R.L.S. In Pacific

Isobel Field’s Diverting Memories of 40 Years Ago

THIS Life I’ve Loved,” an autobio graphy by Isobel Field (published by Michael Joseph Ltd., 14 Henrietta St., London, at 15/-) is a volume of diverting memories of life in the Pacific, between 1880 and 1900.

Mrs. Field was the step-daughter of Robert Louis Stevenson. She was with her mother when R.L.S. met, and wooed, and married that remarkable woman; and she lived with the Stevensons in Paris, San Francisco, Honolulu, Sydney and Samoa, and was with her stepfather when he died of tuberculosis, and was buried on the mountain top at Vaea by the Samoans.

To anyone who knows the South Seas, and the history of Stevenson, the book is a sheer delight. One lives again, with Mrs. Field, in those colourful Hawaiian days, when King Kalakaua was trying so hard to model his Hawaiian establish ment upon the royal courts he had seen recently in England, Russia, and Ger many, One is given a clear picture of the amiable Kalakaua, extending good fellow ship with one hand to all and sundry, and, with the other, fighting off the cease less attacks of the grim and greedy American missionaries. But the mission aries got him in the end; trade and Christianity triumphed; and the royal house and the pure Hawaiian race were doomed.

The narrative bristles with interesting facts. Honolulu was one of the first towns in the world to have a public telephone system. The king’s throne-room was lit by electricity. This was about 1888. Mrs.

Field was with the king when, about 1889, he officially welcomed the first con signment of Japanese labourers brought in to work the sugar plantations. That was an event which had, and is having, consequences far beyond the imagination of the well-meaning Kalakaua.

The Stevensons sailed in to Honolulu in the Casco , from Tahiti—and one is given much 50-year-old gossip of that de’ectable place.

There is a delightful story of how the Stevenson menage arrived in Sydney, in a small schooner, via the Line Islands.

They looked like tramps, and their lug gage was a shocking collection of tapa c oth bundles. They went to the leading hotel, called the “Victoria,” and deman ded the best suite; but the haughty book ing clerk and supercilious manager treated them very coldly. How were they to know that this was the great Stevbn son, by now at the height of his fame?

Stevenson, in a rage, took his people to the Oxford Hotel, where they were very comfortably housed. By next day, the city had discovered Stevenson’s ar rival, and he was lionised in astonishing fashion by eager newspapers and innu merable institutions. He was human enough to be gratified by a call from a distressed hotel manager and clerk, who

begged him to return to the “Victoria.”

But he remained at the Oxford.

Mrs, Field describes the intensely dramatic circumstances in which Steven son, about this time, wrote the world famous Damien letter.

The last and most notable section of the book tells of their life in Samoa. We are shown Stevenson at work and at play; a brilliant creative writer, and a moody, petulant man. We see them hew ing a road, building “Vailima,” setting gardens, settling down as one of the little community in the beautiful island of Upolu, There are a score of priceless stories about the native Samoans —happy, naive, loyal people, whom they all, loved.

Delightful years they were—ended very suddenly by the death of R.L.S.

One cannot fail to be interested in the author. Her life-story commenced in Western America just after the Civil War and, although she now is over 70 years

old, it is not ended yet. We get almost ; shock to realise that one still so vibrantly alive, still with so much quenchless humour, should be able to remember an America without railways, a Hawaii with a king, a Sydney with horse-trams, and a

Stevenson without fame.

Rev. C. Rich, of the L.M.S., Lapua, has arrived in Sydney from London.