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Samoa Under the Sailing Gods

IX

IX

One day, April 10th, proceeding along the coast of Savaii on a commercial motor-boat—one of those craft which ply between Apia and the trading-stations carrying copra and goods—our engine was stopped and I saw a whale-boat putting off from the shore to intercept us. I was on my way from Falealupo in the extreme west of the island, to Fagamalo on the north, where I had been ordered to attend a Court case on behalf of the Administration. Our half-caste captain, his head tied up, from toothache, in a towel, now approached me in a state of great excitement and said that Tamasese might be aboard the whale-boat, for it was believed that he wished to break his banishment order and return to Apia, and that he—the captain—was afraid of getting into trouble if he carried him. Would I forbid Tamasese to come aboard?

I knew little of Tamasese, although I knew he had been banished, but seeing no alternative under the circumstances I said that I would.

On his way down the coast to Falealupo the captain of the motor-boat had been asked by Tamasese to call in at the village of Asau on his return, to pick up a box. But suspecting that there was more than a box to convey to Apia, the half-caste had determined to avoid Asau. Tamasese, anticipating this, had laid in wait and intercepted him at Sataua.

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By this time, although ordered by the captain, at my instruction, to stand off, the whale-boat had run alongside. I had gone amidships, and my interpreter informing me that Tamasese was in the boat—our captain and the whole crew had discreetly dived down the engine-room hatch, where they remained—I addressed him and told him that he would be unable to come aboard. In the meantime, all the rowers of the other craft, a large number of Asau men, had swarmed onto our deck and ranged themselves around us, and the situation was by no means to my liking. Tamasese, standing up—a young, strongly built man with a round face—grasping one of our stanchions and stepping onto the low bulwark, pleaded that he did not know why he had been sent to Asau, that he had no food plantations there, and that he wished to go to Apia to interview the Administrator. I told him that I could not take cognizance of complaints, which I advised him to refer to the Resident Commissioner, nor could I allow him to travel by the motor-boat. Shortly after, he and his men re-embarked, and they pulled slowly and silently back towards the shore.

The sequel to this episode was that Tamasese crossed on foot the lava-field which lies between Asau and the northern coast of Savaii, and after lying hid in a village there for a few days—a fact which I reported at the time to the Administration—paddled over to Upolu with another man in a canoe. For this he was imprisoned for three months, and banished, this time to the north of Savaii.

On April 2nd all the chiefs of Asau had come to Sataua and tried to persuade the Sataua people to join with them in taking Tamasese back to Apia. The Fono lasted two days. Had this attempt, on the 10th, to travel by the motor-boat been successful, the history of Samoa almost certainly would have been different from what it is. I have often regretted that I was aboard. When I got to Fagamalo I found that the Court case had been cancelled. Owing to the slackness of the official responsible, I had not been notified. On such things fate chooses to hinge.

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Tamasese

Tamasese