wn Jack's merits if
I had not been riding up of late on moonless nights. Jack is a bit of a
dandy; he loves to misbehave in a gallant manner, above all on Apia
Street, and when I stop to speak to people, they say (Dr. Stuebel the
German consul said about three days ago), "O what a wild horse! it
cannot be safe to ride him." Such a remark is Jack's reward, and
represents his ideal of fame. Now when I start out of Apia on a dark
night, you should see my changed horse; at a fast steady walk, with his
head down, and sometimes his nose to the ground--when he wants to do
that, he asks for his head with a little eloquent polite movement
indescribable--he climbs the long ascent and threads the darkest of the
wood. The first night I came it was starry; and it was singular to see
the starlight drip down into the crypt of the wood, and shine in the
open end of the road, as bright as moonlight at home; but the crypt
itself was proof, blackness lived in it. The next night it was raining.
We left the lights of Apia and passed into limbo. Jack finds a way for
himself, but he does not calculate for my height above the saddle; and I
am directed forward, all braced up for a crouch and holding my switch
upright in front of me. It is curiously interesting. In the forest, the
dead wood is phosphorescent; some nights the whole ground is strewn with
it, so that it seems like a grating over a pale hell; doubtless this is
one of the things that feed the night fears of the natives; and I am
free to confess that in a night of trackless darkness where all else is
void, these pallid _ignes suppositi_ have a fantastic appearance, rather
bogey even. One night, when it was very dark, a man had put out a little
lantern by the wayside to show the entrance to his ground. I saw the
light, as I thought, far ahead, and supposed it was a pedestrian coming
to meet me; I was quite taken by surprise when it struck in my face and
passed behind me. Jack saw it, and he was appalled; do you think he
thought of shying? No, sir, not in the dark; in the dark Jack knows he
is on duty; and he went past that lantern steady and swift; only, as he
went, he groaned and shuddered. For about 2500 of Jack's steps we only
passed one house--that where the lantern was; and about 1500 of these
are in the darkness of the pit. But now the moon is on tap again, and
the roads lighted.

[Illustration:

1. _Three posts._ 5. _Sink of the Tuluiga._
2. _Leather Bottle._ 6.