art. In this humour, he was exposed to a temptation which I must try to
explain, as best I may be able, to Europeans.

The bestowal of the great name, Malietoa, is in the power of the
district of Malie, some seven miles to the westward of Apia. The most
noisy and conspicuous supporters of that party are the inhabitants of
Manono. Hence in the elaborate, allusive oratory of Samoa, Malie is
always referred to by the name of _Pule_ (authority) as having the power
of the name, and Manono by that of _Ainga_ (clan, sept, or household) as
forming the immediate family of the chief. But these, though so
important, are only small communities; and perhaps the chief numerical
force of the Malietoas inhabits the island of Savaii. Savaii has no
royal name to bestow, all the five being in the gift of different
districts of Upolu; but she has the weight of numbers, and in these
latter days has acquired a certain force by the preponderance in her
councils of a single man, the orator Lauati. The reader will now
understand the peculiar significance of a deputation which should
embrace Lauati and the orators of both Malie and Manono, how it would
represent all that is most effective on the Malietoa side, and all that
is most considerable in Samoan politics, except the opposite feudal
party of the Tupua. And in the temptation brought to bear on Mataafa,
even the Tupua was conjoined. Tamasese was dead. His followers had
conceived a not unnatural aversion to all Germans, from which only the
loyal Brandeis is excepted; and a not unnatural admiration for their
late successful adversary. Men of his own blood and clan, men whom he
had fought in the field, whom he had driven from Matautu, who had
smitten him back time and again from before the rustic bulwarks of
Lotoanuu, they approached him hand in hand with their ancestral enemies
and concurred in the same prayer. The treaty (they argued) was not
carried out. The right to elect their king had been granted them; or if
that were denied or suspended, then the right to elect "his successor."
They were dissatisfied with Laupepa, and claimed, "according to the laws
and customs of Samoa," duly to appoint another. The orators of Malie
declared with irritation that their second appointment was alone valid
and Mataafa the sole Malietoa; the whole body of malcontents named him
as their choice for king; and they requested him in consequence to leave
Apia and take up his dwelling in Malie, the name-place of M