The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17

  CHAPTER IV

  BRANDEIS

  _September_ '87 _to August_ '88

  So Tamasese was on the throne, and Brandeis behind it; and I have now todeal with their brief and luckless reign. That it was the reign ofBrandeis needs not to be argued: the policy is throughout that of anable, over-hasty white, with eyes and ideas. But it should be borne inmind that he had a double task, and must first lead his sovereign,before he could begin to drive their common subjects. Meanwhile, hehimself was exposed (if all tales be true) to much dictation andinterference, and to some "cumbrous aid," from the consulate and thefirm. And to one of these aids, the suppression of the municipality, Iam inclined to attribute his ultimate failure.

  The white enemies of the new regimen were of two classes. In the firststood Moors and the employes of MacArthur, the two chief rivals of thefirm, who saw with jealousy a clerk (or a so-called clerk) of theircompetitors advanced to the chief power. The second class, that of theofficials, numbered at first exactly one. Wilson, the English actingconsul, is understood to have held strict orders to help Germany.Commander Leary, of the _Adams_, the American captain, when he arrived,on the 16th October, and for some time after, seemed devoted to theGerman interest, and spent his days with a German officer, Captain VonWidersheim, who was deservedly beloved by all who knew him. Thereremains the American consul-general, Harold Marsh Sewall, a young man ofhigh spirit and a generous disposition. He had obeyed the orders of hisgovernment with a grudge; and looked back on his past action with regretalmost to be called repentance. From the moment of the declaration ofwar against Laupepa, we find him standing forth in bold, consistent, andsometimes rather captious opposition, stirring up his government at homewith clear and forcible despatches, and on the spot grasping at everyopportunity to thrust a stick into the German wheels. For some while, heand Moors fought their difficult battle in conjunction; in the course ofwhich, first one, and then the other, paid a visit home to reason withthe authorities at Washington; and during the consul's absence, therewas found an American clerk in Apia, William Blacklock, to perform theduties of the office with remarkable ability and courage. The threenames just brought together, Sewall, Moors, and Blacklock, make the headand front of the opposition; if Tamasese fell, if Brandeis was drivenforth, if the treaty of Berlin was signed, theirs is the blame or thecredit.

  To understand the feelings of self-reproach and bitterness with whichSewall took the field, the reader must see Laupepa's letter of farewellto the consuls of England and America. It is singular that this far frombrilliant or dignified monarch, writing in the forest, in heaviness ofspirit and under pressure for time, should have left behind him not onlyone, but two remarkable and most effective documents. The farewell tohis people was touching; the farewell to the consuls, for a man of thecharacter of Sewall, must have cut like a whip. "When the chief Tamaseseand others first moved the present troubles," he wrote, "it was my wishto punish them and put an end to the rebellion; but I yielded to theadvice of the British and American consuls. Assistance and protectionwas repeatedly promised to me and my government, if I abstained frombringing war upon my country. Relying upon these promises, I did not putdown the rebellion. Now I find that war has been made upon me by theEmperor of Germany, and Tamasese has been proclaimed king of Samoa. Idesire to remind you of the promises so frequently made by yourgovernment, and trust that you will so far redeem them as to cause thelives and liberties of my chiefs and people to be respected."

  Sewall's immediate adversary was, of course, Becker. I have formed anopinion of this gentleman, largely from his printed despatches, which Iam at a loss to put in words. Astute, ingenious, capable, at momentsalmost witty with a kind of glacial wit in action, he displayed in thecourse of this affair every description of capacity but that which isalone useful and which springs from a knowledge of men's natures. Itchanced that one of Sewall's early moves played into his hands, and hewas swift to seize and to improve the advantage. The neutral territoryand the tripartite municipality of Apia were eyesores to the Germanconsulate and Brandeis. By landing Tamasese's two or three hundredwarriors at Mulinuu, as Becker himself owns, they had infringed thetreaties, and Sewall entered protest twice. There were two ways ofescaping this dilemma: one was to withdraw the warriors; the other, bysome hocus-pocus, to abrogate the neutrality. And the second hadsubsidiary advantages: it would restore the taxes of the richestdistrict in the islands to the Samoan king; and it would enable them tosubstitute over the royal seat the flag of Germany for the new flag ofTamasese. It is true (and it was the subject of much remark) that thesetwo could hardly be distinguished by the naked eye; but their effectswere different. To seat the puppet king on German land and under Germancolours, so that any rebellion was constructive war on Germany, was atrick apparently invented by Becker, and which we shall find wasrepeated and persevered in till the end.

  Otto Martin was at this time magistrate in the municipality. The postwas held in turn by the three nationalities; Martin had served farbeyond his term, and should have been succeeded months before by anAmerican. To make the change it was necessary to hold a meeting of themunicipal board, consisting of the three consuls, each backed by anassessor. And for some time these meetings had been evaded or refused bythe German consul. As long as it was agreed to continue Martin, Beckerhad attended regularly; as soon as Sewall indicated a wish for hisremoval, Becker tacitly suspended the municipality by refusing toappear. This policy was now the more necessary; for if the wholeexistence of the municipality were a check on the freedom of the newgovernment, it was plainly less so when the power to enforce and punishlay in German hands. For some while back the Malietoa flag had beenflown on the municipal building: Becker denies this; I am sorry; myinformation obliges me to suppose he is in error. Sewall, withpost-mortem loyalty to the past, insisted that this flag should becontinued. And Becker immediately made his point. He declared, justlyenough, that the proposal was hostile, and argued that it was impossiblehe should attend a meeting under a flag with which his sovereign was atwar. Upon one occasion of urgency, he was invited to meet the two otherconsuls at the British consulate; even this he refused; and for fourmonths the municipality slumbered, Martin still in office. In the monthof October, in consequence, the British and American ratepayersannounced they would refuse to pay. Becker doubtless rubbed his hands.On Saturday, the 10th, the chief Tamaseu, a Malietoa man of substanceand good character, was arrested on a charge of theft believed to bevexatious, and cast by Martin into the municipal prison. He sent toMoors, who was his tenant and owed him money at the time, for bail.Moors applied to Sewall, ranking consul. After some search, Martin wasfound and refused to consider bail before the Monday morning. WhereuponSewall demanded the keys from the gaoler, accepted Moors's verbalrecognisances, and set Tamaseu free.

  Things were now at a deadlock; and Becker astonished every one byagreeing to a meeting on the 14th. It seems he knew what to expect.Writing on the 13th at least, he prophesies that the meeting will beheld in vain, that the municipality must lapse, and the government ofTamasese step in. On the 14th, Sewall left his consulate in time, andwalked some part of the way to the place of meeting in company withWilson, the English pro-consul. But he had forgotten a paper, and in anevil hour returned for it alone. Wilson arrived without him, and Beckerbroke up the meeting for want of a quorum. There was some unedifyingdisputation as to whether he had waited ten or twenty minutes, whetherhe had been officially or unofficially informed by Wilson that Sewallwas on the way, whether the statement had been made to himself or toWeber[1] in answer to a question, and whether he had heard Wilson'sanswer or only Weber's question: all otiose; if he heard the question,he was bound to have waited for the answer; if he heard it not, heshould have put it himself; and it was the manifest truth that herejoiced in his occasion. "Sir," he wrote to Sewall, "I have the honourto inform you that, to my regret, I am obliged to consider the municipalgovernment to be provisionally in abeyance since you have withdrawn yourconsent to the continuation of Mr. Martin in his position a
s magistrate,and since you have refused to take part in the meeting of the municipalboard agreed to for the purpose of electing a magistrate. The governmentof the town and district of the municipality rests, as long as themunicipality is in abeyance, with the Samoan government. The Samoangovernment has taken over the administration, and has applied to thecommander of the imperial German squadron for assistance in thepreservation of good order." This letter was not delivered until 4 P.M.By three, sailors had been landed. Already German colours flew overTamasese's headquarters at Mulinuu, and German guards had occupied thehospital, the German consulate, and the municipal gaol and courthouse,where they stood to arms under the flag of Tamasese. The same day Sewallwrote to protest. Receiving no reply, he issued on the morrow aproclamation bidding all Americans look to himself alone. On the 26th,he wrote again to Becker, and on the 27th received this genial reply:"Sir, your high favour of the 26th of this month, I give myself thehonour of acknowledging. At the same time I acknowledge the receipt ofyour high favour of the 14th October in reply to my communication of thesame date, which contained the information of the suspension of thearrangements for the municipal government." There the correspondenceceased. And on the 18th January came the last step of this irritatingintrigue when Tamasese appointed a judge--and the judge proved to beMartin.

  Thus was the adventure of the Castle Municipal achieved by Sir Beckerthe chivalrous. The taxes of Apia, the gaol, the police, all passed intothe hands of Tamasese-Brandeis; a German was secured upon the bench; andthe German flag might wave over her puppet unquestioned. But there is alaw of human nature which diplomatists should be taught at school, andit seems they are not; that men can tolerate bare injustice, but not thecombination of injustice and subterfuge. Hence the chequered career ofthe thimble-rigger. Had the municipality been seized by open force,there might have been complaint, it would not have aroused the samelasting grudge.

  This grudge was an ill gift to bring to Brandeis, who had trouble enoughin front of him without. He was an alien, he was supported by the gunsof alien war-ships, and he had come to do an alien's work, highly needfulfor Samoa, but essentially unpopular with all Samoans. The law to beenforced, causes of dispute between white and brown to be eliminated,taxes to be raised, a central power created, the country opened up, thenative race taught industry: all these were detestable to the natives,and to all of these he must set his hand. The more I learn of his briefterm of rule, the more I learn to admire him, and to wish we had hislike.

  In the face of bitter native opposition, he got some roads accomplished.He set up beacons. The taxes he enforced with necessary vigour. By the6th of January, Aua and Fangatonga, districts in Tutuila, having made adifficulty, Brandeis is down at the island in a schooner, with the_Adler_ at his heels, seizes the chief Maunga, fines the recalcitrantdistricts in three hundred dollars for expenses, and orders all to be inby April 20th, which if it is not, "not one thing will be done," heproclaimed, "but war declared against you, and the principal chiefstaken to a distant island." He forbade mortgages of copra, a frequentsource of trickery and quarrel; and to clear off those alreadycontracted, passed a severe but salutary law. Each individual or familywas first to pay off its own obligation; that settled, the free man wasto pay for the indebted village, the free village for the indebtedprovince, and one island for another. Samoa, he declared, should be freeof debt within a year. Had he given it three years, and gone moregently, I believe it might have been accomplished. To make it the morepossible, he sought to interdict the natives from buying cotton stuffsand to oblige them to dress (at least for the time) in their own tapa.He laid the beginnings of a royal territorial army. The first draft wasin his hands drilling. But it was not so much on drill that he depended;it was his hope to kindle in these men an _esprit de corps_, whichshould weaken the old local jealousies and bonds, and found a central ornational party in the islands. Looking far before, and with a wisdombeyond that of many merchants, he had condemned the single dependenceplaced on copra for the national livelihood. His recruits, even as theydrilled, were taught to plant cacao. Each, his term of active servicefinished, should return to his own land and plant and cultivate astipulated area. Thus, as the young men continued to pass through thearmy, habits of discipline and industry, a central sentiment, theprinciples of the new culture, and actual gardens of cacao, should beconcurrently spread over the face of the islands.

  Tamasese received, including his household expenses, 1960 dollars ayear; Brandeis, 2400. All such disproportions are regrettable, but thisis not extreme: we have seen horses of a different colour since then.And the Tamaseseites, with true Samoan ostentation, offered to increasethe salary of their white premier: an offer he had the wisdom and goodfeeling to refuse. A European chief of police received twelve hundred.There were eight head judges, one to each province, and appeal lay fromthe district judge to the provincial, thence to Mulinuu. From allsalaries (I gather) a small monthly guarantee was withheld. The army wasto cost from three to four thousand, Apia (many whites refusing to paytaxes since the suppression of the municipality) might cost threethousand more: Sir Becker's high feat of arms coming expensive (it willbe noticed) even in money. The whole outlay was estimated attwenty-seven thousand; and the revenue forty thousand: a sum Samoa iswell able to pay.

  Such were the arrangements and some of the ideas of this strong, ardent,and sanguine man. Of criticisms upon his conduct, beyond the generalconsent that he was rather harsh and in too great a hurry, few arearticulate. The native paper of complaints was particularly childish.Out of twenty-three counts, the first two refer to the private characterof Brandeis and Tamasese. Three complain that Samoan officials were keptin the dark as to the finances; one, of the tapa law; one, of the directappointment of chiefs by Tamasese-Brandeis, the sort of mistake intowhich Europeans in the South Seas fall so readily; one, of the enforcedlabour of chiefs; one, of the taxes; and one, of the roads. This I maygive in full from the very lame translation in the American white book."The roads that were made were called the Government Roads; they weresix fathoms wide. Their making caused much damage to Samoa's lands andwhat was planted on it. The Samoans cried on account of their lands,which were taken high-handedly and abused. They again cried on accountof the loss of what they had planted, which was now thrown away in ahigh-handed way, without any regard being shown or question asked of theowner of the land, or any compensation offered for the damage done. Thiswas different with foreigners' land; in their case permission was firstasked to make the roads; the foreigners were paid for any destructionmade." The sting of this count was, I fancy, in the last clause. No lessthan six articles complain of the administration of the law; and Ibelieve that was never satisfactory. Brandeis told me himself he wasnever yet satisfied with any native judge. And men say (and it seems tofit in well with his hasty and eager character) that he would legislateby word of mouth; sometimes forget what he had said; and, on the samequestion arising in another province, decide it perhaps otherwise. Igather, on the whole, our artillery captain was not great in law. Twoarticles refer to a matter I must deal with more at length, and ratherfrom the point of view of the white residents.

  The common charge against Brandeis was that of favouring the Germanfirm. Coming as he did, this was inevitable. Weber had boughtSteinberger with hard cash; that was matter of history. The presentgovernment he did not even require to buy, having founded it by hisintrigues, and introduced the premier to Samoa through the doors of hisown office. And the effect of the initial blunder was kept alive by thechatter of the clerks in bar-rooms, boasting themselves of the newgovernment and prophesying annihilation to all rivals. The time ofraising a tax is the harvest of the merchants; it is the time when coprawill be made, and must be sold; and the intention of the German firm,first in the time of Steinberger, and again in April and May, 1888, withBrandeis, was to seize and handle the whole operation. Their chiefrivals were the Messrs. MacArthur; and it seems beyond question thatprovincial governors more than once issued orders forbidding Samoans totake money from "the
New Zealand firm." These, when they were brought tohis notice, Brandeis disowned, and he is entitled to be heard. No mancan live long in Samoa and not have his honesty impugned. But theaccusations against Brandeis's veracity are both few and obscure. Ibelieve he was as straight as his sword. The governors doubtless issuedthese orders, but there were plenty besides Brandeis to suggest them.Every wandering clerk from the firm's office, every plantation manager,would be dinning the same story in the native ear. And here again theinitial blunder hung about the neck of Brandeis, a ton's weight. Thenatives, as well as the whites, had seen their premier masquerading on astool in the office; in the eyes of the natives, as well as in those ofthe whites, he must always have retained the mark of servitude from thatill-judged passage; and they would be inclined to look behind and abovehim, to the great house of _Misi Ueba_. The government was like a vistaof puppets. People did not trouble with Tamasese, if they got speechwith Brandeis; in the same way, they might not always trouble to askBrandeis, if they had a hint direct from _Misi Ueba_. In only one case,though it seems to have had many developments, do I find the premierpersonally committed. The MacArthurs claimed the copra of Fasitotai on adistrict mortgage of three hundred dollars. The German firm accepted amortgage of the whole province of Aana, claimed the copra of Fasitotaias that of a part of Aana, and were supported by the government. HereBrandeis was false to his own principle, that personal and village debtsshould come before provincial. But the case occurred before thepromulgation of the law, and was, as a matter of fact, the cause of it;so the most we can say is that he changed his mind, and changed it forthe better. If the history of his government be considered--how itoriginated in an intrigue between the firm and the consulate, and was(for the firm's sake alone) supported by the consulate with foreignbayonets--the existence of the least doubt on the man's action must seemmarvellous. We should have looked to find him playing openly and whollyinto their hands; that he did not, implies great independence and muchsecret friction; and I believe (if the truth were known) the firm wouldbe found to have been disgusted with the stubbornness of its intendedtool, and Brandeis often impatient of the demands of his creators.

  But I may seem to exaggerate the degree of white opposition. And it istrue that before fate overtook the Brandeis government, it appeared toenjoy the fruits of victory in Apia; and one dissident, theunconquerable Moors, stood out alone to refuse his taxes. But thevictory was in appearance only; the opposition was latent; it found ventin talk, and thus reacted on the natives; upon the least excuse, it wasready to flame forth again. And this is the more singular because somewere far from out of sympathy with the native policy pursued. When I metCaptain Brandeis, he was amazed at my attitude. "Whom did you find inApia to tell you so much good of me?" he asked. I named one of myinformants. "He?" he cried. "If he thought all that, why did he not helpme?" I told him as well as I was able. The man was a merchant. He beheldin the government of Brandeis a government created by and for the firmwho were his rivals. If Brandeis were minded to deal fairly, where wasthe probability that he would be allowed? If Brandeis insisted and werestrong enough to prevail, what guarantee that, as soon as the governmentwere fairly accepted, Brandeis might not be removed? Here was theattitude of the hour; and I am glad to find it clearly set forth in adespatch of Sewall's, June 18th, 1888, when he commends the law againstmortgages, and goes on: "Whether the author of this law will carry outthe good intentions which he professes--whether he will be allowed to doso, if he desires, against the opposition of those who placed him inpower and protect him in the possession of it--may well be doubted."Brandeis had come to Apia in the firm's livery. Even while he promisedneutrality in commerce, the clerks were prating a different story in thebar-rooms; and the late high feat of the knight-errant, Becker, hadkilled all confidence in Germans at the root. By these three impolicies,the German adventure in Samoa was defeated.

  I imply that the handful of whites were the true obstacle, not thethousands of malcontent Samoans; for had the whites frankly acceptedBrandeis, the path of Germany was clear, and the end of their policy,however troublesome might be its course, was obvious. But this is not tosay that the natives were content. In a sense, indeed, their oppositionwas continuous. There will always be opposition in Samoa when taxes areimposed; and the deportation of Malietoa stuck in men's throats. TuiatuaMataafa refused to act under the new government from the beginning, andTamasese usurped his place and title. As early as February, I find himsigning himself "Tuiaana _Tuiatua_ Tamasese," the first step on adangerous path. Asi, like Mataafa, disclaimed his chiefship and declaredhimself a private person; but he was more rudely dealt with. Germansailors surrounded his house in the night, burst in, and dragged thewomen out of the mosquito nets--an offence against Samoan manners. NoAsi was to be found; but at last they were shown his fishing-lights onthe reef, rowed out, took him as he was, and carried him on board aman-of-war, where he was detained some while between-decks. At last,January 16th, after a farewell interview over the ship's side with hiswife, he was discharged into a ketch, and along with two other chiefs,Maunga and Tuiletu-funga, deported to the Marshalls. The blow struck fearupon all sides. Le Mamea (a very able chief) was secretly among themalcontents. His family and followers murmured at his weakness; but hecontinued, throughout the duration of the government, to serve Brandeiswith trembling. A circus coming to Apia, he seized at the pretext forescape, and asked leave to accept an engagement in the company. "I willnot allow you to make a monkey of yourself," said Brandeis; and thephrase had a success throughout the islands, pungent expressions beingso much admired by the natives that they cannot refrain from repeatingthem, even when they have been levelled at themselves. The assumption ofthe Atua _name_ spread discontent in that province; many chiefs fromthence were convicted of disaffection, and condemned to labour withtheir hands upon the roads--a great shock to the Samoan sense of thebecoming, which was rendered the more sensible by the death of one ofthe number at his task. Mataafa was involved in the same trouble. Hisdisaffected speech at a meeting of Atua chiefs was betrayed by the girlsthat made the kava, and the man of the future was called to Apia onsafe-conduct, but, after an interview, suffered to return to his lair.The peculiarly tender treatment of Mataafa must be explained by hisrelationship to Tamasese. Laupepa was of Malietoa blood. The hereditaryretainers of the Tupua would see him exiled even with some complacency.But Mataafa was Tupua himself; and Tupua men would probably havemurmured, and would perhaps have mutinied, had he been harshly dealtwith.

  The native opposition, I say, was in a sense continuous. And it keptcontinuously growing. The sphere of Brandeis was limited to Mulinuu andthe north central quarters of Upolu--practically what is shown upon themap opposite. There the taxes were expanded; in the out-districts, menpaid their money and saw no return. Here the eye and hand of thedictator were ready to correct the scales of justice; in theout-districts, all things lay at the mercy of the native magistrates,and their oppressions increased with the course of time and theexperience of impunity. In the spring of the year, a very intelligentobserver had occasion to visit many places in the island of Savaii."Our lives are not worth living," was the burthen of the popularcomplaint. "We are groaning under the oppression of these men. We wouldrather die than continue to endure it." On his return to Apia, he madehaste to communicate his impressions to Brandeis. Brandeis replied in anepigram: "Where there has been anarchy in a country, there must beoppression for a time." But unfortunately the terms of the epigram maybe reversed; and personal supervision would have been more in seasonthan wit. The same observer who conveyed to him this warning thinksthat, if Brandeis had himself visited the districts and inquired intocomplaints, the blow might yet have been averted and the governmentsaved. At last, upon a certain unconstitutional act of Tamasese, thediscontent took life and fire. The act was of his own conception; thedull dog was ambitious. Brandeis declares he would not be dissuaded;perhaps his adviser did not seriously try, perhaps did not dream that inthat welter of contradictions, the Samoan constitution, any one poin
twould be considered sacred. I have told how Tamasese assumed the titleof Tuiatua. In August 1888 a year after his installation, he took a moreformidable step and assumed that of Malietoa. This name, as I have said,is of peculiar honour; it had been given to, it had never been takenfrom, the exiled Laupepa; those in whose grant it lay, stood punctiliousupon their rights; and Tamasese, as the representative of their naturalopponents, the Tupua line, was the last who should have had it. Andthere was yet more, though I almost despair to make it thinkable byEuropeans. Certain old mats are handed down, and set huge store by; theymay be compared to coats of arms or heirlooms among ourselves; and tothe horror of more than one-half of Samoa, Tamasese, the head of theTupua, began collecting Malietoa mats. It was felt that the cup wasfull, and men began to prepare secretly for rebellion. The history ofthe month of August is unknown to whites; it passed altogether in thecovert of the woods or in the stealthy councils of Samoans. One ominoussign was to be noted; arms and ammunition began to be purchased orinquired about; and the more wary traders ordered fresh consignments ofmaterial of war. But the rest was silence; the government slept insecurity; and Brandeis was summoned at last from a public dinner, tofind rebellion organised, the woods behind Apia full of insurgents, anda plan prepared, and in the very article of execution, to surprise andseize Mulinuu. The timely discovery averted all; and the leaders hastilywithdrew towards the south side of the island, leaving in the bush arear-guard under a young man of the name of Saifaleupolu. According tosome accounts, it scarce numbered forty; the leader was no great chief,but a handsome, industrious lad who seems to have been much beloved. Andupon this obstacle Brandeis fell. It is the man's fault to be tooimpatient of results; his public intention to free Samoa of all debtwithin the year, depicts him; and instead of continuing to temporise andlet his enemies weary and disperse, he judged it politic to strike ablow. He struck it, with what seemed to be success, and the sound of itroused Samoa to rebellion.

  About two in the morning of August 31st, Apia was wakened by menmarching. Day came, and Brandeis and his war-party were already longdisappeared in the woods. All morning belated Tamaseseites were still tobe seen running with their guns. All morning shots were listened for invain; but over the top of the forest, far up the mountain, smoke was forsome time observed to hang. About ten a dead man was carried in, lashedunder a pole like a dead pig, his rosary (for he was a Catholic) hangingnearly to the ground. Next came a young fellow wounded, sitting in arope swung from a pole; two fellows bearing him, two running behind fora relief. At last about eleven, three or four heavy volleys and a greatshouting were heard from the bush town Tanungamanono; the affair wasover, the victorious force, on the march back, was there celebratingits victory by the way. Presently after, it marched through Apia, fiveor six hundred strong, in tolerable order and strutting with theludicrous assumption of the triumphant islander. Women who had beenbuying bread ran and gave them loaves. At the tail end came Brandeishimself, smoking a cigar, deadly pale, and with perhaps an increase ofhis usual nervous manner. One spoke to him by the way. He expressed hissorrow the action had been forced on him. "Poor people, it's all theworse for them!" he said. "It'll have to be done another way now." Andit was supposed by his hearer that he referred to intervention from theGerman war-ships. He meant, he said, to put a stop to head-hunting; hismen had taken two that day, he added, but he had not suffered them tobring them in, and they had been left in Tanungamanono. Thither myinformant rode, was attracted by the sound of wailing, and saw in ahouse the two heads washed and combed, and the sister of one of the deadlamenting in the island fashion and kissing the cold face. Soon after, asmall grave was dug, the heads were buried in a beef box, and the pastorread the service. The body of Saifaleupolu himself was recoveredunmutilated, brought down from the forest, and buried behind Apia.

  The same afternoon, the men of Vaimaunga were ordered to report inMulinuu, where Tamasese's flag was half-masted for the death of a chiefin the skirmish. Vaimaunga is that district of Taumasanga which includesthe bay and the foothills behind Apia; and both province and districtare strong Malietoa. Not one man, it is said, obeyed the summons. Nightcame, and the town lay in unusual silence; no one abroad; the blindsdown around the native houses, the men within sleeping on their arms;the old women keeping watch in pairs. And in the course of the twofollowing days all Vaimaunga was gone into the bush, the very gaolersetting free his prisoners and joining them in their escape. Hear thewords of the chiefs in the 23rd article of their complaint: "Some ofthe chiefs fled to the bush from fear of being reported, fear of Germanmen-of-war, constantly being accused, etc., and Brandeis commanded thatthey were to be shot on sight. This act was carried out by Brandeis onthe 31st day of August, 1888. After this we evaded these laws; we couldnot stand them; our patience was worn out with the constant wickednessof Tamasese and Brandeis. We were tired out and could stand no longerthe acts of these two men."

  So through an ill-timed skirmish, two severed heads, and a dead body,the rule of Brandeis came to a sudden end. We shall see him a whilelonger fighting for existence in a losing battle; but hisgovernment--take it for all in all, the most promising that has everbeen in these unlucky islands--was from that hour a piece of history.

  FOOTNOTE:

  [1] Brother and successor of Theodor.