I'he Days of a Man 



D902 



Tusitala's 



tomb 



The trail 

 to Lanuto 



fearsome but are only mild vegetarians, feeding 

 mainly on bananas. 



Once we climbed the steep, hot slope of Vaea to the 

 tomb of "R.L.S.," an elevated oblong of cemented 

 lava such as is locally used for native chiefs. On the 

 one side are graven in bronze a Scotch thistle and a 

 scarlet hibiscus, the ''national flower" of Stevenson's 

 adopted land, framing two inscriptions in Samoan — 

 "The Tomb of Tusitala," and Ruth's exquisite re- 

 sponse to Naomi: 



Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 

 lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; 

 where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. 



Upon the other panel, the noble "Requiem": 



Under the wide and starry sky 



Dig my grave and let me lie: 

 Glad did I live, and gladly die. 



And I lay me down with a will. 



This be the verse ye 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." 



Our longest excursion took us to Lanuto on the 

 crest of Upolu, over the long trail winding upward 

 through the bush. On the way we passed a little 

 roadside grave with a solitary and dejected-looking 

 Zinnia, pathetic mark of some one's grief. Higher 

 up we came across an abandoned plantation, perhaps 

 of coffee. There, as everywhere, clearing had been 

 followed by a dense growth of papaya — Carica 

 papaya — an interesting, broad-leaved tree with a 

 large, excellently flavored, melon-like fruit, the pulp 

 of which has the properties of gastric fluids, so that 



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