



Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive.)









STEVENSON'S SHRINE




[Illustration: _The Grave._]




  STEVENSON'S SHRINE

  THE RECORD OF A PILGRIMAGE


  By LAURA STUBBS


  BOSTON
  L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
  INCORPORATED
  1903




Contents


                                                      PAGE

  CHAPTER I.    The Voyage--Auckland to Tonga            5

  CHAPTER II.    "     "    Vavau to Samoa              15

  CHAPTER III.   "    "    Vailima and the SHRINE       26

  CHAPTER IV.   The Aftermath--Fiji to Sydney           53




List of Plates


  THE GRAVE                                 _Frontispiece_

  A CORAL GARDEN                         _To face page_  6

  TONGA VILLAGE                                "         8

  TRILITHON IN TONGA                           "        13

  HARBOUR OF VAVAU                             "        15

  KAVA-MAKING                                  "        18

  TOWN OF APIA                                 "        23

  "ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART"                   "        27

  KAVA FEAST                                   "        29

  THE HOUSE AT VAILIMA (FRONT VIEW)            "        31

  THE HALL AT VAILIMA                          "        32

  VIEW OF VAILIMA FROM THE GRAVE               "        39

  THE STAIRCASE AT VAILIMA                     "        41

  THE HOUSE AT VAILIMA (END VIEW)              "        42

  NATIVE FEAST AT VAILIMA                      "        44

  ONE OF THE FIVE RIVERS AT VAILIMA            "        46

  ANOTHER OF THE FIVE RIVERS                   "        48

  DANCE OF SAMOAN NATIVES                      "        50

  VIEW IN FIJI                                 "        53

  FIJIAN BOAT                                  "        56




[Illustration: MAP OF A PORTION OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC SHOWING SAMOA AND
SOCIETY ISLANDS]




CHAPTER I

    "The first love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Island, are
    memories apart and touch a virginity of sense."

    "My soul went down with these moorings whence no windlass may extract
    nor any diver fish it up."

    _Robert Louis Stevenson._


I, a lover of the man, personally unknown to me, save through the potency
of his pen, journeyed across the world in order to visit his grave, and to
get into direct touch with his surroundings.

The voyage to the Antipodes does not come within the compass of this
little book; enough that in September, 1892, I left Auckland (New Zealand)
in the Union Company's Steamship Manipouri, for a cruise among the South
Sea Islands, and that our first port of call was Nukualofa, one of the
Tongan group.

Here I stood on a little grass-covered wharf, and, looking down through
the translucent water, made my first acquaintance with a coral garden. Oh!
that wonderful water world with its wealth of sprays, flowers, and
madrepores, amongst which the tiny rainbow- fishes darted in and
out like submarine humming-birds--wingless, but brilliant--living flecks
of colour, flashing through a fairy region. The unreality of the scene
took hold of me. If this were real I must be enchanted, looking downwards
with enchanted eyes.

As one who dreams I walked inland, following a most fascinating green turf
path soft as velvet to the tread. There are no roads in Nukualofa, green
turf paths serve instead; indeed the whole of the little island, with its
long stately avenues of coconut palms, its sheltering bowers of banyan
trees, its groups of bananas, and groves of orange and other tropical
trees too numerous and too varied to describe, seems one beautiful and
universal park. Every few minutes I came across a vivid patch of scarlet,
yellow, or white hibiscus; great trailing lengths of blue convolvulus,
many tendrilled and giant blossomed, garlanded the trees, and not
unfrequently flung an almost impenetrable barrier across the path. These
paths are separated from the