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It was late in May or early in June, for I cannot now remember the exact date, that I landed in Apia, in the island of Upolu. Naturally enough that island was not to me so much the centre of Anglo-American and German rivalries as the home of Robert Louis Stevenson, then become the literary deity of the Pacific.
Ten years later another outbreak was stirred up by foreign adventurers; so the islands were annexed to Germany and the United States for the sake of peace. The two largest, Savii and Upolu, were ceded to Germany; Tutuila and the Manua group were taken by the United States. On condition of having a free hand in the Cook group, Great Britain gave up all claims.
The boat sailed gently along the outer or barrier reef which fringed the coast of beautiful verdured Upolu, and then, as the sun sank, there shone out myriad stars upon the bosom of a softly heaving sea, and only the never-ceasing murmur of the surf as it beat against the coral barrier, or the cry of some wandering sea-bird, disturbed the warm silence of the tropic night.
In an inland village family in Upolu he was called the "Lord of the mountain," and incarnate in the domestic fowl and the pigeon. The penalty of eating this incarnation was death from a supposed growth of a prickly sea-urchin inside the body. SIULEO Tail of the voice, or echo. This was the name of a village god in Savaii. Said to have come from Tonga, and able to walk on the sea.
Her name is perpetuated in the word, which as a noun, means "ancient times," and, as an adjective, is used to express ancient, perpetual, and everlasting. On Upolu the name of Pili has an early place among the doings of mortals and in the division of the lands. In one of the traditions his history runs thus: Manga had a daughter called Sina, who married the king of Manu'a.
Whatever their crimes he would not give them up to courts competent to deal with them, and several times an angry correspondence had passed between him and the Governor at Upolu. For he looked upon the natives as his children.
If the king of Atua was on a journey, and carried along shoulder high, as soon as he reached this village he had to get down and walk, as a mark of respect to the chivalrous villagers. Faleulu, or Housed-by-the-bread-fruit-tree, was so named from a party who came from Fiji by way of Manu'a and Tutuila, and who, on reaching Upolu, were benighted there and slept under a bread-fruit tree.
The scenery along this part of the island is enchanting, but sudden squalls at night-time are sometimes frequent, from December to March, and 'tis always advisable to run into a port at sunset. Two miles off the lee end of Upolu is the low-lying island of Manono, which is, however, enclosed in the Upolu barrier reef.
"At any rate, I could catch her to Samoa, and change at Apia to one of the Weir Line freighters. It's a long way around, but still it would save time." "This time the Upolu is going straight to Sydney," Young explained. "She's going to dry-dock, you see; and you can catch her as late as five to-morrow afternoon at least, so her first officer told me." "But I've got to go to Guvutu first."
A strong and lasting friendship was formed, and resulted in the trader, his wife and family, and the four Samoans removing to the little island of Fenua-loa, and there founding what is now a colony of Polynesians with language, customs and mode of life generally entirely distinct from their Melanesian neighbours. I am Sa Luia. I come from Mulifanua, at the lee end of Upolu in Samoa.
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