ked_ a
full-blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that
she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands,
being both wide wanderers, till bedtime; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse
saddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter;
over with him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return;
received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with him
about Samoan superstitions and my land--the scene of a great battle in
his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth--the place which we have cleared the
platform of his fort--the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies--the
fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the mission;
had a bit of lunch and consulted over a queer point of missionary policy
just arisen, about our new Town Hall and the balls there--too long to go
into, but a quaint example of the intricate questions which spring up
daily in the missionary path.[1]

Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on noon) staring
hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the ineffable green country
all round--gorgeous little birds (I think they are humming-birds, but
they say not) skirmishing in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up
I met a native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
"Talofa"--"Talofa, alii--You see that white man? He speak for you."
"White man he gone up here?"--"Ioe" (Yes)--"Tofa, alii"--"Tofa, soifua!"
I put on Jack up the steep path, till he is all as white as shaving
stick--Brown's euxesis, wish I had some--past Tanugamanono, a bush
village--see into the houses as I pass--they are open sheds scattered on
a green--see the brown folk sitting there, suckling kids, sleeping on
their stiff wooden pillows--then on through the wood path--and here I
find the mysterious white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years'
certificate of good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the
strikes in the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
big hotel bill, no ship to leave in--and come up to beg twenty dollars
because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in
pledge. Settle this, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and
a war whoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Samoan boy, on
the front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I shall have
to go down again to Apia this d