Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  To trace in detail the growth of the house or the development of the estate would be no less tedious than to follow closely the course of political intrigues or the appointment and departure of successive officials. I shall therefore abandon the temporal order, and briefly describe, in the first instance, the material environment in which Stevenson lived, his house, and the surrounding country, his mode of life, his friends and visitors, his work, and his amusements. It will then be necessary to mention very briefly his political relations before passing on to the record of his writings during this period.

  The island of Upolu, on which he lived, was the central and most important of the three principal islands composing the group to which the collective name of Samoa is applied. It is some five-and-forty miles in length and about eleven in average breadth. The interior is densely wooded, and a central range of hills runs from east to west. Apia, the chief town, is situated about the centre of the north coast, and it was on the hills about three miles inland that Stevenson made his home.

  The house and clearing lay on the western edge of a tongue of land several hundred yards in width, situated between two streams, from the westernmost of which the steep side of Vaea Mountain, covered with forest, rises to a height of thirteen hundred feet above the sea. On the east, beyond Stevenson’s boundary, the ground fell away rapidly into the deep valley of the Vaisigano, the principal river of the island. On the other hand, the western stream, formed by the junction of several smaller watercourses above, ran within Stevenson’s own ground, and, not far below the house, plunged over a barrier of rock with a fall of about twelve feet into a delightful pool, just deep enough for bathing and arched over with orange-trees. A few hundred yards lower down it crossed his line with an abrupt plunge of forty or fifty feet. It was from this stream and its four chief tributaries that Stevenson gave to the property the Samoan name of Vailima, or Five Waters.

  The place itself lay, as has been said, some three miles from the coast, and nearly six hundred feet above sea-level. From the town a good carriage-road, a mile in length, led to the native village of Tanugama- nono, where the Stevensons had lodged upon their first arrival. Beyond that point there was for a time nothing but the roughest of footpaths, which led across the hills to the other side of the island through a forest region wholly uninhabited, all the native villages being either by the sea or within a short distance of the coast.

  The track to Vailima was made over and over again by Stevenson, occasionally in concert with some of the owners of the lower lands, until it gradually assumed the appearance of a road, and could be traversed in dry weather by wagons or even by a buggy. But to the last the carrying for the house was done by the two big New Zealand pack-horses. East, and west, and south of the clearing the land was covered with thick bush, containing many scattered lofty forest trees like those judiciously spared by the axemen where they did not endanger the new house. Here and there in the forest was a great banyan with branching roots, covering many square yards of surface, and affording a resting-place for the flying-foxes, the great fruit-eating bats, which sally forth at dusk with a slow, heavy flight, like a straggling company of rooks making for the coast. Even to the north, although most of the ground between Vailima and Apia had to some extent been cultivated, along the “ road “ the trees grew close and high, and on a dark night the phosphorescence gleamed on fallen logs amid the undergrowth, twinkling and flickering to and fro, like the hasty footsteps of the witches the Samoans believed it to be. On the estate itself the route lay by the lane of limes, a rugged, narrow, winding path, that seemed, as Stevenson said, “almost as if it was leading to Lyonesse, and you might see the head and shoulders of a giant looking in.”1 But this part of the track was afterwards cut off by the Ala Loto Alofa, the Road of the Loving Heart, built by the Mataafa chiefs in return for Tusitala’s kindness to them in prison. It was a broader and more level way, also leading past a fragrant lime-hedge, and having as the centre of its view for any one journeying to Vailima the wooded crest of Vaea.

  The house of Vailima was built of wood throughout, painted a dark green outside, with a red roof of corrugated iron, on which the heavy rain sounded like thunder as it fell and ran off to be stored for household purposes in the large iron tanks. The building finally consisted of two blocks of equal size, placed, if I may use a military phrase in this connection, in echelon. It was the great defect of the house in its master’s eyes that from a strategical point of view it was not defensible, but fortunately there was never an occasion during his lifetime when it would have been desirable to place it in a state of siege. It fulfilled many of the requirements both of structure and more especially of position which he had laid down for his ideal house.2

  After December, 1892, the downstairs accommodation consisted of three rooms, a bath, a storeroom and 1 Vailima Letters, p. 258. 2 Miscellanea, p. 42. cellars below, with five bedrooms and the library upstairs. On the ground-floor, a verandah, twelve feet deep, ran in front of the whole house and along one side of it. Originally there had been a similar gallery above in front of the library, but it so darkened that room as to make it almost useless for working. Stevenson then had half of the open space boarded in, and used it as his own bedroom and study, the remainder of the verandah being sheltered, when necessary, by Chinese blinds. The new room was thus a sort of martin’s nest, plastered as it were upon the outside of the house; but except for being somewhat hot in the middle of the day, it served its purpose to perfection. A small bedstead, a couple of bookcases, a plain deal kitchen table and two chairs were all its furniture, and two or three favourite Piranesi etchings and some illustrations of Stevenson’s own works hung upon the walls. At one side was a locked rack containing half-a-dozen Colt’s rifles for the service of the family in case they should ever be required. One door opened into the library, the other into the verandah; one window, having from its elevation the best view the house afforded, looked across the lawns and pasture, over the tree-tops, out to the sapphire sea, while the other was faced by the abrupt slope of Vaea. The library was lined with books, the covers of which had all been varnished to protect them from the climate. The most important divisions were the shelves allotted to the history of Scotland, to French books either modern or relating to the fifteenth century, to military history, and to books relating to the Pacific.

  At this height the beat of the surf was plainly to be heard, but soothing to the ear and far away; other noises there were none but the occasional note of a bird, a cry from the boys at work, or the crash of a falling tree. The sound of wheels or the din of machinery was hardly known in the island: about the house all went barefoot, and scarcely in the world could there be found among the dwellings of men a deeper silence than in Stevenson’s house in the forest.

  The chief feature within was the large hall that occupied the whole of the ground-floor of the newer portion of the house — a room about sixty feet long and perhaps forty wide, lined and ceiled with varnished redwood from California. Here the marble bust of old Robert Stevenson twinkled with approval upon many a curiously combined company, while a couple of Burmese gilded idols guarded the two posts of the big staircase leading directly from the room to the upper floor. An old Samoan chief, being one day at his own request shown over the house, and having seen many marvels of civilisation of which he had never dreamed, showed no sign of interest, far less of amazement, but as he was departing he looked over his shoulder at the twoBuddhas and asked indifferently: “Are they alive?” In one corner was built a large safe, which, being continually replenished from Apia, rarely contained any large amount of money at a time, but was supposed by the natives to be the prison of the Bottle Imp, the source of all Stevenson’s fortune. In this room hung Mr. Sargent’s portrait of Stevenson and his wife, Sir George Reid’s portrait of Thomas Stevenson, two reputed Hogarths which the old gentleman had picked up, two or three of R. A. M. Stevenson’s best works, a picture of horses by Mr. Arthur Lemon, and — greatly to the scandal of native visitors — a pla
ster group by Rodin.

  In front of the house lay a smooth green lawn of couch-grass, used for tennis or croquet, and bounded on two sides by a hibiscus-hedge which, within a few months of its planting, was already six feet high and a mass of scarlet double blossoms — the favourite flowers of the Samoan.

  Immediately behind the mansion lay the wooden kitchen and a native house for the cook. A hundred yards to one side the original cottage in which Stevenson first lived had been re-erected, to serve upstairs as bedrooms for Mr. Osbourne and myself, downstairs for the house-boys,1 for stores, tool-house, and harness- room.

  Upon the other side another native house lay, halfway towards the stream. The ground below the home fence was all used for pasture; in front, the milking- shed occupied the site of the old house; and the pigpen, impregnably fenced with barbed wire, lay a couple of hundred yards in the rear. At the back also were the old disused stables, for in later days the horses were always kept out at grass in the various paddocks, coming up for their feed of corn every morning and evening.

  But even when the house itself was provided, its service was the great difficulty. Competent and willing white helpers were not to be procured, and though there were many natives employed in Apia, yet Samoa, less fortunate than India, possessed no class of natives 1 In Samoa, as in many other lands, native servants of all ages are known in English as “ boys.”

  ready to minister to a white master with skill and devotion for a trifling wage.

  At first Stevenson tried European and colonial servants. Two German men cooks passed through his kitchen: a Sydney lady’s-maid brought dissensions into the household: a white overseer and three white carters came and left, causing various degrees of dissatisfaction. Then Mrs. Stevenson went away for a change to Fiji; in her absence the family made a clean sweep of the establishment, and Mrs. Strong and her brother took the entire charge of the kitchen into their own hands with complete success. This was of necessity a passing expedient. One day, however, Mr. Osbourne found a Samoan lad, with a hibiscus flower behind his ear, sitting on an empty packing-case beside the cookhouse. He had come, it seemed, to collect half a dollar which the native overseer owed him, and he was quite content to wait for several hours until his debtor should return. In the meantime he was brought into the kitchen, and then and there initiated into the secrets of the white man’s cookery. He was amused, interested, fascinated, and he plunged enthusiastically into the mysteries of his future profession. Fortunately in Samoa cookery was regarded as an art worthy of men’s hands, and was practised even by high chiefs. The newcomer showed great aptitude; Mr. Osbourne persuaded him to stay, sent for his chest, and for several days would hardly let him out of his sight. So from that time forth Ta’alolowas head cook of Vailima, soon having a “boy” under him as scullion, taking only a few occasional holidays, and perfecting his art by visits to the kitchen of the French priests. In time he brought into the VAlLlMA-1891-94

  household several of his relations, who were Catholics like himself, and proved the best and most trustworthy of all the boys.

  A very few days after my first arrival one of these newcomers appeared in the character of assistant table- boy, a clumsy, half-developed, rather rustic youth, who of course knew no English, a sign that he was at any rate free from the tricks of the Apia-bred rascal. At the first, Sosimo seemed unlikely material, but there was a certain seriousness and resolution about him which quickly produced their effect. He soon became known as “The Butler,” and before long was promoted to be head boy in the pantry. From the beginning he attached himself to Tusitala with a whole-hearted allegiance. He waited on him hand and foot, looked scrupulously after his clothes, devoted special attention to his pony “Jack,” and made one of the most trustworthy and efficient servants I have ever known. When the end came, few if any showed as much feeling as Sosimo, and his loyalty to his master’s memory lasted to the end of his own life.

  These two men were the best, but as I write, I recall Leuelu, and Mitaele, and Iopu, and old Lafaele, and many more, not all such good servants, not all so loyal or so honest as those first named, but all with many solid merits, many pleasing traits, and a genuine personal devotion to Tusitala which pleased him as much as many more brilliant qualities.

  The table was fully provided with white napery and silver and glass according to the usual English custom, as it had prevailed in the house of Stevenson’s father. The cookery was eclectic and comprised such English and American dishes as could be obtained or imitated, together with any [native food which was found palatable. Of the supplies I shall speak later: it was the contrast between table and servants that was most striking. Nothing could have been more picturesque than to sit at an ordinary modern dinner-table and be waited on skilfully by a noble barbarian with perfect dignity and grace of carriage and manners hardly to be surpassed, who yet, if the weather were warm and the occasion ordinary, had for all his clothing a sheet of calico, in which his tattooed waist and loins alone were draped.

  The actual house-servants were usually about half a dozen in number, two in the kitchen, two or three for house and table service; one, Mrs. Stevenson’s special boy, for the garden and her own general service, and one more to take charge of the cows and pigs. Besides these, there was always a band of outside labourers under a native overseer supervised by Mr. Osbourne, working on the plantation, varying in number, according to the amount of clearing in hand, from half-a-dozen to twenty or thirty men. The signal for beginning and leaving off their work was always given by blowing the pu, a large conch-shell,1 that made a great booming sound that could be heard in the farthest recesses of the plantation.

  The great fear of the householder in Samoa used to be the dread of war, lest he should wake one morning and find that all his servants had been ordered out on service by their respective chiefs. By Stevenson’s intervention the Vailima household staff was generally kept 1 Triton variegatus. at home, but the plantation was several times deserted and had to await the restoration of peace.

  The government of the household was as far as possible on the clan system. “It is something of your own doing,” Stevenson had written to his mother from Bournemouth in 1886, “ if I take a somewhat feudal view of our relation to servants. . . . The Nemesis of the bourgeois who has chosen to shut out his servants — his ‘family’ in the old Scotch sense — from all intimacy and share in the pleasures of the house, attends us at every turn. An impossible relation is created, and brings confusion to all.”1

  If this were his attitude among the artificial conditions of England, he was not likely to adopt a more modern position in Samoa, where the patriarchal stage of society still prevailed. Accordingly from the first he used all opportunities to consolidate the household as a family, in which the boys should take as much pride and feel as much common interest as possible. His ideal was to maintain the relation of a Highland chief to his clan, such as it existed before the ‘45, since this seemed to approach most nearly to the actual state of things in Samoa at the time, and best met the difficulties which beset the relations of master and servant in his own day. He adopted a tartan for the Vailima kilt, to be worn on high days and holidays; he encouraged the boys to seek his help &nd advice on all matters, and was especially delighted when they preferred to him such requests as to grant his permission to a marriage.

  It must not, however, be supposed that they were allowed their own way, or indulged when they mis-

  1 Cf. Letters, ii. 21. behaved themselves. On such occasions the whole household would be summoned, a sort of “ bed of justice “ would be held, and sharp reprimands and fines inflicted.

  Even with all these servants, the white man was separated from the material crises of life by a somewhat thin barrier, for even the best and most responsible natives were at times brought face to face with emergencies beyond their powers, and had to fall back upon their master’s help. Such occasions of course befell Stevenson most frequently in the early days when he was living in the cottage with his wife and
the white cook. Much of his time was then taken up unexpectedly in such pieces of business as may be found in the first pages of the Vailima Letters: in measuring land, rubbing down foundered cart-horses, ejecting stray horses during the night or wandering pigs during the day, or even in little household tasks which no one else was available to discharge. In later days his wife and all the family were able jealously to prevent such encroachments on his time, but during the last two years I can remember the master of the house himself helping with delight to feed a refractory calf that refused the bottle, driving out an angry bull, or doctoring stray natives suffering from acute colic or wounded feet, to say nothing of chance hours spent in planting or in weeding the cacao.

  One morning’s work stands out conspicuously in my memory. A hogshead of claret had, after many misadventures, arrived from Bordeaux slightly broached, so that it had to be bottled immediately. Stevenson feared the effect of the fumes even of the light wine upon the natives, so he himself with our aid undertook the work. The boys were sent off to the stream with relays of bottles to wash while we tapped the cask, and the red wine flowed all the morning into jugs and basins beneath. It was poured away into the bottles, and they were corked and dipped into a large pot of green sealing- wax kept simmering on the kitchen fire. There seemed not to be any fumes to affect us, but the anticipation, and the pressure to get done, the novelty of the work, and, above all, Stevenson’s contagious enthusiasm, produced a great feeling of delight and exhilaration, and made a regular vintage festival of the day. Stevenson was in his glory, as he always was when he felt that he was doing a manual task, and, above all, when he was able to work in concert with others, and give his love of camaraderie full scope.