The more I viewed and admired this triumph of firm rule, the more I was

haunted and troubled by a problem, the problem (perhaps) of to-morrow

for ourselves. Here was a people protected from all serious misfortune,

relieved of all serious anxieties, and deprived of what we call our

liberty. Did they like it? and what was their sentiment towards the

ruler? The first question I could not of course ask, nor perhaps the

natives answer. Even the second was delicate; yet at last, and under

charming and strange circumstances, I found my opportunity to put it and

a man to reply. It was near the full of the moon, with a delicious

breeze; the isle was bright as day--to sleep would have been sacrilege;

and I walked in the bush, playing my pipe. It must have been the sound

of what I am pleased to call my music that attracted in my direction

another wanderer of the night. This was a young man attired in a fine

mat, and with a garland on his hair, for he was new come from dancing

and singing in the public hall; and his body, his face, and his eyes

were all of an enchanting beauty. Every here and there in the Gilberts

youth are to be found of this absurd perfection; I have seen five of us

pass half an hour in admiration of a boy at Mariki; and Te Kop (my

friend in the fine mat and garland) I had already several times

remarked, and long ago set down as the loveliest animal in Apemama. The

philtre of admiration must be very strong, or these natives specially

susceptible to its effects, for I have scarce ever admired a person in

the islands but what he has sought my particular acquaintance. So it was

with Te Kop. He led me to the ocean side; and for an hour or two we sat

smoking and talking on the resplendent sand and under the ineffable

brightness of the moon. My friend showed himself very sensible of the

beauty and amenity of the hour. "Good night! Good wind!" he kept

exclaiming, and as he said the words he seemed to hug myself. I had long

before invented such reiterated expressions of delight for a character

(Felipe, in the story of "Olalla") intended to be partly bestial. But

there was nothing bestial in Te Kop: only a childish pleasure in the

moment. He was no less pleased with his companion, or was good enough to

say so; honoured me, before he left, by calling me Te Kop; apostrophised

me as "My name!" with an intonation exquisitely tender, laying his hand

at the same time swiftly on my knee; and after we had risen, and our

paths began to separate in the bush, twice cried to me with a sort of

gentle ecstasy, "I like you too much!" From the beginning he had made no

secret of his terror of the king; would not sit down or speak above a

whisper till he had put the whole breadth of the isle between himself

and his monarch, then harmlessly asleep; and even there, even within a

stone-cast of the outer sea, our talk covered by the sound of the surf

and the rattle of the wind among the palms, continued to speak

guardedly, softening his silver voice (which rang loud enough in the

chorus) and looking about him like a man in fear of spies. The strange

thing is that I should have beheld him no more. In any other island in

the whole South Seas, if I had advanced half as far with any native, he

would have been at my door next morning, bringing and expecting gifts.

But Te Kop vanished in the bush for ever. My house, of course, was

unapproachable; but he knew where to find me on the open beach, where I

went daily. I was the _Kaupoi_, the rich man; my tobacco and trade were

known to be endless: he was sure of a present. I am at a loss how to

explain his behaviour, unless it be supposed that he recalled with

terror and regret a passage in our interview. Here it is:

"The king, he good man?" I asked.

"Suppose he like you, he good man," replied Te Kop: "no like, no good."

That is one way of putting it, of course. Te Kop himself was probably no

favourite, for he scarce appealed to my judgment as a type of industry.

And there must be many others whom the king (to adhere to the formula)

does not like. Do these unfortunates like the king? Or is not rather the

repulsion mutual? and the conscientious Tembinok', like the

conscientious Braxfield before him, and many other conscientious rulers

and judges before either, surrounded by a considerable body of

"grumbletonians"? Take the cook, for instance, when he passed us by,

blue with rage and terror. He was very wroth with me; I think by all the

old principles of human nature he was not very well pleased with his

sovereign. It was the rich man he sought to waylay: I think it must have

been by the turn of a hair that it was not the king he waylaid instead.

And the king gives, or seems to give, plenty of opportunities; day and

night he goes abroad alone, whether armed or not I can but guess; and

the taro-patches, where his business must so often carry him, seem

designed for assassination. The case of the cook was heavy indeed to my

conscience. I did not like to kill my enemy at second-hand; but had I a

right to conceal from the king, who had trusted me, the dangerous secret

character of his attendant? And suppose the king should fall, what

would be the fate of the king's friends? It was our opinion at the time

that we should pay dear for the closing of the well; that our breath was

in the king's nostrils; that if the king should by any chance be

bludgeoned in a taro-patch, the philosophical and musical inhabitants of

Equator Town might lay aside their pleasant instruments, and betake

themselves to what defence they had, with a very dim prospect of

success. These speculations were forced upon us by an incident which I

am ashamed to betray. The schooner _H.L. Haseltine_ (since capsized at

sea, with the loss of eleven lives) put in to Apemama in a good hour for

us, who had near exhausted our supplies. The king, after his habit,

spent day after day on board; the gin proved unhappily to his taste; he

brought a store of it ashore with him; and for some time the sole tyrant

of the isle was half-seas-over. He was not drunk--the man is not a

drunkard, he has always stores of liquor at hand, which he uses with

moderation,--but he was muzzy, dull, and confused. He came one day to

lunch with us, and while the cloth was being laid fell asleep in his

chair. His confusion, when he awoke and found he had been detected, was

equalled by our uneasiness. When he was gone we sat and spoke of his

peril, which we thought to be in some degree our own; of how easily the

man might be surprised in such a state by _grumbletonians_; of the

strange scenes that would follow--the royal treasures and stores at the

mercy of the rabble, the palace over-run, the garrison of women turned

adrift. And as we talked we were startled by a gun-shot and a sudden,

barbaric outcry. I believe we all changed colour; but it was only the

king firing at a dog and the chorus striking up in the Speak House. A

day or two later I learned the king was very sick; went down, diagnosed

the case; and took at once the highest medical degree by the exhibition

of bicarbonate of soda. Within the hour Richard was himself again; and I

found him at the unfinished house, enjoying the double pleasure of

directing Rubam and making a dinner off cocoa-nut dumplings, and all

eagerness to have the formula of this new sort of _pain-killer_--for

_pain-killer_ in the islands is the generic name of medicine. So ended

the king's modest spree and our anxiety.

On the face of things, I ought to say, loyalty appeared unshaken. When

the schooner at last returned for us, after much experience of baffling

winds, she brought a rumour that Tebureimoa had declared war on Apemama.

Tembinok' became a new man; his face radiant; his attitude, as I saw him

preside over a council of chiefs in one of the palace maniap's, eager as

a boy's; his voice sounding abroad shrill and jubilant, over half the

compound. War is what he wants, and here was his chance. The English

captain, when he flung his arms in the lagoon, had forbidden him (except

in one case) all military adventures in the future: here was the case

arrived. All morning the council sat; men were drilled, arms were

bought, the sound of firing disturbed the afternoon; the king devised

and communicated to me his plan of campaign, which was highly elaborate

and ingenious, but perhaps a trifle fine-spun for the rough and random

vicissitudes of war. And in all this bustle the temper of the people

appeared excellent, an unwonted animation in every face, and even Uncle

Parker burning with military zeal.

Of course it was a false alarm. Tebureimoa had other fish to fry. The

ambassador who accompanied us on our return to Butaritari found him

retired to a small island on the reef, in a huff with the Old Men, a

tiff with the traders, and more fear of insurrection at home than

appetite for wars abroad. The plenipotentiary had been placed under my

protection; and we solemnly saluted when we met. He proved an excellent

fisherman, and caught bonito over the ship's side. He pulled a good oar,

and made himself useful for a whole fiery afternoon, towing the becalmed

_Equator_ off Mariki. He went to his post and did no good. He returned

home again, having done no harm. _O si sic omnes!_

CHAPTER VI

THE KING OF APEMAMA: DEVIL-WORK

The ocean beach of Apemama was our daily resort. The coast is broken by

shallow bays. The reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon

about knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The beach is

now of fine sand, now of broken coral. The trend of the coast being

convex, scarce a quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land

being so low, the horizon appears within a stone-cast; and the narrow

prospect enhances the sense of privacy. Man avoids the place--even his

footprints are uncommon; but a great number of birds hover and pipe

there fishing, and leave crooked tracks upon the sand. Apart from these,

the only sound (and I was going to say the only society) is that of the

breakers on the reef.

On each projection of the coast, the bank of coral clinkers immediately

above the beach has been levelled, and a pillar built, perhaps

breast-high. These are not sepulchral; all the dead being buried on the

inhabited side of the island, close to men's houses, and (what is worse)

to their wells. I was told they were to protect the isle against inroads

from the sea--divine or diabolical martellos, probably sacred to

Taburik, God of Thunder.

The bay immediately opposite Equator Town, which we called Fu Bay, in

honour of our cook, was thus fortified on either horn. It was well

sheltered by the reef, the enclosed water clear and tranquil, the

enclosing beach curved like a horseshoe, and both steep and broad. The

path debouched about the midst of the re-entrant angle, the woods

stopping some distance inland. In front, between the fringe of the wood

and the crown of the beach, there had been designed a regular figure,

like the court for some new variety of tennis, with borders of round

stones imbedded, and pointed at the angles with low posts, likewise of

stone. This was the king's Pray Place. When he prayed, what he prayed

for, and to whom he addressed his supplications, I could never learn.

The ground was tapu.

In the angle, by the mouth of the path, stood a deserted maniap'. Near

by there had been a house before our coming, which was now transported

and figured for the moment in Equator Town. It had been, and it would be

again when we departed, the residence of the guardian and wizard of the

spot--Tamaiti. Here, in this lone place, within sound of the sea, he had

his dwelling and uncanny duties. I cannot call to mind another case of a

man living on the ocean side of any open atoll; and Tamaiti must have

had strong nerves, the greater confidence in his own spells, or, what I

believe to be the truth, an enviable scepticism. Whether Tamaiti had any

guardianship of the Pray Place I never heard. But his own particular

chapel stood farther back in the fringe of the wood. It was a tree of

respectable growth. Around it there was drawn a circle of stones like

those that enclosed the Pray Place; in front, facing towards the sea, a

stone of a much greater size, and somewhat hollowed, like a piscina,

stood close against the trunk; in front of that again a conical pile of

gravel. In the hollow of what I have called the piscina (though it

proved to be a magic seat) lay an offering of green cocoa-nuts; and when

you looked up you found the boughs of the tree to be laden with strange

fruit: palm-branches elaborately plaited, and beautiful models of

canoes, finished and rigged to the least detail. The whole had the

appearance of a midsummer and sylvan Christmas-tree _al fresco_. Yet we

were already well enough acquainted in the Gilberts to recognise it, at

the first sight, for a piece of wizardry, or, as they say in the group,

of Devil-work.

The plaited palms were what we recognised. We had seen them before on

Apaiang, the most christianised of all these islands; where excellent

Mr. Bingham lived and laboured and has left golden memories; whence all

the education in the northern Gilberts traces its descent; and where we

were boarded by little native Sunday-school misses in clean frocks, with

demure faces, and singing hymns as to the manner born.

Our experience of Devil-work at Apaiang had been as follows:--It chanced

we were benighted at the house of Captain Tierney. My wife and I lodged

with a Chinaman some half a mile away; and thither Captain Reid and a

native boy escorted us by torchlight. On the way the torch went out, and

we took shelter in a small and lonely Christian chapel to rekindle it.

Stuck in the rafters of the chapel was a branch of knotted palm. "What is

that?" I asked. "O, that's Devil-work," said the Captain. "And what is

Devil-work?" I inquired. "If you like, I'll show you some when we get to

Johnnie's," he replied. "Johnnie's" was a quaint little house upon the

crest of the beach, raised some three feet on posts, approached by stairs;

part walled, part trellised. Trophies of advertisement-photographs were

hung up within for decoration. There was a table and a recess-bed, in

which Mrs. Stevenson slept; while I camped on the matted floor with

Johnnie, Mrs. Johnnie, her sister, and the devil's own regiment of

cockroaches. Hither was summoned an old witch, who looked the part to

horror. The lamp was set on the floor; the crone squatted on the

threshold, a green palm-branch in her hand, the light striking full on her

aged features and picking out behind her, from the black night, timorous

faces of spectators. Our sorceress began with a chanted incantation; it

was in the old tongue, for which I had no interpreter; but ever and again

there ran along the crowd outside that laugh which every traveller in the

islands learns so soon to recognise,--the laugh of terror. Doubtless these

half-Christian folk were shocked, these half-heathen folk alarmed. Chench

or Taburik thus invoked, we put our questions; the witch knotted the

leaves, here a leaf and there a leaf, plainly on some arithmetical system;

studied the result with great apparent contention of mind; and gave the

answers. Sidney Colvin was in robust health and gone a journey; and we

should have a fair wind upon the morrow: that was the result of our

consultation, for which we paid a dollar. The next day dawned cloudless

and breathless; but I think Captain Reid placed a secret reliance on the

sibyl, for the schooner was got ready for sea. By eight the lagoon was

flawed with long cat's-paws, and the palms tossed and rustled; before ten

we were clear of the passage and skimming under all plain sail, with

bubbling scuppers. So we had the breeze, which was well worth a dollar in

itself; but the bulletin about my friend in England proved, some six

months later, when I got my mail, to have been groundless. Perhaps London

lies beyond the horizon of the island gods.

Tembinok', in his first dealings, showed himself sternly averse from

superstition: and had not the _Equator_ delayed, we might have left the

island and still supposed him to be an agnostic. It chanced one day,

however, that he came to our maniap', and found Mrs. Stevenson in the

midst of a game of patience. She explained the game as well as she was

able, and wound up jocularly by telling him this was her devil-work, and

if she won, the _Equator_ would arrive next day. Tembinok' must have

drawn a long breath; we were not so high-and-dry after all; he need no

longer dissemble, and he plunged at once into confessions. He made

devil-work every day, he told us, to know if ships were coming in; and

thereafter brought us regular reports of the results. It was surprising

how regularly he was wrong; but he had always an explanation ready.

There had been some schooner in the offing out of view; but either she

was not bound for Apemama, or had changed her course, or lay becalmed. I

used to regard the king with veneration as he thus publicly deceived

himself. I saw behind him all the fathers of the Church, all the

philosophers and men of science of the past; before him, all those that

are to come; himself in the midst; the whole visionary series bowed over

the same task of welding incongruities. To the end Tembinok' spoke

reluctantly of the island gods and their worship, and I learned but

little. Taburik is the god of thunder, and deals in wind and weather. A

while since there were wizards who could call him down in the form of

lightning. "My patha he tell me he see: you think he lie?"

Tienti--pronounced something like "Chench," and identified by his

majesty with the devil--sends and removes bodily sickness. He is

whistled for in the Paumotuan manner, and is said to appear; but the

king has never seen him. The doctors treat disease by the aid of Chench:

eclectic Tembinok' at the same time administering "pain-killer" from his

medicine-chest, so as to give the sufferer both chances. "I think mo'

betta," observed his majesty, with more than his usual self-approval.

Apparently the gods are not jealous, and placidly enjoy both shrine and

priest in common. On Tamaiti's medicine-tree, for instance, the model

canoes are hung up _ex voto_ for a prosperous voyage, and must therefore

be dedicated to Taburik, god of the weather; but the stone in front is

the place of sick folk come to pacify Chench.

It chanced, by great good luck, that even as we spoke of these affairs,

I found myself threatened with a cold. I do not suppose I was ever glad

of a cold before, or shall ever be again; but the opportunity to see the

sorcerers at work was priceless, and I called in the faculty of Apemama.

They came in a body, all in their Sunday's best and hung with wreaths

and shells, the insignia of the devil-worker. Tamaiti I knew already:

Terutak' I saw for the first time, a tall, lank, raw-boned, serious

North-Sea fisherman turned brown; and there was a third in their company

whose name I never heard, and who played to Tamaiti the part of

_famulus_. Tamaiti took me in hand first, and led me, conversing

agreeably, to the shores of Fu Bay. The _famulus_ climbed a tree for

some green cocoa-nuts. Tamaiti himself disappeared a while in the bush

and returned with coco tinder, dry leaves, and a spray of waxberry. I

was placed on the stone, with my back to the tree and my face to

windward; between me and the gravel-heap one of the green nuts was set;

and then Tamaiti (having previously bared his feet, for he had come in

canvas shoes, which tortured him) joined me within the magic circle,

hollowed out the top of the gravel-heap, built his fire in the bottom,

and applied a match: it was one of Bryant and May's. The flame was slow

to catch, and the irreverent sorcerer filled in the time with talk of

foreign places--of London, and "companies," and how much money they had;

of San Francisco, and the nefarious fogs, "all the same smoke," which

had been so nearly the occasion of his death. I tried vainly to lead him

to the matter in hand. "Everybody make medicine," he said lightly. And

when I asked him if he were himself a good practitioner--"No savvy," he

replied, more lightly still. At length the leaves burst in a flame,

which he continued to feed; a thick, light smoke blew in my face, and

the flames streamed against and scorched my clothes. He in the meanwhile

addressed, or affected to address, the evil spirit, his lips moving

fast, but without sound; at the same time he waved in the air and twice

struck me on the breast with his green spray. So soon as the leaves were

consumed the ashes were buried, the green spray was imbedded in the

gravel, and the ceremony was at an end.

A reader of the "Arabian Nights" felt quite at home. Here was the

suffumigation; here was the muttering wizard; here was the desert place

to which Aladdin was decoyed by the false uncle. But they manage these

things better in fiction. The effect was marred by the levity of the

magician, entertaining his patient with small talk like an affable

dentist, and by the incongruous presence of Mr. Osbourne with a camera.

As for my cold, it was neither better nor worse.

I was now handed over to Terutak', the leading practitioner or medical

baronet of Apemama. His place is on the lagoon side of the island, hard

by the palace. A rail of light wood, some two feet high, encloses an

oblong piece of gravel like the king's Pray Place; in the midst is a

green tree: below, a stone table bears a pair of boxes covered with a

fine mat; and in front of these an offering of food, a cocoa-nut, a

piece of taro or a fish, is placed daily. On two sides the enclosure is

lined with maniap's; and one of our party, who had been there to sketch,

had remarked a daily concourse of people and an extraordinary number of

sick children; for this is in fact the infirmary of Apemama. The doctor

and myself entered the sacred place alone; the boxes and the mat were

displaced; and I was enthroned in their stead upon the stone, facing

once more to the east. For a while the sorcerer remained unseen behind

me, making passes in the air with a branch of palm. Then he struck

lightly on the brim of my straw hat; and this blow he continued to

repeat at intervals, sometimes brushing instead my arm and shoulder. I

have had people try to mesmerise me a dozen times, and never with the

least result. But at the first tap--on a quarter no more vital than my

hat-brim, and from nothing more virtuous than a switch of palm wielded

by a man I could not even see--sleep rushed upon me like an armed man.

My sinews fainted, my eyes closed, my brain hummed, with drowsiness. I

resisted--at first instinctively, then with a certain flurry of despair,

in the end successfully; if that were indeed success which enabled me to

scramble to my feet, to stumble home somnambulous, to cast myself at

once upon my bed, and sink at once into a dreamless stupor. When I awoke

my cold was gone. So I leave a matter that I do not understand.

Meanwhile my appetite for curiosities (not usually very keen) had been

strangely whetted by the sacred boxes. They were of pandanus wood,

oblong in shape, with an effect of pillaring along the sides like straw

work, lightly fringed with hair or fibre and standing on four legs. The

outside was neat as a toy; the inside a mystery I was resolved to

penetrate. But there was a lion in the path. I might not approach

Terutak', since I had promised to buy nothing in the island; I dared not

have recourse to the king, for I had already received from him more

gifts than I knew how to repay. In this dilemma (the schooner being at

last returned) we hit on a device. Captain Reid came forward in my

stead, professed an unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and

obtained leave to bargain for them with the wizard. That same afternoon

the captain and I made haste to the infirmary, entered the enclosure,

raised the mat, and had begun to examine the boxes at our leisure, when

Terutak's wife bounced out of one of the nigh houses, fell upon us,

swept up the treasures, and was gone. There was never a more absolute

surprise. She came, she took, she vanished, we had not a guess whither;

and we remained, with foolish looks and laughter, on the empty field.

Such was the fit prologue of our memorable bargaining.

Presently Terutak' came, bringing Tamaiti along with him, both smiling;

and we four squatted without the rail. In the three maniap's of the

infirmary a certain audience was gathered: the family of a sick child

under treatment, the king's sister playing cards, a pretty girl, who

swore I was the image of her father; in all perhaps a score. Terutak's

wife had returned (even as she had vanished) unseen, and now sat,

breathless and watchful, by her husband's side. Perhaps some rumour of

our quest had gone abroad, or perhaps we had given the alert by our

unseemly freedom: certain, at least, that in the faces of all present

expectation and alarm were mingled.

Captain Reid announced, without preface or disguise, that I was come to

purchase; Terutak', with sudden gravity, refused to sell. He was

pressed; he persisted. It was explained we only wanted one: no matter,

two were necessary for the healing of the sick. He was rallied, he was

reasoned with: in vain. He sat there, serious and still, and refused.

All this was only a preliminary skirmish; hitherto no sum of money had

been mentioned; but now the captain brought his great guns to bear. He

named a pound, then two, then three. Out of the maniap's one person

after another came to join the group, some with mere excitement, others

with consternation in their faces. The pretty girl crept to my side; it

was then that--surely with the most artless flattery--she informed me of

my likeness to her father. Tamaiti the infidel sat with hanging head and

every mark of dejection. Terutak' streamed with sweat, his eye was

glazed, his face wore a painful rictus, his chest heaved like that of

one spent with running. The man must have been by nature covetous; and I

doubt if ever I saw moral agony more tragically displayed. His wife by

his side passionately encouraged his resistance.

And now came the charge of the old guard. The captain, making a skip,

named the surprising figure of five pounds. At the word the maniap's

were emptied. The king's sister flung down her cards and came to the

front to listen, a cloud on her brow. The pretty girl beat her breast

and cried with wearisome iteration that if the box were hers I should

have it. Terutak's wife was beside herself with pious fear, her face

discomposed, her voice (which scarce ceased from warning and

encouragement) shrill as a whistle. Even Terutak' lost that image-like

immobility which he had hitherto maintained. He rocked on his mat, threw

up his closed knees alternately, and struck himself on the breast after

the manner of dancers. But he came gold out of the furnace; and with

what voice was left him continued to reject the bribe.

And now came a timely interjection. "Money will not heal the sick,"

observed the king's sister sententiously; and as soon as I heard the

remark translated my eyes were unsealed, and I began to blush for my

employment. Here was a sick child, and I sought, in the view of its

parents, to remove the medicine-box. Here was the priest of a religion,

and I (a heathen millionaire) was corrupting him to sacrilege. Here was

a greedy man, torn in twain betwixt greed and conscience; and I sat by

and relished, and lustfully renewed his torments. _Ave, Caesar_!

Smothered in a corner, dormant but not dead, we have all the one touch

of nature: an infant passion for the sand and blood of the arena. So I

brought to an end my first and last experience of the joys of the

millionaire, and departed amid silent awe. Nowhere else can I expect to

stir the depths of human nature by an offer of five pounds; nowhere

else, even at the expense of millions, could I hope to see the evil of

riches stand so legibly exposed. Of all the bystanders, none but the

king's sister retained any memory of the gravity and danger of the thing

in hand. Their eyes glowed, the girl beat her breast, in senseless

animal excitement. Nothing was offered them; they stood neither to gain

nor to lose; at the mere name and wind of these great sums Satan

possessed them.

From this singular interview I went straight to the palace; found the

king; confessed what I had been doing; begged him, in my name, to

compliment Terutak' on his virtue, and to have a similar box made for me

against the return of the schooner. Tembinok', Rubam, and one of the

Daily Papers--him we used to call "the Facetiae Column"--laboured for a

while of some idea, which was at last intelligibly delivered. They

feared I thought the box would cure me; whereas, without the wizard, it

was useless; and when I was threatened with another cold I should do

better to rely on pain-killer. I explained I merely wished to keep it in

my "outch" as a thing made in Apemama; and these honest men were much

relieved.

Late the same evening, my wife, crossing the isle to windward, was aware

of singing in the bush. Nothing is more common in that hour and place

than the jubilant carol of the toddy-cutter swinging high overhead,

beholding below him the narrow ribbon of the isle, the surrounding field

of ocean, and the fires of the sunset. But this was of a graver

character, and seemed to proceed from the ground-level. Advancing a

little in the thicket, Mrs. Stevenson saw a clear space, a fine mat

spread in the midst, and on the mat a wreath of white flowers and one of

the devil-work boxes. A woman--whom we guess to have been Mrs.

Terutak'--sat in front, now drooping over the box like a mother over a

cradle, now lifting her face and directing her song to heaven. A passing

toddy-cutter told my wife that she was praying. Probably she did not so

much pray as deprecate; and perhaps even the ceremony was one of

disenchantment. For the box was already doomed; it was to pass from its

green medicine-tree, reverend precinct, and devout attendants; to be

handled by the profane; to cross three seas; to come to land under the

foolscap of St. Paul's; to be domesticated within hail of Lillie Bridge;

there to be dusted by the British housemaid, and to take perhaps the

roar of London for the voice of the outer sea along the reef. Before

even we had finished dinner Chench had begun his journey, and one of the

newspapers had already placed the box upon my table as the gift of

Tembinok'.

I made haste to the palace, thanked the king, but offered to restore the

box, for I could not bear that the sick of the island should be made to

suffer. I was amazed by his reply. Terutak', it appeared, had still

three or four in reserve against an accident; and his reluctance, and

the dread painted at first on every face, was not in the least

occasioned by the prospect of medical destitution, but by the immediate

divinity of Chench. How much more did I respect the king's command,

which had been able to extort in a moment and for nothing a sacrilegious

favour that I had in vain solicited with millions! But now I had a

difficult task in front of me; it was not in my view that Terutak'

should suffer by his virtue; and I must persuade the king to share my

opinion, to let me enrich one of his subjects, and (what was yet more

delicate) to pay for my present. Nothing shows the king in a more

becoming light than the fact that I succeeded. He demurred at the

principle; he exclaimed, when he heard it, at the sum. "Plenty money!"

cried he, with contemptuous displeasure. But his resistance was never

serious; and when he had blown off his ill-humour--"A' right," said he.

"You give him. Mo' betta."

Armed with this permission, I made straight for the infirmary. The night

was now come, cool, dark, and starry. On a mat, hard by a clear fire of

wood and coco-shell, Terutak' lay beside his wife. Both were smiling;

the agony was over, the king's command had reconciled (I must suppose)

their agitating scruples; and I was bidden to sit by them and share the

circulating pipe. I was a little moved myself when I placed five gold

sovereigns in the wizard's hand; but there was no sign of emotion in

Terutak' as he returned them, pointed to the palace, and named

Tembinok'. It was a changed scene when I had managed to explain.

Terutak', long, dour Scots fisherman as he was, expressed his

satisfaction within bounds; but the wife beamed; and there was an old

gentleman present--her father, I suppose--who seemed nigh translated.

His eyes stood out of his head; "_Kaupoi, Kaupoi_--rich, rich!" ran on

his lips like a refrain; and he could not meet my eye but what he

gurgled into foolish laughter.

I might now go home, leaving that fire-lit family party gloating over

their new millions, and consider my strange day. I had tried and

rewarded the virtue of Terutak'. I had played the millionaire, had

behaved abominably, and then in some degree repaired my thoughtlessness.

And now I had my box, and could open it and look within. It contained a

miniature sleeping-mat and a white shell. Tamaiti, interrogated next day

as to the shell, explained it was not exactly Chench, but a cell, or

body, which he would at times inhabit. Asked why there was a

sleeping-mat, he retorted indignantly, "Why have you mats?" And this was

the sceptical Tamaiti! But island scepticism is never deeper than the

lips.

CHAPTER VII

THE KING OF APEMAMA

Thus all things on the island, even the priests of the gods, obey the

word of Tembinok'. He can give and take, and slay, and allay the

scruples of the conscientious, and do all things (apparently) but

interfere in the cookery of a turtle. "I got power" is his favourite

word; it interlards his conversation; the thought haunts him and is ever

fresh; and when he has asked and meditates of foreign countries, he

looks up with a smile and reminds you, "_I got power_." Nor is his

delight only in the possession, but in the exercise. He rejoices in the

crooked and violent paths of kingship like a strong man to run a race,

or like an artist in his art. To feel, to use his power, to embellish

his island and the picture of the island life after a private ideal, to

milk the island vigorously, to extend his singular museum--these employ

delightfully the sum of his abilities. I never saw a man more patently

in the right trade.

It would be natural to suppose this monarchy inherited intact through

generations. And so far from that, it is a thing of yesterday. I was

already a boy at school while Apemama was yet republican, ruled by a

noisy council of Old Men, and torn with incurable feuds. And Tembinok'

is no Bourbon; rather the son of a Napoleon. Of course he is well-born.

No man need aspire high in the isles of the Pacific unless his pedigree

be long and in the upper regions mythical. And our king counts

cousinship with most of the high families in the archipelago, and traces

his descent to a shark and a heroic woman. Directed by an oracle, she

swam beyond sight of land to meet her revolting paramour, and received

at sea the seed of a predestined family. "I think lie," is the king's

emphatic commentary; yet he is proud of the legend. From this

illustrious beginning the fortunes of the race must have declined; and

Tenkoruti, the grandfather of Tembinok', was the chief of a village at

the north end of the island. Kuria and Aranuka were yet independent;

Apemama itself the arena of devastating feuds. Through this perturbed

period of history the figure of Tenkoruti stalks memorable. In war he

was swift and bloody; several towns fell to his spear, and the

inhabitants were butchered to a man. In civil life his arrogance was

unheard of. When the council of Old Men was summoned, he went to the

Speak House, delivered his mind, and left without waiting to be

answered. Wisdom had spoken: let others opine according to their folly.

He was feared and hated, and this was his pleasure. He was no poet; he

cared not for arts or knowledge. "My gran'patha one thing savvy, savvy

pight," observed the king. In some lull of their own disputes the Old

Men of Apemama adventured on the conquest of Apemama; and this unlicked

Caius Marcius was elected general of the united troops. Success attended

him; the islands were reduced, and Tenkoruti returned to his own

government, glorious and detested. He died about 1860, in the seventieth

year of his age and the full odour of unpopularity. He was tall and

lean, says his grandson, looked extremely old, and "walked all the same

young man." The same observer gave me a significant detail. The

survivors of that rough epoch were all defaced with spearmarks; there

was none on the body of this skilful fighter. "I see old man, no got a

spear," said the king.

Tenkoruti left two sons, Tembaitake and Tembinatake. Tembaitake, our

king's father, was short, middling stout, a poet, a good genealogist,

and something of a fighter; it seems he took himself seriously, and was

perhaps scarce conscious that he was in all things the creature and

nursling of his brother. There was no shadow of dispute between the

pair: the greater man filled with alacrity and content the second

place: held the breach in war, and all the portfolios in the time of

peace: and, when his brother rated him, listened in silence, looking on

the ground. Like Tenkoruti, he was tall and lean and a swift walker--a

rare trait in the islands. He possessed every accomplishment. He knew

sorcery, he was the best genealogist of his day, he was a poet, he could

dance and make canoes and armour; and the famous mast of Apemama, which

ran one joint higher than the mainmast of a full-rigged ship, was of his

conception and design. But these were avocations, and the man's trade

was war. "When my uncle go make wa', he laugh," said Tembinok'. He

forbade the use of field fortification, that protractor of native

hostilities; his men must fight in the open, and win or be beaten out of

hand; his own activity inspired his followers; and the swiftness of his

blows beat down, in one lifetime, the resistance of three islands. He

made his brother sovereign, he left his nephew absolute. "My uncle make

all smooth," said Tembinok'. "I mo' king than my patha: I got power," he

said, with formidable relish.

Such is the portrait of the uncle drawn by the nephew. I can set beside

it another by a different artist, who has often--I may say

always--delighted me with his romantic taste in narrative, but not

always--and I may say not often--persuaded me of his exactitude. I have

already denied myself the use of so much excellent matter from the same

source, that I begin to think it time to reward good resolution; and his

account of Tembinatake agrees so well with the king's, that it may very

well be (what I hope it is) the record of a fact, and not (what I

suspect) the pleasing exercise of an imagination more than sailorly. A.,

for so I had perhaps better call him, was walking up the island after

dusk, when he came on a lighted village of some size, was directed to

the chief's house, and asked leave to rest and smoke a pipe. "You will

sit down, and smoke a pipe, and wash, and eat, and sleep," replied the

chief, "and to-morrow you will go again." Food was brought, prayers

were held (for this was in the brief day of Christianity), and the chief

himself prayed with eloquence and seeming sincerity. All evening A. sat

and admired the man by the firelight. He was six feet high, lean, with

the appearance of many years, and an extraordinary air of breeding and

command. "He looked like a man who would kill you laughing," said A., in

singular echo of one of the king's expressions. And again: "I had been

reading the Musketeer books, and he reminded me of Aramis." Such is the

portrait of Tembinatake, drawn by an expert romancer.

We had heard many tales of "my patha"; never a word of my uncle till two

days before we left. As the time approached for our departure Tembinok'

became greatly changed; a softer, a more melancholy, and, in particular,

a more confidential man appeared in his stead. To my wife he contrived

laboriously to explain that though he knew he must lose his father in

the course of nature, he had not minded nor realised it till the moment

came; and that now he was to lose us he repeated the experience. We

showed fireworks one evening on the terrace. It was a heavy business;

the sense of separation was in all our minds, and the talk languished.

The king was specially affected, sat disconsolate on his mat, and often

sighed. Of a sudden one of the wives stepped forth from a cluster, came

and kissed him in silence, and silently went again. It was just such a

caress as we might give to a disconsolate child, and the king received

it with a child's simplicity. Presently after we said good-night and

withdrew; but Tembinok' detained Mr. Osbourne, patting the mat by his

side and saying: "Sit down. I feel bad, I like talk." Osbourne sat down

by him. "You like some beer?" said he; and one of the wives produced a

bottle. The king did not partake, but sat sighing and smoking a

meerschaum pipe. "I very sorry you go," he said at last. "Miss Stlevens

he good man, woman he good man, boy he good man; all good man. Woman he

smart all the same man. My woman" (glancing towards his wives) "he good

woman, no very smart. I think Miss Stlevens he big chiep all the same

cap'n man-o'-wa'. I think Miss Stlevens he rich man all the same me. All

go schoona. I very sorry. My patha he go, my uncle he go, my cutcheons

he go, Miss Stlevens he go: all go. You no see king cry before. King all

the same man: feel bad, he cry. I very sorry."

In the morning it was the common topic in the village that the king had

wept. To me he said: "Last night I no can 'peak: too much here," laying

his hand upon his bosom. "Now you go away all the same my pamily. My

brothers, my uncle go away. All the same." This was said with a

dejection almost passionate. And it was the first time I had heard him

name his uncle, or indeed employ the word. The same day he sent me a

present of two corselets, made in the island fashion of plaited fibre,

heavy and strong. One had been worn by Tenkoruti, one by Tembaitake; and

the gift being gratefully received, he sent me, on the return of his

messengers--a third--that of Tembinatake. My curiosity was roused; I

begged for information as to the three wearers; and the king entered

with gusto into the details already given. Here was a strange thing,

that he should have talked so much of his family, and not once mentioned

that relative of whom he was plainly the most proud. Nay, more: he had

hitherto boasted of his father; thenceforth he had little to say of him;

and the qualities for which he had praised him in the past were now

attributed where they were due,--to the uncle. A confusion might be

natural enough among islanders, who call all the sons of their

grandfather by the common name of father. But this was not the case with

Tembinok'. Now the ice was broken the word uncle was perpetually in his

mouth; he who had been so ready to confound was now careful to

distinguish; and the father sank gradually into a self-complacent

ordinary man, while the uncle rose to his true stature as the hero and

founder of the race.

The more I heard and the more I considered, the more this mystery of

Tembinok's behaviour puzzled and attracted me. And the explanation, when

it came, was one to strike the imagination of a dramatist. Tembinok' had

two brothers. One, detected in private trading, was banished, then

forgiven, lives to this day in the island, and is the father of the

heir-apparent, Paul. The other fell beyond forgiveness. I have heard it

was a love-affair with one of the king's wives, and the thing is highly

possible in that romantic archipelago. War was attempted to be levied;

but Tembinok' was too swift for the rebels, and the guilty brother

escaped in a canoe. He did not go alone. Tembinatake had a hand in the

rebellion, and the man who had gained a kingdom for a weakling brother

was banished by that brother's son. The fugitives came to shore in other

islands, but Tembinok' remains to this day ignorant of their fate.

So far history. And now a moment for conjecture. Tembinok' confused

habitually, not only the attributes and merits of his father and his

uncle, but their diverse personal appearance. Before he had even spoken,

or thought to speak, of Tembinatake, he had told me often of a tall,

lean father, skilled in war, and his own schoolmaster in genealogy and

island arts. How if both were fathers, one natural, one adoptive? How if

the heir of Tembaitake, like the heir of Tembinok' himself, were not a

son, but an adopted nephew? How if the founder of the monarchy, while he

worked for his brother, worked at the same time for the child of his

loins? How if on the death of Tembaitake, the two stronger natures,

father and son, king and kingmaker, clashed, and Tembinok', when he

drove out his uncle, drove out the author of his days? Here is at least

a tragedy four-square.

The king took us on board in his own gig, dressed for the occasion in

the naval uniform. He had little to say, he refused refreshments, shook

us briefly by the hand, and went ashore again. That night the palm-tops

of Apemama had dipped behind the sea, and the schooner sailed solitary

under the stars.

LETTERS FROM SAMOA

LETTERS TO THE "TIMES," "PALL MALL GAZETTE," ETC.

I

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Yacht "Casco," Hawaiian Islands, Feb. 10, 1889._

Sir,--News from Polynesia is apt to come piecemeal, and thus fail of its

effect, the first step being forgotten before the second comes to hand.

For this reason I should like to be allowed to recapitulate a little of

the past before I go on to illustrate the present extraordinary state of

affairs in the Samoan Islands.

It is quite true that this group was largely opened up by German

enterprise, and that the port of Apia is much the creation of the

Godeffroys. So far the German case extends; no farther. Apia was

governed till lately by a tripartite municipality, the American,

English, and German Consuls, and one other representative of each of the

three nations making up the body. To both America and Germany a harbour

had been ceded. England, I believe, had no harbour, but that her

position was quite equal to that of her neighbours one fact eloquently

displays. Malietoa--then King of Samoa, now a prisoner on the Marshall

Islands--offered to accept the supremacy of England. Unhappily for

himself, his offer was refused, Her Majesty's Government declaring, I am

told, that they would prefer to see him independent. As he now wanders

the territory of his island prison, under the guns of an Imperial

war-ship, his independence (if it still exist) must be confined

entirely to his bosom.

Such was the former equal and pacific state of the three nations at

Apia. It would be curious to tell at length by what steps of

encroachment on the one side and weakness on the other the present reign

of terror has been brought about; but my time before the mail departs is

very short, your space is limited, and in such a history much must be

only matter of conjecture. Briefly and roughly, then, there came a

sudden change in the attitude of Germany. Another treaty was proposed to

Malietoa and refused; the cause of the rebel Tamasese was invented or

espoused; Malietoa was seized and deported, Tamasese installed, the

tripartite municipality dissolved, the German Consul seated

autocratically in its place, and the Hawaiian Embassy (sent by a Power

of the same race to moderate among Samoans) dismissed with threats and

insults. In the course of these events villages have been shelled, the

German flag has been at least once substituted for the English, and the

Stars and Stripes (only the other day) were burned at Matafatatele. On

the day of the chase after Malietoa the houses of both English and

Americans were violently entered by the Germans. Since the dissolution

of the municipality English and Americans have paid their taxes into the

hands of their own Consuls, where they accumulate, and the German

representative, unrecognised and unsupported, rules single in Apia. I

have had through my hands a file of Consular proclamations, the most

singular reading--a state of war declared, all other authority but that

of the German representative suspended, punishment (and the punishment

of death in particular) liberally threatened. It is enough to make a man

rub his eyes when he reads Colonel de Coetlogon's protest and the

high-handed rejoinder posted alongside of it the next day by Dr. Knappe.

Who is Dr. Knappe, thus to make peace and war, deal in life and death,

and close with a buffet the mouth of English Consuls? By what process

known to diplomacy has he risen from his one-sixth part of municipal

authority to be the Bismarck of a Polynesian island? And what spell has

been cast on the Cabinets of Washington and St. James's, that Mr.

Blacklock should have been so long left unsupported, and that Colonel de

Coetlogon must bow his head under a public buffet?

I have not said much of the Samoans. I despair, in so short a space, to

interest English readers in their wrongs; with the mass of people at

home they will pass for some sort of cannibal islanders, with whom faith

were superfluous, upon whom kindness might be partly thrown away. And,

indeed, I recognise with gladness that (except as regards the captivity

of Malietoa) the Samoans have had throughout the honours of the game.

Tamasese, the German puppet, has had everywhere the under hand; almost

none, except those of his own clan, have ever supported his cause, and

even these begin now to desert him. "This is no Samoan war," said one of

them, as he transferred his followers and services to the new

Malietoa--Mataafa; "this is a German war." Mataafa, if he be cut off

from Apia and the sea, lies inexpugnable in the foot-hills immediately

behind with 5,000 warriors at his back. And beyond titles to a great

deal of land, which they extorted in exchange for rifles and ammunition

from the partisans of Tamasese, of all this bloodshed and bullying the

Germans behold no profit. I have it by last advices that Dr. Knappe has

approached the King privately with fair speeches, assuring him that the

state of war, bombardments, and other evils of the day, are not at all

directed at Samoans, but against the English and Americans; and that,

when these are extruded, peace shall again smile on a German island. It

can never be proved, but it is highly possible he may have said so; and,

whether he said it or not, there is a sense in which the thing is true.

Violence has not been found to succeed with the Samoans; with the two

Anglo-Saxon Powers it has been found to work like a charm.

I conclude with two instances, one American, one English:--

_First_.--Mr. Klein, an American journalist, was on the beach with

Malietoa's men on the night of the recent German defeat. Seeing the

boats approach in the darkness, Mr. Klein hailed them and warned them of

the Samoan ambush, and, by this innocent and humane step, made public

the fact of his presence. Where much else is contested so much appears

to be admitted (and, indeed, claimed) upon both sides. Mr. Klein is now

accused of firing on the Germans and of advising the Samoans to fire,

both of which he denies. He is accused, after the fight, of succouring

only the wounded of Malietoa's party; he himself declares that he helped

both; and, at any rate, the offence appears a novel one, and the

accusation threatens to introduce fresh dangers into Red Cross work. He

was on the beach that night in the exercise of his profession. If he was

with Malietoa's men, which is the real gist of his offence, we who are

not Germans may surely ask, Why not? On what ground is Malietoa a rebel?

The Germans have not conquered Samoa that I ever heard of; they are

there on treaty like their neighbours, and Dr. Knappe himself (in the

eyes of justice) is no more than the one-sixth part of the town council

of Apia. Lastly, Mr. Klein's innocence stands very clearly proven by the

openness with which he declared his presence. For all that, this

gentleman lay for a considerable time, watched day and night by German

sailors, a prisoner in the American Consulate; even after he had

succeeded in running the gauntlet of the German guards, and making his

escape in a canoe to the American warship _Nipsic_, he was imperiously

redemanded from under his own flag, and it is probable his extradition

is being already called for at Washington.

_Secondly_.--An English artist had gone into the bush sketching. I

believe he had been to Malietoa's camp, so that his guilt stands on

somewhat the same ground as Mr. Klein's. He was forcibly seized on board

the British packet _Richmond_, carried half-dressed on board the

_Adler_, and detained there, in spite of all protest, until an English

war-ship had been cleared for action. This is of notoriety, and only one

case (although a strong one) of many. Is it what the English people

understand by the sovereignty of the seas?--I am, etc.,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

II

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Vailima, Upolu, Samoa, Oct. 12, 1891._

Sir,--I beg leave to lay before your readers a copy of a correspondence,

or (should that have reached you by another channel) to offer a few

words of narrative and comment.

On Saturday, September 5, Mr. Cedercrantz, the Chief Justice of Samoa,

sailed on a visit to Fiji, leaving behind him certain prisoners in the

gaol, and Baron Senfft von Pilsach, President of the Municipal Council,

master of the field. The prisoners were five chiefs of Manono who had

surrendered of their own accord, or at the desire of Mataafa, had been

tried by a native magistrate, and received sentence of six months'

confinement under "gentlemanly" (_sic_) conditions. As they were marched

to prison, certain of their country-folk of Manono ran beside and

offered an immediate rescue; but Lieutenant Ulfsparre ordered the men of

the escort to load, and the disturbance blew by. How little weight was

attached to this incident by the Chief Justice is sufficiently indicated

by the fact of his departure. It was unhappily otherwise with those whom

he left behind. Panic seems to have marked them for her own; they

despaired at once of all lawful defence; and, on Sunday, the day after

the Chief Justice's departure, Apia was in consequence startled with

strange news. Dynamite bought from the wrecker ship, an electrical

machine and a mechanic hired, the prison mined, and a letter despatched

to the people of Manono advising them of the fact, and announcing that

if any rescue were attempted prison and prisoners should be blown

up--such were the voices of rumour; and the design appearing equally

feeble, reckless, and wicked, considerable agitation was aroused.

Perhaps it had some effect. Our Government at least, which had rushed so

hastily to one extreme, now dashed with the same speed into another.

Sunday was the day of dynamite, Tuesday dawned the day of deportation. A

cutter was hurriedly prepared for sea, and the prisoners, whom the Chief

Justice had left three days before under a sentence of "gentlemanly"

detention, found themselves under way to exile in the Tokelaus.

A Government of this agility escapes criticism: by multiplying surprises

it obliterates the very memory of past mistakes. Some, perhaps, forgot

the dynamite; some, hearing no more of it, set it down to be a trick of

rumour such as we are well used to in the islands. But others were not

so sure. Others considered that the rumour (even if unfounded) was of an

ill example, might bear deplorable fruit, and, from all points of view

of morality and policy, required a public contradiction. Eleven of these

last entered accordingly into the annexed correspondence with the

President. It will be seen in the crevice of what quibble that gentleman

sought refuge and sits inexpugnable. In a question affecting his

humanity, his honour, and the wellbeing of the kingdom which he serves,

he has preferred to maintain what I can only call a voluble silence. The

public must judge of the result; but there is one point to which I may

be allowed to draw attention--that passage in the fourth of the appended

documents in which he confesses that he was already acquainted with the

rumours in question, and that he has been present (and apparently not

protesting) when the scandal was discussed and the proposed enormity

commended.

The correspondence was still passing when the President surprised Apia

with a fresh gambado. He has been a long while in trouble as to his

disposition of the funds. His intention to build a house for himself--to

all appearance with native money--his sending the taxes out of the

islands and locking them up in deposits, and his noisy squabbles with

the King and native Parliament as to the currency, had all aroused

unfavourable comment. On Saturday, the 3rd of October, a correspondence

on the last point appeared in the local paper. By this it appeared that

our not too resolute King and Parliament had at last and in one

particular defied his advice and maintained their own opinion. If

vengeance were to be the order of the day, it might have been expected

to fall on the King and Parliament; but this would have been too direct

a course, and the blow was turned instead against an innocent municipal

council. On the 7th the President appeared before that body, informed

them that his authority was lessened by the publication, that he had

applied to the King for a month's leave of (theatrical) absence, and

must now refuse to fulfil his duties. With this he retired to his own

house, which is under the same roof, leaving the councillors and the

municipality to do what they pleased and drift where they could without

him. It is reported he has since declared his life to be in danger, and

even applied to his Consul for protection. This seems to pass the bounds

of credibility; but the movements of Baron Senfft von Pilsach have been

throughout so agitated and so unexpected that we know not what to look

for; and the signatories of the annexed addresses, if they were accused

to-morrow of a design on the man's days, would scarce have spirit left

to be surprised.

It must be clearly pointed out that this is no quarrel of German and

anti-German. The German officials, consular and naval, have behaved with

perfect loyalty. A German wrote the letter to the paper which unchained

this thunderbolt; and it was a German who took the chair which the

President had just vacated at the table of the municipal board. And

though the Baron is himself of German race, his conduct presents no

appearance of design, how much less of conspiracy! Doubtless certain

journals will so attempt to twist it; but to the candid it will seem no

more than the distracted evolutions of a weak man in a series of panics.

Such is a rough outline of the events to which I would fain direct the

attention of the public at home, in the States, and still more in

Germany. It has for me but one essential point. Budgets have been called

in question, and officials publicly taken the pet before now. But the

dynamite scandal is unique.

If it be unfounded, our complaint is already grave. It was the

President's duty, as a man and as a responsible official, to have given

it instant and direct denial: and since he neither did so of his own

motion, nor consented to do so on our repeated instances, he has shown

that he neither understands nor yet is willing to be taught the

condition of this country. From what I have been able to collect,

Samoans are indignant because the thing was decided between the King and

President without consultation with the native Parliament. The thing

itself, it does not enter in their thoughts to call in question; they

receive gratefully a fresh lesson in civilised methods and civilised

justice; a day may come when they shall put that lesson in practice for

themselves; and if they are then decried for their barbarity--as they

will surely be--and punished for it, as is highly probable, I will ask

candid people what they are to think? "How?" they will say. "Your own

white people intended to do this, and you said nothing. We do it, and

you call us treacherous savages!"

This is to suppose the story false. Suppose it true, however; still

more, suppose the plan had been carried out. Suppose these chiefs to

have surrendered to the white man's justice, administered or not by a

brown Judge; suppose them tried, condemned, confined in that snare of a

gaol, and some fine night their mangled limbs cast in the faces of their

countrymen: I leave others to predict the consequences of such an

object-lesson in the arts of peace and the administration of the law.

The Samoans are a mild race, but their patience is in some points

limited. Under Captain Brandeis a single skirmish and the death of a few

youths sufficed to kindle an enduring war and bring on the ruin of the

Government. The residents have no desire for war, and they deprecate

altogether a war embittered from the beginning by atrocities. Nor can

they think the stakes at all equal between themselves and Baron Senfft.

He has nothing to lose but a situation; he is here in what he stands in;

he can swarm to-morrow on board a war-ship and be off. But the residents

have some of them sunk capital on these shores; some of them are

involved in extended affairs; they are tied to the stake, and they

protest against being plunged into war by the violence, and having that

war rendered more implacable by the preliminary cruelties, of a white

official.

I leave entirely upon one side all questions of morality; but there is

still one point of expediency on which I must touch. The old native

Government (which was at least cheap) failed to enforce the law, and

fell, in consequence, into the manifold troubles which have made the

name of Samoa famous. The enforcement of the law--that was what was

required, that was the salvation looked for. And here we have a

Government at a high figure, and it cannot defend its own gaol, and can

find no better remedy than to assassinate its prisoners. What we have

bought at this enormous increase of expenditure is the change from King

Log to King Stork--from the man who failed to punish petty theft to the

man who plots the destruction of his own gaol and the death of his own

prisoners.

On the return of the Chief Justice, the matter will be brought to his

attention; but the cure of our troubles must come from home; it is from

the Great Powers that we look for deliverance. They sent us the

President. Let them either remove the man, or see that he is stringently

instructed--instructed to respect public decency, so we be no longer

menaced with doings worthy of a revolutionary committee; and instructed

to respect the administration of the law, so if I be fined a dollar

to-morrow for fast riding in Apia street, I may not awake next morning

to find my sentence increased to one of banishment or death by

dynamite.--I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--_October 14_.--I little expected fresh developments before the

mail left. But the unresting President still mars the quiet of his

neighbours. Even while I was writing the above lines, Apia was looking

on in mere amazement on the continuation of his gambols. A white man had

written to the King, and the King had answered the letter--crimes

against Baron Senfft von Pilsach and (his private reading of) the Berlin

Treaty. He offered to resign--I was about to say "accordingly," for the

unexpected is here the normal--from the presidency of the municipal

board, and to retain his position as the King's adviser. He was

instructed that he must resign both, or neither; resigned both; fell out

with the Consuls on details; and is now, as we are advised, seeking to

resile from his resignations. Such an official I never remember to have

read of, though I have seen the like, from across the footlights and the

orchestra, evolving in similar figures to the strains of Offenbach.

R.L.S.

COPIES OF A CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN CERTAIN RESIDENTS OF APIA AND BARON

SENFFT VON PILSACH.

I

_September 28, 1891_.

BARON SENFFT VON PILSACH.

Sir,--We are requested to lay the enclosed appeal before you, and to

express the desire of the signatories to meet your views as to the

manner of the answer.

Should you prefer to reply by word of mouth, a deputation will be ready

to wait upon you on Thursday, at any hour you may please to appoint.

Should you prefer to reply in writing, we are asked only to impress upon

you the extreme desire of the signatories that no time should be

unnecessarily lost.

Should you condescend in either of the ways suggested to set at rest our

anxiety, we need scarce assure you that the step will be received with

gratitude.--We have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servants,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

E. W. GURR.

II

(_Enclosed in No. I_.)

The attention of the President of the Municipal Council is respectfully

directed to the following rumours:--

1. That at his suggestion, or with his authority, dynamite was

purchased, or efforts were made to procure dynamite, and the use of an

electrical machine was secured, or attempted to be obtained.

2. That this was for the purpose of undermining, or pretending to

undermine, the gaol in which the Manono prisoners were confined.

3. That notification of this design was sent to the friends of the

prisoners.

4. That a threat of blowing up the gaol and the prisoners, in the event

of an attempted rescue, was made.

Upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents

anxiously expect and respectfully beg information.

It is suggested for the President's consideration that rumours

unconnected or unexplained acquire almost the force of admitted truth.

That any want of confidence between the governed and the Government must

be fruitful in loss to both.

That the rumours in their present form tend to damage the white races in

the native mind, and to influence for the worse the manners of the

Samoans.

And that the President alone is in a position to deny, to explain, or to

correct these rumours.

Upon these grounds the undersigned ask to be excused for any informality

in their address, and they hope and humbly pray that the President will

accept the occasion here presented, and take early and effectual means

to inform and reassure the whites, and to relieve them from possible

misjudgment on the part of the Samoans.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

E.W. GURR.

[_and nine other signatures_.]

III

_Apia, Sept. 30, 1891._

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, ESQ., E.W. GURR, ESQ.

Dear Sirs,--Thanking you for your kind letter dated 28th inst., which I

received yesterday, together with the address in question, I beg to

inform you that I am going to answer the address in writing as soon as

possible.--I have the honour to be, dear Sirs, your obedient servant,

SENFFT.

IV

_Apia, Oct. 2, 1891._

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, ESQ., E. W. GURR, Esq.

Gentlemen,--I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of an address

without date which has been signed by you and some other foreign

residents and handed to me on the 29th of September.

In this address my attention is directed to some rumours, specified

therein, concerning which I am informed that "upon all and upon each of

these points severally the white residents anxiously expect and

respectfully beg information."

Generally, I beg to state that, with a view of successfully performing

my official duties, I believe it is advisable for me to pay no attention

to any anonymous rumour.

Further, I cannot forbear expressing my astonishment that in speaking to

me so seriously in the name of "the white residents" the subscribers of

the address have deemed it unnecessary to acquaint me with their

authorisation for doing so. This omission is by no means a mere

informality. There are white residents who in my presence have commented

upon the rumours in question in a manner directly opposed to the meaning

of the address.

This fact alone will justify me in objecting to the truth of the

above-quoted statement so prominently set forth and so positively

affirmed in the address. It will also justify me in abstaining from a

reply to the further assertions of gentlemen who, in apostrophising me,

care so little for the correctness of the facts they deal with.

If, in consequence, according to the apprehensions laid down in the

address, those unexplained rumours will "damage the white races in the

native mind," I think the signing parties will then remember that there

are public authorities in Samoa officially and especially charged with

the protection of "the white residents." If they present to them their

complaints and their wishes I have no doubt by so doing they will get

all information they may require.

I ask you, gentlemen, to communicate this answer to the parties having

signed the address in question.--I have the honour to be, Gentlemen,

your obedient servant,

FRHR. SENFFT VON PILSACH.

V

_Oct. 9, 1891_.

The signatories of the address are in receipt of the President's favour

under date October 2. Much of his answer is occupied in dealing with a

point foreign to the matter in hand, and in itself surprising to the

signatories. Their address was an appeal for information on specific

points and an appeal from specific persons, who correctly described

themselves as "white residents," "the undersigned," and in the

accompanying letter as the "signatories." They were so far from seeking

to collect evidence in private that they applied frankly and directly to

the person accused for explanation; and so far from seeking to multiply

signatures or promote scandal that they kept the paper strictly to

themselves. They see with regret that the President has failed to

appreciate this delicacy. They see with sorrow and surprise that, in

answer to a communication which they believe to have been temperately

and courteously worded, the President has thought fit to make an

imputation on their honesty. The trick of which he would seem to accuse

them would have been useless, and even silly, if attempted; and on a

candid re-examination of the address and the accompanying letter, the

President will doubtless see fit to recall the imputation.

By way of answer to the questions asked the signatories can find nothing

but what seems to be a recommendation to them to apply to their Consuls

for "protection." It was not protection they asked, but information. It

was not a sense of fear that moved them, but a sense of shame. It is

their misfortune that they cannot address the President in his own

language, or they would not now require to explain that the words "tend

to damage the white races in the native mind," quoted and misapplied by

the President, do not express any fear of suffering by the hands of the

Samoans, but in their good opinion, and were not the expression of any

concern for the duration of peace, but of a sense of shame under what

they conceived to be disgraceful imputations. While agreeing generally

with the President's expressed sentiment as to "anonymous rumours," they

feel that a line has to be drawn. Certain rumours they would not suffer

to remain uncontradicted for an hour. It was natural, therefore, that

when they heard a man of their own white race accused of conspiring to

blow up the gaol and the prisoners who were there under the safeguard of

his honour, they should attribute to the accused a similar impatience to

be justified; and it is with a sense of painful surprise that they find

themselves to have been mistaken.

(_Signatures as to Number II_.)

VI

_Apia, October 9, 1891_.

Gentlemen,--Being in receipt of your communication under to-day's date,

I have the honour to inform you that I have undertaken the

re-examination of your first address, which you believe would induce me

to recall the answer I have given on the 2nd inst.

From this re-examination I have learned again that your appeal begins

with the following statement:--

"Upon all and upon each of these points severally the white residents

anxiously expect and respectfully beg information."

I have called this statement a seriously speaking to me in the name of

the white residents, and I have objected to the truth of that statement.

If after a "candid re-examination" of the matter from your part you may

refute me in either or both points, I shall be glad, indeed, in

recalling my answer.

At present I beg to say that I see no reason for your supposing I

misunderstood your expression of damaging the white races in the native

mind, unless you have no other notion of protection than that applying

to the body.

Concerning the assertion contained in the last clause of your second

address, that five Samoan prisoners having been sentenced by a Samoan

Judge for destroying houses were in the gaol of the Samoan Government

"under the safeguard of my honour," I ask for your permission to

recommend this statement also and especially to your re-examination.--I

have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your obedient servant,

FRHR. SENFFT VON PILSACH.

III

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Samoa, April 9, 1892._

Sir,--A sketch of our latest difficulty in Samoa will be interesting, at

least to lawyers.

In the Berlin General Act there is one point on which, from the earliest

moment, volunteer interpreters have been divided. The revenue arising

from the customs was held by one party to belong to the Samoan

Government, by another to the municipality; and the dispute was at last

decided in favour of the municipality by Mr. Cedercrantz, Chief Justice.

The decision was not given in writing; but it was reported by at least

one of the Consuls to his Government, it was of public notoriety, it is

not denied, and it was at once implicitly acted on by the parties.

Before that decision, the revenue from customs was suffered to

accumulate; ever since, to the knowledge of the Chief Justice, and with

the daily countenance of the President, it has been received,

administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the

Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed

to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the

result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to

have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other day,

proposed, supported, and finally negatived, in a public meeting.

About a year has gone by since the decision, and the state of the Samoan

Government has been daily growing more precarious. Taxes have not been

paid, and the Government has not ventured to enforce them. Fresh taxes

have fallen due, and the Government has not ventured to call for them.

Salaries were running on, and that of the Chief Justice alone amounts to

a considerable figure for these islands; the coffers had fallen low, at

last it is believed they were quite empty, no resource seemed left, and

bystanders waited with a smiling curiosity for the wheels to stop. I

should add, to explain the epithet "smiling," that the Government has

proved a still-born child; and except for some spasmodic movements which

I have already made the subject of remark in your columns, it may be

said to have done nothing but pay salaries.

In this state of matters, on March 28, the President of the Council,

Baron Senfft von Pilsach, was suddenly and privately supplied by Mr.

Cedercrantz with a written judgment, reversing the verbal and public

decision of a year before. By what powers of law was this result

attained? And how was the point brought again before his Honour? I feel

I shall here strain the credulity of your readers, but our authority is

the President in person. The suit was brought by himself in his capacity

(perhaps an imaginary one) of King's adviser; it was defended by himself

in his capacity of President of the Council, no notice had been given,

the parties were not summoned, they were advised neither of the trial

nor the judgment; so far as can be learned two persons only met and

parted--the first was the plaintiff and defendant rolled in one, the

other was a Judge who had decided black a year ago, and had now

intimated a modest willingness to decide white.

But it is possible to follow more closely these original proceedings.

Baron von Pilsach sat down (he told us) in his capacity of adviser to

the King, and wrote to himself, in his capacity of President of the

Council, an eloquent letter of reprimand three pages long; an unknown

English artist clothed it for him in good language; and nothing remained

but to have it signed by King Malietoa, to whom it was attributed. "So

long as he knows how to sign!"--a white official is said thus to have

summed up, with a shrug, the qualifications necessary in a Samoan king.

It was signed accordingly, though whether the King knew what he was

signing is matter of debate; and thus regularised, it was forwarded to

the Chief Justice enclosed in a letter of adhesion from the President.

Such as they were, these letters appear to have been the pleadings on

which the Chief Justice proceeded; such as they were, they seem to have

been the documents in this unusual case.

Suppose an unfortunate error to have been made, suppose a reversal of

the Court's finding and the year's policy to have become immediately

needful, wisdom would indicate an extreme frankness of demeanour. And

our two officials preferred a policy of irritating dissimulation. While

the revolution was being prepared behind the curtain, the President was

holding night sessions of the municipal council. What was the business?

No other than to prepare an ordinance regulating those very customs

which he was secretly conspiring to withdraw from their control. And it

was a piece of duplicity of a similar nature which first awoke the

echoes of Apia by its miscarriage. The council had sent up for the

approval of the Consular Board a project of several bridges, one of

which, that of the Vaisingano, was of chief importance to the town. To

sanction so much fresh expense, at the very moment when, to his secret

knowledge, the municipality was to be left bare of funds, appeared to

one of the Consuls an unworthy act; and the proposal was accordingly

disallowed. The people of Apia are extremely swift to guess. No sooner

was the Vaisingano bridge denied them than they leaped within a

measurable distance of the truth. It was remembered that the Chief

Justice had but recently (this time by a decision regularly obtained)

placed the municipal funds at the President's mercy; talk ran high of

collusion between the two officials; it was rumoured the safe had been

already secretly drawn upon; the newspaper being at this juncture

suddenly and rather mysteriously sold, it was rumoured it had been

bought for the officials with municipal money, and the Apians crowded in

consequence to the municipal meeting on April 1, with minds already

heated.

The President came on his side armed with the secret judgment; and the

hour being now come, he unveiled his work of art to the municipal

councillors. On the strength of the Chief Justice's decision, to his

knowledge, and with the daily countenance of the President, they had for

twelve months received and expended the revenue from customs. They

learned now that this was wrong; they learned not only that they were to

receive no more, but that they must refund what they had already spent;

and the total sum amounting to about $25,000, and there being less than

$20,000 in the treasury, they learned that they were bankrupt. And with

the next breath the President reassured them; time was to be given to

these miserable debtors, and the King in his clemency would even advance

them from their own safe--now theirs no longer--a loan of $3,000 against

current expenses. If the municipal council of Apia be far from an ideal

body, at least it makes roads and builds bridges, at least it does

something to justify its existence and reconcile the ratepayer to the

rates. This was to cease: all the funds husbanded for this end were to

be transferred to the Government at Mulinuu, which has never done

anything to mention but pay salaries, and of which men have long ceased

to expect anything else but that it shall continue to pay salaries till

it die of inanition. Let us suppose this raid on the municipal treasury

to have been just and needful. It is plain, even if introduced in the

most conciliatory manner, it could never have been welcome. And, as it

was, the sting was in the manner--in the secrecy and the surprise, in

the dissimulation, the dissonant decisions, the appearance of collusion

between the officials, and the offer of a loan too small to help. Bitter

words were spoken at the council-table; the public joined with shouts;

it was openly proposed to overpower the President and seize the treasury

key. Baron von Pilsach possesses the redeeming rudimentary virtue of

courage. It required courage to come at all on such an errand to those

he had deceived; and amidst violent voices and menacing hands he

displayed a constancy worthy of a better cause. The council broke

tumultuously up; the inhabitants crowded to a public meeting; the

Consuls, acquainted with the alarming effervescency of feeling,

communicated their willingness to meet the municipal councillors and

arrange a compromise; and the inhabitants renewed by acclamation the

mandate of their representatives. The same night these sat in council

with the Consular Board, and a _modus vivendi_ was agreed upon, which

was rejected the next morning by the President.

The representations of the Consuls had, however, their effect; and when

the council met again on April 6, Baron von Pilsach was found to have

entirely modified his attitude. The bridge over the Vaisingano was

conceded, the sum of $3,000 offered to the council was increased to

$9,000, about one-half of the existing funds; the Samoan Government,

which was to profit by the customs, now agreed to bear the expenses of

collection; the President, while refusing to be limited to a specific

figure, promised an anxious parsimony in the Government expenditure,

admitted his recent conduct had been of a nature to irritate the

councillors, and frankly proposed it should be brought under the notice

of the Powers. I should not be a fair reporter if I did not praise his

bearing. In the midst of men whom he had grossly deceived, and who had

recently insulted him in return, he behaved himself with tact and

temper. And largely in consequence his _modus vivendi_ was accepted

under protest, and the matter in dispute referred without discussion to

the Powers.

I would like to refer for one moment to my former letter. The Manono

prisoners were solemnly sentenced to six months' imprisonment; and, by

some unexplained and secret process, the sentence was increased to one

of banishment. The fact seems to have rather amused the Governments at

home. It did not at all amuse us here on the spot. But we sought

consolation by remembering that the President was a layman, and the

Chief Justice had left the islands but the day before. Let Mr.

Cedercrantz return, we thought, and Arthur would be come again. Well,

Arthur is come. And now we begin to think he was perhaps an approving,

if an absent, party to the scandal. For do we not find, in the case of

the municipal treasury, the same disquieting features? A decision is

publicly delivered, it is acted on for a year, and by some secret and

inexplicable process we find it suddenly reversed. We are supposed to be

governed by English law. Is this English law? Is it a law at all? Does

it permit a state of society in which a citizen can live and act with

confidence? And when we are asked by natives to explain these

peculiarities of white man's government and white man's justice, in what

form of words are we to answer?

_April_ 12.

Fresh news reaches me; I have once again to admire the accuracy of

rumour in Apia, and that which I had passed over with a reference

becomes the head and front of our contention. The _Samoa Times_ was

nominally purchased by a gentleman who, whatever be his other

recommendations, was notoriously ill off. There was paid down for it

L600 in gold, a huge sum of ready money for Apia, above all in gold, and

all men wondered where it came from. It is this which has been

discovered. The wrapper of each rouleau was found to be signed by Mr.

Martin, collector for the municipality as well as for the Samoan

Government, and countersigned by Mr. Savile, his assistant. In other

words, the money had left either the municipal or the Government safe.

The position of the President is thus extremely exposed. His accounts up

to January 1 are in the hands of auditors. The next term of March 31 is

already past, and although the natural course has been repeatedly

suggested to him, he has never yet permitted the verification of the

balance in his safe. The case would appear less strong against the Chief

Justice. Yet a month has not elapsed since he placed the funds at the

disposal of the President, on the avowed ground that the population of

Apia was unfit to be intrusted with its own affairs. And the very week

of the purchase he reversed his own previous decision and liberated his

colleague from the last remaining vestige of control. Beyond the extent

of these judgments, I doubt if this astute personage will be found to

have committed himself in black and white; and the more foolhardy

President may thus be left in the top of the breach alone.

Let it be explained or apportioned as it may, this additional scandal is

felt to have overfilled the measure. It may be argued that the President

has great tact and the Chief Justice a fund of philosophy. Give us

instead a judge who shall proceed according to the forms of justice, and

a treasurer who shall permit the verification of his balances. Surely

there can be found among the millions of Europe two frank and honest

men, one of whom shall be acquainted with English law, and the other

possess the ordinary virtues of a clerk, over whose heads, in the

exercise of their duties, six months may occasionally pass without

painful disclosures and dangerous scandals; who shall not weary us with

their surprises and intrigues; who shall not amaze us with their lack of

penetration; who shall not, in the hour of their destitution, seem to

have diverted L600 of public money for the purchase of an

inconsiderable sheet, or at a time when eight provinces of discontented

natives threaten at any moment to sweep their ineffective Government

into the sea to have sought safety and strength in gagging the local

Press of Apia. If it be otherwise--if we cannot be relieved, if the

Powers are satisfied with the conduct of Mr. Cedercrantz and Baron

Senfft von Pilsach; if these were sent here with the understanding that

they should secretly purchase, perhaps privately edit, a little sheet of

two pages, issued from a crazy wooden building at the mission gate; if

it were, indeed, intended that, for this important end, they should

divert (as it seems they have done) public funds and affront all the

forms of law--we whites can only bow the head. We are here quite

helpless. If we would complain of Baron Pilsach, it can only be to Mr.

Cedercrantz; if we would complain of Mr. Cedercrantz, and the Powers

will not hear us, the circle is complete. A nightly guard surrounds and

protects their place of residence, while the house of the King is

cynically left without the pickets. Secure from interference, one utters

the voice of the law, the other moves the hands of authority; and now

they seem to have sequestered in the course of a single week the only

available funds and the only existing paper in the islands.

But there is one thing they forget. It is not the whites who menace the

duration of their Government, and it is only the whites who read the

newspaper. Mataafa sits hard by in his armed camp and sees. He sees the

weakness, he counts the scandals of their Government. He sees his rival

and "brother" sitting disconsidered at their doors, like Lazarus before

the house of Dives, and, if he is not very fond of his "brother," he is

very scrupulous of native dignities. He has seen his friends menaced

with midnight destruction in the Government gaol, and deported without

form of law. He is not himself a talker, and his thoughts are hid from

us; but what is said by his more hasty partisans we know. On March 29,

the day after the Chief Justice signed the secret judgment, three days

before it was made public, and while the purchase of the newspaper was

yet in treaty, a native orator stood up in an assembly. "Who asked the

Great Powers to make laws for us; to bring strangers here to rule us?"

he cried. "We want no white officials to bind us in the bondage of

taxation." Here is the changed spirit which these gentlemen have

produced by a misgovernment of fifteen months. Here is their peril,

which no purchase of newspapers and no subsequent editorial suppressions

can avert.

It may be asked if it be still time to do anything. It is, indeed,

already late; and these gentlemen, arriving in a golden moment, have

fatally squandered opportunity and perhaps fatally damaged white

prestige. Even the whites themselves they have not only embittered, but

corrupted. We were pained the other day when our municipal councillors

refused, by a majority, to make the production of invoices obligatory at

the Custom-house. Yet who shall blame them, when the Chief Justice, with

a smallness of rapacity at which all men wondered, refused to pay, and I

believe, still withholds the duties on his imports? He was above the

law, being the head of it; and this was how he preached by example. He

refused to pay his customs; the white councillors, following in his

wake, refuse to take measures to enforce them against others; and the

natives, following in his wake, refuse to pay their taxes. These taxes

it may, perhaps, be never possible to raise again directly. Taxes have

never been popular in Samoa; yet in the golden moment when this

Government began its course, a majority of the Samoans paid them. Every

province should have seen some part of that money expended in its

bounds; every nerve should have been strained to interest and gratify

the natives in the manner of its expenditure. It has been spent instead

on Mulinuu, to pay four white officials, two of whom came in the suite

of the Chief Justice, and to build a so-called Government House, in

which the President resides, and the very name of taxes is become

abhorrent. What can still be done, and what must be done immediately, is

to give us a new Chief Justice--a lawyer, a man of honour, a man who

will not commit himself to one side, whether in politics or in private

causes, and who shall not have the appearance of trying to coin money at

every joint of our affairs. So much the better if he be a man of talent,

but we do not ask so much. With an ordinary appreciation of law, an

ordinary discretion and ordinary generosity, he may still, in the course

of time, and with good fortune, restore confidence and repair the

breaches in the prestige of the whites. As for the President there is

much discussion. Some think the office is superfluous, still more the

salary to be excessive; some regard the present man, who is young and

personally pleasing, as a tool and scapegoat for another, and these are

tempted to suppose that, with a new and firm Chief Justice, he might yet

redeem his character. He would require at least to clear himself of the

affair of the rouleaux, or all would be against him.--I am. Sir, your

obedient servant,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

IV

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Samoa, June_ 22, 1892.

Sir,--I read in a New Zealand paper that you published my last with

misgiving. The writer then goes on to remind me that I am a novelist,

and to bid me return to my romances and leave the affairs of Samoa to

sub-editors in distant quarters of the world. "We, in common with other

journals, have correspondents in Samoa," he complains, "and yet we have

no news from them of the curious conspiracy which Mr. Stevenson appears

to have unearthed, and which, if it had any real existence, would be

known to everybody on the island." As this is the only voice which has

yet reached me from beyond the seas, I am constrained to make some

answer. But it must not be supposed that, though you may perhaps have

been alone to publish, I have been alone to write. The same story is now

in the hands of the three Governments from their respective Consuls. Not

only so, but the complaint of the municipal council, drawn by two able

solicitors, has been likewise laid before them.

This at least is public, and I may say notorious. The solicitors were

authorised to proceed with their task at a public meeting. The President

(for I was there and heard him) approved the step, though he refrained

from voting. But he seems to have entertained a hope of burking, or, at

least, indefinitely postponing, the whole business, and, when the

meeting was over, and its proceedings had been approved (as is

necessary) by the Consular Board, he neglected to notify the two

gentlemen appointed of that approval. In a large city the trick might

have succeeded for a time; in a village like Apia, where all news leaks

out and the King meets the cobbler daily, it did no more than to

advertise his own artfulness. And the next he learned, the case for the

municipal council had been prepared, approved by the Consuls, and

despatched to the Great Powers. I am accustomed to have my word doubted

in this matter, and must here look to have it doubted once again. But

the fact is certain. The two solicitors (Messrs. Carruthers and Cooper)

were actually cited to appear before the Chief Justice in the Supreme

Court. I have seen the summons, and the summons was the first and last

of this State trial. The proceeding, instituted in an hour of temper,

was, in a moment of reaction, allowed to drop.

About the same date a final blow befell the Government of Mulinuu. Let

me remind you, sir, of the situation. The funds of the municipality had

been suddenly seized, on what appeared a collusive judgment, by the

bankrupt Government of Mulinuu. The paper, the organ of opposition, was

bought by a man of straw; and it was found the purchase-money had been

paid in rouleaux from the Government safes. The Government consisted of

two men. One, the President and treasurer, had a ready means to clear

himself and dispose for ever of the scandal--that means, apart from any

scandal, was his mere, immediate duty,--viz., to have his balance

verified. And he has refused to do so, and he still refuses. But the

other, though he sits abstruse, must not think to escape his share of

blame. He holds a high situation; he is our chief magistrate, he has

heard this miserable tale of the rouleaux, at which the Consuls looked

so black, and why has he done nothing? When he found that the case

against himself and his colleague had gone to the three Powers a little

of the suddenest, he could launch summonses (which it seems he was

afterwards glad to disavow) against Messrs. Cooper and Carruthers. But

then, when the whole island murmured--then, when a large sum which could

be traced to the Government treasuries was found figuring in the hands

of a man of straw--where were his thunderbolts then? For more than a

month the scandal has hung black about his colleague; for more than a

month he has sat inert and silent; for more than a month, in

consequence, the last spark of trust in him has quite died out.

In was in these circumstances that the Government of Mulinuu approached

the municipal council with a proposal to levy fresh taxes from the

whites. It was in these circumstances that the municipal council

answered, No. Public works have ceased, the destination of public moneys

is kept secret, and the municipal council resolved to stop supplies.

At this, it seems, the Government awoke to a sense of their position.

The natives had long ceased to pay them; now the whites had followed

suit. Destitution had succeeded to embarrassment. And they made haste to

join with themselves another who did not share in their unpopularity.

This gentleman, Mr. Thomas Maben, Government surveyor, is himself

deservedly popular, and the office created for him, that of Secretary

of State, is one in which, under happier auspices, he might accomplish

much. He is promised a free hand; he has succeeded to, and is to

exercise entirely, those vague functions claimed by the President under

his style of adviser to the King. It will be well if it is found to be

so in the field of practice. It will be well if Mr. Maben find any funds

left for his not exorbitant salary. It would doubtless have been better,

in this day of their destitution and in the midst of growing Samoan

murmurs against the high salaries of whites, if the Government could

have fallen on some expedient which did not imply another. And there is

a question one would fain have answered. The President claims to hold

two offices--that of adviser to the King, that of President of the

Municipal Council. A year ago, in the time of the dynamite affair, he

proposed to resign the second and retain his whole emoluments as adviser

to the King. He has now practically resigned the first; and we wish to

know if he now proposes to retain his entire salary as President of the

Council.--I am, etc.,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

V

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Apia, July_ 19, 1892.

Sir,--I am at last in receipt of your article upon my letter. It was as

I supposed; you had a difficulty in believing the events recorded; and,

to my great satisfaction, you suggest an inquiry. You observe the marks

of passion in my letter, or so it seems to you. But your summary shows

me that I have not failed to communicate with a sufficient clearness the

facts alleged. Passion may have seemed to burn in my words: it has not

at least impaired my ability to record with precision a plain tale. The

"cold language" of Consular reports (which you say you would prefer) is

doubtless to be had upon inquiry in the proper quarter; I make bold to

say it will be found to bear me out. Of the law case for the

municipality I can speak with more assurance; for, since it was sent, I

have been shown a copy. Its language is admirably cold, yet it tells (it

is possible in a much better dialect) the same remarkable story. But all

these corroborations sleep in official keeping; and, thanks to the

generosity with which you have admitted me to your columns, I stand

alone before the public. It is my prayer that this may cease as soon as

possible. There is other evidence gone home; let that be produced. Or

let us have (as you propose) an inquiry; give to the Chief Justice and

the President an opportunity to clear their characters, and to myself

that liberty (which I am so often requested to take) of returning to my

private business.--I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

VI

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES"

_Apia, September_ 14, 1892.

Sir,--The Peninsula of Mulinuu was claimed by the German firm; and in

case their claim should be found good, they had granted to the Samoan

Government an option to buy at a certain figure. Hereon stand the houses

of our officials, in particular that of the Chief Justice. It has long

been a problem here whether this gentleman paid any rent, and the

problem is now solved; the Chief Justice of Samoa was a squatter. On the

ground that the Government was about to purchase the peninsula, he

occupied a house; on the ground that the Germans were about to sell it,

he refused to pay them any rent. The firm seemed to have no remedy but

to summon the squatter before himself, and hear over again from the

official what they had heard already from the disastrous tenant. But

even in Samoa an ingenious man, inspired by annoyance, may find means of

self-protection. The house was no part of the land, nor included in the

option; the firm put it up for sale; and the Government, under pain of

seeing the Chief Justice houseless, was obliged to buy it.

In the meanwhile the German claim to Mulinuu was passed by the Land

Commission and sent on to the Chief Justice on the 17th of May. He ended

by confirming the report; but though his judgment bears date the 9th of

August, it was not made public till the 15th. So far as we are aware,

and certainly so far as Samoa has profited by his labours, his Honour

may be said to have had nothing else to do but to attend to this one

piece of business; he was being paid to do so at the rate of L100 a

month; and it took him ninety days, or about as long as it took Napoleon

to recapture and to lose again his empire. But better late than never;

and the Germans, rejoicing in the decision, summoned the Government to

complete the purchase or to waive their option. There was again a delay

in answering, for the policy of all parts of this extraordinary

Government is on one model; and when the answer came it was only to

announce a fresh deception. The German claim had passed the Land

Commission and the Supreme Court, it was good against objections, but it

appeared it was not yet good for registration, and must still be

resurveyed by a "Government surveyor." The option thus continues to

brood over the land of Mulinuu, the Government to squat there without

payment, and the German firm to stand helpless and dispossessed. What

can they do? Their adversary is their only judge. I hear it calculated

that the present state of matters may be yet spun out for months, at the

end of which period there must come at last a day of reckoning; and the

purchase-money will have to be found or the option to be waived and the

Government to flit elsewhere. As for the question of arrears of rent, it

will be in judicious hands, and his Honour may be trusted to deal with

it in a manner suitable to the previous history of the case.

But why (it will be asked) spin out by these excessive methods a thread

of such tenuity? Why go to such lengths for four months longer of

fallacious solvency? I expect not to be believed, but I think the

Government still hopes. A war-ship, under a hot-headed captain, might be

decoyed into hostilities; the taxes might begin to come in again; the

three Powers might become otherwise engaged and the little stage of

Samoa escape observation--indeed, I know not what they hope, but they

hope something. There lives on in their breasts a remainder coal of

ambition still unquenched. Or it is only so that I can explain a late

astonishing sally of his Honour's. In a long and elaborate judgment he

has pared the nails, and indeed removed the fingers, of his only rival,

the municipal magistrate. For eighteen months he has seen the lower

Court crowded with affairs, the while his own stood unfrequented like an

obsolete churchyard. He may have remarked with envy many hundred cases

passing through his rival's hands, cases of assault, cases of larceny,

ranging in the last four months from 2s. up to L1 12s.; or he may have

viewed with displeasure that despatch of business which was

characteristic of the magistrate, Mr. Cooper. An end, at least, has been

made of these abuses. Mr. Cooper is henceforth to draw his salary for

the _minimum_ of public service; and all larcenies and assaults, however

trivial, must go, according to the nationality of those concerned,

before the Consular or the Supreme Courts.

To this portentous judgment there are two sides--a practical and legal.

And first as to the practical. For every blow struck or shilling stolen

the parties must now march out to Mulinuu and place themselves at the

mercy of a Court, which if Hamlet had known, he would have referred with

more emotion to the law's delays. It is feared they will not do so, and

that crime will go on in consequence unpunished, and increase by

indulgence. But this is nothing. The Court of the municipal magistrate

was a convenient common-ground and clearing-house for our manifold

nationalities. It has now been, for all purpose of serious utility,

abolished, and the result is distraction. There was a recent trumpery

case, heard by Mr. Cooper amid shouts of mirth. It resolved itself (if I

remember rightly) into three charges of assault with counter-charges,

and three of abusive language with the same; and the parties represented

only two nationalities--a small allowance for Apia. Yet in our new

world, since the Chief Justice's decision, this vulgar shindy would have

split up into six several suits before three different Courts; the

charges must have been heard by one Judge, the counter-charges by

another; the whole nauseous evidence six times repeated, and the lawyers

six times fee'd.

Remains the legal argument. His Honour admits the municipality to be

invested "with such legislative powers as generally constitute a police

jurisdiction"; he does not deny the municipality is empowered to take

steps for the protection of the person, and it was argued this implied a

jurisdiction in cases of assault. But this argument (observes his

Honour) "proves too much, and consequently nothing. For like reasons the

municipal council should have power to provide for the punishment of all

felonies against the person, and I suppose the property as well." And,

filled with a just sense that a merely police jurisdiction should be

limited, he limits it with a vengeance by the exclusion of all assaults

and all larcenies. A pity he had not looked into the Berlin Act! He

would have found it already limited there by the same power which called

it into being--limited to fines not exceeding $200 and imprisonment not

extending beyond 180 days. Nay, and I think he might have even reasoned

from this discovery that he was himself somewhat in error. For, assaults

and larcenies being excluded, what kind of enormity is that which is to

be visited with a fine of L40 or an imprisonment of half a year? It is

perhaps childish to pursue further this childish controversialist. But

there is one passage, if he had dipped into the Berlin Act, that well

might have arrested his attention: that in which he is himself empowered

to deal with "crimes and offences,... subject, however, to the

provisions defining the jurisdiction of the municipal magistrate of

Apia."

I trust, sir, this is the last time I shall have to trouble you with

these twopenny concerns. But until some step is taken by the three

Powers, or until I have quite exhausted your indulgence, I shall

continue to report our scandals as they arise. Once more, one thing or

other: Either what I write is false, and I should be chastised as a

calumniator; or else it is true, and these officials are unfit for their

position.--I am, etc.,

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

_P.S._--The mail is already closed when I receive at last decisive

confirmation of the purchase of the _Samoa Times_ by the Samoan

Government. It has never been denied; it is now admitted. The paper

which they bought so recently, they are already trying to sell; and have

received and refused an offer of L150 for what they bought for upwards

of L600. Surely we may now demand the attention of the three Powers.

VII

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE"

I

_September_ 4, 1893.

In June it became clear that the King's Government was weary of waiting

upon Europe, as it had been clear long before that Europe would do

nothing. The last commentary on the Berlin Act was read. Malietoa

Laupepa had been put in _ex auctoritate_ by the Powers; the Powers would

not support him even by a show of strength, and there was nothing left

but to fall back on an "Election according to the Laws and Customs of

Samoa"--by arbitrament of rifle-bullets and blackened faces. Instantly

heaven was darkened by a brood of rumours, random calumnies, and idle

tales. As we rode, late at night, through the hamlet near my house, we

saw the fires lighted in the houses, and eager talkers discussing the

last report. The King was sick; he was dying; he was perfectly well; he

was seen riding furiously by night in the back parts of Apia, and

covering his face as he rode. Mataafa was in favour with the Germans; he

was to be made a German king; he was secure of the support of all Samoa;

he had no following whatsoever. The name of every chief and village

(with many that were new to the hearer) came up in turn, to be dubbed

Laupepa, or Mataafa, or both at the same time, or neither. Dr. George

Brown, the missionary, had just completed a tour of the islands. There

are few men in the world with a more mature knowledge of native

character, and I applied to him eagerly for an estimate of the relative

forces. "When the first shot is fired, and not before," said he, "you

will know who is who." The event has shown that he might have gone yet

further; for even after shots were fired and men slain, an important

province was still hesitating and trimming.

Mataafa lay in Malie. He had an armed picket at a ford some two miles

from Apia, where they sat in a prodigious state of vigilance and glee;

and his whole troop, although not above five hundred strong, appeared

animated with the most warlike spirit. For himself, he waited, as he had

waited for two years; wrote eloquent letters, the time to answer which

was quite gone by; and looked on while his enemies painfully collected

their forces. Doubtless to the last he was assured and deceived by vain

promises of help.

The process of gathering a royal army in Samoa is cumbrous and dilatory

in the extreme. There is here none of the expedition of the fiery cross

and the bale-fire; but every step is diplomatic. Each village, with a

great expense of eloquence, has to be wiled with promises and spurred

by threats, and the greater chieftains make stipulations ere they will

march. Tamasese, son to the late German puppet, and heir of his

ambitions, demanded the vice-kingship as the price of his accession,

though I am assured that he demanded it in vain. The various provinces

returned various and unsatisfactory answers. Atua was off and on;

Tuamasaga was divided; Tutuila recalcitrant; and for long the King sat

almost solitary under the windy palms of Mulinuu. It seemed indeed as if

the war was off, and the whole archipelago unanimous (in the native

phrase) to sit still and plant taro.

But at last, in the first days of July, Atua began to come in. Boats

arrived, thirty and fifty strong, a drum and a very ill-played bugle

giving time to the oarsmen, the whole crew uttering at intervals a

savage howl; and on the decked fore-sheets of the boat the village

champion, frantically capering and dancing. Parties were to be seen

encamped in palm-groves with their rifles stacked. The shops were

emptied of red handkerchiefs, the rallying sign, or (as a man might say)

the uniform of the Royal army. There was spirit shown; troops of

handsome lads marched in a right manly fashion, with their guns on their

shoulders, to the music of the drum and the bugle or the tin-whistle.

From a hamlet close to my own doors a contingent of six men marched out.

Their leader's kit contained one stick of tobacco, four boxes of

matches, and the inevitable red handkerchief; in his case it was of

silk, for he had come late to the purchasing, and the commoner materials

were exhausted. This childish band of braves marched one afternoon to a

neighbouring hill, and the same night returned to their houses, on the

ground that it was "uncomfortable" in the bush. An excellent old fellow,

who had had enough of war in many campaigns, took refuge in my service

from the conscription, but in vain. The village had decided no warrior

might hang back. One summoner arrived; and then followed some

negotiations--I have no authority to say what: enough that the

messenger departed and our friend remained. But, alas! a second envoy

followed and proved to be of sterner composition; and with a basket full

of food, kava, and tobacco, the reluctant hero proceeded to the wars. I

am sure they had few handsomer soldiers, if, perhaps, some that were

more willing. And he would have been better to be armed. His gun--but in

Mr. Kipling's pleasant catchword, that is another story.

War, to the Samoan of mature years, is often an unpleasant necessity. To

the young boy it is a heaven of immediate pleasures, as well as an

opportunity of ultimate glory. Women march with the troops--even the

Taupo-sa, or sacred maid of the village, accompanies her father in the

field to carry cartridges, and bring him water to drink,--and their

bright eyes are ready to "rain influence" and reward valour. To what

grim deeds this practice may conduct I shall have to say later on. In

the rally of their arms, it is at least wholly pretty; and I have one

pleasant picture of a war-party marching out; the men armed and

boastful, their heads bound with the red handkerchief, their faces

blacked--and two girls marching in their midst under European parasols.

On Saturday, July 8th, by the early morning, the troops began to file

westward from Apia, and about noon found found themselves face to face

with the lines of Mataafa in the German plantation of Vaitele. The

armies immediately fraternised; kava was made by the ladies, as who

should say tea, at home, and partaken of by the braves with many

truculent expressions. One chief on the King's side, revolted by the

extent of these familiarities, began to beat his followers with a staff.

But both parties were still intermingled between the lines, and the

chiefs on either side were conversing, and even embracing, at the

moment, when an accidental, or perhaps a treacherous, shot precipitated

the engagement. I cannot find there was any decisive difference in the

numbers actually under fire; but the Mataafas appear to have been ill

posted and ill led. Twice their flank was turned, their line enfiladed,

and themselves driven with the loss of about thirty, from two successive

cattle walls. A third wall afforded them a more effectual shelter, and

night closed on the field of battle without further advantage. All night

the Royal troops hailed volleys of bullets at this obstacle. With the

earliest light, a charge proved it to be quite deserted, and from

further down the coast smoke was seen rising from the houses of Malie.

Mataafa had precipitately fled, destroying behind him the village,

which, for two years, he had been raising and beautifying.

So much was accomplished: what was to follow? Mataafa took refuge in

Manono, and cast up forts. His enemies, far from following up this

advantage, held _fonos_ and made speeches and found fault. I believe the

majority of the King's army had marched in a state of continuous

indecision, and maintaining an attitude of impartiality more to be

admired in the cabinet of the philosopher than in the field of war. It

is certain at least that only one province has as yet fired a shot for

Malietoa Laupepa. The valour of the Tuamasaga was sufficient and

prevailed. But Atua was in the rear, and has as yet done nothing. As for

the men of Crana, so far from carrying out the plan agreed upon, and

blocking the men of Malie, on the morning of the 8th, they were

entertaining an embassy from Mataafa, and they suffered his fleet of

boats to escape without a shot through certain dangerous narrows of the

lagoon, and the chief himself to pass on foot and unmolested along the

whole foreshore of their province. No adequate excuse has been made for

this half-heartedness--or treachery. It was a piece of the whole which

was a specimen. There are too many strings in a Samoan intrigue for the

merely European mind to follow, and the desire to serve upon both sides,

and keep a door open for reconciliation, was manifest almost throughout.

A week passed in these divided counsels. Savaii had refused to receive

Mataafa--it is said they now hesitated to rise for the King, and

demanded instead a _fono_ (or council) of both sides. And it seemed at

least possible that the Royal army might proceed no further, and the

unstable alliance be dissolved.