We had kava, and then a dish of arrowroot; one end of the
house was screened off for us with a fine tapa, and we lay
and slept, the three of us heads and tails, upon the mats
till dinner. After dinner his illegitimate majesty and
myself had a walk, and talked as well as my twopenny Samoan
would admit. Then there was a dance to amuse the ladies
before the house, and we came back by moonlight, the sky
piled full of high faint clouds that long preserved some of
the radiance of the sunset. The lagoon was very shallow; we
continually struck, for the moon was young and the light
baffling; and for a long time we were accompanied by, and
passed and re-passed, a huge whale-boat from Savaii, pulling
perhaps twelve oars, and containing perhaps forty people who
sang in time as they went So to the hotel, where we slept,
and returned the next Tuesday morning on the three same
steeds.

Meanwhile my business was still untransacted. And on
Saturday morning, I sent down and arranged with Charlie
Taylor to go down that afternoon. I had scarce got the
saddle bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when the rain
began. But it was no use delaying now; off I went in a wild
waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Sale) Taylor - a
sesquipedalian young half-caste - not yet ready, had a snack
of bread and cheese at the hotel while waiting him, and then
off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven miles; the road,
which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty, boggy,
rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there
are eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps - the next
morning we found one all messed with blood where a horse had