Robert Louis Stevenson

The local chiefs of Samoa, grieving for their friend who had died the day before, worked through the night to cut a trail to the top of Mt. Vaea where Robert Louis Stevenson had asked to be buried. The tombstone marking this place has one of his own poems engraved on it:

Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter, home from the hill.

When Stevenson, a Scottish writer who had gone to the South Seas in 1888 for his health (he had been sickly even as a child), decided to live in Apia, Samoa, he built a large house and called it Vailima (Five Rivers). Stevenson learned the ways and the language of the Samoans, and they built a road to Vailima that expressed their feeling for him—“The Road of the Loving Heart.” The Samoans often traveled on it to visit with their dear friend, to listen to him read, or to join him in family prayers.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and his exciting adventure stories such as Treasure Island have delighted both children and adults ever since they were written. The Samoans called him Tusitala (Teller of Tales) and your calendar this month carries some of his thoughts.