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.

II

A circumstance which created a considerable sensation about the end of 1922, and ruffled a period of calm, was that one of the white sisters from the hospital was raped by a Samoan on the lonely stretch of up-hill road between Vailima and the Government resthouse at Malololelei. It was an occurrence, I think, entirely unprecedented in Samoa. For some days no arrest was made. The assailant, a powerful man leading a horse, had overtaken the girl and first engaged her in conversation. The Inspector of Police—an interesting character who had once drifted down the Mississippi on a raft and also travelled with a circus giving exhibitions of revolver-shooting in the United States of America, and who had a bald head and a curious clipped way of speaking—ran him to earth finally on the slender clue that the horse's bridle was of plaited straw. In due course the Samoan appeared before the court and the Chief Judge, Mr. Orr-Walker, gave him a life sentence in a New Zealand jail.

Shortly after there appeared in the columns of the Samoa Times a letter from Mr. Hills, the then head of the London Mission, decrying the severity of the sentence and making out that sympathy was thereby naturally deflected to the felon. Colonel Tate, the Administrator, privily suggested that Mr. Hills be charged with contempt of court, which the tone of his letter possibly warranted; but the Chief Justice, feeling perhaps that his position was anomalous, since there was no other judge to try the case, was not in favour of this step being taken. Another document which the case evoked was a petition signed by a large number of ladies of Apia, mostly the wives of officials, and not excepting some of the most unprepossessing, praying that, for their safety, and for the sake of example, the culprit be severely flogged.

III

Colonel Tate, the Administrator, was a little man. He was supposed to be known among the natives as Monga-Monga—page 134or the Cockroach; and the name had somehow a certain humorous aptness. But those who knew him best said that he was a man of high principle, and I also was of that opinion. Under his administration, it is true, were sown the seeds of future abuses; but I do not think he would have allowed them to propagate as they eventually did. He was modest and retiring, and that he had courage is evinced by his wish to charge the head of the London Mission with contempt of court. The power of the missions, it must be understood, is considerable. That Logan's administration was unpopular with two of them is notorious, and had Logan kept on the right side of the missionaries he might still have been in office. This phase of the situation must have been from the first apparent to his successor.

IV

It is necessary that I should give some further account of Griffin, the Secretary of Native Affairs. For many years printer to the London Missionary Society in Samoa, and nearing that point where he could retire upon pension, he was offered the post, by Tate, in 1920, of Resident Commissioner (Deputy Administrator) of Savaii. Before assuming office he made a trip to London, and about this time was permitted to assume the rank of missionary. He had not remained for long in Savaii, but had been recalled to Apia, where he was appointed Secretary of Native Affairs; and McDonald, an old resident of Samoa, was relegated thence to the control of the Lands and Survey Department. Cooper, a youngish-looking, fair-haired man, was brought from the Cook Islands—also under New Zealand administration—and in due course took up the post of Resident Commissioner of Savaii, with Griffin as Secretary of Native Affairs, in the position of his superior officer.

The two men were diametrically opposed: Cooper, a precisian; Griffin, its reverse. With Cooper all was on; with Griffin, most beneath (in his case) a bland surface. Cooper was jealous for what he considered his due measure of authority; Griffin apparently determined to retain control of the island where he had recently held sway.

A subject of much correspondence, passing through my page 135hands, between Fagamalo and Apia, was as to who should pay for the kava consumed in the ceremonial entertainment of natives in the Resident Commissioner's office in Savaii. Cooper maintained that the charge was for the Government; the Secretary of the Administration—at the instance of Griffin—that the expense was a personal one. Finally Cooper replied that he could not afford the charge himself, and as the Government would not meet it there would in future be no kava provided in his office for the entertainment of chiefs.

There arose shortly after—Cooper was alleged deliberately to have occasioned it—an occurrence in Savaii involving the political interests of various villages or tribes, which Cooper handled—successfully—by himself. And Colonel Tate was prevailed upon by Griffin to dismiss him, for having presumed to do so. The letter demanding Cooper's resignation was written at, approximately, the end of January 1923; but to my surprise it was not sent, and I supposed the Administrator had thought differently of the matter. But just before Colonel Tate left Samoa, in March 1923, the letter was unearthed by him from between the sheets of his blotting-pad, and posted.

V

We had a variety of callers at the office. Sometimes the white-clothed officer from a visiting British warship, who usually would produce a note-book and inquire of the Secretary if any suspicious characters had arrived at the islands. Frequently Captain Lewer, the Billeting Officer, who might borrow an oil-can from the typists across the passage and oil his artificial leg; a perfect fount of gossip from the Beach. Judge Roberts, out of breath and exhausted from his ascent of the stairs, for whom I would hasten to get a chair. George Westbrook, expansive and humorous. And the Secretary would lean back from his desk, pipe in hand, and listen to all the callers had to say; being accessible to anyone.

Once came two natives to the door, with white jackets and lava-lavas, clutching umbrellas. I recognized the chief from the first village where I had slept on my ride round the island, with his attendant missionary. I saw that they had som page 136in mind other than a conventional call and fetched a half-caste boy from the department where I had formerly worked to act as interpreter. "What they want is some food," said Frank, the half-caste, regarding them with some contempt, after an interchange of courtesies. He proposed that I give them sixpence for bread and a shilling for tinned salmon. I was half afraid of causing offence; but Frank, with superior knowledge, was scornful at the suggestion. Dubiously I gave them, I think, three shillings: all that I happened to have in my pocket. "Fafetai! Fafetai!" and they became wreathed in smiles, curiously like children, and after copious farewells and asking when I proposed again to come and visit them, flat-footed off down stairs.

Early in 1923 there was a very severe "blow"—the worst I ever knew in the islands. It lasted, so far as I remember, about forty-eight hours, and the insistence of the wind became almost alarming. Water seemed forced through every crack in roof and board, and the insides of the walls and windows were running with moisture. It is at this time of the year—the worst of the rainy season—that leather will mildew in a single night and enormous winged cockroaches appear and browse on bookbindings and inside suitcases. The humidity and apparent heat at times are terrific. The palm-trees on this occasion were bending up like fishing-rods, and great fronds, twenty feet or more in length, were flying through the air; the shriek of the gale being punctuated by an occasional crash on the tin roof, of a coco-nut.

I, on my islet at Vaiala, was more or less marooned, and when at length I got out it was to find shingle all over the street of Apia and "an enormous dun-coloured sea pouring over the reefs of the harbour—a result of the scourings of the rivers that evacuate into the bay." There were not many at work that—I think it was Monday—morning.

The vessel that had been in port—a big tramp, loading copra—had pulled up anchor at the warning of the barometer and beaten it for the shelter of Saluafata.

We had a monthly steamer from New Zealand, occasional yachts and cargo boats from Europe and America, men-o'-war on patrol, and Apia was graced at irregular intervals by two very curious craft. These were steamships—the Dawn and the page 137Rob Roy. They appeared to be painted bright red, but the red was of rust, and their rotting sides were stopped with concrete. Their owner, Captain Allen, a menacing-looking man who wore elastic-sided boots, was sometimes to be seen at the McDonalds—one of the last of the old-timers. He owned the little island of Funafuti, where he was said to have a fine house, with billiard tables, among the coconut-palms with which it was planted. Allen formerly had been engaged in the "black-birding" trade, and was the subject of portentous tales, of which among the least remarkable is, that having taken one of his ships to New Caledonia for repairs, and the bill being too large for his liking, he simply got up steam and sailed away. It was also stated—which I can well believe—that he dared not take the Rob Roy or the Dawn into any such port as Sydney, as they would straightway have been condemned. He was supposed to be a wealthy man, but when he died in Fiji in 1926 he was found to be worth very little.