It was perhaps the last as it was certainly one of the most extreme examples of that divinity which once hedged the white in Samoa.

The feeling was already different in the camp of Mataafa, where the safety of a German loiterer had been a matter of extreme concern.

Ten days later, three commissioners, an Englishman, an American, and a German, approached a post of Mataafas, were challenged by an old man with a gun, and mentioned in answer what they were.

"_Ifea Siamani_?
Which is the German ?" cried the old gentleman, dancing, and with his finger on the trigger; and the commissioners stood somewhile in a very anxious posture, till they were released by the opportune arrival of a chief.

It was November the 27th when Leary and Moors completed their absurd excursion; in about three weeks an event was to befall which changed at once, and probably for ever, the relations of the natives and the whites.
By the 28th Tamasese had collected seventeen hundred men in the trenches before Saluafata, thinking to attack next day.