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