There was a crowd of black boys at Vailima cutting down and burning trees and brush. I believe they are runaways from the German plantations. There are a good many noble trees, of great height and girth, left standing. A little, wooden house has been run up, from the balcony of which we could see the masts of the _Janet_ as she lay at anchor and past her far out over the sea.
It is odd how little is known of Samoa, even by its inhabitants. In Sydney I asked particulars concerning a turbine wheel in case I should want one in Vailima. The man I consulted assured me it would be quite useless to attempt such a thing, as a friend of his just from Samoa, who had lived there a long time, told him there was not a tree of any size in Upolu, and none whatever of hardwood. On the contrary, in the bush are numbers of magnificent timber-trees, very hard and beautiful in colour. One in particular, a light yellow, is very like satinwood and another seems to be a sort of mahogany. We took photographs, and after a couple of hours reluctantly tore ourselves away.
A native man, an old friend, stopped us on the way back to Apia, holding the bridles of our horses that we should not escape him. A woman we were acquainted with passed; she turned and stopped, cooing like a dove, every limb and feature expressing surprise and delight.
After an inordinate luncheon I opened some boxes we had left here and took out various articles suitable for presents. At the main store we found our bush friend and his little daughter waiting for us with a large basket of oranges. Louis gave the child a shilling and told her to choose from the shelves a piece of cotton print. She was dazzled by the magnificence of the offer, and after long deliberation chose the ugliest piece of the lot. I gave an old woman a print gown, upon which she purred like a cat and kissed my hands. Our old friend Sitione (wounded in the late war) came up and spoke to us, looking very ill, his arm bandaged and in a sling. The doctor tells Louis he thinks very badly of the arm and fears he must amputate it.[6] There was also something wrong with Sitione's eye which was bandaged.
[6] Sitione was suffering from the effects of an old wound got in the last wars, some of the bones in his shoulder being shattered; they were finally removed, and Sitione recovered entirely with only a scar or two to show where the doctor had operated. Sitione, I was told, received this wound while doing a very brave and dashing act. During one of the many Samoan wars his party had fallen back a short distance, leaving an open space between them and the enemy; in this opening Sitione perceived that a friend of his had fallen and was unable to arise. The enemy were already rushing forward to take the man's head, as is their custom, when Sitione bounded back in the face of their guns, caught up his friend, and brought him into safety with a hail of bullets whizzing after him, and a shattered shoulder.