merits of the new order had he lived to
witness it.

These remarks, following the subject down to what remains for the
present its historic conclusion, will, I hope, be enough to clear it for
the present purpose out of the reader's way and enable him to understand
as much as is necessary of the political allusions in this and the
following sections of the correspondence.

It need only be added that in reading the following pages it must be
borne in mind that Mulinuu and Malie, the places respectively of
Laupepa's and Mataafa's residence, are also used to signify their
respective parties and followings.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

During the absence of the Stevensons at Sydney some eight acres of
the Vailima property had been cleared of jungle, a cottage roughly
built on the clearing, and something done towards making the track up
the hill from Apia into a practicable road. They occupied the cottage
at once, and the following letters narrate of the sequel.

_In the Mountain, Apia, Samoa, Monday, November 2nd, 1890._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that
we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six
hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling
enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over
outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or
literature must have gone by the board. _Nothing_ is so interesting as
weeding, clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a
disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does
make you feel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with
sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take
a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange
thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my
labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds
me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails
over my neglect and the day wasted. For near a fortnight I did not go
beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down
for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with our consul, "a nice
young man," dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to
church--no less--at the white and half-white church--I had never been
before, and was much interested; the woman I sat next _loo