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And they will be well content with me, for never hast thou and Nobal been forgotten." Nearly thirty years ago, when the late King Malietoa of Samoa was quietly arming his own adherents and conciliating his rebel chiefs in order to combine against the persistent encroachments of the Germans, I was running a small trading cutter between Upolu and Savaii, the two principal islands of the group.
From the conditions of business, a great island house must ever be an inheritance of care; and it chances that the greatest still afoot has its chief seat in Apia bay, and has sunk the main part of its capital in the island of Upolu. When its founder, John Caesar Godeffroy, went bankrupt over Russian paper and Westphalian iron, his most considerable asset was found to be the South Sea business.
There is a story that the cuttle-fish gods of Savaii were once chased by an Upolu hero, who caught them in a great net and killed them. They were changed into stones, and now stand up in a rocky part of the lagoon on the north side of Upolu.
Savaii is distant about ten miles from Upolu. Its coast is for the most part itu papa i.e., iron bound but there are five populous towns there Palaulae, Salealua, Asaua, Matautu, and Safune.
Savaii has no royal name to bestow, all the five being in the gift of different districts of Upolu; but she has the weight of numbers, and in these latter days has acquired a certain force by the preponderance in her councils of a single man, the orator Lauati.
By the agreement with England and America, which in this year also put an end to the thorny question of Samoan administration, Germany acquired the Samoan islands of Upolu and Sawaii in the South Sea. The ten years we are now concerned with were perhaps the most strenuous and picturesque of the Emperor's life hitherto.
Polu refused, but at length yielded and went up. The carpenters did not care about the job, but Polu was most urgent, and would take no denial. U is the word for urge. His grandfather asked the name of his island. Polu said it had none; and on this Tangaloa said: "Very well, when you go down call it Upolu, in remembrance of your being so urgent on the carpenters."
Flight of the bird in the direction of the enemy was a good sign, otherwise the omen was bad. This was also the name of a family god, and seen in a star. SA FULU SA Of the sacred feather. This was the name of a village war god in Upolu. Incarnate in the kingfisher bird, which, if seen flying before the troops, was a good sign.
His pride was that with an assistant and a half-caste clerk he was able to administer the island more competently than Upolu, the island of which Apia is the chief town, was administered with its army of functionaries. He had a few native policemen to sustain his authority, but he made no use of them. He governed by bluff and his Irish humour. "They insisted on building a jail for me," he said.
As the boat sailed past the misty line of cloud-capped Upolu, the trader lifted the girl up beside him and spoke to her. Even but a day and a half ago her one brother was killed with her cousin. They were strong men, but the bullets were swift, and so they died. And their heads had been shown at Matautu. For that she had grieved and wept and eaten nothing, and the world was cold and dark to her.
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