at the pretext for escape,
and asked leave to accept an engagement in the company. "I will not
allow you to make a monkey of yourself," said Brandeis; and the phrase
had a success throughout the islands, pungent expressions being so much
admired by the natives that they cannot refrain from repeating them, even
when they have been levelled at themselves. The assumption of the Atua
_name_ spread discontent in that province; many chiefs from thence were
convicted of disaffection, and condemned to labour with their hands upon
the roads--a great shock to the Samoan sense of the becoming, which was
rendered the more sensible by the death of one of the number at his task.
Mataafa was involved in the same trouble. His disaffected speech at a
meeting of Atua chiefs was betrayed by the girls that made the kava, and
the man of the future was called to Apia on safe-conduct, but, after an
interview, suffered to return to his lair. The peculiarly tender
treatment of Mataafa must be explained by his relationship to Tamasese.
Laupepa was of Malietoa blood. The hereditary retainers of the Tupua
would see him exiled even with some complacency. But Mataafa was Tupua
himself; and Tupua men would probably have murmured, and would perhaps
have mutinied, had he been harshly dealt with.

The native opposition, I say, was in a sense continuous. And it kept
continuously growing. The sphere of Brandeis was limited to Mulinuu and
the north central quarters of Upolu--practically what is shown upon the
map opposite. There the taxes were expanded; in the out-districts, men
paid their money and saw no return. Here the eye and hand of the
dictator were ready to correct the scales of justice; in the
out-districts, all things lay at the mercy of the native magistrates, and
their oppressions increased with the course of time and the experience of
impunity. In the spring of the year, a very intelligent observer had
occasion to visit many places in the island of Savaii. "Our lives are
not worth living," was the burthen of the popular complaint. "We are
groaning under the oppression of these men. We would rather die than
continue to endure it." On his return to Apia, he made haste to
communicate his impressions to Brandeis. Brandeis replied in an epigram:
"Where there has been anarchy in a country, there must be oppression for
a time." But unfortunately the terms of the epigram may be reversed; and
personal supervision would have been more in