ous
town gatherings, while they were often entertained at Vailima.

Always hospitable, it was a delight to him now to keep open house. Not
only the chief justice, the consuls, the doctor, the missionaries, and
the traders were in the habit of dropping in to Vailima, but from every
ship that docked at Apia came some visitor who was anxious to meet
Stevenson and his family; from the war-ships came the officers and
sailors.

The bluejackets were always particularly welcome. Mrs. Strong tells of a
party who came from H.M.S. _Wallaroo_ on one Thanksgiving Day, when "the
kitchen department was in great excitement over that foreign bird the
turkey" and all was confusion. "But Louis kept his sailors on all the
afternoon. He took them over the house and showed them ... the
curiosities from the islands, the big picture of Skerryvore
lighthouse,... the treasured bit of Gordon's handwriting from Khartoum,
in Arabic letters on a cigarette paper,... and the library, where the
Scotchmen gathered about an old edition of Burns, with a portrait. Louis
gave a volume of Underwoods (Stevenson's poems) with an inscription to
Grant, the one who hailed from Edinburgh, and the man carried it
carefully wrapped in his handkerchief. They went away waving their hats
and keeping step."

A croquet-ground and tennis-court were laid out, and Vailima was the
scene of balls, dinners, and parties of all kinds. No birthday or
holiday, English, American, or Samoan, was allowed to pass unnoticed,
and the natives were included in these festivities whenever possible.

The first Christmas at Vailima they had a party for the children who had
never before seen a Christmas tree.

Tusitala's birthday was always a special event to his island friends.
The feast was served in native style; all seated about on the floor.
Rather large gatherings they must have been, to judge from Mrs. Strong's
account. "We had sixteen pigs roasted whole underground, three enormous
fish (small whales, Lloyd called them), four hundred pounds of beef,
ditto of pork, 200 heads of taro, great bunches of bananas, native
delicacies done up in bundles of _ti_ leaves, 800 pineapples, many
weighing fifteen pounds, all from Lloyd's patch. Among the presents for
Tusitala, besides flowers and wreaths, were fans, native baskets ... and
cocoanut cups beautifully polished."

[Illustration: A feast of chiefs]

On these occasions the hosts were often entertained with dances and
songs. All the Sa