THE SAMOAN CAMPS
_November_ 1888
When Brandeis and Tamasese fled by night from Mulinuu, they carried
their wandering government some six miles to windward, to a position
above Lotoanuu. For some three miles to the eastward of Apia, the shores
of Upolu are low and the ground rises with a gentle acclivity, much of
which waves with German plantations. A barrier reef encloses a lagoon
passable for boats: and the traveller skims there, on smooth,
many-tinted shallows, between the wall of the breakers on the one hand,
and on the other a succession of palm-tree capes and cheerful beach-side
villages. Beyond the great plantation of Vailele, the character of the
coast is changed. The barrier reef abruptly ceases, the surf beats
direct upon the shore; and the mountains and untenanted forest of the
interior descend sheer into the sea. The first mountain promontory is
Letongo. The bay beyond is called Laulii, and became the headquarters of
Mataafa. And on the next projection, on steep, intricate ground, veiled
in forest and cut up by gorges and defiles, Tamasese fortified his
lines. This greenwood citadel, which proved impregnable by Samoan arms,
may be regarded as his front; the sea covered his right; and his rear
extended along the coast as far as Saluafata, and thus commanded and
drew upon a rich country, including the plain of Falefa.
He was left in peace from 11th October till November 6th. But his
adversary is not wholly to be blamed for this delay, which depended
upon island etiquette. His Savaii contingent had not yet come in, and to
have moved again without waiting for them would have been surely to
offend, perhaps to lose them. With the month of November they began to
arrive: on the 2nd twenty boats, on the 3rd twenty-nine, on the 5th
seventeen. On the 6th the position Mataafa had so long occupied on the
skirts of Apia was deserted; all that day and night his force kept
streaming eastward to Laulii; and on the 7th the siege of Lotoanuu was
opened with a brisk skirmish.
Each side built forts, facing across the gorge of a brook. An endless
fusillade and shouting maintained the spirit of the warriors; and at
night, even if the firing slackened, the pickets continued to exchange
from either side volleys of songs and pungent pleasantries. Nearer
hostilities were rendered difficult by the nature of the ground, where
men must thread dense bush and clamber on the face of precipices. Apia
was near enough; a man, if he had a dollar or two, could walk in before
a battle and array himself in silk or velvet. Casualties were not
common; there was nothing to cast gloom upon the camps, and no more
danger than was required to give a spice to the perpetual firing. For
the young warriors it was a period of admirable enjoyment. But the
anxiety of Mataafa must have been great and growing. His force was now
considerable. It was scarce likely he should ever have more. That he
should be long able to supply them with ammunition seemed incredible; at
the rates then or soon after current, hundreds of pounds sterling might
be easily blown into the air by the skirmishers in the course of a few
days. And in the meanwhile, on the mountain opposite, his outnumbered
adversary held his ground unshaken.
By this time the partisanship of the whites was unconcealed. Americans
supplied Mataafa with ammunition; English and Americans openly
subscribed together and sent boat-loads of provisions to his camp. One
such boat started from Apia on a day of rain; it was pulled by six
oars, three being paid by Moors, three by the MacArthurs; Moors himself
and a clerk of the MacArthurs' were in charge; and the load included not
only beef and biscuit, but three or four thousand rounds of ammunition.
They came ashore in Laulii, and carried the gift to Mataafa. While they
were yet in his house a bullet passed overhead; and out of his door they
could see the Tamasese pickets on the opposite hill. Thence they made
their way to the left flank of the Mataafa position next the sea. A
Tamasese barricade was visible across the stream. It rained, but the
warriors crowded in their shanties, squatted in the mud, and maintained
an excited conversation. Balls flew; either faction, both happy as
lords, spotting for the other in chance shots, and missing. One point is
characteristic of that war; experts in native feeling doubt if it will
characterise the next. The two white visitors passed without and between
the lines to a rocky point upon the beach. The person of Moors was well
known; the purpose of their coming to Laulii must have been already
bruited abroad; yet they were not fired upon. From the point they spied
a crow's nest, or hanging fortification, higher up; and, judging it was
a good position for a general view, obtained a guide. He led them up a
steep side of the mountain, where they must climb by roots and tufts of
grass; and coming to an open hill-top with some scattered trees, bade
them wait, let him draw the fire, and then be swift to follow. Perhaps a
dozen balls whistled about him ere he had crossed the dangerous passage
and dropped on the farther side into the crow's-nest; the white men,
briskly following, escaped unhurt. The crow's-nest was built like a
bartizan on the precipitous front of the position. Across the ravine,
perhaps at five hundred yards, heads were to be seen popping up and down
in a fort of Tamesese's. On both sides the same enthusiasm without
council, the same senseless vigilance, reigned. Some took aim; some
blazed before them at a venture. Now--when a head showed on the other
side--one would take a crack at it, remarking that it would never do to
"miss a chance." Now they would all fire a volley and bob down; a return
volley rang across the ravine, and was punctually answered: harmless as
lawn-tennis. The whites expostulated in vain. The warriors, drunken with
noise, made answer by a fresh general discharge and bade their visitors
run while it was time. Upon their return to headquarters, men were
covering the front with sheets of coral limestone, two balls having
passed through the house in the interval. Mataafa sat within, over his
kava bowl, unmoved. The picture is of a piece throughout: excellent
courage, super-excellent folly, a war of school-children; expensive guns
and cartridges used like squibs or catherine-wheels on Guy Fawkes's Day.
On the 20th Mataafa changed his attack. Tamasese's front was seemingly
impregnable. Something must be tried upon his rear. There was his
bread-basket; a small success in that direction would immediately
curtail his resources; and it might be possible with energy to roll up
his line along the beach and take the citadel in reverse. The scheme was
carried out as might be expected from these childish soldiers. Mataafa,
always uneasy about Apia, clung with a portion of his force to Laulii;
and thus, had the foe been enterprising, exposed himself to disaster.
The expedition fell successfully enough on Saluafata and drove out the
Tamaseses with a loss of four heads; but so far from improving the
advantage, yielded immediately to the weakness of the Samoan warrior,
and ranged farther east through unarmed populations, bursting with
shouts and blackened faces into villages terrified or admiring, making
spoil of pigs, burning houses, and destroying gardens. The Tamasese had
at first evacuated several beach towns in succession, and were still in
retreat on Lotoanuu; finding themselves unpursued, they reoccupied them
one after another, and re-established their lines to the very borders of
Saluafata. Night fell; Mataafa had taken Saluafata, Tamasese had lost
it; and that was all. But the day came near to have a different and very
singular issue. The village was not long in the hands of the Mataafas,
when a schooner, flying German colours, put into the bay and was
immediately surrounded by their boats. It chanced that Brandeis was on
board. Word of it had gone abroad, and the boats as they approached
demanded him with threats. The late premier, alone, entirely unarmed,
and a prey to natural and painful feelings, concealed himself below. The
captain of the schooner remained on deck, pointed to the German colours,
and defied approaching boats. Again the prestige of a great Power
triumphed; the Samoans fell back before the bunting; the schooner worked
out of the bay; Brandeis escaped. He himself apprehended the worst if he
fell into Samoan hands; it is my diffident impression that his life
would have been safe.
On the 22nd, a new German war-ship, the _Eber_, of tragic memory, came
to Apia from the Gilberts, where she had been disarming turbulent
islands. The rest of that day and all night she loaded stores from the
firm, and on the morrow reached Saluafata bay. Thanks to the misconduct
of the Mataafas, the most of the foreshore was still in the hands of the
Tamaseses; and they were thus able to receive from the _Eber_ both the
stores and weapons. The weapons had been sold long since to Tarawa,
Apaiang, and Pleasant Island; places unheard of by the general reader,
where obscure inhabitants paid for these instruments of death in money
or in labour, misused them as it was known they would be misused, and
had been disarmed by force. The _Eber_ had brought back the guns to a
German counter, whence many must have been originally sold; and was here
engaged, like a shopboy, in their distribution to fresh purchasers. Such
is the vicious circle of the traffic in weapons of war. Another aid of a
more metaphysical nature was ministered by the _Eber_ to Tamasese, in
the shape of uncountable German flags. The full history of this epidemic
of bunting falls to be told in the next chapter. But the fact has to be
chronicled here, for I believe it was to these flags that we owe the
visit of the _Adams_, and my next and best authentic glance into a
native camp. The _Adams_ arrived in Saluafata on the 26th. On the morrow
Leary and Moors landed at the village. It was still occupied by
Mataafas, mostly from Manono and Savaii, few in number, high in spirit.
The Tamasese pickets were meanwhile within musket range; there was
maintained a steady sputtering of shots; and yet a party of Tamasese
women were here on a visit to the women of Manono, with whom they sat
talking and smoking, under the fire of their own relatives. It was
reported that Leary took part in a council of war, and promised to join
with his broadside in the next attack. It is certain he did nothing of
the sort: equally certain that, in Tamasese circles, he was firmly
credited with having done so. And this heightens the extraordinary
character of what I have now to tell. Prudence and delicacy alike ought
to have forbid the camp of Tamasese to the feet of either Leary or
Moors. Moors was the original--there was a time when he had been the
only--opponent of the puppet king. Leary had driven him from the seat of
government; it was but a week or two since he had threatened to bombard
him in his present refuge. Both were in close and daily council with his
adversary, and it was no secret that Moors was supplying the latter with
food. They were partisans; it lacked but a hair that they should be
called belligerents; it were idle to try to deny they were the most
dangerous of spies. And yet these two now sailed across the bay and
landed inside the Tamasese lines at Salelesi. On the very beach they had
another glimpse of the artlessness of Samoan war. Hitherto the Tamasese
fleet, being hardy and unencumbered, had made a fool of the huge
floating forts upon the other side; and here they were toiling, not to
produce another boat on their own pattern in which they had always
enjoyed the advantage, but to make a new one the type of their enemies',
of which they had now proved the uselessness for months. It came on to
rain as the Americans landed; and though none offered to oppose their
coming ashore, none invited them to take shelter. They were nowise
abashed, entered a house unbidden, and were made welcome with obvious
reserve. The rain clearing off, they set forth westward, deeper into the
heart of the enemies' position. Three or four young men ran some way
before them, doubtless to give warning; and Leary, with his indomitable
taste for mischief, kept inquiring as he went after "the high chief"
Tamasese. The line of the beach was one continuous breastwork; some
thirty odd iron cannon of all sizes and patterns stood mounted in
embrasures; plenty grape and canister lay ready; and at every hundred
yards or so the German flag was flying. The numbers of the guns and
flags I give as I received them, though they test my faith. At the house
of Brandeis--a little, weatherboard house, crammed at the time with
natives, men, women, and squalling children--Leary and Moors again asked
for "the high chief," and were again assured that he was farther on. A
little beyond, the road ran in one place somewhat inland, the two
Americans had gone down to the line of the beach to continue their
inspection of the breastwork, when Brandeis himself, in his
shirt-sleeves and accompanied by several German officers, passed them by
the line of the road. The two parties saluted in silence. Beyond Eva
Point there was an observable change for the worse in the reception of
the Americans; some whom they met began to mutter at Moors; and the
adventurers, with tardy but commendable prudence, desisted from their
search after the high chief, and began to retrace their steps. On the
return, Suatele and some chiefs were drinking kava in a "big house," and
called them in to join--their only invitation. But the night was
closing, the rain had begun again: they stayed but for civility, and
returned on board the _Adams_, wet and hungry, and I believe delighted
with their expedition. It was perhaps the last as it was certainly one
of the most extreme examples of that divinity which once hedged the
white in Samoa. The feeling was already different in the camp of
Mataafa, where the safety of a German loiterer had been a matter of
extreme concern. Ten days later, three commissioners, an Englishman, an
American, and a German, approached a post of Mataafas, were challenged
by an old man with a gun, and mentioned in answer what they were. "_Ifea
Siamani?_ Which is the German?" cried the old gentleman, dancing, and
with his finger on the trigger; and the commissioners stood somewhile in
a very anxious posture, till they were released by the opportune arrival
of a chief. It was November the 27th when Leary and Moors completed
their absurd excursion; in about three weeks an event was to befall
which changed at once, and probably for ever, the relations of the
natives and the whites.
By the 28th Tamasese had collected seventeen hundred men in the trenches
before Saluafata, thinking to attack next day. But the Mataafas
evacuated the place in the night. At half-past five on the morning of
the 29th a signal-gun was fired in the trenches at Laulii, and the
Tamasese citadel was assaulted and defended with a fury new among
Samoans. When the battle ended on the following day, one or more
outworks remained in the possession of Mataafa. Another had been taken
and lost as many as four times. Carried originally by a mixed force from
Savaii and Tuamasanga, the victors, instead of completing fresh defences
or pursuing their advantage, fell to eat and smoke and celebrate their
victory with impromptu songs. In this humour a rally of the Tamaseses
smote them, drove them out pell-mell, and tumbled them into the ravine,
where many broke their heads and legs. Again the work was taken, again
lost. Ammunition failed the belligerents; and they fought hand to hand
in the contested fort with axes, clubs, and clubbed rifles. The
sustained ardour of the engagement surprised even those who were
engaged; and the butcher's bill was counted extraordinary by Samoans. On
December 1st the women of either side collected the headless bodies of
the dead, each easily identified by the name tattooed on his forearm.
Mataafa is thought to have lost sixty killed; and the de Coetlogons'
hospital received three women and forty men. The casualties on the
Tamasese side cannot be accepted, but they were presumably much less.