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Updated: May 21, 2025
Early one morning as we in the Palestine, South Sea trading schooner, were sailing slowly between Fotuna and Alofa two islands lying to the northward of Fiji one of the native hands came aft and reported two large sharks alongside. The mate at once dived below for his shark hook, while I tried to find a suitable bit of beef in the harness cask.
"As we swung into the Ala Loto Alofa an odd procession, for our boys had decorated us with wreaths and garlands we passed a carriage-load of surprised 'steamer-day' tourists who had come up the mountainside to look at Vailima.
The schooner was at this time within a few miles of a small village on Alofa, named Mua, and presently a boat manned by natives boarded us to sell yams, taro, pineapples, and bananas, all of which we bought from them in exchange for the sharks' livers and some huge pieces of flesh weighing two or three hundred pounds.
Yet it must not be imagined that they are a selfish people; if the recipients of an "alofa" of food are too poor to respond otherwise than by a profusion of thanks, the donors of the "alofa" are satisfied it would be a disgrace for their village to be spoken of as having treated guests meanly.
His health required that he should live away on the hill-top, and they pitied him as he painfully toiled up the stony slope. To show their affection for him, they built a road right up to his house, in order to make the steep ascent more easy. And they called that road Ala Loto Alofa The Road to the Loving Heart.
A return present must be sent on the following day; for although Samoans designate every present of food or anything else made to a party of visitors as an "alofa" i.e., a gift of love this is but a hollow conventionalism, it being the time-honoured custom of the country to always give a quid pro quo for whatever has been received.
All the labor and expense they bore themselves, which amounted to no small matter. Ala Loto Alofa, they called it, the Road of the Loving Hearts. Warlike outbreaks were not infrequent near Vailima. The woods were often full of scouting parties and the roll of drums could be heard. One day as Stevenson and Mrs. Strong were writing together they were interrupted by a war party crossing the lawn.
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