Becker was annoying,Leary infuriating;there is no doubt that the tempers in the German consulate were highly ulcerated;and if war between the two countries did not follow,we must set down the praise to the forbearance of the German navy.This is not the last time that I shall have to salute the merits of that service.
The defeat and death of Saifaleupolu and the burning of Manono had thus passed off without the least advantage to Tamasese.But he still held the significant position of Mulinuu,and Brandeis was strenuous to make it good.The whole peninsula was surrounded with a breastwork;across the isthmus it was six feet high and strengthened with a ditch;and the beach was staked against landing.Weber's land claim -the same that now broods over the village in the form of a signboard -then appeared in a more military guise;the German flag was hoisted,and German sailors manned the breastwork at the isthmus -"to protect German property"and its trifling parenthesis,the king of Samoa.Much vigilance reigned and,in the island fashion,much wild firing.And in spite of all,desertion was for a long time daily.The detained high chiefs would go to the beach on the pretext of a natural occasion,plunge in the sea,and swimming across a broad,shallow bay of the lagoon,join the rebels on the Faleula side.Whole bodies of warriors,sometimes hundreds strong,departed with their arms and ammunition.On the 7th of September,for instance,the day after Leary's letter,Too and Mataia left with their contingents,and the whole Aana people returned home in a body to hold a parliament.
Ten days later,it is true,a part of them returned to their duty;but another part branched off by the way and carried their services,and Tamasese's dear-bought guns,to Faleula.
On the 8th,there was a defection of a different kind,but yet sensible.The High Chief Seumanu had been still detained in Mulinuu under anxious observation.His people murmured at his absence,threatened to "take away his name,"and had already attempted a rescue.The adventure was now taken in hand by his wife Faatulia,a woman of much sense and spirit and a strong partisan;and by her contrivance,Seumanu gave his guardians the slip and rejoined his clan at Faleula.This process of winnowing was of course counterbalanced by another of recruitment.But the harshness of European and military rule had made Brandeis detested and Tamasese unpopular with many;and the force on Mulinuu is thought to have done little more than hold its own.Mataafa sympathisers set it down at about two or three thousand.I have no estimate from the other side;but Becker admits they were not strong enough to keep the field in the open.
The political significance of Mulinuu was great,but in a military sense the position had defects.If it was difficult to carry,it was easy to blockade:and to be hemmed in on that narrow finger of land were an inglorious posture for the monarch of Samoa.The peninsula,besides,was scant of food and destitute of water.
Pressed by these considerations,Brandeis extended his lines till he had occupied the whole foreshore of Apia bay and the opposite point,Matautu.His men were thus drawn out along some three nautical miles of irregular beach,everywhere with their backs to the sea,and without means of communication or mutual support except by water.The extension led to fresh sorrows.The Tamasese men quartered themselves in the houses of the absent men of the Vaimaunga.Disputes arose with English and Americans.Leary interposed in a loud voice of menace.It was said the firm profited by the confusion to buttress up imperfect land claims;Iam sure the other whites would not be far behind the firm.
Properties were fenced in,fences and houses were torn down,scuffles ensued.The German example at Mulinuu was followed with laughable unanimity;wherever an Englishman or an American conceived himself to have a claim,he set up the emblem of his country;and the beach twinkled with the flags of nations.
All this,it will be observed,was going forward in that neutral territory,sanctified by treaty against the presence of armed Samoans.The insurgents themselves looked on in wonder:on the 4th,trembling to transgress against the great Powers,they had written for a delimitation of the ELEELE SA;and Becker,in conversation with the British consul,replied that he recognised none.So long as Tamasese held the ground,this was expedient.
But suppose Tamasese worsted,it might prove awkward for the stores,mills,and offices of a great German firm,thus bared of shelter by the act of their own consul.
On the morning of the 9th September,just ten days after the death of Saifaleupolu,Mataafa,under the name of Malietoa To'oa Mataafa,was crowned king at Faleula.On the 11th he wrote to the British and American consuls:"Gentlemen,I write this letter to you two very humbly and entreatingly,on account of this difficulty that has come before me.I desire to know from you two gentlemen the truth where the boundaries of the neutral territory are.You will observe that I am now at Vaimoso [a step nearer the enemy],and Ihave stopped here until I knew what you say regarding the neutral territory.I wish to know where I can go,and where the forbidden ground is,for I do not wish to go on any neutral territory,or on any foreigner's property.I do not want to offend any of the great Powers.Another thing I would like.Would it be possible for you three consuls to make Tamasese remove from German property?for Iam in awe of going on German land."He must have received a reply embodying Becker's renunciation of the principle,at once;for he broke camp the same day,and marched eastward through the bush behind Apia.