o le langi’s influence—heathen magic—poetic aspirations—ramao and essimao-samoan types—robert louis stevenson and the “beautiful white woman”—o le langi becomes a part of the forest—“here lies o le langi”—a great truth.
here, by a tiny pagan hut,
a kid, star-eyed and brown,
chews off the milky coco-nut
that grew just up the town!
as i, my back turned t’wards the sun,
stare out across the seas
wherefrom strange melodies come in and run
across the island’s trees.
ah, sublime poet o le langi! it was your elemental poetic genius, more than the inspirations of the poets of my own land, that first turned my thoughts to the magic of the seas, skies, travelling stars, and the strange look in men’s eyes. ’twas you who made me hear the ineffable sounds of music, the visionary sights and the wonders of night and moonlight in the forest. yours was the mercy that lent me the ear to hear the pleading voice of the unfledged song in the red-splashed bird’s egg, till i carefully climbed back and laid it once more in the mossy nest high in the banyans. it was you who inspired me to stand on the palm-clad slopes, by the sapphire-hued pacific waters, and see the glorious mist of god’s breath pervade the circumambient life of this mirror of a universe that shadows forth his infinite dreams. ’twas you who led me into the magic parlour of infinite splendour where birds, goddesses, and gods 215sang and lifted their goblets of nectar, toasting in song their joy and thanksgiving to the laughing, flying hours—hours that peeped through the magic door of the sunrise. i too stood by that wondrous shanty door, where the palms sang, and stretched my shadow-arm to the skyline, while with goblet in hand i dipped and filled it to the brim with the sparkling foam from the golden sunsets of the wine-dark seas! yes, langi, i also drank the intoxicating ecstasy of those foaming hours of crimson and golden light. yet, langi, i, sceptic that i was, once doubted you when you stood by the moonlit waterfalls of the forest and swore that you saw the silvery flowing beards and big jagged knees of the gods. in the blindness of my worldly vision i swore that it was nothing more than the foaming moonlit waters falling down the fern-clad crags of the mountain’s side: no knees, no gigantic rugged faces of gods at all! i even doubted that the dark, old-man-frog’s hind-legs, as he swam deep in the still depths of the star-mirroring water of the lagoon, touched with his webbed feet and scattered the constellation of stars that were the proud eyes of your mighty ancestors who ever watched over you from the skies out to the north-west. ah, how blind i was! but i became a true pagan after that. it was i who taught you to sing the songs of cathay and the melodies of medi?val romance of long ago. who will believe that we heard the winds tolling the bells of time, faintly, far away in some infinite belfry of the stars, as the violin wailed and your aged, cracked voice chanted? yes, long ago, when strange, blue-eyed danes and homeric sailormen from the semi-fabled seas threw silver coins into our old collecting-calabash! i thank you and heaven, o le langi, that once i was rich beyond the dreams of avarice. notwithstanding the beauty and truth of the christian apostles, it was you, old heathen, 216who invested me with a glamour, threw over the shoulders of this dilapidated catastrophe me, a magical cloak, the texture whereof i am unable to explain. that old cloak of many colours and glorious illusions has long since been torn to a thousand shreds. but out of each old heap, the débris of shattered illusions, have blossomed, from the seeds of old enchantments, other flowers. beautiful too are the flowers of disenchantment! but away with such rhapsodizing, for i must return as gracefully as possible to my immediate memoirs.
about this time i had a recurrence of yellow jaundice. my liver was a healthy one; but on my first visit to samoa, a year before, i had foolishly eaten of some red-berry fruit that turned out to be most poisonous. i had, in consequence, suffered a serious illness. indeed, i had turned a yellowish-green, and finally had taken a voyage to honolulu to seek special medical advice. whilst in honolulu my visage became so distressingly yellow and my aspect so melancholy that the chief undertaker, rami sarhab, gave me fifteen dollars a week to act as chief mute and mourner at the royal burial ceremonies. but even in this capacity my services failed lugubriously; for i felt such pain in the abdomen, was so intensely sad, that the envy expressed in my eyes and on my bilious-green physiognomy for the deep, painless slumber of the defunct was conspicuous to all eyes, as i walked ahead of the hearse, endeavouring my best to mourn over the dreamless sleep of the departed. thank heaven, my second attack of jaundice left me in a few days. a local native physician, rimoloo, recommended me to drink deeply of the water from boiled yams and breadfruits flavoured with holland gin; and my delight on changing colour at the fourth gallon can be better imagined than described to those who have drunk of the aforesaid mixture.
217while enjoying the congenial companionship of o le langi i deserted my study of instrumental music and harmony and turned my thoughts to poetry. a trader at matautu, savaii isle, had presented me with a volume of a. l. gordon’s poems and whitman’s leaves of grass. the perusal of these volumes amidst romantic surroundings intensified the ardent love i have ever felt for nature in all her wildest moods. indeed, i have often stood before an aged, dying forest-tree and felt some affectionate kinship with its sensate sorrow over its approaching dissolution. strange as it may seem to some, i must confess that old wooden ships, deserted huts, stuffed birds, and the like have appealed to me far more than the tender melodies of beautiful songs and the thrills of romantic books. even the thick mahogany wood of my arm-chair calls up vistas of some mammoth tree of the southern forest. what song-birds settled on its boughs to stay and sing awhile on their flight! and what wild men, women, and weary children on the strange, long tribal march camped beneath their shelter—the shelter of boughs that now encircle my recumbent, dreaming form in this inn’s carven arm-chair!
i remember that, after reading whitman’s poems, i began to write words to the many melodies that i was continually composing. i was surprised at the ease with which poetical ideas seemed to come to me. my brain teemed with suitable poetic similes. but my workmanship was execrable. many of my lyrics were inspired by home-sickness. i recall that i wrote about thirty songs. probably three of them were good. i know that i set a high value on those sentimental lyrics and that i placed them in my tin box with my prized volume of e. prout’s harmony and counterpoint, so that they might be safe until that day when i could submit them to a publisher. but no publisher’s musical editor ever 218had them inflicted upon him. my ship, a year later, was wrecked off the solomon isles; and i stood under the shore palms, with all my beloved inspirations at the bottom of the ocean, and passed in review, so i grimly imagined, by the tuneful mermaids of the coral seas. many of the stranded sailors’ effects were washed ashore the next day, but were immediately snatched up by the thieving natives, who bolted off with them into the mountain villages. perhaps those wild tattooed men got hold of my sacred tin box. and if any talented cannibal sings my old songs, and is well up in the mysteries of harmony and counterpoint, he has undoubtedly made greater headway in that difficult art than i had in those days. but still, it is something that i should be able to claim to be the first who introduced e. prout’s volume of harmony and counterpoint into the cannibal solomon isles.
i remember that o le langi asked me to translate the words of many of his legendary poems into my own language. my heathen poet’s face lit up with pride when i sang some of his songs in my own tongue, and with equal pride made a forcible accent on the rhymes so that he could hear how the lines went. o le langi at once enticed me to go with him round the coast to mootua, so that i might let his rival scribes hear how nice his poems sounded when translated into the great papalagi’s language. he was so delighted with the obvious jealousy that was expressed on the wrinkled faces of his rivals that he struck his chest thrice and flung one hand behind his back. i discovered that this act of langi’s was a direct challenge to them to compose the words of a song as well as he. one of the older scribes, at once accepting the challenge, stepped forward and, swelling the magnificent hieroglyphic tattoo of his chest, chanted an impromptu legend. though i could not understand all the words of this legendary improvization, 219i remember that the melody was so effective that i extemporized with ease an accompaniment on my violin. this brought forth a volley of applause from the whole tribe, who had rushed from their huts to listen to the wonderful magic wood-scraping of the white tusitala (maker of songs). for a while i quite expected there would be a fight between the rivals. but things smoothed down. i was finally awarded a calabash of kava, which i courteously placed to my lips, and then, whilst the chiefs were talking, poured the contents into the fern grass at my feet. at this moment the high chief’s daughter, a sea-blue-eyed maid with a veritable forest of bronze-hued hair, fell on one knee before me and started to sing a weird melody. for a moment i was considerably embarrassed. i soon, however, recovered my wits, and then i took her hand and bade her rise. my imagination clothed me with a majesty which i had gathered from my old novels. and i distinctly recall the admiration in the eyes of the onlookers as i slightly lifted my helmet hat and then bowed as though i were some mighty king paying court to a princess of a neighbouring dynasty. she handed me a beautifully carved tortoise-shell comb from her hair, and the glance that accompanied the gift cannot be divulged in mere words. i responded by diving my hand into my breast pocket, and then handed her a really valuable silver match-box. she blushed deeply, for the munificence of my return gift was obvious. that same night o le langi and myself were the chief guests at the festival board of the fale fapule (chief house). and as i sat at the head of the long low table and the steam rose from the mighty dishes of roast pig and many indigenous fruit dishes, essao’s eyes, for that was her name, gave me swift, bright glances that told all that a romantic samoan maid’s eyes can tell when her heart warms to 220a stranger. but, notwithstanding my ardent nature and the lure of her bright eyes, i was saved from early matrimony, for when the head chief caught me bowing gallant acknowledgments to his daughter’s eyes, his brow wrinkled up into a tortuous map of disapproval.
nevertheless, when o le langi and i left the village that night, essao gave me her tenderest secret glance and managed to present me with a flower from her hair. though i did not see her again, i wrote many verses about her beauty.
i think that it was about this period that i wrote several of the poems that were later on published in my little booklet of australian and south sea lyrics. this little booklet of verse, to my surprise and pleasure, was highly praised in the literary journals in england, and also brought me letters of encouragement from such men as henry newbolt, william michael rossetti, and robert bridges.
but to proceed with those adventurous happy days when the light of the great poet o le langi’s eyes shone upon me. whilst stopping with langi i was down with severe fever. i was staying at the time in a native homestead quite near to the aged scribe’s residence. langi was very kind to me, and secured the services of a native woman to attend to my wants. this samoan lady had a child who was about four years old. he was an intelligent little fellow and had ocean-blue eyes and curly hair. when i sat up on my bed-mat, tinkling melodies on my violin, ramao, for that was his name, would somersault with delight; then once again peep inside the f holes of my instrument to see where the music came from. every day he would run off into the forest to pluck flowers for me, and would make my bed with soft moss, attending to my wants with the unremitting solicitude of a lovable, innocent child. heaven knows 221where he learnt the weird songs that he sang to me as he sat by my bedside, swaying to and fro like some elfin-child. lying there stricken with fever, i would stare into his beautiful, original eyes till the whole world seemed to be singing in its happy childhood. i realized that the age of four was the golden age of mortal existence, the age that understands the grandest philosophy of life, the age when all the infinite possibilities are as near consummation as they can well be in this world. much that had puzzled my wretched civilized brain as i listened to o le langi’s long discourses became clear to me. langi was not such a fool after all; it was i who was the heathen! the iron laws of my country had sent me to school so that my god-given wisdom should be strangled by dogmatic heathenish teachers. i recalled how the great and splendidly religious langi had crashed his club down on his threshold, and in magnificent declamatory style had said:
“pah! foolish white-skinned man, he come here with his mouldy skull full of worms so that he may teach us also to grow old, scraggy, and full of wretched wisdom. he hears not the voices of the gods murmuring in the children’s babblings.” then that aged scribe had laid his wrinkled hand on my head, and in sonorous, melancholy tones had said: “o papalagi, i say, your people looker beyond the mountains at the stars for the wisdom of the great waters when ’tis only to be heard in the sweet-toned shells that are scattered on the sunny shores of childhood.”
so spake langi. and i, who knew that we are born in fullest possession of the divine faculties only that we may grow old and sad, had at once become a true disciple of that glorious old heathen. indeed, i almost succeeded in realizing that the peoples of the civilized world were my humble attendants, and that o le langi, crammed 222with mythology and strange tales about sad old crabs, was a heathen solomon arrayed in the splendour of the stars. langi could stand on the mountain peaks of supreme “ignorance,” whisper into the ear of the universe, and, listening, hear those truths that only murmur in some great speech of silence to the soul.
i know that the light of little ramao’s eyes also filled my soul with some strange, intuitive wisdom. when the little fellow opened his eyes wide and said:
“oh, listen, papalagi, to the o le mao bird as it sings to the light of the mountain stars,” i did not hear a night-bird singing to its mate in the banyan trees, but i heard a soft-feathered transmutation of a blue day of ages ago singing tenderly, sadly, to some memory of its birth in the rosy eternity of the east. ramao’s presence in that hut, where i lay sick with fever, cast a poetic glamour over my existence. one evening he rushed into the hut, and, stooping down by my bed-mat, swiftly covered my shoulders with the tappa-rug. then he turned to the doorway and gave a whistle, and softly called out:
“essimao, come in and see wonderful white boy who play on magic wood.”
he had brought his sister to see me. there she stood, a charming little maid of about seven years, peeping curiously at me through the half-open doorway. i called her; and, as though she had been born for the purpose of waiting on men in sickness, she straightway squatted by me and commenced to sing. her voice rippled from her lips like the deep-stealing music of a forest stream. rising to her feet she swayed softly, and it seemed that the rhythm of music rose and fell in tiny billows along the graceful movements of her limbs. her laughter was sweetest balm to my fevered soul. she was a perfect little gipsy of the sea-nursed south. 223i know that if the delightful george borrow, that true lover of the romany chile, had reached the south seas and had seen essimao place a seashell to her ear and swear that she could hear the big moani ali (ocean) beating on the shores of god’s mountain footstools, he would, i am sure, have devoted pages to the beauty of essimao and the religious influence her presence inspired. i know that she impressed me more than all the psalms could do. the sayings of the apostles and the teachings of confucius, down to those of kant and strindberg, etc., are as nothing to me when compared with the wisdom and charm of little essimao and ramao’s four infinite years. those little philosophers made me realize, long ago, the cursed irony of the fates in decreeing that man should be born the wrong way up, so that we grow old instead of young. but my memory does not betray me when i assert here that o le langi was an exception, a phenomenon who had outwitted the fates, had never grown out of his wise, resplendent infancy. like the child of four years, he was still a mighty philosopher, a true socialist, romanticist, individualist, poet, humorist, spritualist, realist, optimist, pessimist, mystic, maniac, prophet, and one who had the transcendentalist’s belief in a supreme being; and lo, all this encased in one skull crammed with the divine light that we are all gifted with when we are four years old. ah, the wondrous book that an imaginative child of four years could give us could it write down its impressions, its own outlook on life and all that it imagines about this world! what marvellous truths would its great unworldliness spring upon us! once, when i lay near to death, ramao lay on one side of me and essimao on the other, placing their fingers in sympathy through my hair. i felt that i had travelled so far that i had stumbled on the edge of the earth that 224is nearest the heavens. perhaps i digress unduly in my reflections over ramao and essimao, when it is only children in the hey-day of life’s philosophical prime who can understand the truth of that which i say. few may believe the virtues that i claim for my old friend langi and these children. langi, who had read many of the abridged editions of the standard works, cursed the outrageous vanity of white men. his nervous, sensitive nostrils would dilate, his sonorous, eloquently violent voice ringing out like the mellow poetry of old bells as he declaimed:
“pah! what am this white papalagi more than a pale-skinned thief of the night? am he not the dark misbeliever who slay our mighty gods and doubt their virtues—and us?”
“true! true! o mighty o le langi!” i’d say, as i listened in incorrigible delight, while with chin and hand raised to the sky he spoke on:
“the white papalagi am one great hypocrite, who loveth the earth, money, and old clothes—neither doth he smell over-sweet! where? where is this god who had power to fashion this white man, yet, lo, made some first great mistake—since i am brown?” and saying this, o le langi dashed his coco-nut-shell goblet to the ground, and exclaimed: “think you ’tis wise his faults to change?” and still he would rave on in this wise: “i say, o papalagi, had the first white man discovered my people living in one great town that had a leaning tower, and one rotunda and nicer cathedrals with great stained-glass windows, they would have said: ‘o great samoan peoples! god’s eyelight doth shine in thy sight; your women, too, are beautiful as the stars and flowers. o wondrous brown men, i greet you, allelujah!’” then, wiping the tears of tense emotion from his eyes, he wailed forth: “alas, 225my people lived in huts, therefore were severely belaboured with rods and their daughters sold into slavery and worshipped only for their bodies’ beauty.”
even as i write i can hear o le langi sigh: “alas! alas! papalagi the faithful,” as his ghost peers over my shoulder to-night as i pen these memoirs. yes, o le langi could see “heaven in a wild flower and eternity in a grain of sand.” little ramao, too, felt quite equal to the white men, and honestly claimed everything from the stars down to my boots and my violin. he even claimed my parents’ photographs which i kept in my tin box, for he placed them carefully in the folds of his lava-lava when i was not looking—true little socialist that he was. and, when he fell from the palm tree, whilst seeking coco-nuts, and broke his back, he died with a smile on his lips that had god’s philosophy in it.
the tears fell fast from o le langi’s eyes when he said:
“o papalagi, the seas do roll on for ever, but man go back to his fathers.”
then the winds sighed mournfully in the coco-palms, and o le langi softly dug his fingers into the heap of soft-scented mould, and dropped the first lump of earth down on to ramao’s dead, smiling face.
“aue! aue!” wailed the stricken mother, as we turned away from the graveside. and three or four little children who had stood watching the burial procession from the shades of the flamboyant trees, cried: “wa noo! wa noo!” and then disappeared in some fright down the forest tracks. such was the end of ramao as the sunset fired the far-off sea horizon. the cicalas were chrruping in the belts of mangroves as we arrived once more at langi’s homestead.
for a long time after that sad incident i fancied i could hear some wail of sorrow in the mournful monotones 226of the waves that incessantly beat against the barrier reefs. but the splendid reality of the hot sunlight again came over the world. again time turned the withered pages of each blue tropic day, pages that faded into the yellowing of each sunset. flowers on the slopes grew musical with bees. fierce happiness reigned in the tribal villages along the coast as the old chiefs chanted their savage memories of olden time and the children thumped toy drums. bright-eyed maidens and amorous youths laughed and sang. then o le langi enticed me to go off troubadouring with him.
“we maker lot moneys, o tusitala!” said he.
and so i went, and o le langi carried my violin as we tramped miles and miles visiting the coast villages. sometimes we hired a canoe and paddled to the many islets of the samoan group. with his tappa robe wrapped about him, the tasselled end flung cavalier-wise over one shoulder, o le langi would stand with chin raised as he stood in the old tribal forums of many a lonely native village, chanting melodiously as i played on my violin. even the white men, traders and sailors in the grog-bars near matautu, down by the beach on savaii isle, left their rum mugs, strode to the bar doorway, listened and stared, as langi told wonderful things about his old gods, pointing magnificently to the trees, the distant mountains and seas, calling them mighty witnesses of all which he would claim for the beauty of his legendary world. the old shellbacks opened their eyes in astonishment, tugged their beards, spat seaward, and stared again, as the earnest note in his voice gained even their ragged respect. it must have been a strange sight as my pagan brother-artist stood before them, clothed in the majesty of a past tribal chiefdom and the glory of a proud imagination that they could not understand. but what cared i, as with fiddle to my chin i played on, 227my helmet hat tilted back on my head, till o le langi’s wheezy voice gave the final chant ere he snatched that dilapidated shelter from the tropic sun off my head, and held it under the eyes of those sunburnt men from the seas!
ah, memory of langi and true romance! great, unlaurelled poet of the south seas, how satisfied you were with your earthly existence! how satisfied with the poetic fame you achieved as your kind critics cast coins of approval into my shabby helmet hat—that old hat that held the joy and romance of my youth and all that was wealth inexhaustible to you—and me! often in my deeper dreams i see you standing beneath your beloved palms near apia as you watch the gold of the setting sun sinking into the western seas. ah, kind old heathen, again i see your grim glance when you look at the woebegone faces of the missionaries as they pass you by; and, as you watch them, i see your aged lips smile and quiver into that poetic grin that seems to say:
“there, but for god’s mercy, goes o le langi!”
as some may think i have overestimated the comeliness and mentality of the majority of the old-time samoans, i would like to give other opinions than my own on the subject before finishing this chapter. first of all, i would mention that all observant, able authorities who have travelled, and written about the south seas, have remarked upon the fine physique and general attractiveness of the polynesian races. in my profession, and i was bandmaster of the king’s bodyguard band in hawaii, in tahiti, and again in mexico, etc., i had many opportunities of hearing the opinions of the various representatives of the missionary societies, and they were very often men of refined tastes, and so competent to judge. these men all seemed to share my 228opinion with respect to the manliness and refinement of the samoans. of course, a difference of opinion is bound to exist, for, to be sure, there is a class of men who, by an inherent obliquity of mental vision, see all the coloured races as something semi-bestial and unworthy of a white man’s interest and sympathy.
i once had the pleasure of arriving in apia with monsieur bassaire, a well-known french artist. i vividly recall his astonishment and admiration when he first saw the samoans who came on deck to welcome us when we arrived off mulinuu. nor was bassaire’s surprise to be wondered at, for the handsome, sun-bronzed, herculean figures of the samoan men were shown off to tremendous advantage as they stood on deck amongst the slop-shouldered, thick-necked german crew. bassaire, who had travelled in new guinea in 1879 with james chalmers, the god-fearing, adventurous missionary,[7] was touring the world, and was taking sketches of the various races of mankind. i know that he was pleased with his artistic work in samoa. bassaire was introduced to robert louis stevenson, and it was whilst they were in each other’s company that i heard r. l. s. comment on the clear complexions of the samoans. we were in the photographer’s studio in apia, and stevenson was examining some of the photographs. the photographer told us that, though hundreds of native girls and youths presented themselves at his studio in hopes that they would make photographs of commercial value for book illustrations and for selling to tourists, he was invariably able to choose only two, or three at most, who possessed the thick lips and sensual features that coincided with the stock european idea of 229the south sea type. indeed, when stevenson glanced through the albums, he actually mistook some of the photographs of the samoans, which were toned in a light shade, for europeans. r. l. s. remarked that he considered that in some ways the samoans were amongst the handsomest races to be found in the world. however, they become slightly broad in the nose as they get older and the lips become sensual-looking; the skin, which in youth is of a golden hue, deepens to a tawny hue with age, the complexion becoming swarthy, something akin to that of the spanish, italian, southern french, and the darker types of british. of course, these remarks refer to the true-blooded types of over twenty years ago. through intermarriage with mongolians, negroes, malays, papuans, and low-caste british, the herculean samoan is becoming a very rare individual indeed. the statue-like figure is becoming bent and dwarfed, the full, clear eyes crafty-looking. i know that the surviving children of the old race, who now roam those palm-clad slopes, struck me, on a later day, as a kind of human rainbow, some aftermath that sadly reflected the tropic suns, the light and laughter of other brighter days. for now one meets all kinds of complexion—yellowish, brownish, white-blotched, mauve, greenish, tawny, and black, and eyes as multitudinous in colour as their own tropic flowers. at times it is hard to tell the half-caste from the pure-blooded white man or woman.
7. the author met james chalmers in apia and again at port moresby, new guinea. chalmers was a splendid type of the earnest missionary—manly, sincere, and brave, and a true bohemian. he was murdered by new guinea cannibals a few years ago.
the last remark recalls to my mind a little incident that it may not be out of place to mention here. robert louis stevenson heard that a white woman was residing near matautu, savaii isle. he at once made up his mind to go and see this lady—a natural enough wish in those remote isles, “where white men will tramp miles to catch a glimpse of a white woman.” well, 230r. l. s. hired a boat from a half-caste who was a store-keeper, and with whom i was staying at that time. and so it happened that i and the mate of a schooner had the pleasure of accompanying r. l. s. in the boat. after a long, very wearying row from manono, for it was a terrifically hot day, we arrived off the coast of savaii. even then we had to go ashore and tramp over two miles before we could reach the bungalow where the white lady resided. when we did arrive, stevenson was nearly “dead-beat,” and struck me as irritated and fatigued. it was with much relief that the three of us at length passed under the shade of the mango-trees that sheltered the approach to the bungalow.
“where’s the white lady?” said stevenson, speaking in rather a sharp manner to a tawny-looking female who wore a small dark moustache and happened to be looking out of the bungalow’s doorway. to our astonishment the woman screwed her mouth up and shrieked out:
“what white lady?—damn yer eyes!”
stevenson’s consternation and my own can be better imagined than described, when i say that the sun-tanned, brown-skinned, vulgar-looking woman who addressed us was the beautiful white lady herself! and, if i may say so, she was a good specimen of the white lady to be found in the south seas in those days.
“’ave a beer, old party?” she said to r. l. s., who had astutely apologized and cursed the hot sunlight that, shining in his eyes, had made him so colour-blind.
stevenson’s tact, after that grievous mistake, had a magical effect on the manners of our countrywoman. she fastened a flower on r. l. s.’s coat.
“say when!” she said to the mate, as she clutched the gin bottle, holding it high as she filled the glass.
231then she smacked me on the back, and filled with beer a huge receptacle that looked like one of those fancy glasses wherein one keeps goldfish. i think stevenson had whisky. i know he enjoyed the situation. the lady made eyes at r. l. s. and the mate too. she swore and behaved with the convivial vulgarity that is the sole prerogative of the low-caste british woman. i know that the samoan servant-maid blushed as her mistress complained of the “’orrible ’eat,” and pulled her dress down below her camberwell-south-east bosom. who she was, why she was there alone in that bungalow, only god knows. i recall that she nudged stevenson in the ribs and said she came from “camberwool sarth-east.” she swore at everything in samoa, and said that she never went “art of a night because she knew the blasted natives were cannyballs!” stevenson’s face during all this was a perfect study in self-control and amused politeness; and nothing off the stage could possibly outrival his simulated interest and his convivial ejaculation of “well now!” as she finished each breezy yarn and ribald joke.
the mate was a london man.
“do you remember the ‘pig and whistle’?” she screamed, as she plunged into reminiscent talk about the “old homeland,” smacked the mate on the shoulder, and pinched my leg! she insisted on fillng our glasses again and again. she commenced to sing. her wild, silvery laughter rippled about our ears, mesmerized us all, and made the roosting parakeets in the orange-trees outside rise, flutter and shriek with fright. stevenson was the first to attempt to withdraw from that little realistic drama of life in a south sea bungalow. his ?sthetic, intellectual-looking face became shadowed with a fierce determination as the wild familiarities of the woman asserted themselves. he bowed with urbane politeness as he rose from the table.
232“git the gentleman’s ’at, yer little brown-skinned slut!” she yelled.
in a moment the trembling polynesian maid made a dive for stevenson’s old peaked cap. stevenson was still expressing in his politest terms the pleasure he felt at meeting the lady in the island.
“stow it, yer son of a gun! no politeness ’ere! you know where to find me, and don’t forget me when yer comes this way!” she said, as we passed through the doorway.
stevenson nearly fell down her bungalow’s five steps as she yelled forth a volley of ribald farewells. the relief of that parting was very evident on stevenson’s face. he chuckled like a schoolboy when we had embarked and were all rowing our hardest, far away, safe out at sea.
but to return to o le langi. many of the old-time chiefs of langi’s type were faithful to their old creeds in many ways, and lived just as they had done in the heathen days. indeed, langi lived as though white men had never trod on his isles. he was deeply imbued with the old commercial spirit. like the medi?val merchants of cathay who travelled far with their scented merchandise, langi would go wandering from village to village and isle to isle. true enough, he did not travel with a camel across mighty deserts, but was his own caravan; for he carried, by the aid of a large calabash slung over his own hump, not sandalwood, topazes, diamonds, and opals for mummies’ eyes, but set off with pink shells, corals, tappa-cloth, and magic charms that had been warmed by the soft bosoms of mighty queens on their wedding-nights. these charms were small precious stones that he ran through his fingers whilst mumbling his pagan prayers.
“what may they be, those little shining stones, o 233mighty o le langi?” said i one night, as he trickled the gems through his fingers and gazed in a most mysterious way on the stars. he then informed me that they were the old magic jewels of the ancient samoan dynasty, and their value was beyond all price. it turned out that they had once been threaded on the skeins of a maiden’s hair so that they might be warmed on the virgin bosom of her whom a king was about to take to wife. it appeared that on the eve of the wedding the royal bride slept with the stones warm on her bosom, and that the warmth imparted to them was the sapphire and ruby light which shone in their depths as langi ran them through his fingers.
one may wonder how o le langi obtained possession of the magic crown jewels of the old samoan dynasty; but he was a true scribe and, possibly, knew the ropes. even in my time, kings and queens were not too severe in court etiquette. here i will simply say that, through possessing a bottle of the best holland gin, i have received the highest court honours from south sea royalty. indeed, i was once offered a princess’s hand in marriage, as well as being presented with the “freedom of the pagan city,” because the half-blind old king (in the paumotou group) had been told by his head chief that i had a flask of the best jamaica rum in my coat pocket. i seldom visited south sea royalty without a bottle of gin on my person.
langi never tired of expatiating on the beauty of the samoan and marquesan maidens of his youth. he would lift his chin to the sky, and curse the day when the maids were forced by the missionaries to wear the europeans’ cast-off clothing.
“ugh! o papalagi of the spirit-finger, we no do cover the flowers with stink-cloth and so hide the loveliness of their leaves; then why, i say, should new-time 234fool-men cover nicer girls, women, and mans down to feets?”
so raved o le langi, as i sympathetically muttered: “true! true, o mighty langi!”
but it must be admitted that the long pink and blue-striped night-gown-like attire of the maids suited them admirably. it was a pretty sight to see a flock of native girls running along the shore sands, delighting in the windy dishevelment, as they stooped and clutched the gowns that were lifted from their ankles as the warm, seductive winds blew in. and it must be confessed that many maids who delighted in brown stockings would sit out on the shore reefs purposely to court the flirtatious of the winds as the handsome native youths passed by.
though i have recorded the aforesaid incidents, they appear trivial enough when i think of the wonders of pagan life and the poetic mystery of a south sea forest that flashes on the inward eye. i myself have more than once completely lost my civilized individuality and become part of the south sea forest scene. i remember that o le langi once took me away to a secret witch-hut in the forest near mootua. sunset had already thrown the silent wooded depths into deep shadow when langi, who was creeping along just ahead of me, heard a suspicious noise, and suddenly stood perfectly still: his tattooed wrinkled form had become a part of the forest! his arms instinctively bent, twisted at the elbows, represented two short, broken branch stumps. lo! he was no longer o le langi, but was a gnarled spotted tree-trunk with blinkless eyes and carved to resemble man, apparently lifeless, as he stood with ears alert among the aged banyan stems! well, just as langi’s primitive instincts came to his assistance and made him unrecognizable, i too have become a part of 235the forest. i do not say that i have turned into a human tree-stump; but i have stood alone in the silent depths and felt my inner life become one with the old trees around me. it was as though my conscious life was splashed in spiritual colours over the leaves. i felt some old sense exude from my being, like warm blood, and dye the forest depth with the sunset’s golden glory and poetic mystery that lay hushed on the branched luxuriant tropical growth about me.
of o le langi’s musical ability i can say but little. it would require a genius to describe the universal music of his gifts. he was a true primitive literary man and, therefore, like most true literary men, was a musician in the deeper meaning of that word. langi could hear the grandeur of creation’s harmony and that still, small voice of humanity that cannot possibly express itself by fiddling on catgut or blowing on brass. i can only say that langi wrote a great symphony that my memory has vainly striven to play in these after years. the memory of his face and deep-set, poetic eyes seems to me as of some weird, conscious embodiment of all the sublimity of the rugged mountains and sunlit palms, the unheard harmonies of the moon-ridden seas and lagoons from samoa to the solomons, and again from fiji to tahiti and the far-off poutomous. those old forests are, to me, o le langi’s now dead whitening bones, where through the warm sea-winds whistle wonderful legends that his tongue once uttered forth.
it was years after that i went to apia again and stood by his grave. it is situated by safata village. i noticed that they had placed a wooden cross over the spot, and on it was written:
“here lies o le langi.
died feb. 14, 1908.”
“blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god.”
236he had undoubtedly been buried by the residential ecclesiastics; and the spiritual text chosen by them for his memorial cross showed, to me at least, that missionaries often speak great truths about dead men.
i had it in my mind to finish this chapter with a critical discourse on native and european styles of music; but i feel that i am not able to do the subject justice. i am too liable to be influenced by the maze of melodies that are always playing in the great invincible orchestral world of my memory. there are some, too, who would consider my taste for music decidedly vulgar. indeed, one night, whilst stopping at an old inn on my north-west travels, i heard a barrel-organ being played outside on the main country road. looking out of the window, i saw a melancholy-visaged, white-whiskered, weird-looking foreigner turning the handle of a derelict barrel-organ that stood on one leg. it was an old melody that it played, a ballad that i had been familiar with in my childhood. its dismal groan thrilled my soul. it took me across the years! i heard the laughter of my brothers and sisters and the forgotten strummings of the old piano. the old inn was transmuted—it stood on the grey night-hills of another age. i peeped through the window-blind and saw that weird old organ-grinder, just visible by the mingy gleam of the one lamp-post’s flickering light. he had a strange look about him. he wore a most suitable slouched hat, too! he seemed to me some ambassador of fate who had been sent out of the night to appeal to my soul. i fancied that the stars and the moon went round as he turned that handle. “play on! play on!” i gasped mentally; and so the vision of sight and sound continued, yes, as i listened to the grand opera of my existence. the semi-sad, half-gay ballad that he played touched my heart-strings; the 237stars waved bright hands, dead laughter and beautiful, half-forgotten voices of long ago murmured to the wailing accompaniment of the poplar-trees that surely sighed over old memories just across the road. i even saw the ghost of the little, curly-headed italian troubadour girl creep into our old front garden again, and once more commence to play “santa lucia” on her accordion. what maestro ever played as soulfully as she played for my ears?—her voice? oh, music inexpressibly beautiful! ah, the cleverness of that surreptitious special smile for me, as she peered sideways through her thrush-brown tresses up at our castle window! i thought of my passion for her, of my betrothal to that pretty, red-rose-lipped vagabondess of the south when i was ten years old; of my austere father’s wrath when our plans for the elopement were discovered, of my mother’s horror—and of my shame! alas! let men and women go to the grand opera, let the mighty cathedral organs of the world thunder and moan till their hearts are touched; but oh, give me a one-legged barrel-organ under the poplar trees outside the window of some old inn—playing “santa lucia” after dark!
