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Murder again - Headless Girl - Tapitouean Sign-Manual -Trial - Suspensory Arrangement - Black-faced Police - Chief Justice shows Signs - Important Arrival - Interested Philanthropy - Five Hundred, Dollars' Worth - Those Consuls - Private Annexation - Colonial Misrepresentations - To Utimapu - Bulli-ma-cou - Solafanuas - New Britain Labour - Caroline Islanders.

A MURDER season now appears to have set in with some little vigour, for this afternoon a Tapitouean labourer deliberately chopped his wife to pieces, and killed outright a girl who was with her, on the Vaivasa plantation close at hand.

These men are notorious for possessing the most ungovernable tempers, and will on the slightest provocation use their long bush-knives without favour on all near, and slash right and left so long as the fit remains. It is a species of temporary madness which overcomes them, and which is closely akin to the Malayan 'running amuck.'

This man, however, was especially noted as an exceptionally quiet and well-behaved specimen of his kind, and was in the second term of a voluntary service. In the interval he had been servant to our Judge, whose employ he left, smitten with the charms of a lovely creature of his own nationality working on the plantation, and for whose sake he had bound himself to serve on the same place for the term of her engagement.

The morning of the murder he told her that when the bell rang to knock off labour he should kill her, and it was not for want of trying that he was not as good as his word. With a creditable regard for punctuality and his long eighteen-inch bush-knife, as soon as the bell rang he slashed the unfortunate woman in a horrible manner, leaving her for dead, and on passing out from the house he finished with making two slashes at a wretched girl standing close by, the first lopping off her arm, and the second leaving her a headless trunk quivering on the ground. These natives are most expert with their knives, as many an overseer knows to his cost, and with their excitable temperaments are much too ready to have recourse to them.

The murderer, on committing the crime, took to the bush, and, after roaming about for a few days, was captured in a Samoan house, much to the relief of the plantation overseer, who, recollecting some few differences still remaining unsettled with the criminal, had not felt it prudent to live on the ground-floor of his house. but took to the roof until all was safe.

A Samoan trial under white supervision was held, and the prisoner was convicted and duly sentenced to death. When asked whether he had. anything to say, he replied:

'If you think I have done anything to be killed for, you can kill me. If you think I have done no wrong, I will go back quietly to my work. I don't care which it is, but I know that my laws are not like yours.'

On the morning appointed for the execution the natives at Mulinuu were very busy, feeling themselves sufficiently expert in the hanging business to take the matter entirely into their own hands; but, of course, they must indulge in variations, and, just the same as in their cricket, introduce all sorts of picturesque innovations.

The Government police, in whose hands the final avenging of the law was left, had specially got themselves up for the occasion-naked to the waist, and oiled to the highest degree of perfection; and, I suppose to add a suitable solemnity to the ceremony, they had painted their faces entirely black. Armed with their rifles, and fully accoutred, with their cartridge-belts buckled round their bodies, they busily skirmished all over the place, arranging the crowd with an air of the greatest importance.

Soon the condemned, having arrived by boat, was escorted up to the scaffold and seated at the foot of the ladder of the gallows, on the platform of which two Samoans with shining 'black faces stood ready to receive their victim. A bench was then brought out and placed in full view of the gallows, on which the King and some of his principal men took their seats.

Everything was now ready, but the Chief Justice 'Suetele' who had been told off to make an improving speech with a live subject on the use and abuse of knives in general, could not be found. On being searched for, it was discovered that he had gone to church in town, from whence he sent word that he would not come until he had had enough of it. There was no excuse for this sort of conduct, for he himself had appointed the time.

It really had a much more weighty significance than was appreciated by those not acquainted with the recent doings of the Samoan Parliament. Demonstration of self-importance had something to do with it, but that was not all. He had seized upon this opportunity to show his political resentment to some Government measure that had been of recent discussion and was going against his wishes, well knowing that this public display of disregard would be fully understood by parties to whom it would not be etiquette to speak on the matter. Many useful hints of the real Samoan state of affairs can be gathered from watching carefully the movements of the high chiefs and officials; and they themselves, judging from their own standard, derive all sorts of ideas, mostly erroneous, from observing the mutual relations of the Consuls or their commerce with the many doubtful strangers visiting the group.

To while away the time whilst waiting Suetele's pleasure to appear, one of the Taimua rose and inflicted a long speech on the assembled mob, who paid no attention whatever to it, any more than did the condemned, who sat in the full public gaze smoking a cigarette, and chatting with his attendants as though nothing extraordinary were about to take place.

At last, after quite an hour's delay, up swaggered the Chief Justice, and without the slightest apology delivered his oration, within one minute of the finish of which the murderer was hurried up the ladder, the noose adjusted, bolt drawn, and he was hanging lifeless.

On the 29th of this month, a messenger from Mulinuu came and told me that a man had arrived from New Zealand, who was making speeches to them, such as they did not like. The King wanted to know who the man was who had told him that he was of higher rank than anyone in the islands, a great legislator in New Zealand, and the accredited envoy of a party of rich merchants in Auckland, who, from their love for the Samoans and hatred of oppression, had sent him to return them the five hundred dollars that the High Commissioner had-illegally-fined them for the riot and damage at Magia. But before he handed this over he would like to meet them all together, and thoroughly explain the disinterested goodwill of his senders, and make known just a trifling condition attached to the monetary transfer.

On inquiry, I found out that this unexpected burst of philanthropy was not quite so disinterested as it appeared to be at first sight, but covered some ulterior design for solid profit on small investment. He wanted the Samoans to act as a Government, and put him on the land, to the expulsion of those in charge. This was the mild condition attached to the restitution of the five hundred dollars. He informed his astonished hearers that many eminent lawyers had been greatly shocked at the illegal conduct of the High Commissioner in fining them for doing what they had a perfect right to do, and that they, together with some rich merchants, in order to show their disapproval of such oppressive measures, had determined to return them the money that they had been robbed of. The orator went on to say that if the High Commissioner said that he came from the Queen, it was a lie; he did not do so, and had no authority from her.

He then proceeded to demolish the Consuls, taunting the natives with being afraid of them, and politely compared them to so many lamps, which being turned up by their masters shone brightly, but when turned down went out and stank; and as to the British Consul, they were not to care a bit for him-he would settle him, whether he had a man-of-war or not; and the good merchants had much more money than he had to fight with. In fact, what with his speeches and bribes, a less sensible people than the Samoans would have committed themselves in a very short time. They fooled him to the top of his bent, let him go on until they got all they could, and then requested me to protect them from his importunities.

Having failed to make a capture of the natives in his philo-land-grabbing venture, he turned his attention to annexation to New Zealand, and, with the aid of one or two local celebrities, began to scheme for some means of making something out of it. Soon there began to appear in the public prints outrageously misleading statements, making it appear that the Samoans universally were most anxious in fact quite mad, for Colonial attachment. It was said Protestant, Catholic, and wild natives'- whatever these last may be - alike desired it, speaking for a whole nation, when the writer had been in only two towns in the group, one of which was notoriously opposed to annexation in any shape. In one of these letters it was stated that the Samoans quite understood the New Zealand system of government as it had been explained to them, and were marvellously attracted by the native branch of the legislation, more especially that part which treated of the vote and dispensation of moneys for native education.

In all these reports the leaven of truth was microscopic, the smallest remark or circumstance having been so ingeniously built upon, to produce the wished-for effect, as to make the original intention or fact quite unrecognisable, and unceasing was the abuse of Consular despotism and oppression, as destructive to whites and natives alike.

By these specious productions, and schemes continually working both in Samoa and Auckland, the general public were led to believe that the Samoans were dying for annexation to the Colony, which was most certainly not the case at any time. Some few might have expressed themselves favourably in that direction, under the influence of dollars, present and prospective, but never even then openly; and most decidedly there was never in my time any movement in the smallest degree approaching a representative desire to belong to New Zealand.

It was owing to the working of these 'qualified' reports that the New Zealand Government applied for permission to send their steamer to Samoa and hoist their flag, and even had steam up ready to start on receiving the anticipated favourable reply. Had the request been granted, they would not, however, have had the pleasure of seeing their flag flying on the islands, for on the first report of their arrival in the neighbourhood, the Germans were quite determined formally to annex the whole group, and very glad they would have been of the excuse.

To-day, the 1st of July, I walked, accompanied by the Judge, on a tour of inspection to the German coffee plantation at 'Utumapu,' perched in the ranges immediately behind us, and under the management of a British expert. Going along the beach for about two miles, we turned inland at right angles through the 'Fangalei' plantation, and travelled upwards through a lovely well-grassed cocoa-nut plantation on a nicely laid-out road, bordered for a long way with that most valuable friend, the bread-fruit tree, in whose ranks, however, the late hurricane had worked awful havoc, to the great loss of the food-supply for the year.

Travelling up we passed several mobs of well-bred cattle, looking as plump and sleek as could be desired in any part of the world. The curious word 'Bulli-ma-cou,' applicable both to the meat and the animal, has its origin from the date of the arrival of cattle in Samoa. On the first animals being landed the natives inquired what they were, and were told that the beasts they saw before them were a bull and a cow; so combining the two English words they made one of their own, by which such animals are known to this day. The dictionary-manufacturers endeavoured to get the Samoans to adopt the word 'povi,' an adaptation from the Latin, but with no success. 'Bulli-ma-cou' it was in the beginning, and that will it remain while they have a language of their own.

We also saw some horses, mules, and donkeys, all looking in thriving condition. For the former the Samoans have adopted the manufactured name of 'Solafanua,' literally meaning 'Land-flyer.' If they had been let alone they would without doubt have adopted some word similar in sound to the English one, which in this, as in many other cases, would have rendered the language more understandable to foreigners. The original horses were imported from New Zealand and New South Wales, but from continual inbreeding have deteriorated very much.

We saw an uncommonly fine body of about sixty New Britain labourers on the plantation, some of whom had served a term in Queensland, and could speak English. They informed us that they had enlisted on the German labour-trader which, brought them, to go back to Queensland, but were fraudulently brought to Samoa, the truth of which statement is borne out by their asking, when landed, if the place was Queensland; but of course the poor fellows were quite powerless, and had to go to work.

This is but a single instance of many such cases. They were really a fine body of savages, and they very coolly told us that when they got back they would shoot and eat some one in revenge for the deceit practised upon them. The labour overseer was pointed out as a most superior man from the Carolines, and the only survivor of twenty-five who arrived at the same time. He, too, died before I left Samoa.

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