Good food was given him: biscuits, “tea
made with warm water,” beef, etc.; all excellent.
Once, in their walks, they spied a breadfruit tree
bearing in the garden of an English merchant, ran
back to the prison to get a shilling, and came and
offered to purchase. “I am not going to
sell breadfruit to you people,” said the merchant;
“come and take what you like.” Here
Malietoa interrupted himself to say it was the only
tree bearing in the Cameroons. “The governor
had none, or he would have given it to me.”
On the passage from the Cameroons to Germany, he
had great delight to see the cliffs of England.
He saw “the rocks shining in the sun, and three
hours later was surprised to find them sunk in the
heavens.” He saw also wharves and immense
buildings; perhaps Dover and its castle. In Hamburg,
after breakfast, Mr. Weber, who had now finally “ceased
from troubling” Samoa, came on board, and carried
him ashore “suitably” in a steam launch
to “a large house of the government,”
where he stayed till noon. At noon Weber told
him he was going to “the place where ships are
anchored that go to Samoa,” and led him to “a
very magnificent house, with carriages inside and
a wonderful roof of glass”; to wit, the railway
station. They were benighted on the train, and
then went in “something with a house, drawn
by horses, which had windows and many decks”;
plainly an omnibus. Here (at Bremen or Bremerhaven,
I believe) they stayed some while in “a house
of five hundred rooms”; then were got on board
the Nurnberg (as they understood) for Samoa,
anchored in England on a Sunday, were joined en
route by the famous Dr. Knappe, passed through
“a narrow passage where they went very slow
and which was just like a river,” and beheld
with exhilarated curiosity that Red Sea of which they
had learned so much in their Bibles. At last,
“at the hour when the fires burn red,”
they came to a place where was a German man-of-war.
Laupepa was called, with one of the boys, on deck,
when he found a German officer awaiting him, and a
steam launch alongside, and was told he must now leave
his brother and go elsewhere. “I cannot
go like this,” he cried. “You must
let me see my brother and the other old men”—a
term of courtesy. Knappe, who seems always to
have been good-natured, revised his orders, and consented
not only to an interview, but to allow Moli to continue
to accompany the king. So these two were carried
to the man-of-war, and sailed many a day, still supposing
themselves bound for Samoa; and lo! she came to a
country the like of which they had never dreamed of,
and cast anchor in the great lagoon of Jaluit; and
upon that narrow land the exiles were set on shore.
This was the part of his captivity on which he looked
back with the most bitterness. It was the last,
for one thing, and he was worn down with the long
suspense, and terror, and deception. He could
not bear the brackish water; and though “the
Germans were still good to him, and gave him beef
and biscuit and tea,” he suffered from the lack
of vegetable food.