed.
He told me that it was the grave of a white man who had
left a ship at Viti Levu and had become attached to the wife
of a notable chief. The chief discovered them together by
the shore, and after a terrible battle, the white man with a
rifle-butt and the chief with a club, the white man fell
mortally wounded. In the struggle the native wife was shot
dead, and her spirit, the natives say, was carried on wings of
fire up through the trees towards the stars that light the
shores of that heathen land which was ruled by Mburotu.
The missionary told me that he crept through the forest and
278

SPIRITUAL FATHERHOOD
with his own hands dug a grave under the pandanus palms
for the slain body of the white man, and night after night he
came and prayed fervently over the man of his race, asking
God to forgive and grant to his soul salvation.
I was much impressed as he told me these things, and also
by seeing how, as we walked along, he would tenderly bend
and touch the taU flowers with his lips. ' ' Under them sleeps
the child I loved, or the chief who fell in some bloody tribal
fight," he would say ; and he told me also that often in the
Fijian wilds men, women and chUdren were buried in spots
known only to those who loved and buried them.
That same night as we walked along the narrow track by
the shore-side at Naraundrau the aged missionary took me
gently by the arm and, turning up the inland track, we stood
by a native's conical-shaped hut. In it sat an old, almost
blind chief, the half-brother of Vakambau, a great warrior
who was dead. It appeared that he loved the missionary,
and though he would not give up his heathen faith had,
owing to the supplications of my host, half embraced
Christianity. It was the habit of the Father to call night after night and
pray with the old heathen chief before he slept. I felt very
strange as I stood watching the white man and the old
Fijian kneeling side by side praying, while three old women
squatting in the comer of the den gazed on sUently, as
though they were carved stone images. They were his
servants ; being of Fijian royal blood, he would not move
himself. Often as he sat there he imperiously pointed to
a stone flask wherein was some yangona,^ and at once the
slaves of royalty, with machine-like swiftness, filled a stone
bowl and held it to his lips. Suddenly starting up, he rushed
to the den door and gazed up at the trees, shouting, " Wai,
wai, taho mi," then waved his arms, lifted his chin towards
the stars and called to the memory of dead warriors and
comrades dead with heathen gods. As the Pacific wind
sighed softly through the giant backa-trees he bowed his
head reverently, for to him so answered the gods.
I stayed that night with the missionary, and the next day
^ Native wine made from a root.
279

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
and night also, and heard many strange things. Beautiful
were some of the legends of the forest chUdren that my host
told me. The stars were the eyes of the fiercer gods, and the
faUing stars the bright tears of the powerful Muburto and
Nedengi's warriors. Fijian maidens and youths prayed to
the eyes of shadow-land, and if, as their impassioned lips met,
a star feU and arched over them in the vault of night, great
was their sorrow, for a god had shed a tear over the grief that
would befaU the life of the first-born. But if, ere the lovers
said farewell, more stars fell, great was their rejoicing, for it
was a sign that other gods were pleading to the greater god
to stay the evil that was predestined by the first star that
burst out of the dark soul of evil Destiny. So, notwith
standing heathenism and the gruesome cannibalistic customs
of the old times, much innocence and poetry softened the
hearts of the wUd native children of those dim lands. It
was a common sight by night in the shade of the coco-palms
to see love-sick maids in the arms of the Fijian youths,
gazing at the skies, yearning for the sight of the vast gods
shedding starry tears on their behalf, and often great was
their delight to find the foretold grief to their first-bom over
thrown by the power of other gods. Then the innocent
maids gave themselves, body and soul, to the infatuated,
delighted youths, and fell with the falling of the stars !
When the stars on windy nights twinkled fiercely through the
wailing boughs of the bending forest giants, lovers gazed
heavenward anxiously, for to them the glimmering stars
were the tiny bright legs of their unborn chUdren running
happily across the fields of paradise. Often, too, sorrowing
mothers would peer up for hours on those windy, starlit
nights, as they watched their dead chUdren's bright legs
twinkling as they ran laughing over the forest trees in the
far-off fields of shadow-land.
As I heard these behefs of the forest I thought of Mabau,
and wondered whether, whUe she was in the arms of Vituo, the
stars had faUen, and in her poetic faith she had given herself
to him; and I saw that though the native legends were
beautiful, it was sad for the maids ; for the stars foretold
many things that did not come to pass, and mythology,
280

COURAGE BORN OF FAITH
when applied to morals, brought much sorrow to those
that loved.
The aged missionary spoke the language like a native and
so, through mixing with the remnants of his old flock for
years, isolated as he was, knew all their ways and their
passions and aspirations. He told me that the mythology
and religions of the South Seas revealed, through their
poetic, heathen expression, much that was " new thought "
in modern Europe, and that all those things which the great
minds of my country had discussed and the nobleness they
had overthrown by their doctrine of the " survival of the
fittest," a doctrine bringing the whole creed of self-sacrifice
and bravery down to selfish motives, had been discussed and
expressed in mythology and heathen song by the canni
balistic bards and phUosophical savages at the bokai feasts
of those heathen lands.
Lands where maidens gave their lives for their lovers, and
wives for their husbands, for it had been the custom that
when a chief died his wife should be buried alive with him ;
and so strong was the faith of these people that they met
their terrible end bravely, and sang death s6ngs, which could
be heard faint and muffled as the tombstone closed over
them. It was even then the custom of maids to die and be
buried with their dead lovers, their belief being that they
appeared before the gods as they died. Those who thought
themselves young and beautiful sacrificed themselves, so
that in spirit-land they might be ever young and fortimate
in their love affairs. Often I saw skeletons in caves, which
were the remains of old age ; they had been strangled by
their relatives to avoid further trouble from the complainings
of their infirmities.
On the night precedmg my last day with the old missionary
Mabau, the native girl, came to him as sunset was fading
over the seas. As the shadows crept and thickened around
the hermit's home a noise of naked feet in the jungle grass
disturbed us. A gentle tap at the door revealed Mabau's
dusky face. I understood little that she said, for she spoke
in her own language to my host, but I saw by her eyes and
trembling lips that she was sorely troubled. After hearing
281

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
the Father's advice she became calmer, and faUing on her
knees kissed his extended hand and bearded face as a child
would kiss its father ; then, without speaking a word, she
ran off swiftly into the forest.
The old missionary asked me many questions as to where
I was staying, upon which I told him of Mr Bones. Hearing
this, he gravely shook his head and scanned me solemnly.
" You look an honest lad and well able to take care of your
self," he said ; and then I explained to him how I had left my
ship at S  because I could not stand a drunken crew, and
that was the true reason for my accepting the Organization's
hospitality. From him I heard that a week or so before I
arrived a fugitive had appeared at the Organization and the
second day after had shot himself. Bones had hastUy called
on the Father, who delivered the Sacrament to the dying
man, who, ere his breath ceased, made his confession. The
Father did not reveal the facts to me, but I heard them from
the lips of a high-caste Fijian with whom I stayed between
my visits to the Organization's shanty. For after the first
few days I only called upon Mr Bones as a visitor, taken
there through my adventurous spirit, and for the novelty
of associating with old villains and seeing the sad fugitives
who arrived from the far-off cities of the world.
That night as I lay by my hermit host I watched him as
he quietly slept on his sleeping-mat ; moonlight streamed
through the tiny window hole and revealed his careworn,
bearded face. Still as death he lay as the breeze crept into
the open door and stirred the few grey hairs above his lofty
brow. The beating of the seas on the shore sounded at
intervals and died away ; the shadow leaves of the pahns
outside moved gently over the wooden moonlit walls, over
his grey-bearded face and crossed hands. I felt that I was
back in the Middle Ages, in some mysterious mediseval
monastery, instead of in that heathen land of dying crime
and bloodthirsty cannibalism, where but a few years before
Thakambau, the warrior king, who now lay in the grave not
far off at Bau, saUed forth from the creeks below to give
battle to rival kings, accompanied by his armada of outrigged
canoes. As I dreamed I heard the restless seas below, I saw
282

MUSIC OF THE SOUL
those primitive fleets of canoes fading in the sunset, filled
with dark, savage, patriotic faces, and the stalwart cannibal
king leaning on his war-club and gazing proudly as he stood
eyeing the canoes of his warriors paddling along to meet the
tribal foe. It was almost unbelievable how swiftly change,
through the coming of the white men, had overthrown the
cannibalistic festivals and heathen customs : at Levuka,
Viti Levu and Suva church spires were rising where the bokai
feast and fierce songs once broke the silence ; from native
homes now come the strumming of cheap German pianos
and lotu songs sung by mouths that a few years before had
eaten those they had loved.
At daybreak Father Anster, the old missionary, rose and
prepared breakfast, after which he took his flute from the
shelf and played one tune over and over again continually ;
and the old featherless parrot in the cage tried desperately
to repeat the notes through its tuneless beak and, to tell the
truth, made as much mess of the melody as my host did ; for
though he had music in his soul, his lips were unable to express
it. There he sat, holding the flute to his aged lips and blow
ing away ; and though I know he must now be dead, hallowed
dust somewhere near that spot where I saw him years ago,
stiU I can see him sitting by his little doorway, and see the
kind look in his eyes as I bade him farewell and passed away
into the forest, with the thought and promise to see him agam
in a few days.
As I strolled along under the palms and big tropical trees
I fell into deep thought ; everything was silent, except a few
birds singing to the sunset, which they could spy from the
topmost boughs whereon they sat. Suddenly I was startled
by hearing a noise, and crossing the guUies I went down
a steep slope and peeped through the jungle thickets of
bamboo beneath the coco-palms to see what was about,
and there, romping in the deep fern grass, was a flock of
naked native chUdren, tiny wUd faces, boys and girls. As I
watched my foot slipped. In a moment they all looked up
and their bright eyes spied me. Like a drove of rabbits off
they bolted, their little brown shoulders and tossing heads of
frizzly hair just reaching the fern-tops as they raced away and
283

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
faded in the distant forest gloom, frightened out of their lives.
A stream of sunset out seaward crept through the wind-
bloAvn forest boughs and glinted over them as they ran, tiU
they looked like tiny wood-elves racing across fairyland ! I
never saw such a pretty sight. In fun I ran after them, and
two little stragglers left behind, seeing me run, screamed;
then through the bushes in front of me suddenly poked the
heads of mop-haired mothers and fierce dark men. I had
come across a native village !
At first I felt a bit frightened ; but as soon as those wUd-
blooded parents saw my white face and youthful look they
smiled, for their instincts are swift and true. I stepped into
the village, and soon we were all good comrades. It was
there that I met a missionary who lived not far off, and was
adviser and preacher to the native village. He was a good
man at heart, but extremely bigoted, and when I asked him
about Father Anster he yawned and evaded my questions,
told me that he was considered a mild kind of lunatic. I
did not argue the point, but nevertheless I saw the way the
wind blew and thought a good deal. I realised there was no
love lost between my old host and the new missionaries, who
did not care for hermits who toiled and lived completely by
themselves. The hot season was at its height, and not till the sun had
set and the sea winds gently blew over the isle did I feel
comfortable. One is forcibly reminded when travelling in
the South Sea Isles that the natives in complete undress are
utilising their own skins to the best advantage : often I
envied them their scanty sulu (loin-cloth), as my white duck
trousers and shirt flopped and steamed with perspiration as
I sweated onwards. I stayed for several hours at the village
I had stumbled across. Round the native huts the evening
fires blazed as squatting by stone bowls the famUies ate
their supper ; dipping their fingers into the steaming mixture,
they pushed worm-like stuff into their dark mouths. The
toothless old chiefs and mothers were waited on by the
chUdren, who often sulkily helped them, hastily pushing
what looked like long white worms, that hung from the
aged mouths, in between the mumbling lips.
284

A FIJIAN VETERAN
Close by, in one of the conical, thatched dens, loudly
waUed a windy harmonium, played by a young aspirant for
musical fame. The seUing of harmoniums in the South Seas
in those days was a paying business : a native would work
for three years on a plantation, without wages, to possess one
of those mstruments of torture, and a family that possessed
one obtained a social distinction equal to the Order of the
Bath in Great Britain. It was the celebrated High Chief
Volka who owned this particular terrible thing.
While the huddled natives chattered and gorged over their
calabashes of hot mystery this chief led me round and proudly
showed me the sights. Sunset had died, and the stars were
beginning to peep through the dusky velvet blue skies
that could be seen in many patches above the scattered
waveless palms and banyan-trees. Chief Volka was a true
survival of the barbaric age, six feet in height, scarred and
tattooed from his brow to his knees. He had lost one eye in
battle, and the other, through double use, bulged considerably.
Leading me into his ancestral halls — ^three thatched rooms —
he stood beside me, as his mop-head touched the low roof,
and pointed to a ponderous war-club that hung on the
wooden wall. Round it was a grim coUection of spear
headed weapons. Standing by my side, with his shoulders
majestically lifted and his chest blown out, he proudly told
me of the wounds that unplement had uiflicted, and of the
many lives it had, with sudden force, sent hastily to heathen-
land. His one eye flashed with revived memories, and then
that old veteran of some past Fijian Waterloo told me how
his civUised tribe had exterminated the uncivihsed foe in a
mighty battle, and of the benefit the great victory had con
ferred upon humanity. For did not the victory overthrow
tribal men who ate their wounded on holy days ? — ^thus
angermg the gods by not keeping them in pickle tiU the
Fijian Lent had passed !
He stood there, drawn up to his fuU height, his shriveUed
but erstwhUe muscular arm outstretched, as he told me
of the overthrow of tribes on neighbouring isles who had
aspu-ed to dommate the whole Fijian Group by mUitarism.
With forgivable pride he took down the huge club that had
285

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
brought the ambitious leader of the hated hordes to the
earth with a smashed skull. It was a mighty weapon, and
the bare-skinned youth beside him gazed upon it with awe
struck eyes as I said : " And what happened after that
victory ? " " We had ten years of great peace, many feasts
and many wives, and our gods were pleased till came your
race and overthrew them." And then he continued in this
wise: " Alas, our great civilisation has passed away ; revered
customs, creeds and mighty histories of my race are forgotten
with the old winds. Ah, your white race tramples on our old
dynasty of supreme goodness ! "
I gazed silently as he spoke and wondered much, for I
knew that the foundation of civilisation, and all that is called
best, is built on man's attempt to ward off impending dis
aster. As I thought I wondered how much wisdom lay in his
natural vanity, for the warriors of old had died out and the
new race looked cute, flabby, and quite devoid of energy.
Outside old men and youths smacked their lips and grunted
as they nibbled coco-nuts and chewed tobacco ; the grandees
drank new rum, and the old women and maids of fashion
whispered scandal and scratched their mop-heads delicately
with one outstretched finger.
BrUliantly the moon shone through the forest trees as I
strolled from scene to scene of that South Sea village. By
tiny camp fires sat the elder members of the various house
holds ; the little children were fast asleep by them on small
mats. Some gazed into the fire ash, spat and chewed, others
chatted, and on the hill-side sat several groups singing softly
so as not to awaken the sleepers. They were strange, weird
melodies that I listened to ; and as I stood alone in the
shadows I knew that I heard in those primeval wails of joy
and sorrow the youthful voice of music and poetry as it was
ere it attained the artificial development expressed in Europe,
tricked out and dressed in all the artistries to suit applauding
conventionality. Old women wailed songs that told of dead
chUdren, dead husbands or lovers, and all the many griefs
that flesh is heir to. I think the sad old missionary with
whom I had stayed had awakened in me a note of deeper
thought than was usual in my reflection. On my memory are
286

BUDDING CIVILISATION
stUl vividly engraved the scenes of that night ; the moonlight
over the trees, the stars and the squatting groups of the
vUlage natives are all still mine, and the atmosphere is as
clear as, yet somewhat sadder than, of yore, like a melody
heard again, after many years, in another country. I
seemed to know that the wild life and scenery round me was
similar to the embryo life of modern civilisation ; and there
was something real and innocent in that Fijian Arabian
night that made the modem world of life look intensely
vapid. I still see the women of Fijian fashion, with their
legs outstretched before the dying fires, each attired in some
saUor's cast-off undershirt or a portion of a white woman's
garment. Some strutted under the palms and gazed almost
disdainfuUy upon maidens and mothers who only wore the
native grass-weaved sulu. I knew that I gazed upon the
first leaders of Fijian fashionable society, society that has
reached the zenith of vanity in Europe. I saw budding
knighthoods fanning flies and mosquitoes from the high
chief's oUy body. His eyelids blinked approval as the
aspirants to royal favour lifted his fat feet, which rested
on a little mat, and blew their cooling breath on them.
Poor relations carried refuse in large stone bowls to the
village cesspool. Pet mongrel dogs snapped at the hovering
ring of flies and sniffed at the stench as they passed it, whilst
the rich relations lolled under the sunlit tropic palms. At
the far end of the viUage, on a stump, stood the fanatic,
shouting in Fijian, " Taho-ai-Oa," and shrieking and
stamping to entice the straggling villagers to come to his
special mission class. Swarthy Solomon Islanders and
Indians with briUiant dark eyes gazed at the maids.
Under the pahns sat the full-lipped youth, Lota-Mio;
oblivious of all around him, he toUed on with his rusty naU,
carving on a sea-sheU the outlines of a maiden's face ; the
work revealed wonderful talent. Maidens and youths
embraced and gazed with shining eyes at each other as the
shaggy-headed Fijian poet pointed to the evening star
imaged in the stUl lagoon, for it shone in the fairyland of stiU
waters. They peered over the water's brink and wondered to
see theh dark faces under the unaged trees that were upside
287

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
down ; then the branches stirred as the mirrored winds
blew in the water and their imaged faces broke up and
disappeared !
I got the old chief to see me safely on the road home ; for
though I trusted the Fijians, I did not like the look of the
imported Indians, who crept about the village selling sham
jewellery and tempting the maids with trifles and trinkets.
They were stealthy-looking men, dark and masterful in
appearance. Their creeds were slowly overthrowing
Christianity, for the natives were weak, and Mohammedan
ism was more in harmony with their secret cravings and
requirements. Also the colour of the turbaned teachers
matched their own skins. White men can hardly blame the
childish Fijians for embracing Mohammedanism as readily
as they turned to Christianity, for in London town the
Islamic creed is being preached and is finding numerous
adherents, gathered from the so-called high-class Christians,
who gain greater comfort from Mahomet than from the sorrow
of Calvary.

288

CHAPTER XXIV
Back at the Charity Organization — Mabau — A Fugitive Bank
Manager arrives — How the Organization secured Funds —
English Refugees — Departure — Native Burial — A New Sect —
With Bones again — Another Fugitive and his Experiences —
Galloway's Tall Hat— The Death of Mabau— The Haunted Wreck
I RETURNED once more to the Organization rooms, so
tired that I fell asleep without delay, and not until next
morning was I introduced to several members whom I
had not seen before. My toothless friend was mumbling
away to an old " shellback," who in turn was striving to
outdo his comrade's experiences on land and sea. " Glad
to see yer," said the old salt, as Bones introduced me. I
returned the compliment and shook his extended hand
warmly. He was the life of the place, and not pleasant life
either, for he had an old cornet, and in the middle of the night
would lift his face to the low roof and blow some wretched
tune on it over and over again. One night there was a
fight, for as he played and sang and rolled his eyes to the
ceiling a boot struck him behind the ear ; one of the members
had lost his temper and thrown it. The incident caused a
fearful hubbub, the comet got smashed to bits and one or
two of the bunks broken down. Bones came in, pointed a
revolver at the fighters and threatened to shoot, and I believe
he would have done so if they had not quieted down. They
were a rough crew, and I made up my mind to get away from
the place at the first opportunity. Many strange things I
heard, some of which I will tell you.
Next day as I sat alone reflecting in the Organization's
gloomy room I heard Mabau just outside waUing a native
chant of love-sickness. She had peeled the "spuds" and
finished the domestic duties, for which Bones gave her
ample wages.
" What did the kind white missionary say, Mabau ? " I
T 289

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
whispered softly to her, as Bones and two scrubby-faced
villains puffed their pipes and shuffled a pack of cards on
the bench.
Looking up with affectionate eyes that gazed at me
steadUy for a little time and then dropped as she sighed, she
answered : " He say pray to white God ; go to your people,
and if your Vituo no love you quickly find him who
will love you." And as she said this to me she gazed
into my eyes in an appealing way that made me sorry for
her. " Come this way, Mabau," I said, and she followed me like
a little chUd, till out of earshot she sat under the coco-palms
behind the Organization hut. I took her there because I
wanted to be alone with her to advise her for her own sake.
I liked Mabau exceedingly, for I saw in her something deeper
than I had noticed in most native girls. Sitting by me in the
jungle fern, with her chin on her knees, she lifted her eyes to
me and sang a weird love chant. " WaU O — ^Wa — O, Mio "
it soimded, as she sang tenderly her beseechmg plaint.
" Why do you sing, Mabau ? " I asked. " Is it the wicked
Vituo that makes you so sad ? "
" Vituo I hate," she answered fiercely. " I will kill him,
and the white man will be my friend." But I shook my
head and told her not to kill Vituo, but go to her own people,
and as I spoke I pointed to the forest. Obediently as a child
she rose, and before moving away gave me a shell comb from
her hair. I accepted it and smUed kindly at her, for I felt
sorry for the brown, forlorn girl. Then with pattering bare
feet she went down the forest track, waUing. I went back
to the Organization room and practised my violin, as I always
did for several hours every day, both on land and sea.
I think it was that same night that a portly gentleman
looking like a bank manager came down the river from Suva
and hastily entered the door, talking hurriedly to Mr Bones.
Opening a little bag he gave him a bundle of what appeared
to be banknotes, and so placed himself under the protection
of the Organization flag. He was fashionably dressed in a tall
hat and frock-coat, the tail of which had a singed hole in it,
as though he had been shot at at close quarters. Rubbing
290

A PREOCCUPIED VISITOR
his 'hands genially, as though with great relief, he looked
round the secluded room and then asked me if I were English,
and inquired if many of my countrymen resided in those
parts. My reply allayed his anxiety on that point. He had
a ;big, round, clean-shaven, red face ; grey locks protruded
from beneath the rim of his tall hat, and fitted his brow and
heck so nicely that it was easy to see that he wore a wig.
His expression was like his hair, false ; his was a face that
could look jolly and lascivious, or sedate, at wUl, or even
appear deeply thoughtful and religious should occasion
require. Intensely preoccupied, he sat looking at newspaper
cuttings, and with a vacant stare said " Em — em," as I
spoke to him. The natives and the scenery round had no
interest for hun ; some life-and-death business had hastened
him our way. He popped only two nights and then left by
the next 'Frisco stekmer, bound for some port outside the
reach of the extradition treaty. I was glad to see him go.
Every time anyone opened the door he started so that it got
on my nerves. Once when Bones suddenly opened the door
with a crash, on purpose, I believe, he gave a leap and lifted
the lid of the emergency barrel, upsetting the mugs of rum
and causing the whole Organization to swear as one man. As
he jumped in I quickly put the lid on before he could lower
his shoulders and head, and crash went his tall hat, while I
heard a muffled oath beneath the lid. The emergency barrel
was a huge ship's beef-barrel, which stood behind the door,
and in it new members of the Organization hid when the
overseas police arrived. A cave beneath the floor was a
secret known to old members only.
It was a mystery to me how these preoccupied fugitives
from justice got to know of Bones's establishment. My
mystification was dispelled by one of the old officials, who
let me into the secret, telling me more than he should have
done, as he swallowed rum and became loquacious. It
appeared that Bones boarded the boats as they arrived at
Suva, Vanu Levu or Lakemba, interviewed passengers and
spotted likely customers. With years of research and
experience he had' developed a bloodhound's instinct for
twigging uneasy fugitives, and by devious artifices managed
291

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
to give them the hint and let them know that he was the man
who understood difficult positions, and was willing to be a
faithful friend to all those who yearned to remain unknown.
I also learnt that Bones was not above the ruse of getting
a confederate on board the boat, who would pose as a
detective and suddenly turn round and scrutinise any
suspicious passenger, and so deliberately frighten him into
hurriedly leaving the ship. By a prearranged signal, when
the native canoes brought the flying fugitive ashore, the
Organization officials arrested him ! Those who confessed
offhand were given the straight hint that their captors were
not beyond accepting a bribe and letting the prisoner escape.
If they had no money Bones behaved well to them, put them
up for a time, then shipped them off at the first chance.
Those who had managed to bring wealth with them gave
Bones a liberal bribe, and you can imagine it was no hard job
to get it out of them. Men from all parts of the world sought
the South Seas as a hiding-place ; some came to save their
necks, many to escape penal servitude. The Charity
Organization of the South Seas was not far behind its name
sakes in Europe. It was a paying concern, and though the
method on which it was conducted was risky and strange, it
was run on lines of truth and charity ; stolen money only
was accepted, the guilty were punished by being robbed,
and help was given to the fallen, who were taken in, fed,
and finally guided on the road to seclusion and security.
Assuredly it did not reverse its creed, as the organizations of
Western seas do, where bent old men on tottering feet tap at
the door of charity and, apologising for being old, start to
earn the crust of charity by lifting the pick-axe and breaking
stones — stones as hard as the hearts of the British officials
who waddle with fatness and the wealth screwed out of
insane charity-givers.
I could tell many distressing detaUs of that South Sea
hospitality ; fiction pales into insignificance beside the
realities, the tragic dramas of life that came to that old
shanty. I could tell you how men fell through the lure of
gold, and the temptation to appear wealthy and respectable,
in the cities of a civilisation that so often defeats its own
292

OLD WORLD AND NEW
purpose ; for how often men fall in their ambition to gain
the good opinion of those who only appear better than
themselves. The unpractical passion of love also brought much wealth
to the South Sea Organization's exchequer. I remember
one middle-aged gentleman whose manner brought to that
degraded forest homestead a flavour of English society.
With him, in the tastefully laid-out little room, wept a girl,
obviously brought up in English respectability. She was a
pretty, blue-eyed girl, but her face had aged with grief and
remorse and the thought of motherhood. Mabau was her
ever-tender maid and companion. The bond of sympathy
that linked the brown and the white woman together expressed
something that had an intense note of poetry in it. Mabau's
wUd intuition read the girl's sorrow and remorse. The two
women, so far removed from each other by blood and educa
tion, through mutual grief and instinct became equal.
Softly Mabau stroked her white sister's face, and she in turn
caressed the brown girl, who also was fast approaching
motherhood. I asked no questions of her male companion as he and I
together strolled across the landscape. I led him to the
native villages, and did my best to interest him and take him
out of himself during the three days that he stayed with
Bones. We conceived a mutual liking for each other, and
he took me sufficiently into his confidence to let me know
that they were on the way to South America.
I saw them both off by the s.s.  from Suva. Mabau
carried the white girl's things to the boat. As they stood on
the ship's deck they waved their hands to us, and we stood
watching the frail girl, clinging to the man's arm, as the
vessel moved away and the tropical sunset flooded the seas.
We stared till the ship was a speck on the waste of waters.
So disappeared those outcasts on the horizon, together with
their passion and its fruits, bound for another land, fading
from our sight for ever. Mabau cried bitterly. I felt very
sad also as we went down the river, and the hut looked more
lonely than ever to me after they left.
I only stayed with Bones as a visitor, and several times
293

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
went off to Lakemba and the various isles of the group,
visiting Thombo and the Eastern Isles, also Yasawa, Kandavu
and the native villages inland from Vana Levu, in the Bua
district. Some of the natives owned profitable plantations,
planted chiefly with coco-palms for the produce of copra and
food for domestic use.
I often roamed those barbaric lands quite alone, and used
to stand and reflect as I gazed through the wooded land
scape ; the solitude seemed so peaceful, but my dreams
would conjure up pictures of the hot-footed, bloodthirsty
tribes on the warpath long ago. Swarthy bodies and mop-
heads moving through those glooms to charge the ambushed
rival tribe, finally bringing their victims to the ovens that
fizzled the " long pig."
Where now the cattle roam at leisure, nibbling the covatu
grass and milk-fern of the cleared pastures, once towered
thickly wooded forest slopes of tropic fern and coco-palms.
Patches of those forests still remain. In those old glooms
I roamed and spent many happy and exciting times, for
among them still stood native villages of semi-savage
peoples ; many of them clung to old heathen beliefs and
sneered as they passed the den wherein moaned the wailing
harmonium. Fierce fights often raged among the popula
tion, for they were a mixed party, many of them bemg
emigrant islanders from the Gilbert, Ellice and Samoan
Groups. I used to wander about those old native villages, undecided
whether to go to Australia or to get a berth on one of the
trading-boats bound for Honolulu, and so make my way
to San Francisco. The weather was very hot, the ther
mometer reaching 95°. As I sat in the shade beneath the
trees, above my head chuckled peculiar, migratory birds,
pruning their wings and whistling to the infinite blue above
their topmost bough, which swayed gently to the welcome
sea breeze that blew inland. It was there that I saw a
native funeral ; a Fijian girl had died. I watched the
thatched den's door open, as swarthy men, with bowed,
lamenting heads, bore on their shoulders the square-shaped
coffin. It was sunset and the burying-hour. The whole
294

A FASHIONABLE FUNERAL
village started wailing, beating their breasts and naked
thighs as they moved on in the grotesque but sad pro
cession. One old woman, the great-grandmother, I think,
led the way to the native cemetery. It was a mournful sight,
and a novel one for Western eyes, for their grief seemed
real ! By a lonely forest track the procession stopped, and
there, in the shade of a mighty group of banyan-trees, was
the grave. Loudly the mourners started to wail, and the old
woman and the girls fell flat on their faces and grovelled
on the forest turf, waUing a Fijian lament, while the male
mourners drank kava from little pots to keep their spirits up.
To my astonishment the old woman was lowered into the
grave flrst. She stretched her body out, feigning death so
well that her naked limbs and corpulent, brown frame looked
stiff with rigor mortis. Four powerful chiefs, two at her
head and two at the middle, slowly lowered her into the
tomb. Then came forward one who I presumed was the high
priest and, standing on the brink of the grave, he lifted his
hands towards the skies and called on the gods to take the
living spirit of the old woman into the land of death to look
after the soul of the dead girl. As the high priest yawned
and finished his speech he walked away, and maidens cast
flowers on to the living body below. For a moment I
thought that the old woman was to be buried alive, but to my
relief I saw her dark, skinny fingers hastily emerge and cling
to the grave's brink, as up came her head and she leapt out
on aU-fours.
Then the lid of the coffin, wherein lay the dead girl, was
lifted, and the mourners each in turn gazed upon the face
and wailed. I did not look, for the sight depressed me, and
I hurried away. This method of burial, and the ceremony
which I have described, was an old custom modified, a
method employed by a new sect, a creed which was based
half on heathenism and half on Christianity, similar to the
many crank offspring creeds of Europe to-day.
After staying in Suva for two or three days, idling and
boarding the few trading schooners in the harbour, I went
back to the Den of Mystery presided over by Mr Bones. As
295

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
I entered the Organization door I saw, through the wreaths
of tobacco smoke, the villainous, unshaved profiles of the gay
officials, as bending over the long bench they shuffled cards,
swore and drank rum. As they welcomed me their fierce,
suspicious, wrinkled brows smoothed out again. I had left
my violin with them and, though I had been absent several
days, it stood on the shelf over their heads as I had left it.
They called on me for a solo as I sat down and smoked, but
when I responded to their wish a terrible discord began, for
the player of the smashed comet joined in and put my ear
out ; his time and tune faculties were nil. When I stopped
he still blew on, puffing out tunelessness. As the night
advanced yarns began, and I heard experiences of those
rough men, and truly truth is stranger than fiction. Much
that I heard is unprintable, not so much because of its sub
ject and expressive thought as from the fact that in Bones's
hospitable establishment I received trust that once betrayed
would bring dire disaster on fugitives who are still hiding, or
have relatives of high standing in England and elsewhere.
Among others there was one weird-faced fellow there at
that time. He looked thin and ill, but had been handsome
in his day, and often through his rough accent came a
different utterance, that of an educated man. Over his bunk
were the photographs of a girl and of two old people. Some
thing in his life had played havoc with him, for secret grief
had prematurely wrinkled his brow and face. His eyes were
clear, blue and earnest-looking. All the men took to him,
for he was willing enough, and when they chaffed him he
smiled good-naturedly and revealed the expression that had
lit his face up as a boy.
Bones had picked him up adrift at sea whilst he was on a
trip to Tonga in a schooner. The man had stowed away on
a boat at Sydney that was bound for South America. The
detectives had got wind of his being aboard ; he had hidden
himself between decks among the massed cargo, bales of
wool. After the second day at sea the detectives, who were
aboard, came down into the hold to see if they could discover
his whereabouts. Without water, and with only a few biscuits
to nibble at in his huddled confinement, he suffered agonies,
296

THE STOWAWAY
It was almost stifling up on deck under the tropical sun, but
down deep in the ship's hold he was almost suffocated, and
the droves of hungry ship rats smelt his sweating body and
viciously attacked him in the inky darkness.
" Often I had half a mind to give myself up," said he,
" for the cursed vermin bit at my legs as I beat with my
hands to keep them from eating at my face. I dared not
sleep ; indeed, as I dozed off once or twice I felt them push
ing along under the legs of my trousers, and their rough
tongues, like tiny saws, licked at the beads of cold sweat
that broke out all over me." As he continued, the game of
cards along the bench ceased ; all hands became still with
interest. Mabau, who crouched near my feet, gave a
deepening blush as I gazed at her squatting on the floor
beside me. She was gazing at Vituo's photograph, which he
had had taken in Suva.
Proceeding with his story, as we puffed our pipes silently
he continued : " Suddenly I heard a creaking noise forward ;
the bulk-head doors were opening ! Peeping between the
bales of cargo, I saw the flash of a bull's-eye lantern ; they
were crawling over the cargo searching for me ! The human
bloodhounds nearly trod on my body as they flashed their
lanterns over the gloom and crept past me in the dark. In a
second I saw my chance. I noiselessly worked my body back
wards, as they were searching the cargo right ahead. Half
dead I got through the bulkhead door and stood on deck.
" It was night ; the stars lit the skies overhead and the
funnel belched out reddened smoke that rolled astem. She
was cutting across the Pacific at fourteen knots. How I
drank in the fresh air as I crept up by the stokehold grating.
Hiding myself by the funnel, I gazed up ; there was the bridge,
and to and fro walked the captain and chief mate. Pre
sently I heard voices on deck ; they were back from their
search. " He's not down there," one of them shouted.
The skipper leaned over the bridge rails. " You are on the
wi'ong tack, I guess," he shouted back. " I wish they were,"
thought I, and at that moment I heard their footsteps
coming up the gangway towards me.
" I held my breath ; they flashed their lantems about ; one
297

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
of them nearly brushed against me as I watched. A pain
shot through my head ; my God, I was done for ! I clapped
my hand to my mouth to save myself and muffle the sound.
With a smothering throb it came ; I gave forth a tremendous
sneeze ! It betrayed me. In an instant I seized the wooden
grating by the bridge gangway and leapt to the lower deck.
I heard the crashing and throbbing of the engines, as for a
moment I stood by the galley port-hole and resolved on the
next step. Gripping the grating tightly, I clambered on to
the bulwark and dived into the Pacific ! I felt the thunder
and swirl of the screw as the revolving blades just missed
me, and I was sucked down by the churning waters. Still
clutching the grating I came up to the surface and, resting
my arms on it, gazed at the ship. She was still thundering
on, fading under the stars ; I saw her go, racing away.
Evidently they had not dreamed that I had jumped over
board. " The cool waters refreshed me considerably. For a long
while I could see the mast-head light of the ship, and then I
was alone at sea. Daybreak crept over the world of waters
and like a flood of fire the sunrise burst up through the sky ;
like a speck I bobbed about. Flocks of sea-birds sighted me
and hovered overhead, then came down, their legs hanging
loosely, as they tried to peek my eyes out ! I beat about
with my hands. As I got on to the grating, seeing that I was
alive, they shrieked and wheeled away.
" The hot sun rose ; I became delirious with thirst and,
unable to help myself, drank sea-water. At sunset I half
fell asleep as I lay on the grating, my legs in the water. I
cursed that sneeze that had placed me in such a plight.
In the night the moon rose. I was raving with delirium ;
somehow that sneeze became embodied in human shape ;
my delirious imagination saw it ! There in the shivering
moonlit water it swam round me ! Nearer and nearer its
grinning, demon face came ; it seemed frog-like and half
human. Dressed in a small red plush coat it hissed at the
grating and peeped at me with blue, human eyes ! I
watched; the Universe crashed overhead. I waited my
opportunity. It came. I seized that sneeze by the throat,
298

THE EMBODIED SNEEZE
tripped and squeezed the life out of its vile body, then flung
it'back into the moonlit waters. Once again it tumed and
came swimming back towards me, climbed up and grinned
at me ! Once more I gripped it and threw it over the side.
It disappeared, and the dark fin of a grey-nosed shark slowly
rose. Reality crept into my brain. I pulled my legs up on
to the grating, which was awash with my weight. I waited
for death and shouted. I knew that fin was real enough and
only a miracle could save me ; and it did, for my cry was
heard. A passing schooner spotted me across the night,
and Bones there threw the rope that saved me."
" Right enough," said Bones, as he knocked the ash from
his pipe. Then aU the hands filled their mugs with rum and
clinked them together, and the contents, with one swallow,
disappeared. Such were some of the various experiences I heard from
the lips of those men. Almost everything connected with
the Organization had an exciting history attached to it ;
aye, from pretty Mabau to the tall hat that hung on a peg by
the emergency barrel. I think I will tell you the history of
that hat just as I heard it from Bones.
It appeared that in earlier days, before Bones had
made the hiding profession into a fine art, and one which
easily amassed wealth, his means of running the show and
replenishing the food and rum casks were not as kindly and
humane as the arresting scheme, with the final relief of the
victim on getting his bribe accepted — a. bribe that often
astonished Bones by its generosity, for the shabbiest fugitives
were generally the richest and the guUtiest.
WeU, to proceed. That immaculate tall hat had brought
the Organization in much money. When trading-ships
caUed in at Suva and the surrounding isles Bones would go
aboard and negotiate for the part purchase of the general
cargo ; and he did well ; for, though he or his representative
had no ready money, they would manage to dupe the skipper
or supercargo by giving them a false bill or an I.O.U.
from some firm of repute, who knew nothing whatever of
Bones and his clever crew. Attired in a frock-coat and
299

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
that tall hat, they conunanded the necessary trust and
respect. Galloway, the Yankee who worked the business personally,
managed to get a surprising amount of credit. Scores of
harmoniums, musical-boxes and miscellaneous clothes were
got hold of through the Yankee's smartness. The whole
business was run on fine, strategic lines. After a good deal
GaUoway would lie low and lend the hat and frock-coat to a
confederate. Soon, however, in spite of their care, a breath of
suspicion blew across the South Seas. Skippers told each
other to look out.
" You see that hole in the rim of the hat," said Bones,
pointing his thumb to what looked like a bullet hole ; "that
d  d place cost me a cool thousand pounds." Then :
" You see that 'ole, don't you ? Well, when GaUoway's pal
went aboard a schooner in Lakemba he stands on deck and
makes a deal for five hundred clocks — natives would give
their souls for a clock — and a thousand tins of meat stuff ;
in fact almost everything that we wanted. Well, he gives
the skipper his I.O.U., seemingly made out and signed by a
settler who was well known for his wealth and integrity in
Fiji ; but, as he stood on deck and signalled to the natives
overside to bring the boats alongside to take the first load of
stuff away, the skipper, who had previously been done, spied
the same hole in that tall hat which he had noticed when
Galloway duped him. So he says : ' Before you take the
stuff away have a whisky ? ' and then says, sudden-like :
' You've got your pal's old hat on ; what's become of him ?
I've still got his I.O.U.' Galloway's pal at this looked un
comfortable, and the skipper kept the ball rolling, for he
whips a revolver out of his pocket, and as H  bolts over
the side the old curse fires, bang 1 H  's ear was blown
off. So ended the I.O.U. trade, and H  left those parts
with his ear missing. Then he made a fortune through kid
napping native girls in the Solomon and Marquesan Groups,
and got on so well that he purchased a schooner, and ten years
ago called this way and invited us on board. As we drank in
the saloon aft we heard the general cargo of naked native girls
and youths wailing under the floor decks as they caUed for
300

A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER
grub ! I took mercy on half-a-dozen girls next moming as
H  got them on deck and paraded them for my inspec
tion. I bought them and sold three to the sailors of a
German man-o'-war, and their missionary gave me a good
price for the other three."
So Bones rambled on, telling me much which I have left
out as being unprintable and, worse — too true to enlarge
upon! The traffic in native girls for immoral purposes
was common in the early days, and still is to-day, but it
is carried on now by more disguised methods ; indeed, most
of the crimes that were rampant in the old days are worse
than ever, for they are carried on with deeper guile, as
missionaries, earnest men enough, leave the sorrow and sin
of their own lands to spread hypocrisy over the South Seas.
For the natives are clever, and with education simply learn
the duplicity of the white race ; loudly they sing the lotu
hymns as they grin in their hearts over the change in things
for the better !
Now I am approaching the end of my stay in Fiji. I had
my few belongings packed, for I had been promised a berth
aboard the Frigate Bird, that lay in Suva harbour and was
due to leave in a few days. It had been a swelteringly hot
day. I had told Mabau that I was going away, and from
her learnt that Vituo had completely thrown her over and
was much in love with the white woman who had stayed at
Suva. Tears gleamed in her eyes as she realised that I
should soon be going, and as I sat and played the violin to
the men who had befriended me while I was hard up she
looked up at me like a whipped dog, with beseeching eyes,
and I felt very sorry for her.
At sunset I walked with Bones under the coco-pahns down
by the river. It was to be my last night. The smell of the
decaying ferns and rotting oranges in the jungle grass came
in sweet, damp drifts as the cool evening breeze sprang up.
In the trees a few birds sang, and from far-off came the sound
of the tribal drums beating the sunset out, and the stars to
the skies, over the native vUlage a mile away. I had the
night before been to Naraundrau to bid farewell to the old
missionary. He had crossed his hands on his breast and
301

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
blessed me, then laid his hands on my shoulders, gazed into
my face and said : " Farewell, my son ; the blessing of God
be with you." I left him as a son would a father, with sad
ness in my soul for his age, and in my sorrow I seemed to
hear a noise beating in my heart — like toiling shovels that
day by day deepened his grave.
As I stood by the river slope with Bones we heard the
paddling of a canoe, and round the bend came Mabau to
wish me farewfeU. She appeared very excited as she jumped
ashore. Early moonrise bathed the pool waters as she stood
beneath the palms and to our surprise said : " Vituo is
dead ; I kUl him." As she told us this she lifted her hands
to the sky and wailed. We tried to calm her, but it was no
use ; we only gathered that Vituo, her faithless lover, had
died by her hand. StUl I can see her figure, mirrored in
the water of the moonlit pool, as she wailed, swaying her
blood-stained hands and singing a death chant that sounded
like this when translated :
" O winds of night I call, I call.
Across the hills of sleep ;
Let Mabau to silence fall
For ever into sleep."
Then gazing over her shoulder she rushed off into the jungle,
and Bones and I hurried after her. Through the trees we
saw her running. Then she reached the sea. "What's she up
to ? " said Bones, as we sighted the shore. Out on the edge
of the promontory, like some carved goddess, she stood,
appealing to the skies with lifted arms as she wailed a primi
tive note of sorrow. Moonlight revealed her stricken, dusky
face. Up went her arms for a moment in perfect stillness,
then she dived ! Bones and I rushed over the reefs ; neither
of us had time to think that she might take her own life.
Stumbling into the shallow water by the rocks, we reached
the promontory and the spot where she went in. I dived
and Bones followed me. Round and round we swam, moving
the liquid depths, as the imaged stars twinkled and faded.
" Mabau ! Mabau ! " we called, then we each dived,
scrambled and felt for her. No sight or sign of life
302

THE REWARD OF FAITH
appeared; the dark waters had taken her young life
away.
An hour later Bones and I crept back to the den, wretched
and sad. We did not speak ; we still had a faint hope that
she might have swum round the promontory point, eluded
us and be still alive. I could not sleep, and at daybreak we
started off together. As we reached the fatal spot sunrise
was creeping over the Pacific. Out on the extreme edge of
the promontory we stood side by side and looked down into
the clear depths, searching ; . for on the water floated her
ridi, made from a pretty piece of coloured silk, a present
to her from the white girl who had stayed at the Organization
room. I knew it had been wom to please Vituo, whose
despicable conduct had caused his own death and that of
Mabau. Suddenly Bones said : " Look ! " and pointed for a
moment. I hardly dared to gaze at the spot where he
pointed, and then in perfect silence we looked. On the
sandy bottom, deep down in the water, by a boulder of red
and white coral, was Mabau, her eyelids apart as she stared
fixedly up through the clear, crystal depth. The first sun
beams stained the water by her brown figure. The South
Seas wild blackbird sang joyously in the coco-palms, and
the saUs of the outbound schooner that caught the tide
faded on the horizon.
At sunset next day I bade Bones good-bye and saUed on
the Frigate Bird.
For three months I saUed among the islands in a trading
schooner and then left it at Hiva-oa, where I stayed for
three weeks. I was a bit downcast, and employed my time
by hard study on the violm. There was an old wrecked
schooner on the reefs, and at night I used to creep down
into her hold and practise. I was ambitious to be a great
violmist. For a whUe I was in my element in that ship's
hold, and then the natives heard my fiddle waUing and were
frightened out of their lives, thinking that the wreck was
haunted by evU spirits. I was innocent enough of it all as I
played away night after night, untU, looking through the
303

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
port-hole in the bright moonlight, I heard a jabbermg noise
and saw hordes of natives on the beach, watching and
creeping about as I played !
Then a man came aboard the wreck and shouted down the
hold: "Halloa there!" and told me that aU his hired
natives were packing up and leaving for other islands, as
they all thought when my violin wailed that the old wreck
was haunted by spirits of heathen gods. So I lost my chance
of being alone with my aspirations in the South Seas and
once more got a schooner and went off to Honolulu and other
islands. I managed, by being careful, to save some money from my
ship and musical engagements, for I was abstemious, and
devoted my spare time to music and reading. I made
several acquaintances among the crews of the ships that
traded among the islands, many of whom were young
Englishmen who had left the maU-boats and the deep-sea
liners to earn more money on trading-boats and see the islands
and the Australian cities. I also got to know many German
and Colonial sailors. The North German Lloyd maU-ships
arrived in Sydney weekly, and the hands would leave and get
jobs on the small boats running to Samoa and elsewhere in
the Pacific Isles.

304

CHAPTER XXV
At Nuka Hiva— Gilbert the Astronomer— The Grog Shanty— The
Astronomer's Audience— Ah Foo, the Chinaman— Other Worlds
than Ours— The Reformed Traders— The Death of Gilbert
ABOUT a month after the foregoing uicidents took
place, and while I was in the Marquesas Group, I
came across an old man who was one of those
characters which are often to be met with in the wUd, outer
spaces of the world. He lived not far from the shore-side, at
Nuka Hiva, and was an enthusiastic astronomer. His lone
homestead was by the lowest peak of some hUls, and so
situated that it was eminently suitable for the purposes for
which he required it, which were rest, reading and quiet,
and unobserved observation of the starry skies ; whereat
for hours, with hopeful eye fixed at the telescope, he would
gaze on cloudless nights.
Night after night, whUe the traders and natives slept, the
solitary old man would sleeplessly follow his hobby. The
wUd poetry of primeval nature surrounded his hut home ;
the swinging seas thundered or softly broke over the reefs
below, and clumps of pandanus-trees and coco-palms, like
seolian harps, caught the wandering winds and waUed
mournfully. They were and are wild places, and the
scattered isles were as oases on the vast Sahara of the Pacific
Ocean. Tao-o-hae was the nearest primitive capital, where
strange races mingled and traded. Inland lived the old
tribes, the survivors of cannibalistic days. Those old tat
tooed Marquesan chiefs sat by their conical dens, chewed
modern plug tobacco and smoked opium, and looked upon
the calaboose as the final resting-place for reflective age. In
the villages the natives grew copra and tropical fruits and
sold them to the French, who formed the greater part of the
white population. They wore the ridi, and stUl encouraged
old tribal customs, and the native women and girls, though
u 305

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
modest and virtuous, were often ruined, body and soul, by
the Chinamen who sold them opimn and did many other
things. Why old GUbert— for that was the name we knew the
astronomer by — ^had left his native land and lived thislonely
life was a mystery that no one bothered about ; one thing
was certain — ^he was no myth and was there. We all liked
him. Originally he must have been a tall man, but age had
bent his backbone and reduced his height by about two
inches. His unkempt grey beard gave him a patriarchal
aspect, and his deep-set clear grey eyes, fine, lofty brow
and kind expression revealed no hint of inward vice. The
native Marquesan servant "who tidied his one room once a
week was old and wrinkled, being over seventy years of age.
Photographs pinned on the wooden wall of his bedroom
imaged the refined faces of relatives, one of them a sad-faced
young girl.
" Solitary Gilbert " was respected by the white com
munity of the district, a community which chiefly consisted
of traders and cast-ashore sailors of various nations, and
represented the adventurous stock of England, Scotland,
and France, one or two Mongolian niggers, and a full-blooded
celestial who did their washing and spent the proceeds on
Marquesan ladies, who wore few clothes, worked on the
various plantations, chatted and chewed.
The traders used to congregate in the grog shanty, which
was run by a jovial libre from Numea, the convict settle
ment, tell their various experiences and argue over the
latest Marquesan politics or murders, and also express their
various views of the local missionaries, who had long since
given them up as hopeless atheists. Drinking beer tUl thek
teeth floated seemed to be the height of their ambition,
though a few hoped to realise by trading enough money to
go back to their native land. They were jovial men ; some
had sailed the seven seas, and some had hurriedly emigrated
direct to the South Seas, and only thought of their country
in troublous dreams ; but all of them positively refused to give
up their wild ways, listen to the missionaries and live a sweet
and beerless life. Only one man had a magnetic influence
306

OLD GILBERT
for good over them, and that man was the mysterious old
astronomer, Gilbert.
I came to know the lonely star-watcher well. Often
whUe I was sitting in the grog shanty, listening to the
traders arguing, he would walk in, and talk and lecture them ;
and they listened with profound respect. When excited by
the thrilling subject of his conversation — ^the stars — ^his aged
lips trembled and revealed the sensitive temperament of a
lofty imagination. Something in his manner and in his
eamest vioce made us all lift our eyes and attention to him.
Every night he would bring his telescope under his arm
and, perching it outside on a beer barrel, get the traders,
each in turn, to fix their eyes to the lens and gaze at the
heavens. We all liked the wise old man, and from him I
leamt all that I know of the stars and their travels through
space. Once the old fellow was laid up with a chUl and lay for two
or three days in bed. I did my best for him as he sat up in
his bunk, attired in a red nightshirt, looking Ul and solemn,
and passing the time by talking phUosophy. Schopenhauer
was his pet subject when he could not gaze at the stars. He
gave me his books, but though I made a great mental effort
I only succeeded, after reading the books, in discovering
that I Imew nothing, that life was nothing, that creation
was a tremendous black nothing wherein human eyes
continually opened and shaped aU that Is ! That stars
flashed out of the same human consciousness that imagined
pam, passion and aU the arts and emotions which beautify
the unagmed Universe. As I knew little at that time of
phUosophy, old Gilbert found me an appreciative and quiet
listener, who did not argue on any point ; indeed, I became
fond of him and so, through respect for his memory, I am
now attempting a short biographical note of his existence.
Music he loved, and I would play the violm to him ; old
and staid as he was, when I played softly and tenderly some
old melody his voice would join tremulously in and, though
pathetically toneless, outrivaUed a master voice by its
smcerity. Poetry he liked, and beyond his table and one
old chau- and bunk bed his furniture consisted of two long
307

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
shelves of classical books. Through him my mmd was
enlarged, tiU I realised that pianissuno, legato and staccato
cadenza and music's mysterious charm, vaguely expressed,
but did not fathom, the serious ideals of life ; were only as a
waUing, wandering wind of the mind, stirring the soul and
the flowers of memory, as they sighed through the emotions,
a breath on the deep waters of thought.
Yes, that solitary old astronomer friend of my youth,
though I did not realise it then, revealed to me that literature
and poetry were great and beautiful music fused in the white
heat of thought's spiritual flame, and for that alone his
memory is ever dear to me.
Notwithstanding his virtues, the missionaries looked upon
him as an old madman, and he in turn gazed upon them with
intense pity. The storekeeper hard by, who sold everything
from a needle to tinned meat, was a " deeply religious " man
and trusted everyone but Gilbert. I remember him well ;
he was determined to be just and right, spoke often about
God and divinity, with a voice that rang with the note of
justness and sounded like the clink of Govemment scale-
weights. He did well in his store shop, and I think he would
have weighed a gift of the widow's mite carefully before she
left his premises.
One night he was discovered dead, and Ah Foo, the.
Chinaman, suddenly left the district ; though the crack in
the storekeeper's head was put down to a fall, we had our
suspicions. The traders cursed the storekeeper's death,
because Ah Foo did their washing and they had now to fall
back on the native girls, who only wore ridis and grass and
could not resist the temptation of such finery, and so often
they wore our shirts and collars and under-pants for weeks
before retummg them, and if they secured admirers they
sometimes eloped into the forest with them, and our washing
was seen no more ! So though the islands were made a
paradise by coco-pahns, tropical fruit trees, sea-beaten reefs
and inland mountains, they had their drawbacks.
Gilbert used suddenly to appear in the grog shanty, quietly
sit on a tub, look round, critically scan the rough, imshaved
faces of the traders and then say : " Boys, beer may be weU,
308

READING THE HEAVENS
and doubtless has its advantages, but do you ever think of
the skies, the vastness of space, with its myriads of worlds,
endless sunsets and sunrises sparkling through infinite
gloom ? " At this they would wipe their mouths with the
back of their hands and gaze awestruck at one another,
each seeking to hear a reply from the other, for the word
" infinity " had something in it that outwitted their compre
hension. The oldest and biggest scoundrel of the lot would
look the most eamest and, after placing his quart pot on the
shanty bench, slowly wipe his bearded mouth and say :
" Professor, we do think of them 'ere marvellous things ;
nights and nights they worries us when we thinks of the
vast abscess " (abyss) " called Space." Then old Gilbert,
encouraged, would once more proceed and say : " Like unto
Thee, space hath no end ; and the stars, which are as the dust
of heaven, eternally roll out blue days and sunsets for endless
myriads of worlds that are sparkling through infinite space.
Yet, O men, are thy souls immersed in no more than the
fumes of beer ! " At this the trader would get argumentative
and say : " What's the end of space, and if yer go to the end
where would yer fall if yer fell over ? "
• ^' O man of beer," old Gilbert answered, delighted to
have got up a controversy over his pet hobby, " your
thoughts caimot out-travel the range of your intellect ; you
but surmise an end, because your inteUect hath an end ;
thou art finite and the heavens infinite," and after saying
this, which was Greek to them aU, he brought forth his tele
scope from under his coat. Each one outside under the
clear tropical skies would glue his curious eye to the end of
the tube and gaze at the orbs of space ; and so the professor
spent his tune and gradually induced in the rough traders a
genuine love of astronomy.
They aU got really to like him and listened eagerly to all
he said, and often they ceased their drinking bouts and
saved their money when their trading-ships came in from
the scattered isles of the North and South Pacific. Many
nights down the slopes they went like obedient chUdren,
foUowmg old Gilbert in single file, as they walked along
looking up at the stars, towards Gilbert's observatory.
309

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
They surrounded hun ; in a rmg, on the lonely hiU at mid
night, they listened to his lecture, gazed through his old
Herschelian telescope at the seaward stars and the moon,
and then looked into each other's eyes astonished, saying :
" Wonderful, mates, aU them 'ere worlds, like this 'ere, and
the professor's found 'em ! "
Gilbert would stand on the beach, proudly gazing upon his
sinful, rough pupUs, as the sea- winds stirred his grey beard,
and his deep-set eyes shone as they probed hun with ques
tions, not to please him, but from intellectual curiosity.
Afterwards he granted them all one final drink of rum !
When he died he was buried in the little railed-in plateau,
where also lay the dust of exiled white men and a few
Marquesan chiefs of the old times, who slept quietly in that
sUent cemetery by the mountains. When the traders stood
by old Gilbert's grave, and slowly lowered the coffin down,
tears were in the eyes of even the worst of them. He had
made them better men, and through his little telescope tube,
which pointed to the heavens, he had put into their hearts
thoughts on the grandeur of creation and reverence for
God's wonderful work.
So Gilbert lived, toiled and died, the sincerest and most
successful missionary of the far South Seas.

310

CHAPTER XXVI
A Deck-hand on Board the Eldorado — A Socialist — A Fo'c'sle
Fight — Buying an Island — Apemama — King Tembinok — The
Eldorado sails— Tembinok' s Palace — Seeking the Enemy — The
captured Chief — The Hurricane
IN Sydney long ago I shipped as deck-hand on board the
Eldorado, a schooner bound for Fiji and the GUbert
Groups. The first night out we squared the yards ; the
wind was aft and the canvas bellied out steadily as we dipped
along under the stars at a good eight knots.
On board, as saloon passenger, was a Mr MUburn, a
socialistic crank of the theorist school. He was aboard on
the outlook for an island which he could buy and which
would suit a socialistic colony, and he had got it into his head
that Apemama was a likely spot to start his scheme. The
skipper, a Yankee with long face and billygoat whiskers, was
naostly drunk, and would stand on the poop aft, telling
MUburn that the King of Apemama was an old pal of his
and he knew for a positive fact that he wanted to sell his
dominion. MUbum's blue eyes shone with delight as the
skipper listened to him and kept saying : " The very thing,
the very spot ! I guess you'U be glad yer shipped aboard
here when yer see the isles," and then he would smack
MUburn on the back, for they were having high jinks in the
cabin aft. MUburn had plenty of money and gave it freely
to the skipper, who could hardly conceal his satisfaction as
he opened bottle after bottle of whisky and gave us cigars.
We arrived in due course at Suva, Fiji. MUburn went
ashore and looked around and was delighted with all he saw.
The skipper kept close to him and said : "I guess if you like
this d  d place you'll go daft with joy when you see
Apemama." We only stayed two days at Fiji and then left
for the group of islands of which Apemama was one. With
fair winds we made a quick trip and soon dropped anchor off
311

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
the lagoon isle. Milbum, through a telescope, gazed
enthusiasticaUy across the lagoon and on to the atolls and
groves of distant wavmg coco-pahns ; the skipper stood
beside hun and, as Milbum gazed, smacked him on the back
and nudged him in the ribs, saying : " I guess that'U suit
you right enough, eh ? " He told Milbum to leave the
purchasing to him and the isle would soon be MUburn Isle,
the socialistic El Dorado of the South Seas.
I instinctively knew that the skipper was on some scheme,
and I had discovered that he was the biggest liar on earth
and sea, so when he said that he knew that MUburn could
purchase Apemama I had my own doubts ; but MUburn was
a bit soft, treated the skipper with drink and money in
advance and had positive faith in his promises.
Later Milbum and I sat on the cabin settee and had a
whisky each. We liked each other, for, to tell the truth, we
were the only respectable members of polite society on board,
for the crew was made up of two or three Americans or
negroes, three Polynesians, a half-blood, a lascar and a
Dutch American. I felt a bit out of sorts, for the night
before there had been a terrible row in the fo'c'sle while the
crew were sitting around their bench, shuffling and playing
cards by the oil fo'c'sle lamp.
I was standing smoking and watching, when suddenly I
was astonished to see them all jump off their feet and start
a regular tribalistic battle; one had been caught cheating
and they took sides. You never saw such a jumbled sight
of struggling figures as the shadows of knives danced on the
walls. A white man fell on top of a half-blood, who fastened
his yellowish teeth into his opponent's ear ; he wouldn't let
go, and the white pounded away at his face with his clenched
fists, as the half-blood tugged and chewed away at his ear.
As the American punched him he cried out : " Yer-rrrr-
rr-ip ! Yerrr-rr-ip ! " and the white man shouted : " You
d  d  ," and many more things, only to be
described in dashes. A Chinaman twho was shouting :
"Kee-Honk! Chow k-rrr— Chrry ! "' suddenly fell, as
an empty hundred-pound beef tub hit hun behind the ear.
He was buried overboard that same night'; and what with
312

KING TEMBINOK
one thing and another, as I said before, I was a bit out of
sorts and glad of a little whisky for medicinal purposes.
MUburn also was a bit shaky.- The skipper had shot the tip
of the half-blood's chin off and then the matter ended, and
all I got out of it was a lost tooth and the knowledge that
white men in a passion get purply red in the neck and foamy
at the mouth, and that the eyes of the savage races turn
yellowish and their brown lips whitish.
The skipper, who had gone on shore, retumed at sunset
with four canoes crammed with natives, and a solemn-
looking old chap with a large, flatfish nose, wide nostrUs and
a wrinkled face expressing chimpanzee astuteness. He was
introduced to Milbum, as his half-naked form clambered up
the rope gangway and he leapt on deck. To my surprise I
heard that he was King Tembinok.
With a retinue of dusky courtiers, dressed in cast-off
shirts, in Indian file behind him, he strutted along the deck,
gazed almost scornfully at the crew, who were specially
mustered to pay respect to royalty, and then looked us all
up and down as though we were a menagerie group on show.
Royally did he carry himself, demanding little attentions
from his retinue, who obeyed his every wish with alacrity.
He swung a huge war-club to and fro, as though his
whole being itched to find fault and brain the first native
who might, to his intense relief, mistake his hurried orders.
" You Misser MUbur, who want to buy island ? " he
said, gazing up at MUbum, who looked slightly embarrassed
as he bowed, whUe the skipper rubbed his hands together
and smiled with inward satisfaction. " Yes, your Majesty,
such is my wish, if your dominion is for sale." At this the
King bowed graciously and said : " Good isles, much land,
plenty houses and coco-pahns, but me seU to white man if
the money 'nough." " I have come specially from Australia
to buy an island, and your land is most suitable, and I have
the money to buy it," Milbum answered. King Tembmok
bowed once more, tUl the royal robe of tappu-cloth touched
the deck in front of his feet and revealed his bare legs behmd
him. His beady, inteUigent eyes roUed with delight, and
somewhat destroyed his majestic bearmg, as the skipper
313

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
bowed him and MUburn into the dining saloon. He turned
his head, spat in the tiny calabash that his orderly ever held
behind him, and disappeared.
I don't know the exact detaUs of what passed in the cabin,
but the King eventually came out on deck blind drunk, with
four bottles of whisky and rum, two bottles under each arm.
His retinue tied ropes round him, and his big dark lips
slobbered and grinned as they slowly lowered his royal
carcass down into the boat. The skipper leaned over the
side and shouted, telling them to clear off ashore.
It appeared that MUburn had bought the island and given
the King a large amount in cash as a deposit, and had also
given a hundred pounds to the skipper as commission and
for his kindness and help in the transaction.
The sun had set, and MUburn was a bit the worse for
whisky, and anxious to get ashore and see the island, which
Avas only natural. The skipper looked a bit uneasy and tried
to persuade him to go to bed and go ashore on the morrow,
but he was determined, and as the skipper went into his
cabin MUburn called the native occupants of a canoe that
was hovering by the ship's bows and bargained with them to
take him ashore. He begged me to go with him, and at last
I accepted the offer, for I also was eager to have a look round,
and in a tick I slid down the rope and off we went towards
the shore.
With a jerk the canoe touched the reef and we jumped
ashore. Before us lay groves of moonlit coco-palms,
pandanus and island pines ; behind us the silvered breakers
were charging and curling over the lines of coral reefs as we
tramped together up the shore. MUbum's mouth opened
with excitement and pleasure. " Dear, dear," he said, as
his eyes gleamed with delight about the bargain he had made.
Side by side we stood on the plateau and gazed on the
glimmering island landscape, looking at the natives and their
children moving about near their den-like homes. I, too,
felt some of MUbum's enthusiasm, for the isle seemed a very
paradise of peace and quiet. I almost envied the socialist
colonist, who, I thought, would soon live at Apemama, and
I made up my mind to stick to Mr MUburn, for I saw that he
314

IN THE ROYAL PALACE
would soon be the reigning monarch and my influential
friend. Not far off glimmered the whitish terraced stockade of the
King's palace. " Come on," said Milbum, "we wUl go and
see the King ; he's a good feUow and by now wUI be sober."
Saying this he led the way, and the natives, who had answered
our inquiries with awestmck eyes, foUowed us as we passed
by the pahns and kicked the sand up with our boots, our
monstrous shadows gliding across the stiU moonlit lagoon
as we went by. Little native children came with their dark
mothers from the native homes among the palm-trees and
looked at us with awestruck eyes.
As we strode on MUbum's walk became almost majestic,
as he thought of his kingship over that island, and I must
admit I felt a bit swaggery too over my prospects. It was
excusable, though, in me, for I had had many ups and downs,
and aU the bread I had cast on the waters had returned to
me after many days, buttered with phosphoms paste, so to
speak. Soon we Were asking the high chiefs if we could see
the King. At first they demurred, and held a council by the
stockade gate. MUbum tried to explain to them that the
island was now his. " You no savee," he said, as they
guarded the entrance and looked at him fiercely and
curiously. " No see King," they replied, but MUburn put a
silver coin into the hand ofthe head vassal, and then at once,
with much ceremony, we entered through the stockades of
coral rock and bamboo posts and went up by the palisade
that led to his Majesty's palace bungalows. Four high
chiefs accompanied us, with ponderous war-clubs that
enforced the laws of Apemama. At the end of the winding
pathway, shaded by palms, they all stopped and said :
" You want see King Tembinok ? " " Yes," said Milbum,
showing great irritation at the delay and absurd ceremony
that we had to go through to seek the King's presence ; for
had not the King a few hours before embraced him and
departed from the Eldorado's decks very drunk ? Again
we all moved on. Walking through a narrow archway we
entered the royal waiting chamber ; it was high-roofed for a
315

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
South Sea palace, and thick tappu-cloth curtams divided it
from the room wherem. Kmg Tembuiok sat. "He does
things in style," said MUburn, as we looked round and
hstened to four Apemama females who sat by the royal door
way, twanged strings fastened across gourds and sang songs
that told of love and the mighty deeds of Tembmok's
ancestors. " I wonder if he's sober," I muttered, thmking to
myself how different and austere all looked from what I had
anticipated. Suddenly the leading chief, who was in front
of us, said : " Tereoaka " (" white man "). Then we watched,
for he turned and said something to us that intimated that
the King was approaching. The thick tapestry curtain
suddenly divided ; my heart beat rapidly. King Tembinok
stood before us ! At first MUburn instinctively looked over
and beyond the King's shoulder, for we had not yet realised
that he was the King ; then in a moment I saw it all ; the
old liar of a skipper had brought a dummy king on to the
ship and Milbum had been done ! MUburn seemed dazed,
then once more loudly demanded to see the King ! Tembinok
stared fiercely at him. I gave MUburn a nudge, but he
seemed to lose his head and shouted once again : " Where
the hell's the King ? " The King, thinking he was mad, in a
loud voice shouted a command in his own language ; at once
all the chiefs raised their clubs and the royal serenading of
the palace harem suddenly ceased ! I lifted my hands and
made rapid signs, and in my fright pointed to my own head,
to intimate that Milbum was insane. I thought it the only
thing to do, for his sake and mine also. Tembinok seemed
to understand me, but he stood before us wrinkling and
frowning fiercely at Milburn's manner. He had been dis
turbed from his sleep. His tall form was robed in a dis
carded man-o'-war's uniform and his corpulence bulged it
considerably. His sleepy eyes still looked fierce as he gazed
upon us, and then MUburn shouted : " I've bought this
island ! Where's the late King ? " Tembinok could under
stand a little English, and on hearing this stared speechless
with amazement, then lifted his hand as though to give
MUburn a clout. Milbum was a fool, but no coward, and I
really believe he would have gone for Tembinok if I had not
316

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
hurriedly grasped him and shouted : " You blind ass, the
skipper's done you. This is King Tembinok." Not till I
said that did MUbum see the whole situation, and then, to
my great relief, he breathed out : ' ' WeU, I'm d  d. ' ' Then,
by gesticulations and pidgui-English, we told Tembmok aU,
at which he became most courteous and invited us to come
ashore on the morrow and look round the palace.
Milbum was almost mad with rage and itching to get back
to the ship to have a reckoning with the Yankee skipper. I
saw that he was, after aU, not the kind of man to be done,
and that he believed in getting his money's worth and being
boss in his own Ime, notwithstanding his theories on social
ism. We both grasped Tembinok's hand and accepted his
kind invitation to call at the palace the next day ; and then
the high chiefs, wondering at the whole business, rolled
their banana-leaf cigarettes between their fingers, bowed and
led us out of the royal presence and through the gates of the
palace stockades.
We hurried down to the shore ; all was silent except a few
natives singing as they took a moonlight bathe in the waves.
We looked across the lagoon and both stared ; the ship was
gone ! Seaward, like a bird with many wings, fast disappear
ing under the brUliant moon, we saw afar the Eldorado taking
advantage of the breeze ; for the skipper was crowding on all
sail. He had flown !
I wUl not tell you what MUbum and I said. Heaven will
forgive us ; it was unprintable. All our belongings were on
board too ! We were both stranded, and the skipper had
made the most profitable voyage of his life. We told the
natives to keep a lookout for the next trading-boat and, side
by side, without saymg a word, but deep in thought, we went
back to the palace.
Tembinok had been thinking the matter over in our
absence and was in a great rage at being impersonated. He
was a wonderful-looking old fellow, with bright eyes, a keen
yet half-humorous expression and slightly full lips. He
carried himself as though he was the one and only king on
earth. He at once invited us to stop till a boat came and
gave us a chance to go away. It was well for the skipper
317

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
that he had gone, for I really believe the ship would have
been bombarded that same night by the native King's
battalions, so great was the royal rage. We gave Tembinok
a description of the sham kmg, and then some natives, who
had come aboard, accepted a bribe and told all ; he was a
Marquesan chief who then lived on the neighbouruig Isle
Kuria and was a deadly enemy of Tembinok. A war councU
was held and things began to look much brighter than I ex
pected for MUburn, who promised to give me a hundred pounds
if I stuck to him and helped him get some of his deposit
back, and also a bit of his own back off that fraudulent king.
That night we stopped at the palace. Poor old MUbum
looked pale and almost cried when he thought of how he had
been done, and I could see that he had set his heart on
getting the island. Tembinok tumed out a good sort ; the
fierce expression of his countenance had changed to one of
majestic benevolence, as he gazed upon us and "we humbly
sat on mats before him. " You buy island ? " he said, and
then with a most conspicuous attempt at concealing his
cynical amusement solemnly gave orders to his head wives,
who sang to him and fanned off the droves of mosquitoes
that attacked his eyes and face.
The palace contained many rooms, through which crept
barefooted native girls busily attending to the numerous re
quirements of the head queen. She was a fat, oUy -looking
woman, of about forty years of age, who put on terrible side
and blinked her eyes as we surveyed her respectfully. Two
eunuchs kept blowing cooling breath on to her perspiring
body, for the little wind that blew was extremely hot.
We slept nearly all next day and then went to see the
neighbouring villages ; the natives had comfortable wooden
homes {maniaps) built on posts, open at the sides to let the
wind in. We soon tired, and agam retumed that night to the
palace and were then allowed, for the first tune, to go over
the various rooms. I was astonished at all we saw, for it
was fumished well with native and European furniture. It
seemed hard to believe that the memory of the King could go
back to cannibalism and strangulating festivals ; mdeed,
such things were still practised in moderation. On the walls
318

SOUTH SEA MORALS
hung clubs, muzzle-loading rifles and many murderous
weapons of savage warfare and law.
A pretty maid blew weird music through a bone flute,
serenading the queen, who moved her fat lips in lisping
murmurs of melody, while six squatting maidens waved
their long arms and sang. On the wooden walls the shadows
of the pandanus and palms waved in the brilliant moonlight
that lit the palace glooms.
No king in the South Seas lived in such royal state as
Tembinok ; he reigned supreme in his terraced seraglio and
lived a life of luxury and command, a life that to Western
minds would seem one of selflsh debauchery and fiery lust,
but by the code of South Sea morals was one of extreme
virtue and moderation amounting to self-sacrifice.
MUbum gasped with horror as a Samoan attendant told
us of Tembinok and his ancestors. With their own hands
they had strangled wives and concubines who had given
elsewhere that which was destined for the royal favour only.
In some of the bed-chambers still lay the bones of the victims
who had been sharers in the offence, for they were buried
under the floor matting. They were generally chiefs who
had met their end, through some slight suspicion, from the
club of Tembinok or his ancestors who reigned before him.
They would creep by night into the supposed culprit's
sleeping-room and crash his skull in whUe he slept. Often
down those very corridors, where MUbum and I sat listening,
crept, in the dead of night, files of harem wives, stealthily
moving towards the woman who it was suspected had given
herself up to other than the king. With exultation alight
in their eyes they would do Tembinok's bidding, for jealousy
of each other was their one pronounced virtue, and seldom
was more than one stifled scream heard, as they clutched the
sleeping victim on her bed mat, all their hands struggling in
rivalship together to strangle the sleeping concubine who
had betrayed their master. As the Samoan from Apia, who
was employed at the palace, told us all this, Milbum and
I felt a bit uncomfortable about our own presence, and I
looked carefully at the revolver which I always carried with
me. Then I had several drinks from Milburn's flask, and
319

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
that and the'thought^of the hundred pounds he had promised
me stifled my qualms ; we went off to our allotted apart
ments, slept close together and, to our great satisfaction,
survived the night.
Fortunately I had several plugs of ship's tobacco and so
secured the friendship of chiefs of high ancestral standing.
I held the plugs tightly in my hand and they each in turn bit
off the aUowance I allotted them. They seemed very proud
men and kept saying, " Me great chief," and giving detaUs
of their ancestry, for having no Peerage or Who's Who
they were obliged to remind people, to keep the old names
going. It was a beautiful isle, and next moming I felt glad to be
with MUburn there and felt extremely happy ; birds sang
up in the pandanus-trees, sunlight danced on coral-floored
waters, the very fish seemed happy as they leapt in the still
lagoons. MUburn said he would like to stay there all his
life, and for a while he forgot his sorrows ; and well he might,
for I knew that if he persevered in trying to get his money
back he would have plenty of trouble in store for him.
" When I get my deposit back I'll stop and go cruising
these seas," he said, and I agreed to go with him.
On the slopes by Tembinok's palace romped the native
children, while the Apemama maids sewed dress material
into new designs, for the fashion changed and the ridis would
be increased by one inch, or reduced, or an extra tassel added.
The chief characteristic of Apemama ladies was not modesty,
but the bareness of their curved figures served as steel armour
to protect their loose virtue ; for the rumours of punishments
that had been dealt out for amorous crimes made white men
and brown men alike regard the maiden bareness with horror.
That day Tembinok and his war council decided to go with
a fleet of canoes to Kuria and seek the chief who had aided our
skipper in his cruel duplicity. Milbum heard this decision
with delight, but, to tell the truth, I must confess that my joy
was considerably damped when the council added that we
also should go with them to seek and attack the enemy. We
did not like to appear afraid, so we asked for a little time to
decide, and finally told the high chief to teU Tembinok that
320

WE JOIN TEMBINOK'S ARMY
we would follow the fleet of canoes in a boat some distance
behind !
During the day the sun shone down on the isle in dazzling
tropic flame ; the whole town lazily lolled and snoozed in
the shades of the palms or by the piazzas of their homes, by
groves of bananas and pandanus. In the afternoon, to kill
time, we went for a row in a native boat across the lagoon
and up and down the creeks and shallows of the atolls. The
water was as clear as crystal, and we could look over the boat's
side and see numerous brightly coloured fish darting and
hovering among the scintillating seaweeds that waved gently
over floors of sparkling corals ; and as we watched it seemed
that we looked through a vast magnifying-glass at forests
or worlds far away, as branches shone with rich crimson,
green, indigo or blue deep down in those depths that shone
like some magic world blazed up by rainbows.
To our delight and relief, for we were both deep in thought
over the coming battle, before sunset the sails of a schooner
came through the sky-line, and before the stars hung in the
darkening blue over the sea she was ploughing toward us,
within five mUes of the immense island lagoon.
It had been arranged that the High Chief Taku and fifty
warriors should put off at dusk to seek the enemy. It all
seemed like a dream to me ; I had to shake myself to realise
the position, for it seemed more like some tale from fiction
than reality. But it was real enough, for there stood MUburn
in the flesh before me, talking to the natives. I found that
their great incentive to help us was Milbum offering to buy
cargo for them all as soon as the next trading ship caUed
at Apemama. The cargoes consisted chiefly of trifles, or
naments, old tickless clocks, muzzle-loaders, tobacco and
artificial jewellery ; the latter adorned the bodies of the
whole tribe and was the chief dress of marriageable maids.
" What's the good of this game, Mr Milbum ? " I said, as
darkness fell and I saw the natives filling their canoes with
ammunition — war-clubs, and old-fashioned muzzle-loading
rifles. " Are you determuied to go ? " " Most decidedly,"
he rephed, " and after I have settled with this case I'U
settle with your skipper." " Right you are," I answered.
X 321

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
At dusk the canoes shoved off the silver sands and put to
sea. MUburn and I, armed to the teeth, in an old ship's
boat, bravely crept behind. It was a clear, starlit night ;
so bright were the stars that they looked like flowers of
flame in the deep, dark blue vault ; our shadows glided
through the waters that mirrored the heavens as we paddled
by. As we passed the schooner, that had anchored at sun
set, out came a boat to meet us, and then I saw that MUburn
was a careful man and also why he was so brave. He had
been aboard and told the skipper all, and arranged for them
to watch for us and come and convoy our boat across to
Kuria. I dare say they all got a good tip from him.
When at length we arrived the natives crept by a lagoon ;
MUburn and I sat in the boat silent with excitement, as we
smoked, kept a sharp outlook and waited results. Taku
knew where the enemy lived. The whole horde crept to his
hut and discovered him fast asleep, blind drunk ; he had just
finished up the remaining rum that MUburn had given him
on the ship.
As we watched from the boat we saw our army on the
shore, struggling along, bearing a burden with them. It
was the fictitious king bound and lashed hands and feet.
MUburn surveyed him, at first with rage and then with
curiosity, and I felt rather sorry for him : he looked so differ
ent to what he did when he had scomfuUy gazed at us on the
decks of the Eldorado. He rolled his eyes, slowly realised
his position and hung his head, looking extremely pathetic
as he blinked his eyes like a whipped dog and looked at us
appealingly for mercy. MUburn and I went to his hut, dis
covered nearly all the cash and came back quickly to the
boat. " You kUlee me ? " he said, and looked steadUy at us.
" I say, Milbum," I said, " if you take hun back to Apemama
Tembinok will club him, and you must remember he's only
a native, and after all the skipper's to blame." " I know
that," said MUburn ; and then I added : "To tell you the
truth, I rather admire this old chief, when I think of the clever
way he simulated kingship and took us all in." MUburn
relented ; indeed I think he would have done so without my
saying anything. " Unbind hun," he said. For a while the
322

THE STORM
astonished natives stared, and then they unbound him, and
MUburn said : " You can go." For a moment the chief
looked as though he did not understand, then gave us both
a glance of real gratitude and walked off majestically, but
rather fast, in case we changed our minds.
The natives got their cargo from the schooner in the bay
and I received my hundred pounds. Tembinok saw us off ;
we booked as passengers on the Bella, for that was the name
of the schooner that came in the nick of time to relieve
our minds for the night attack. We eventually arrived at
Honolulu. Twelve months after I met MUburn again in Sydney and
he turned out a good friend to me. He never saw the skipper
of the Eldorado again, for the man left his ship and went off
to South America, I think.
I heard of MUburn a little later on as going off to Paraguay
on the s.s. B  , which was especially fitted out for taking
a modem Mayflower crew to start a socialistic republic, soon
started and soon ended, for the colony tumed out as
miserable a failure as when Milbum bought Apemama.
Milbum was not my friend's real name ; it seems wiser
not to give that here, in this account of our experiences
together in the South Seas. One name he deserved, that
of a brave comrade and a gentleman.
After my adventures with Milbum I left Honolulu in a
large schooner which was bound for Suva. We had only
been out three days when a hurricane struck us. A Cape
Hom slasher was nothing compared to the weather we
experienced. I was standing on deck smoking with several
of the crew ; some of them were natives. A soft breeze
came up and increased till the elements moaned with a
steady hum, as the saUs bellied out like drums and the foamy
manes of white horses tossed away in the sunset ; then with
a thundering moan the hurricane's breath struck us. The
skipper yelled to us. " Aye, aye, sir," we shouted back, for
a half-blood and I were aloft taking sail in ; suddenly the
boat lay over and the rigging to leeward nearly touched
the wave-crests.
Darkness slid over the ocean sky, tremendous seas came
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A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
up, and the schooner backed and shivered lUce a frightened
mammoth thmg as the mountains of water jumped down
on her deck. I fell forward on my face beneath the liquid
mass and gripped the deck with my fingers and teeth !
Crash ! Crash ! the boats were carried away. I heard my
chum gasping and spitting sea-water beside me. The sea
cleared and the wind shot up my legs — ^r-r-r — ^r-r-i-p — ^r-r —
r-r-r-i-p ! and my trousers split and nearly blew away. We
scrambled to our feet and clung to the ropes. " Hold on,
lads," shouted the skipper, and we did hold on too ! Scud
was flying across the sky and the moon travelling like a
yellow racing baUoon as the wrack of mist flew under it.
The phosphorescent blaze that lit the tossing foam of the
travelling mountains of water around us made it all look like
a ghostly scene of chaos ere creation ; the winds cut the
hissing wave-tops off as though invisible giant swords
flashed across the ghostly ocean darkness. Then another
sea came over, crash ! right over the gaUey. The cook was
washed through the door, still clutching the pots that he had
been trying to keep on the galley stove. His rapid exit
knocked us over as he was washed by, and we all clutched
each other and bravely held on, each to the other, to save
our own lives. The man at the wheel Avas washed from the
poop and joined us ; the skipper took his place. No one
was lost ; some miracle saved the boat and all of us ; the
wind howled and rushed away as quickly as it arrived.
The skipper was a good sort ; he had sailed in the black-
birding days with cargoes of natives to the Isles of Mystery.
Now he gave us rum, and we were the happiest crew on the
high seas in our new lease of life, for that is how we all felt.
Only experience could paint to you the wUdness of a South
Sea hurricane, and what we sailors felt as we slid along the
vessel's deck holding on to each other's legs and hair to
prevent ourselves being clutched and torn away into the
infinite waters.
We put into Palmyra Isle and made things ship-shape,
and then left for Apia and Fiji, where I left the boat and
took a steamer for New South Wales.

324

CHAPTER XXVII
My England— Its Chief Stronghold — The Island Race — Barbaric
Customs — Their Code of Morals — A Tribalistic Clash— An
English Spring
THIS chapter is written for the benefit of those natives
who may come across my book in the South Sea
Islands and elsewhere. Of course I know England
well, because I am an Englishman. I escaped from my
birthplace at an early age, shipped before the mast of a
sailing-ship and roamed the world. England is always the
dear old Homeland to me, and so it might interest my
readers if I include reminiscences of my own country in
this book.
My England is an island surrounded by open sea and
Channel. The climate is variable ; Atlantic winds blow
over it and copious rains drench the population at frequent
intervals. The "survival of the fittest" theory is finely
illustrated by the athletic appearance of the native stock ;
the climate kills all weaklings at birth.
London is the chief stronghold ; battalions of pale-faced
native warriors tramp the tracks that divide the mighty
forests of gloomy walls. They are a brave tribe, and ever on
the warpath as they glide along, passing under historic
arches and over the bridges that rib their old river, which is
caUed the Thames. At night, when the stars are out and
the moon is high in the sky, you can stand on those bridges
and see the monuments that have been erected to com
memorate old tribal heroes. The spires of the vast city for
mUes and mUes point to the heavens, under the pale, glitter
ing stars, like outstretched fingers on the vast hands of Pride.
The island race is a happy one, and hope springs eternal
in the native breast. If no sun shines this summer, still they
hope on till the next summer.
The common papalangi or serf class are warrior-like and
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A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
cheerful folk, and not unlike the South Sea Island races in
their habits. On tribal holidays they go off to various
resorts, drink toddy and do war dances ; many appear next
morning before the high chiefs, who hear with solemn
countenance of their misdeeds as they lean on the official
war-club and fine them five doUars.
The aristocrats are similar to Fijian and Solomon Islanders
of royal blood, for they are cannibalistic ; they do not eat
human flesh, but they live on the blue blood that runs in
their veins and on the vigour of the flesh of the common
natives. Their ancestry is similar to that of the South Sea
Islanders — through some mighty deed, that when tested by
the code of morals appears dubious, their line is famous for
ever. They have a Peerage and Who's Who, which are genea
logical and tell of the first high chief in the family, what he did
and what they do now. Their chief aim is to forget all else
and produce sons, so as to keep the tribal name going. The
camp fires have disappeared and the tribal den is now a
mighty residence made of stone ; on the walls hang ancestral
weapons. These grandees sit beneath them, eat and drink
well and no longer dye their bodies with woad.
They have a dreadful inquisition called respectability ;
once in its clutches the common natives lose their intel
lectual equilibrium, become hollow-throated and cough with
a windy souUessness.
Old tribal customs are fast disappearing, and the high
chiefs losing their power and influence over the natives, who
are becoming well educated and will soon own the country.
Human nature wiU stUl be the same, so there wUl be sixty
or seventy million kings, as many kings as the population
amounts to, and only God knows what will happen then.
The native women are white and have beautiful blue eyes,
like the blue of your skies. They wear ridis that reach to
their ankles. Their morals are exceUent, but, like their
sisters in the far South Seas, some of them stUl retain the
old instincts and faU before the temptation of the white
man, and the fallen maid takes all the blame.
If one stops a chief or his wife on the forest track and
says, " Aloha ! Mitai Chipi," and grasps then- hand in tme
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FOR SOUTH SEA NATIVES ONLY !
friendship, one is liable to be taken before the high chief
and fined five hundred dollars.
The forest idols are gone, but the natives still kneel in
amphitheatres, before stone images, where they hold festi
vals, and their old high priest accepts confessional bribes and
then forgives them their sins — ^which are many.
The old-time convivial spirit has passed away ; you
cannot jump in the island lagoons unless fully dressed.
Many of the old barbaric customs are still in vogue, but are
practised in secret. They have wild festivals, still play
tom-toms, big drums and reeds, and whirl round and round
in the old tribalistic Siva dance, clinging to each other's
bodies and gazing lasciviously into each other's blue eyes.
Their fantoes,^ instead of being carried on their mothers'
backs in the old primitive basket, are wheeled along in
vehicles to an advanced age ; and dominate the native villages
and the lives of the chiefs. There is no camping out now ;
free dens have disappeared. For camping in the forest as of
old, one is liable to get fastened up between stone walls for
six months. One cannot pick coco-nuts, yams and bread
fruit if one is hungry.
There is an organization for starving natives, presided over
by high chiefs with cheerless, glassy eyes. The elder natives
have to apologise for being old when they go there ; but most
of them when they are hungry mn for their lives, and starve
to death sooner than approach the organization's cave
kindness. The poor-class natives drink a mysterious con
coction made from a herb called the hop, and the high chiefs
drink stuff called kava, or whisky. When those high chiefs
are sober, they become solemn ; and hold councils for putting
down the drinking of hop-toddy. AU the native girls aspire
to marry chiefs. The code of morals is so peculiar that
thousands of them die childless and mateless.
They are withal a brave, warrior-like race ; and at present
are engaged in one of their old tribalistic clashes with another
tribe, of a group that lies not far from their own isle ; a blood
thirsty race that are at heart stiU cannibalistic. The king
of this other tribe is somewhat lUte old Thakambau, the late
1 Children. 327

A VAGABOND'S ODYSSEY
Fijian Emperor of the Cannibal Isles ; he pretends to have
embraced Christianity, but his real god is the high chief
Kmpp. I feel sorry for him, for the islanders are sure to get
hold of him and he will wish he had embraced their creed.
Several other warrior tribes are crashing away with the island
natives ; they charge well and sing fine old war-songs. It is
much safer at present to live in the Solomon Isles.
The island country is very beautiful. In the springtime
the landscapes and valleys are dotted with yellow things
called primroses ; other wUd flowers grow on the hedgerow
banks. Little birds sing in old trees to the sunsets ; the
grass grows, and grows high ere they cut it down. The
woods smell of peat ; the native homesteads in the villages
burn wood, and you can smell its delightful odour along
the lanes as you tramp by. It is a beautiful country ; but
violin-playing, music and poetry are not appreciated by
the natives as they are appreaiated in the South Seas.
But stUl I love the memory of the hedgerows, wild flowers
and far-off hills, and the remains of the old forests wherein
long ago their ancestors camped ; by old hills where the
young lambs bleat in the springtime and wild birds sing
in leafy woods and hollows. I hope in the end I shall
be buried somewhere near where the wind and the wild
blackbird sing; and not very far from the shores of the
sea, where their ships go down Channel with sailors
outbound for distant lands.

Printed in great Britain by the riverside press limited, Edinburgh

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