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Transcriber's note:

The following typographical errors have been corrected:

  In page 58 "He was was an alien, he was supported by the guns of alien
  warships,..." 'was was' corrected to 'was'.

  In page 226 "I liked the end of that yarn no better than the
  begining." 'begining' amended to 'beginning'.




      THE WORKS OF
  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

     SWANSTON EDITION
       VOLUME XVII

  _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
  Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
  STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
  have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
  Copies are for sale._

  _This is No._..........

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE BEACH OF FALESA AND NEIGHBOURING
COUNTRY]

  THE WORKS OF
  ROBERT LOUIS
   STEVENSON

  VOLUME SEVENTEEN


  LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
  WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
  AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
  HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
  AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII


  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CONTENTS

  A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY


  EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLE IN SAMOA

   CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
      I. THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: NATIVE                         5

     II. THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: FOREIGN                       15

    III. THE SORROWS OF LAUPEPA (1883 _to September_ 1887)      27

     IV. BRANDEIS (_September_ 1887 _to August_ 1888)           53

      V. THE BATTLE OF MATAUTU (_September_ 1888)               70

     VI. LAST EXPLOITS OF BECKER (_September--November_ 1888)   83

    VII. THE SAMOAN CAMPS (_November_ 1888)                    103

   VIII. AFFAIRS OF LAULII AND FANGALII (_November--December_
           1888)                                               112

     IX. "FUROR CONSULARIS" (_December_ 1888 _to March_ 1889)  128

      X. THE HURRICANE (_March_ 1889)                          142

     XI. LAUPEPA AND MATAAFA (1889-1892)                       156


  ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS

  The Beach of Falesa:

      I. A SOUTH SEA BRIDAL                                    193

     II. THE BAN                                               206

    III. THE MISSIONARY                                        228

     IV. DEVIL-WORK                                            240

      V. NIGHT IN THE BUSH                                     258


  THE BOTTLE IMP                                               275

  THE ISLE OF VOICES                                           311




A FOOTNOTE TO HISTORY

EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLE IN SAMOA

PREFACE


An affair which might be deemed worthy of a note of a few lines in any
general history has been here expanded to the size of a volume or large
pamphlet. The smallness of the scale, and the singularity of the manners
and events and many of the characters, considered, it is hoped that, in
spite of its outlandish subject, the sketch may find readers. It has
been a task of difficulty. Speed was essential, or it might come too
late to be of any service to a distracted country. Truth, in the midst
of conflicting rumours and in the dearth of printed material, was often
hard to ascertain, and since most of those engaged were of my personal
acquaintance, it was often more than delicate to express. I must
certainly have erred often and much; it is not for want of trouble taken
nor of an impartial temper. And if my plain speaking shall cost me any
of the friends that I still count, I shall be sorry, but I need not be
ashamed.

In one particular the spelling of Samoan words has been altered; and the
characteristic nasal _n_ of the language written throughout _ng_ instead
of _g_. Thus I put Pango-Pango, instead of Pago-Pago; the sound being
that of soft _ng_ in English, as in _singer_, not as in _finger_.

      R.L.S.

  VAILIMA,
    UPOLU,
      SAMOA.




EIGHT YEARS OF TROUBLE IN SAMOA

CHAPTER I

THE ELEMENTS OF DISCORD: NATIVE


The story I have to tell is still going on as I write; the characters
are alive and active; it is a piece of contemporary history in the most
exact sense. And yet, for all its actuality and the part played in it by
mails and telegraphs and iron war-ships, the ideas and the manners of the
native actors date back before the Roman Empire. They are Christians,
church-goers, singers of hymns at family worship, hardy cricketers;
their books are printed in London by Spottiswoode, Truebner, or the Tract
Society; but in most other points they are the contemporaries of our
tattooed ancestors who drove their chariots on the wrong side of the
Roman wall. We have passed the feudal system; they are not yet clear of
the patriarchal. We are in the thick of the age of finance; they are in
a period of communism. And this makes them hard to understand.

To us, with our feudal ideas, Samoa has the first appearance of a land
of despotism. An elaborate courtliness marks the race alone among
Polynesians; terms of ceremony fly thick as oaths on board a ship;
commoners my-lord each other when they meet--and urchins as they play
marbles. And for the real noble a whole private dialect is set apart.
The common names for an axe, for blood, for bamboo, a bamboo knife, a
pig, food, entrails, and an oven are taboo in his presence, as the
common names for a bug and for many offices and members of the body are
taboo in the drawing-rooms of English ladies. Special words are set
apart for his leg, his face, his hair, his belly, his eyelids, his son,
his daughter, his wife, his wife's pregnancy, his wife's adultery,
adultery with his wife, his dwelling, his spear, his comb, his sleep,
his dreams, his anger, the mutual anger of several chiefs, his food, his
pleasure in eating, the food and eating of his pigeons, his ulcers, his
cough, his sickness, his recovery, his death, his being carried on a
bier, the exhumation of his bones, and his skull after death. To address
these demigods is quite a branch of knowledge, and he who goes to visit
a high chief does well to make sure of the competence of his
interpreter. To complete the picture, the same word signifies the
watching of a virgin and the warding of a chief; and the same word means
to cherish a chief and to fondle a favourite child.

Men like us, full of memories of feudalism, hear of a man so addressed,
so flattered, and we leap at once to the conclusion that he is
hereditary and absolute. Hereditary he is; born of a great family, he
must always be a man of mark; but yet his office is elective and (in a
weak sense) is held on good behaviour. Compare the case of a Highland
chief: born one of the great ones of his clan, he was sometimes
appointed its chief officer and conventional father; was loved, and
respected, and served, and fed, and died for implicitly, if he gave
loyalty a chance; and yet if he sufficiently outraged clan sentiment,
was liable to deposition. As to authority, the parallel is not so close.
Doubtless the Samoan chief, if he be popular, wields a great influence;
but it is limited. Important matters are debated in a fono, or native
parliament, with its feasting and parade, its endless speeches and
polite genealogical allusions. Debated, I say--not decided; for even a
small minority will often strike a clan or a province impotent. In the
midst of these ineffective councils the chief sits usually silent: a
kind of a gagged audience for village orators. And the deliverance of
the fono seems (for the moment) to be final. The absolute chiefs of
Tahiti and Hawaii were addressed as plain John and Thomas; the chiefs of
Samoa are surfeited with lip-honour, but the seat and extent of their
actual authority is hard to find.

It is so in the members of the state, and worse in the belly. The idea
of a sovereign pervades the air; the name we have; the thing we are not
so sure of. And the process of election to the chief power is a mystery.
Certain provinces have in their gift certain high titles, or _names_, as
they are called. These can only be attributed to the descendants of
particular lines. Once granted, each _name_ conveys at once the
principality (whatever that be worth) of the province which bestows it,
and counts as one suffrage towards the general sovereignty of Samoa. To
be indubitable king, they say, or some of them say,--I find few in
perfect harmony,--a man should resume five of these names in his own
person. But the case is purely hypothetical; local jealousy forbids its
occurrence. There are rival provinces, far more concerned in the
prosecution of their rivalry than in the choice of a right man for king.
If one of these shall have bestowed its name on competitor A, it will be
the signal and the sufficient reason for the other to bestow its name on
competitor B or C. The majority of Savaii and that of Aana are thus in
perennial opposition. Nor is this all. In 1881, Laupepa, the present
king, held the three names of Malietoa, Natoaitele, and Tamasoalii;
Tamasese held that of Tuiaana; and Mataafa that of Tuiatua. Laupepa had
thus a majority of suffrages; he held perhaps as high a proportion as
can be hoped in these distracted islands; and he counted among the
number the preponderant name of Malietoa. Here, if ever, was an
election. Here, if a king were at all possible, was the king. And yet
the natives were not satisfied. Laupepa was crowned, March 19th; and
next month, the provinces of Aana and Atua met in joint parliament, and
elected their own two princes, Tamasese and Mataafa, to an alternate
monarchy, Tamasese taking the first trick of two years. War was
imminent, when the consuls interfered, and any war were preferable to
the terms of the peace which they procured. By the Lackawanna treaty,
Laupepa was confirmed king, and Tamasese set by his side in the
nondescript office of vice-king. The compromise was not, I am told,
without precedent; but it lacked all appearance of success. To the
constitution of Samoa, which was already all wheels and no horses, the
consuls had added a fifth wheel. In addition to the old conundrum, "Who
is the king?" they had supplied a new one, "What is the vice-king?"

Two royal lines; some cloudy idea of alternation between the two; an
electorate in which the vote of each province is immediately effectual,
as regards itself, so that every candidate who attains one _name_
becomes a perpetual and dangerous competitor for the other four: such
are a few of the more