For
your tastes for what's martial and for poetry agree with mine.

A. S.

TO SIDNEY COLVIN

This is the first appearance in Stevenson's letters of the Swedish
Chief Justice of Samoa, Mr. Conrad Cedercrantz, of whom we shall hear
enough and more than enough in the sequel.

_S.S. Luebeck, between Apia and Sydney, Jan. 17th, 1891._

MY DEAR COLVIN,--The Faamasino Sili, or Chief Justice, to speak your low
language, has arrived. I had ridden down with Henry and Lafaele; the sun
was down, the night was close at hand, so we rode fast; just as I came
to the corner of the road before Apia, I heard a gun fire; and lo, there
was a great crowd at the end of the pier, and the troops out, and a
chief or two in the height of Samoa finery, and Seumanu coming in his
boat (the oarsmen all in uniform), bringing the Faamasino Sili sure
enough. It was lucky he was no longer; the natives would not have waited
many weeks. But think of it, as I sat in the saddle at the outside of
the crowd (looking, the English consul said, as if I were commanding the
manoeuvres), I was nearly knocked down by a stampede of the three
consuls; they had been waiting their guest at the Matafele end, and some
wretched intrigue among the whites had brought him to Apia, and the
consuls had to run all the length of the town and come too late.

The next day was a long one; I was at a marriage of Gurr the banker to
Fanua, the virgin of Apia. Bride and bridesmaids were all in the old
high dress; the ladies were all native; the men, with the exception of
Seumanu, all white.

It was quite a pleasant party, and while we were writing, we had a
bird's-eye view of the public reception of the Chief Justice. The best
part of it were some natives in war array; with blacked faces, turbans,
tapa kilts, and guns, they looked very manly and purposelike. No, the
best part was poor old drunken Joe, the Portuguese boatman, who seemed
to think himself specially charged with the reception, and ended by
falling on his knees before the Chief Justice on the end of the pier and
in full view of the whole town and bay. The natives pelted him with
rotten bananas; how the Chief Justice took it I was too far off to see;
but it was highly absurd.

I have commemorated my genial hopes for the regimen of the Faamasino
Sili in the following canine verses, which, if you at all guess how to
read them, are very pretty in movement, and (unless he be a mighty good
man)