The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24Stevenson, Robert Louis
General
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 24
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Authors, Scottish -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 -- Correspondence
Moe has gone to Papeete by the command of the king, whose letter was
addressed "To the great Princess at Tautira. P.V." P.V. stands for
Pomare 5th. Every evening, before she went, we played Van John lying in
a circle on pillows in the middle of the floor with our heads together:
and hardly an evening passed but it struck us afresh how very much you
would like Moe, and we told her of you again. The house (really here a
palace) in which we live, belongs to the sub-chief, Ori, a subject and
relation of the Princess. He, and his whole family, consisting of his
wife, his two little adopted sons, his daughter and her two young
babies, turned out to live in a little bird-cage hut of one room. Ori is
the very finest specimen of a native we have seen yet; he is several
inches over six feet, of perfect though almost gigantic proportions, and
looks more like a Roman Emperor in bronze than words can express. One
day, when Moe gave a feast, it being the correct thing to do, we all
wore wreaths of golden yellow leaves on our heads; when Ori walked in
and sat down at the table, as with one voice we all cried out in
admiration. His manners and I might say his habit of thought are
English. In some ways, he is so like a Colonel of the Guards that we
often call him Colonel. It was either the day before, or the morning of
our public feast, that Louis asked the Princess if she thought Ori would
accept his name. She was sure of it, and much pleased at the idea. I
wish you could have seen Louis, blushing like a schoolgirl, when Ori
came in, and the brotherhood was offered. So now if you please, Louis is
no more Louis, having given that name away in the Tahitian form of
_Rui_, but is known as _Terii-Tera_ (pronounced Ter_ee_terah) that being
Ori's Christian name. "Ori a Ori" is his clan name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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