the surf breaks with a continuous uproar. In wild weather, as the world
knows, the roads are untenable. Along the whole shore, which is
everywhere green and level and overlooked by inland mountain-tops, the
town lies drawn out in strings and clusters. The western horn is
Mulinuu, the eastern, Matautu; and from one to the other of these
extremes, I ask the reader to walk. He will find more of the history of
Samoa spread before his eyes in that excursion, than has yet been
collected in the blue-books or the white-books of the world. Mulinuu
(where the walk is to begin) is a flat, wind-swept promontory, planted
with palms, backed against a swamp of mangroves, and occupied by a rather
miserable village. The reader is informed that this is the proper
residence of the Samoan kings; he will be the more surprised to observe a
board set up, and to read that this historic village is the property of
the German firm. But these boards, which are among the commonest
features of the landscape, may be rather taken to imply that the claim
has been disputed. A little farther east he skirts the stores, offices,
and barracks of the firm itself. Thence he will pass through Matafele,
the one really town-like portion of this long string of villages, by
German bars and stores and the German consulate; and reach the Catholic
mission and cathedral standing by the mouth of a small river. The bridge
which crosses here (bridge of Mulivai) is a frontier; behind is Matafele;
beyond, Apia proper; behind, Germans are supreme; beyond, with but few
exceptions, all is Anglo-Saxon. Here the reader will go forward past the
stores of Mr. Moors (American) and Messrs. MacArthur (English); past the
English mission, the office of the English newspaper, the English church,
and the old American consulate, till he reaches the mouth of a larger
river, the Vaisingano. Beyond, in Matautu, his way takes him in the
shade of many trees and by scattered dwellings, and presently brings him
beside a great range of offices, the place and the monument of a German
who fought the German firm during his life. His house (now he is dead)