THE HURRICANE
_March_ 1889
The so-called harbour of Apia is formed in part by a recess of the
coast-line at Matautu, in part by the slim peninsula of Mulinuu, and in
part by the fresh waters of the Mulivai and Vaisingano. The barrier
reef--that singular breakwater that makes so much of the circuit of
Pacific islands--is carried far to sea at Matautu and Mulinuu; inside of
these two horns it runs sharply landward, and between them it is burst
or dissolved by the fresh water. The shape of the enclosed anchorage may
be compared to a high-shouldered jar or bottle with a funnel mouth. Its
sides are almost everywhere of coral; for the reef not only bounds it to
seaward and forms the neck and mouth, but skirting about the beach, it
forms the bottom also. As in the bottle of commerce, the bottom is
re-entrant, and the shore-reef runs prominently forth into the basin and
makes a dangerous cape opposite the fairway of the entrance. Danger is,
therefore, on all hands. The entrance gapes three cables wide at the
narrowest, and the formidable surf of the Pacific thunders both outside
and in. There are days when speech is difficult in the chambers of
shore-side houses; days when no boat can land, and when men are broken
by stroke of sea against the wharves. As I write these words, three
miles in the mountains, and with the land-breeze still blowing from the
island summit, the sound of that vexed harbour hums in my ears. Such a
creek in my native coast of Scotland would scarce be dignified with the
mark of an anchor in the chart; but in the favoured climate of Samoa,
and with the mechanical regularity of the winds in the Pacific, it
forms, for ten or eleven months out of the twelve, a safe if hardly a
commodious port. The ill-found island traders ride there with their
insufficient moorings the year through, and discharge, and are loaded,
without apprehension. Of danger, when it comes, the glass gives timely
warning; and that any modern war-ship, furnished with the power of
steam, should have been lost in Apia, belongs not so much to nautical as
to political history.
The weather throughout all that winter (the turbulent summer of the
islands) was unusually fine, and the circumstance had been commented on
as providential, when so many Samoans were lying on their weapons in the
bush. By February it began to break in occasional gales. On February
10th a German brigantine was driven ashore. On the 14th the same
misfortune befell an American brigantine and a schooner. On both these
days, and again on the 7th March, the men-of-war must steam to their
anchors. And it was in this last month, the most dangerous of the
twelve, that man's animosities crowded that indentation of the reef with
costly, populous, and vulnerable ships.
I have shown, perhaps already at too great a length, how violently
passion ran upon the spot; how high this series of blunders and mishaps
had heated the resentment of the Germans against all other nationalities
and of all other nationalities against the Germans. But there was one
country beyond the borders of Samoa where the question had aroused a
scarce less angry sentiment. The breach of the Washington Congress, the
evidence of Sewall before a sub-committee on foreign relations, the
proposal to try Klein before a military court, and the rags of Captain
Hamilton's flag, had combined to stir the people of the States to an
unwonted fervour. Germany was for the time the abhorred of nations.
Germans in America publicly disowned the country of their birth. In
Honolulu, so near the scene of action, German and American young men
fell to blows in the street. In the same city, from no traceable source,
and upon no possible authority, there arose a rumour of tragic news to
arrive by the next occasion, that the _Nipsic_ had opened fire on the
_Adler_, and the _Adler_ had sunk her on the first reply. Punctually on
the day appointed, the news came; and the two nations, instead of being
plunged into war, could only mingle tears over the loss of heroes.
By the second week in March three American ships were in Apia bay,--the
_Nipsic_, the _Vandalia_, and the _Trenton_, carrying the flag of
Rear-Admiral Kimberley; three German,--the _Adler_, the _Eber_, and the
_Olga_; and one British,--the _Calliope_, Captain Kane. Six merchantmen,
ranging from twenty-five up to five hundred tons, and a number of small
craft, further encumbered the anchorage. Its capacity is estimated by
Captain Kane at four large ships; and the latest arrivals, the
_Vandalia_ and _Trenton_, were in consequence excluded, and lay without
in the passage. Of the seven war-ships, the seaworthiness of two was
questionable: the _Trenton's_, from an original defect in her
construction, often reported, never remedied--her hawse-pipes leading in
on the berth-deck; the _Eber's_, from an injury to her screw in the blow
of February 14th. In this overcrowding of ships in an open entry of the
reef, even the eye of the landsman could spy danger; and
Captain-Lieutenant Wallis of the _Eber_ openly blamed and lamented, not
many hours before the catastrophe, their helpless posture. Temper once
more triumphed. The army of Mataafa still hung imminent behind the town;
the German quarter was still daily garrisoned with fifty sailors from
the squadron; what was yet more influential, Germany and the States, at
least in Apia bay, were on the brink of war, viewed each other with
looks of hatred, and scarce observed the letter of civility. On the day
of the admiral's arrival, Knappe failed to call on him, and on the
morrow called on him while he was on shore. The slight was remarked and
resented, and the two squadrons clung more obstinately to their
dangerous station.
On the 15th the barometer fell to 29.11 in. by 2 P.M. This was the
moment when every sail in port should have escaped. Kimberley, who flew
the only broad pennant, should certainly have led the way: he clung,
instead, to his moorings, and the Germans doggedly followed his example:
semi-belligerents, daring each other and the violence of heaven. Kane,
less immediately involved, was led in error by the report of residents
and a fallacious rise in the glass; he stayed with the others, a
misjudgment that was like to cost him dear. All were moored, as is the
custom in Apia, with two anchors practically east and west, clear hawse
to the north, and a kedge astern. Topmasts were struck, and the ships
made snug. The night closed black, with sheets of rain. By midnight it
blew a gale; and by the morning watch, a tempest. Through what remained
of darkness, the captains impatiently expected day, doubtful if they
were dragging, steaming gingerly to their moorings, and afraid to steam
too much.
Day came about six, and presented to those on shore a seizing and
terrific spectacle. In the pressure of the squalls the bay was obscured
as if by midnight, but between them a great part of it was clearly if
darkly visible amid driving mist and rain. The wind blew into the
harbour mouth. Naval authorities describe it as of hurricane force. It
had, however, few or none of the effects on shore suggested by that
ominous word, and was successfully withstood by trees and buildings. The
agitation of the sea, on the other hand, surpassed experience and
description. Seas that might have awakened surprise and terror in the
midst of the Atlantic ranged bodily and (it seemed to observers) almost
without diminution into the belly of that flask-shaped harbour; and the
war-ships were alternately buried from view in the trough, or seen
standing on end against the breast of billows.
The _Trenton_ at daylight still maintained her position in the neck of
the bottle. But five of the remaining ships tossed, already close to the
bottom, in a perilous and helpless crowd; threatening ruin to each other
as they tossed; threatened with a common and imminent destruction on the
reefs. Three had been already in collision: the _Olga_ was injured in
the quarter, the _Adler_ had lost her bowsprit; the _Nipsic_ had lost
her smoke-stack, and was making steam with difficulty, maintaining her
fire with barrels of pork, and the smoke and sparks pouring along the
level of the deck. For the seventh war-ship the day had come too late;
the _Eber_ had finished her last cruise; she was to be seen no more save
by the eyes of divers. A coral reef is not only an instrument of
destruction, but a place of sepulture; the submarine cliff is profoundly
undercut, and presents the mouth of a huge antre in which the bodies of
men and the hulls of ships are alike hurled down and buried. The _Eber_
had dragged anchors with the rest; her injured screw disabled her from
steaming vigorously up; and a little before day she had struck the front
of the coral, come off, struck again, and gone down stern foremost,
oversetting as she went, into the gaping hollow of the reef. Of her
whole complement of nearly eighty, four souls were cast alive on the
beach; and the bodies of the remainder were, by the voluminous
outpouring of the flooded streams, scoured at last from the harbour, and
strewed naked on the seaboard of the island.
Five ships were immediately menaced with the same destruction. The
_Eber_ vanished--the four poor survivors on shore--read a dreadful
commentary on their danger; which was swelled out of all proportion by
the violence of their own movements as they leaped and fell among the
billows. By seven the _Nipsic_ was so fortunate as to avoid the reef and
beach upon a space of sand; where she was immediately deserted by her
crew, with the assistance of Samoans, not without loss of life. By
about eight it was the turn of the _Adler_. She was close down upon the
reef; doomed herself, it might yet be possible to save a portion of her
crew; and for this end Captain Fritze placed his reliance on the very
hugeness of the seas that threatened him. The moment was watched for
with the anxiety of despair, but the coolness of disciplined courage. As
she rose on the fatal wave, her moorings were simultaneously slipped;
she broached to in rising; and the sea heaved her bodily upward and cast
her down with a concussion on the summit of the reef, where she lay on
her beam-ends, her back broken, buried in breaching seas, but safe.
Conceive a table: the _Eber_ in the darkness had been smashed against
the rim and flung below; the _Adler_, cast free in the nick of
opportunity, had been thrown upon the top. Many were injured in the
concussion; many tossed into the water; twenty perished. The survivors
crept again on board their ship, as it now lay, and as it still remains,
keel to the waves, a monument of the sea's potency. In still weather,
under a cloudless sky, in those seasons when that ill-named ocean, the
Pacific, suffers its vexed shores to rest, she lies high and dry, the
spray scarce touching her--the hugest structure of man's hands within a
circuit of a thousand miles--tossed up there like a schoolboy's cap upon
a shelf; broken like an egg; a thing to dream of.
The unfriendly consuls of Germany and Britain were both that morning in
Matautu, and both displayed their nobler qualities. De Coetlogon, the
grim old soldier, collected his family and kneeled with them in an agony
of prayer for those exposed. Knappe, more fortunate in that he was
called to a more active service, must, upon the striking of the _Adler_,
pass to his own consulate. From this he was divided by the Vaisingano,
now a raging torrent, impetuously charioting the trunks of trees. A
kelpie might have dreaded to attempt the passage; we may conceive this
brave but unfortunate and now ruined man to have found a natural joy in
the exposure of his life; and twice that day, coming and going, he
braved the fury of the river. It was possible, in spite of the darkness
of the hurricane and the continual breaching of the seas, to remark
human movements on the _Adler_; and by the help of Samoans, always nobly
forward in the work, whether for friend or enemy, Knappe sought long to
get a line conveyed from shore, and was for long defeated. The shore
guard of fifty men stood to their arms the while upon the beach, useless
themselves, and a great deterrent of Samoan usefulness. It was perhaps
impossible that this mistake should be avoided. What more natural, to
the mind of a European, than that the Mataafas should fall upon the
Germans in this hour of their disadvantage? But they had no other
thought than to assist; and those who now rallied beside Knappe braved
(as they supposed) in doing so a double danger, from the fury of the sea
and the weapons of their enemies. About nine, a quarter-master swam
ashore, and reported all the officers and some sixty men alive but in
pitiable case; some with broken limbs, others insensible from the
drenching of the breakers. Later in the forenoon, certain valorous
Samoans succeeded in reaching the wreck and returning with a line; but
it was speedily broken; and all subsequent attempts proved unavailing,
the strongest adventurers being cast back again by the bursting seas.
Thenceforth, all through that day and night, the deafened survivors must
continue to endure their martyrdom and one officer died, it was supposed
from agony of mind, in his inverted cabin.
Three ships still hung on the next margin of destruction, steaming
desperately to their moorings, dashed helplessly together. The
_Calliope_ was the nearest in; she had the _Vandalia_ close on her port
side and a little ahead, the _Olga_ close a-starboard, the reef under
her heel; and steaming and veering on her cables, the unhappy ship
fenced with her three dangers. About a quarter to nine she carried away
the _Vandalia's_ quarter gallery with her jib-boom; a moment later, the
_Olga_ had near rammed her from the other side. By nine the _Vandalia_
dropped down on her too fast to be avoided, and clapped her stern under
the bowsprit of the English ship, the fastenings of which were burst
asunder as she rose. To avoid cutting her down, it was necessary for the
_Calliope_ to stop and even to reverse her engines; and her rudder was
at the moment--or it seemed so to the eyes of those on board--within ten
feet of the reef. "Between the _Vandalia_ and the reef" (writes Kane, in
his excellent report) "it was destruction." To repeat Fritze's
manoeuvre with the _Adler_ was impossible; the _Calliope_ was too
heavy. The one possibility of escape was to go out. If the engines
should stand, if they should have power to drive the ship against wind
and sea, if she should answer the helm, if the wheel, rudder, and gear
should hold out, and if they were favoured with a clear blink of weather
in which to see and avoid the outer reef--there, and there only, were
safety. Upon this catalogue of "ifs" Kane staked his all. He signalled
to the engineer for every pound of steam--and at that moment (I am told)
much of the machinery was already red-hot. The ship was sheered well to
starboard of the _Vandalia_, the last remaining cable slipped. For a
time--and there was no onlooker so cold-blooded as to offer a guess at
its duration--the _Calliope_ lay stationary; then gradually drew ahead.
The highest speed claimed for her that day is of one sea-mile an hour.
The question of times and seasons, throughout all this roaring business,
is obscured by a dozen contradictions; I have but chosen what appeared
to be the most consistent; but if I am to pay any attention to the time
named by Admiral Kimberley, the _Calliope_, in this first stage of her
escape, must have taken more than two hours to cover less than four
cables. As she thus crept seaward, she buried bow and stern alternately
under the billows.
In the fairway of the entrance the flagship _Trenton_ still held on. Her
rudder was broken, her wheel carried away; within she was flooded with
water from the peccant hawse-pipes; she had just made the signal "fires
extinguished," and lay helpless, awaiting the inevitable end. Between
this melancholy hulk and the external reef Kane must find a path.
Steering within fifty yards of the reef (for which she was actually
headed) and her foreyard passing on the other hand over the _Trenton's_
quarter as she rolled, the _Calliope_ sheered between the rival dangers,
came to the wind triumphantly, and was once more pointed for the sea and
safety. Not often in naval history was there a moment of more sickening
peril, and it was dignified by one of those incidents that reconcile the
chronicler with his otherwise abhorrent task. From the doomed flagship
the Americans hailed the success of the English with a cheer. It was led
by the old admiral in person, rang out over the storm with holiday
vigour, and was answered by the Calliopes with an emotion easily
conceived. This ship of their kinsfolk was almost the last external
object seen from the _Calliope_ for hours; immediately after, the mists
closed about her till the morrow. She was safe at sea again--_una de
multis_--with a damaged foreyard, and a loss of all the ornamental work
about her bow and stern, three anchors, one kedge-anchor, fourteen
lengths of chain, four boats, the jib-boom, bobstay, and bands and
fastenings of the bowsprit.
Shortly after Kane had slipped his cable, Captain Schoonmaker,
despairing of the _Vandalia_, succeeded in passing astern of the _Olga_,
in the hope to beach his ship beside the _Nipsic_. At a quarter to
eleven her stern took the reef, her hand swung to starboard, and she
began to fill and settle. Many lives of brave men were sacrificed in the
attempt to get a line ashore; the captain, exhausted by his exertions,
was swept from deck by a sea; and the rail being soon awash, the
survivors took refuge in the tops.
Out of thirteen that had lain there the day before, there were now but
two ships afloat in Apia harbour, and one of these was doomed to be the
bane of the other. About 3 P.M. the _Trenton_ parted one cable, and
shortly after a second. It was sought to keep her head to wind with
storm-sails and by the ingenious expedient of filling the rigging with
seamen; but in the fury of the gale, and in that sea, perturbed alike by
the gigantic billows and the volleying discharges of the rivers, the
rudderless ship drove down stern foremost into the inner basin; ranging,
plunging, and striking like a frightened horse; drifting on destruction
for herself and bringing it to others. Twice the _Olga_ (still well
under command) avoided her impact by the skilful use of helm and
engines. But about four the vigilance of the Germans was deceived, and
the ships collided; the _Olga_ cutting into the _Trenton's_ quarters,
first from one side, then from the other, and losing at the same time
two of her own cables. Captain von Ehrhardt instantly slipped the
remainder of his moorings, and setting fore and aft canvas, and going
full steam ahead, succeeded in beaching his ship in Matautu; whither
Knappe, recalled by this new disaster, had returned. The berth was
perhaps the best in the harbour, and von Ehrhardt signalled that ship
and crew were in security.
The _Trenton_, guided apparently by an under-tow or eddy from the
discharge of the Vaisingano, followed in the course of the _Nipsic_ and
_Vandalia_, and skirted south-eastward along the front of the shore
reef, which her keel was at times almost touching. Hitherto she had
brought disaster to her foes; now she was bringing it to friends. She
had already proved the ruin of the _Olga_, the one ship that had rid out
the hurricane in safety; now she beheld across her course the submerged
_Vandalia_, the tops filled with exhausted seamen. Happily the approach
of the _Trenton_ was gradual, and the time employed to advantage.
Rockets and lines were thrown into the tops of the friendly wreck; the
approach of danger was transformed into a means of safety; and before
the ships struck, the men from the _Vandalia's_ main and mizzen masts,
which went immediately by the board in the collision, were already
mustered on the _Trenton's_ decks. Those from the foremast were next
rescued; and the flagship settled gradually into a position alongside
her neighbour, against which she beat all night with violence. Out of
the crew of the _Vandalia_ forty-three had perished; of the four hundred
and fifty on board the _Trenton_, only one.
The night of the 16th was still notable for a howling tempest and
extraordinary floods of rain. It was feared the wreck could scarce
continue to endure the breaching of the seas; among the Germans, the
fate of those on board the _Adler_ awoke keen anxiety; and Knappe, on
the beach of Matautu, and the other officers of his consulate on that of
Matafele, watched all night. The morning of the 17th displayed a scene
of devastation rarely equalled: the _Adler_ high and dry, the _Olga_ and
_Nipsic_ beached, the _Trenton_ partly piled on the _Vandalia_ and
herself sunk to the gun-deck; no sail afloat; and the beach heaped high
with the _debris_ of ships and the wreck of mountain forests. Already,
before the day, Seumanu, the chief of Apia, had gallantly ventured forth
by boat through the subsiding fury of the seas, and had succeeded in
communicating with the admiral; already, or as soon after as the dawn
permitted, rescue lines were rigged, and the survivors were with
difficulty and danger begun to be brought to shore. And soon the
cheerful spirit of the admiral added a new feature to the scene.
Surrounded as he was by the crews of two wrecked ships, he paraded the
band of the _Trenton_, and the bay was suddenly enlivened with the
strains of "Hail Columbia."
During a great part of the day the work of rescue was continued, with
many instances of courage and devotion; and for a long time succeeding,
the almost inexhaustible harvest of the beach was to be reaped. In the
first employment, the Samoans earned the gratitude of friend and foe; in
the second, they surprised all by an unexpected virtue, that of honesty.
The greatness of the disaster, and the magnitude of the treasure now
rolling at their feet, may perhaps have roused in their bosoms an
emotion too serious for the rule of greed, or perhaps that greed was
for the moment satiated. Sails that twelve strong Samoans could scarce
drag from the water, great guns (one of which was rolled by the sea on
the body of a man, the only native slain in all the hurricane), an
infinite wealth of rope and wood, of tools and weapons, tossed upon the
beach. Yet I have never heard that much was stolen; and beyond question,
much was very honestly returned. On both accounts, for the saving of
life and the restoration of property, the government of the United
States showed themselves generous in reward. A fine boat was fitly
presented to Seumanu; and rings, watches, and money were lavished on all
who had assisted. The Germans also gave money at the rate (as I receive
the tale) of three dollars a head for every German saved. The obligation
was in this instance incommensurably deep, those with whom they were at
war had saved the German blue-jackets at the venture of their lives;
Knappe was, besides, far from ungenerous; and I can only explain the
niggard figure by supposing it was paid from his own pocket. In one
case, at least, it was refused. "I have saved three Germans," said the
rescuer; "I will make you a present of the three."
The crews of the American and German squadrons were now cast, still in a
bellicose temper, together on the beach. The discipline of the Americans
was notoriously loose; the crew of the _Nipsic_ had earned a character
for lawlessness in other ports; and recourse was had to stringent and
indeed extraordinary measures. The town was divided in two camps, to
which the different nationalities were confined. Kimberley had his
quarter sentinelled and patrolled. Any seaman disregarding a challenge
was to be shot dead; any tavern-keeper who sold spirits to an American
sailor was to have his tavern broken and his stock destroyed. Many of
the publicans were German; and Knappe, having narrated these rigorous
but necessary dispositions, wonders (grinning to himself over his
despatch) how far these Americans will go in their assumption of
jurisdiction over Germans. Such as they were, the measures were
successful. The incongruous mass of castaways was kept in peace, and at
last shipped in peace out of the islands.
Kane returned to Apia on the 19th, to find the _Calliope_ the sole
survivor of thirteen sail. He thanked his men, and in particular the
engineers, in a speech of unusual feeling and beauty, of which one who
was present remarked to another, as they left the ship, "This has been a
means of grace." Nor did he forget to thank and compliment the admiral;
and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of transcribing from Kimberley's
reply some generous and engaging words. "My dear captain," he wrote,
"your kind note received. You went out splendidly, and we all felt from
our hearts for you, and our cheers came with sincerity and admiration
for the able manner in which you handled your ship. We could not have
been gladder if it had been one of our ships, for in a time like that I
can truly say with old Admiral Josiah Latnall, 'that blood _is_ thicker
than water.'" One more trait will serve to build up the image of this
typical sea-officer. A tiny schooner, the _Equator_, Captain Edwin Reid,
dear to myself from the memories of a six months' cruise, lived out upon
the high seas the fury of that tempest which had piled with wrecks the
harbour of Apia, found a refuge in Pango-Pango, and arrived at last in
the desolated port with a welcome and lucrative cargo of pigs. The
admiral was glad to have the pigs; but what most delighted the man's
noble and childish soul, was to see once more afloat the colours of his
country.
Thus, in what seemed the very article of war, and within the duration of
a single day, the sword-arm of each of the two angry Powers was broken;
their formidable ships reduced to junk; their disciplined hundreds to a
horde of castaways, fed with difficulty, and the fear of whose
misconduct marred the sleep of their commanders. Both paused aghast;
both had time to recognise that not the whole Samoan Archipelago was
worth the loss in men and costly ships already suffered. The so-called
hurricane of March 16th made thus a marking epoch in world-history;
directly, and at once, it brought about the congress and treaty of
Berlin; indirectly, and by a process still continuing, it founded the
modern navy of the States. Coming years and other historians will
declare the influence of that.