of four verses there
had been ten.

"Can you tell us, Lester," said one of the strangers to our host, "the
meaning of the last words?--they came out so clearly that I believe I've
caught them," and to our surprise he sang the last line--

Ia matou moe tau ia te oe.

*****

"Well, now, I don't know if I can. Samoan hymns puzzle me; you see the
language used in addressing the Deity is vastly different to that used
ordinarily, but I take it that the words you so correctly repeated mean,
'Let us sleep in peace with Thee.' Curious people these Samoans," he
muttered, more to himself than for us: "soon be as hypocritical as the
average white man. 'Let us sleep in peace with Thee,' and that fellow
(the chief), his two brothers, and about a paddockful of young Samoan
bucks haven't slept at all for this two weeks. All the night is spent in
counting cartridges, melting lead for bullets, and cleaning their arms,
only knocking off for a drink of kava. Well, I suppose," he continued,
turning to us, "they're all itching to fight, and as soon as the U.S.S.
_Resacca_ leaves Apia they'll commence in earnest, and us poor devils of
traders will be left here doing nothing and cursing this infernal love
of fighting, which is inborn with Samoans and a part of their natural
cussedness which, if the Creator hadn't given it to them, would have put
many a dollar into my pocket."

*****

"Father," said a voice that came up to us from the gloom of the young
cocoanuts' foliage at the side of the house, "Felipe is here, and
wants to know if he may come up and speak to the _alii papalagi_ (white
gentlemen)."

"Right you are, Felipe, my lad," said the trader in a more than usual
kindly voice, "bring him up, Atalina, and then run away to the chief's
and get some of the _aua-luma_ to come over, with you and make a bowl of
kava."

"Now, Doctor L------," Lester continued, addressing himself to one of
his guests, the surgeon of an American war vessel then stationed in
Samoa, and a fellow-countryman of his, "I'll show you as fine a specimen
of manhood and intelligence as God ever made, although he has got a
tanned hide."

*****

The native that ascended the steps and stood before us with his hat in
his hand respectfully saluting, was indeed, as Lester called him,
"a fine specimen." Clothed only in a blue and white _lava lava_ or
waist-cloth, his clean-cut limbs, muscular figure, and skin like
polished bronze, stood revealed in the full li