Old Samoan Days. 
I 73 
Justices, and Lands Commissioners, and good¬ 
ness knows who, of whom no one in England 
would scarce have ever known, but that the 
slender, wasted finger of the man who rests on 
the summit of Vailima Mountain pointed at 
them in bitter contempt and withering scorn, as 
silly, vain people who lived in his loved Samoa. 
Ah ! merry, merry times were those in the 
olden days, although even then the rifles 
cracked, and the bullets sang among the orange 
groves along Apia beach ; for the rebel lines 
were close to the town, and now and then a 
basket of bleeding heads would be carried 
through the town by mourning women who 
beat their brown, naked breasts and made a 
tagi 1 throughout the night. 
There were not quite a hundred white people 
living in Apia then, half of whom were Ger¬ 
mans ; the rest were Englishmen, Americans, 
and Frenchmen. But almost every day there 
came a ship of some sort into the little reef- 
bound harbour. Perhaps it was a big German 
barque, direct from Hamburg, laden with vile 
Hollands gin and cheap German trade goods ; 
or a wandering, many-boated sperm whaler, with 
1 Lamentation. 
