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