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. For near a fortnight I did not go beyond the verandah; then I found my rush of work run out, and went down for the night to Apia; put in Sunday afternoon with our consul, 'a nice young man,' dined with my friend H. J. Moors in the evening, went to church - no less - at the white and half-white church - I had never been before, and was much interested; the woman I sat next LOOKED a full- blood native, and it was in the prettiest and readiest English that she sang the hymns; back to Moors', where we yarned of the islands, being both wide wanderers, till bed- time; bed, sleep, breakfast, horse saddled; round to the mission, to get Mr. Clarke to be my interpreter; over with him to the King's, whom I have not called on since my return; received by that mild old gentleman; have some interesting talk with him about Samoan superstitions and my land - the scene of a great battle in his (Malietoa Laupepa's) youth - the place which we have cleared the platform of his fort - the gulley of the stream full of dead bodies - the fight rolled off up Vaea mountain-side; back with Clarke to the Mission; had a bit of lunch and 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 up daily in the missionary path.

Thus begins the first of the Vailima Letters, written by Robert Louis Stevenson while living at Villa Vailima, the grand mansion of the great Scottish author who came to Samoa at the end of his life.

Stevenson, his wife Fanny (and American he met in Paris), and an entourage that included her children from a previous marriage, arrived in Apia, in 1889. Tusitala or "teller of tales", as he was known locally, was in search of a climate that would help him cope with his tuberculosis. He chose Samoa as much for the weather as for the regular ships that came and went that would be his lifeline to his publishers back home.

Today, Jen and I went to visit this house, which is now a museum. The house is magnificent though somewhat Disneyfied in its beautifully restored state. The house is surrounded by a massive swath of grass cut out of the jungle as described by RLS in the above letter. For 15 tala you get an half hour guided tour of the mansion.

After the tour, we hiked up to the top of Mt. Vaea where Stevenson is buried. There are two paths to the top and as walked up the "quick" path, I couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor guys who had to drag the body up to the top of the mountain. Supposedly, after he died the people of Upolu worked 24 hours non-stop to hack this path to the top of the hill so that the body could be buried the next day with full ceremonial privileges.

The white plaster grave at the top of the mountain bears the poetic inscription penned by RLS, himself:

Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse that you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

I'll have more pictures online soon.

You can read all the Vailima Letters here:

Project Gutenberg: Vailima Letters