and on the other side of the tapa, Majesty and his
household. Armed guards and a drummer patrolled about the house all
night; they had no shift, poor devils; but stood to arms from sun-down
to sun-up.

About four in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a whistle pipe
blown outside on the dark, very softly and to a pleasing simple air; I
really think I have hit the first phrase:

[Illustration: Andante tranquillo]

It sounded very peaceful, sweet and strange in the dark; and I found
this was a part of the routine of my rebel's night, and it was done (he
said) to give good dreams. By a little before six, Taylor and I were in
the saddle again fasting. My riding boots were so wet I could not get
them on, so I must ride barefoot. The morning was fair but the roads
very muddy, the weeds soaked us nearly to the waist, Sale was twice
spilt at the fences, and we got to Apia a bedraggled enough pair. All
the way along the coast, the pate (small wooden drum) was beating in the
villages and the people crowding to the churches in their fine clothes.
Thence through the mangrove swamp, among the black mud and the green
mangroves, and the black and scarlet crabs, to Mulinuu, to the doctor's,
where I had an errand, and so to the inn to breakfast about nine. After
breakfast I rode home. Conceive such an outing, remember the pallid
brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive
the intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey. Twenty
miles' ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in a drenching rain,
seven of them fasting and in the morning chill, and six stricken hours'
political discussions by an interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in
a native house, at which many of our excellent literati would look
askance of itself.

You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is not only from a
sense of duty, or a love of meddling--damn the phrase, take your
choice--but from a great affection for Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet
old fellow, and he and I grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about our
sentiments. I had a messenger from him to-day with a flannel undershirt
which I had left behind like a gibbering idiot; and perpetrated in reply
another Baboo letter. It rains again to-day without mercy; blessed,
welcome rains, making up for the paucity of the late wet season; and
when the showers slacken, I can hear my stream roaring in the hollow,
and tell myself that the cacaos are drin