missionary path.

Then off up the hill; Jack very fresh, the sun (close on
noon) staring hot, the breeze very strong and pleasant; the
ineffable green country all round - gorgeous little birds (I
think they are humming birds, but they say not) skirmishing
in the wayside flowers. About a quarter way up I met a
native coming down with the trunk of a cocoa palm across his
shoulder; his brown breast glittering with sweat and oil:
'Talofa' - 'Talofa, alii - You see that white man? He speak
for you.' 'White man he gone up here?' - 'Ioe (Yes)' -
'Tofa, alii' - 'Tofa, soifua!' I put on Jack up the steep
path, till he is all as white as shaving stick - Brown's
euxesis, wish I had some - past Tanugamanono, a bush village
- see into the houses as I pass - they are open sheds
scattered on a green - see the brown folk sitting there,
suckling kids, sleeping on their stiff wooden pillows - then
on through the wood path - and here I find the mysterious
white man (poor devil!) with his twenty years' certificate of
good behaviour as a book-keeper, frozen out by the strikes in
the colonies, come up here on a chance, no work to be found,
big hotel bill, no ship to leave in - and come up to beg
twenty dollars because he heard I was a Scotchman, offering
to leave his portmanteau in pledge. Settle this, and on
again; and here my house comes in view, and a war whoop
fetches my wife and Henry (or Simele), our Samoan boy, on the
front balcony; and I am home again, and only sorry that I
shall have to go down again to Apia this day week. I could,
and would, dwell here unmoved, but there are things to be
attended to.