I

As one entered the open double door of the Secretariat, a long wide room that with the adjoining Administrator's room ran half the length of the Apia Court House, on the upper floor, one found a small table to one side, supporting a shallow wooden bowl of many legs. This was coated on its inner surface with a crust, like light-green enamel, and half full with an opaque yellow liquid on whose surface floated a coconut-shell cup. Anyone who came in, feeling thirsty, might give the contents of the bowl a stir, to awaken the sediment, scoop out a cupful, have a drink, and replace the cup, spinning on the surface of the liquor. Several of the Government departments supported a kava-bowl in this way—the Treasury, the Police Department, the Agricultural Department, and occasionally the Justice Department, who, more usually, however, made use of other people's.

The kava was made twice a day, the first thing in the morning and afternoon, by a male prisoner on duty about the Police Department, just across the side-road. Two or three times a week he would appear, in blue-and-white-striped lava-lava, and announce with a grin that the kava was finished; and then he must be given a shilling to buy some more, ready pounded, from one of the local stores upon the Beach. He prepared the liquor—"by washing his hands in it"—somewhere off the premises. Once we of the Secretariat heard, with some amusement, that the prisoner employed at this task—for one of the other departments—was suspected of leprosy; which paralleled an occasion when the Chinaman employed in milking the cows at Government House—Vailima—was found to be a leper. So far as I know no one developed the disease as a consequence in either case; but it is said to take seven years to come out.

The meetings of the Legislative Council were held in the page 132Administrator's room at a large round table that occupied its lower half. There were four official members of the council, nominated by the Administrator, and two unofficial members also nominated by him. One of these was Apia's only photographer, and the other was, I think, the owner of a small store. Both were pure Europeans and respected citizens, but nonentities. There were also two Fautuas—high chiefs—elderly men, Tuimalealiifano and Malietoa,¹ who used to shuffle into the room and be closeted with the rest; these, nominally, were the advisers of the Administrator on behalf of the Samoans. Nothing very exciting I imagine ever transpired at these meetings. Only the murmur of unraised voices would be heard in the main office. From their deliberations was born an occasional ordinance—for the government of the country was by ordinance—to which, in due course, I had to impress the official Seal while the Administrator—Colonel Tate—signed the document.

The Native Office, or Department of Native Affairs, lay immediately across the side-road (Ifi Ifi Street), adjoining the Police Station, and at all hours of the day a burst of staccato hand-clapping was liable to come from it. Looking across then from the balcony, one would see that the forms on the low-pitched, rough veranda were lined with brown-faced, white-clothed figures, most of them clutching black umbrellas, who had come in on some piece of litigation or business and for whom kava was being formally made.

The Secretary of Native Affairs, Mr. Griffin, was a large, podgy, seemingly good-natured, rather sexless-looking man. When I went across to his department I would sometimes find him sitting at his table in a little inner office, with a native drawn up on an unaccustomed chair—legs wide apart and bare toes splaying the floor—the two whispering together so confidentially that it would appear scarce possible to have got a sheet of paper between their two heads. Once when I went in Griffin—by himself—was toying with a small note-book. "If this were to be lost, or its contents known," he said, "there would be a war in Samoa to-morrow." I endeavoured to look duly impressed; but papers belonging to the Secretariat were frequently lost in the Native Department, and whole files upon page break

Tuimalealiifano

page 133occasion. The book, he added, referred to Samoan genealogy, the secrets of which are jealously guarded by their respective families.