in fact, so
hard put to it in the matter of cash, that when the hotel-keeper asked
three dollars for a pony on which to ride to Vailima, I refused to pay
it, and went away believing that after all I should not see him whom I
most desired to meet. Yet it was possible, if not likely, that he would
come down to visit the one fortnightly link with the great world from
which he was an exile. I had to trust to chance, and in the meantime
walked the long street of Apia and viewed the Samoans, whom he so loved,
with vivid interest. These people, riven and torn by internal
dissensions between Mataafa and Malietoa, and honeycombed by
Anglo-American and German intrigue, were the most interesting and the
noblest that I had met since I foregathered for a time with a wandering
band of Blackfeet Indians close to Calgary beneath the shadows of the
Rocky Mountains. Their dress, their customs, and their free and noble
carriage, yet unspoiled by civilisation, appealed to me greatly. I could
understand as I saw them walk how Stevenson delighted in them. Man and
woman alike looked me and the whole world in the face, and went by,
proud, yet modest, and with the smile of a happy, unconquered race.

As I walked with half a dozen curious indifferents whom the hazards of
travel had made my companions, we turned from the main road into the
seclusion of a shaded group of palms, and as I went I saw coming towards
me a mounted white man behind whom rode a native. As he came nearer I
looked at him without curiosity, for, as the time passed, I was becoming
reconciled by all there was to see to the fact that I might not meet
this exiled Scot. And yet, as he neared and passed me, I knew that I
knew him, that he was familiar; and very presently I was aware that this
sense of familiarity was not, as so often happens to a traveller, the
awakened memory of a type. This was an individual and a personality. I
stopped and stared after him, and suddenly roused myself. Surely this
was Robert Louis Stevenson, and this his man. So might the ghosts of
Crusoe and Friday pass one on the shore of Juan Fernandez.

I called the "boy" and gave him my card, and asked him to overtake his
master. In another moment my literary apparition, this chief among the
Samoans, was shaking hands with me. He alighted from his horse, and we
walked together towards the town. I fell a victim to him, and forgot
that he wrote. His writings were what packed dates might be to one who
sat fo