The Days of a Man 1:1902 



Moori for a time assisted King Kalakaua of Hawaii in the 

 romantic business of " black-bitding" ^ — that is, securing 

 ""'''' laborers from the Gilbert Islands and New Hebrides 

 for sugar plantations. Locating finally in Apia, he 

 married a true gentlewoman of the land — educated 

 in New Zealand, I believe — and became the leading 

 citizen of the community. All of his several children, 

 so far as I know, have gone to school in California, 

 the girls being graduates of Mills College. 



On the flat roof of the "Tivoli" Stevenson and 

 Moors used to lie of hot nights whilst the latter 

 related his South Sea experiences, which Stevenson 

 treasured up for coming stories of wreckers and ebb 

 tides. But as a financier. Moors found his friend not 

 a shining success; "he was essentially a literary man, 

 you know." It appeared that before deciding to 

 settle at Apia, Stevenson had arranged to have Moors 

 buy for him an uninhabited but attractive island to 

 the north of Samoa. The transaction was made at a 

 cost of about ^25,000 (as I remember), but, the island 

 being never occupied or paid for, it was left on Moors' 

 hands, and is perhaps still for sale. 

 Faiiima Vailima — " five waters " — Stevenson's old home, 

 we visited twice. A house of many windows and 

 screened porches, a sort of modified out-of-doors, it 

 stands high on a broad shelf of Vaea, in most pic- 

 turesque surroundings. On the estate are five springs 

 which together make the clear Vailima brook, the 

 home of a dainty little black and golden goby Vv^ith 

 cherry-red fins, which we named Vailima stevensoni. 

 To reach Vailima, one travels by "The Road of 



^This word came to have a sinister meaning as equivalent to slave-catching, 

 but I am assured on credible American authority that the operations sanctioned 

 by Kalakaua were above reproach. 



t 104 3 



