Vailima Letters , livre ebook

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is a hard and interesting and beautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft of Vaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea, embowered in forest, which is our strangling enemy, and which we combat with axes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoor work, and had at last to confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by the board. NOTHING is so interesting as weeding, clearing, and path-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a disease; it is quite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does make you feel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with sweat and rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819917762
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I - IN THE MOUNTAIN, APIA, SAMOA,MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 1890
MY DEAR COLVIN, - This is a hard and interesting andbeautiful life that we lead now. Our place is in a deep cleft ofVaea Mountain, some six hundred feet above the sea, embowered inforest, which is our strangling enemy, and which we combat withaxes and dollars. I went crazy over outdoor work, and had at lastto confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by theboard. NOTHING is so interesting as weeding, clearing, andpath-making; the oversight of labourers becomes a disease; it isquite an effort not to drop into the farmer; and it does make youfeel so well. To come down covered with mud and drenched with sweatand rain after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take achair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And thestrange thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence,bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiotconscience applauds me; if I sit in the house and make twentypounds, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the day wasted.For near a fortnight I did not go beyond the verandah; then I foundmy rush of work run out, and went down for the night to Apia; putin Sunday afternoon with our consul, 'a nice young man,' dined withmy friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to church - no less - atthe white and half-white church - I had never been before, and wasmuch interested; the woman I sat next LOOKED a full- blood native,and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that she sang thehymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands, being bothwide wanderers, till bed- time; bed, sleep, breakfast, horsesaddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be myinterpreter; over with him to the King's, whom I have not called onsince my return; received by that mild old gentleman; have someinteresting talk with him about Samoan superstitions and my land -the scene of a great battle in his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth - theplace which we have cleared the platform of his fort - the gulleyof the stream full of dead bodies - the fight rolled off up Vaeamountain-side; back with Clarke to the Mission; had a bit of lunchand consulted over a queer point of missionary policy just arisen,about our new Town Hall and the balls there - too long to go into,but a quaint example of the intricate questions which spring updaily in the missionary path.
Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun(close on noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant;the ineffable green country all round - gorgeous little birds (Ithink they are humming birds, but they say not) skirmishing in thewayside flowers. About a quarter way up I met a native coming downwith the trunk of a cocoa palm across his shoulder; his brownbreast glittering with sweat and oil: 'Talofa' - 'Talofa, alii -You see that white man? He speak for you.' 'White man he gone uphere?' - 'Ioe (Yes)' - 'Tofa, alii' - 'Tofa, soifua!' I put on Jackup the steep path, till he is all as white as shaving stick -Brown's euxesis, wish I had some - past Tanugamanono, a bushvillage - see into the houses as I pass - they are open shedsscattered on a green - see the brown folk sitting there, sucklingkids, sleeping on their stiff wooden pillows - then on through thewood path - and here I find the mysterious white man (poor devil!)with his twenty years' certificate of good behaviour as abook-keeper, frozen out by the strikes in the colonies, come uphere on a chance, no work to be found, big hotel bill, no ship toleave in - and come up to beg twenty dollars because he heard I wasa Scotchman, offering to leave his portmanteau in pledge. Settlethis, and on again; and here my house comes in view, and a warwhoop fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Samoan boy, on thefront balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I shallhave to go down again to Apia this day week. I could, and would,dwell here unmoved, but there are things to be attended to.
Never say I don't give you details and news. That isa picture of a letter.
I have been hard at work since I came; threechapters of THE WRECKER, and since that, eight of the South Seabook, and, along and about and in between, a hatful of verses. Someday I'll send the verse to you, and you'll say if any of it is anygood. I have got in a better vein with the South Sea book, as Ithink you will see; I think these chapters will do for the volumewithout much change. Those that I did in the JANET NICOLL, underthe most ungodly circumstances, I fear will want a lot of supplingand lightening, but I hope to have your remarks in a month or twoupon that point. It seems a long while since I have heard from you.I do hope you are well. I am wonderful, but tired from so muchwork; 'tis really immense what I have done; in the South Sea book Ihave fifty pages copied fair, some of which has been four times,and all twice written, certainly fifty pages of solid scrivinginside a fortnight, but I was at it by seven a.m. till lunch, andfrom two till four or five every day; between whiles, verse andblowing on the flageolet; never outside. If you could see thisplace! but I don't want any one to see it till my clearing is done,and my house built. It will be a home for angels.
So far I wrote after my bit of dinner, some coldmeat and bananas, on arrival. Then out to see where Henry and someof the men were clearing the garden; for it was plain there was tobe no work to-day indoors, and I must set in consequence tofarmering. I stuck a good while on the way up, for the path thereis largely my own handiwork, and there were a lot of sprouts andsaplings and stones to be removed. Then I reached our clearing justwhere the streams join in one; it had a fine autumn smell ofburning, the smoke blew in the woods, and the boys were prettymerry and busy. Now I had a private design:-
[Map which cannot be reproduced]
The Vaita'e I had explored pretty far up; not yetthe other stream, the Vaituliga (g=nasal n, as ng in sing); and upthat, with my wood knife, I set off alone. It is here quite dry; itwent through endless woods; about as broad as a Devonshire lane,here and there crossed by fallen trees; huge trees overhead in thesun, dripping lianas and tufted with orchids, tree ferns, fernsdepending with air roots from the steep banks, great arums - I hadnot skill enough to say if any of them were the edible kind, one ofour staples here! - hundreds of bananas - another staple - andalas! I had skill enough to know all of these for the bad kind thatbears no fruit. My Henry moralised over this the other day; howhard it was that the bad banana flourished wild, and the good mustbe weeded and tended; and I had not the heart to tell him howfortunate they were here, and how hungry were other lands bycomparison. The ascent of this lovely lane of my dry stream filledme with delight. I could not but be reminded of old Mayne Reid, asI have been more than once since I came to the tropics; and Ithought, if Reid had been still living, I would have written totell him that, for, me, IT HAD COME TRUE; and I thought, forbye,that, if the great powers go on as they are going, and the ChiefJustice delays, it would come truer still; and the war-conch willsound in the hills, and my home will be inclosed in camps, beforethe year is ended. And all at once - mark you, how Mayne Reid is onthe spot - a strange thing happened. I saw a liana stretch acrossthe bed of the brook about breast-high, swung up my knife to severit, and - behold, it was a wire! On either hand it plunged intothick bush; to-morrow I shall see where it goes and get a guessperhaps of what it means. To-day I know no more than - there it is.A little higher the brook began to trickle, then to fill. At last,as I meant to do some work upon the homeward trail, it was time toturn. I did not return by the stream; knife in hand, as long as myendurance lasted, I was to cut a path in the congested bush.
At first it went ill with me; I got badly stung ashigh as the elbows by the stinging plant; I was nearly hung in atough liana - a rotten trunk giving way under my feet; it wasdeplorable bad business. And an axe - if I dared swing one - wouldhave been more to the purpose than my cutlass. Of a sudden thingsbegan to go strangely easier; I found stumps, bushing out again; mybody began to wonder, then my mind; I raised my eyes and lookedahead; and, by George, I was no longer pioneering, I had struck anold track overgrown, and was restoring an old path. So I labouredtill I was in such a state that Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs couldscarce have found a name for it. Thereon desisted; returned to thestream; made my way down that stony track to the garden, where thesmoke was still hanging and the sun was still in the hightree-tops, and so home. Here, fondly supposing my long day wasover, I rubbed down; exquisite agony; water spreads the poison ofthese weeds; I got it all over my hands, on my chest, in my eyes,and presently, while eating an orange, A LA Raratonga, burned mylip and eye with orange juice. Now, all day, our three small pigshad been adrift, to the mortal peril of our corn, lettuce, onions,etc., and as I stood smarting on the back verandah, behold thethree piglings issuing from the wood just opposite. Instantly I gottogether as many boys as I could - three, and got the pigs pennedagainst the rampart of the sty, till the others joined; whereuponwe formed a cordon, closed, captured the deserters, and droppedthem, squeaking amain, into their strengthened barracks where,please God, they may now stay!
Perhaps you may suppose the day now over; you arenot the head of a plantation, my juvenile friend. Politicssucceeded: Henry got adrift in his English, Bene was too cowardlyto tell me what he was after: result, I have lost seven goodlabourers, and had to sit down and write to you to keep my temper.Let me sketch my lads. - Henry - Henry has gone down to town or Icould not be writing to you - this were the hour of his Engl