THE UNITED STATES AND SAMOA 259 



was far from satisfactory. Malietoa's salary, out of which he 

 paid all his own expenses, amounted, all told, to scarcely $95 

 a month a beggarly allowance for even a Samoan prince 

 while the monthly stipends of the chief justice, the presi- 

 dent of the municipality, the chief of police and the private 

 secretary of the chief justice were, respectively, $500, $415, 

 $140, and $100 a month, in all $1155. The difference was 

 too apparent. The natives had so often tasted the bitter 

 fruits of deceit in their dealings with foreigners, that sus- 

 picion quite naturally stole into their minds that they were 

 again being duped. The treaty in one sentence accorded 

 them rights which in the next sentence it took away. The 

 government was almost entirely an alien one which they, the 

 natives, were obliged to maintain upon a scale of generous 

 salaries. They realized that their own king, the only 

 native officer, was a mere figurehead. As an additional 

 cause of grievance they were being taxed to support a gov- 

 ernment not of their own creation, and were being promptly 

 prosecuted by the courts if they failed to pay. It also 

 appeared that the land commission was confirming too many 

 dubious titles in the German, English, and American traders 

 to seem entirely just to the Samoans surely, they were 

 being plucked. 



While Malietoa was nominally king, all the pomp and 

 ceremony of that Gilbertian office, as well as the manage- 

 ment of the few affairs left to the native government, fell to 

 the share of Mataafa. The latter having the stronger per- 

 sonality of the two, and being all the time conscious of the 

 moral support of the people, regarded the venerable Malietoa 

 as " his poor brother," and maintained toward his superior 

 an attitude of friendly and good-humored contempt. On May 

 31, 1891, Mataafa departed from the company of his col- 

 league and took up his abode at Malie, a town some miles 

 to the west of Apia, where he continued to live in royal 

 manner attended by retainers and entertained by the visit- 

 ing delegations of chieftains from all parts of the kingdom. 

 To the apprehensive foreigners of Apia the departure of 

 Mataafa from his post of duty by the side of Malietoa at 



