Meanwhile, on the German side of the bay, a more manly spirit was exhibited in circumstances of alarming weakness.  The plantation managers and overseers had all retreated to Matafele, only one (I understand) remaining at his post.  The whole German colony was thus collected in one spot, and could count and wonder at its scanty numbers.  Knappe declares (to my surprise) that the war-ships could not spare him more than fifty men a day.  The great extension of the German quarter, he goes on, did not “allow a full occupation of the outer line”; hence they had shrunk into the western end by the firm buildings, and the inhabitants were warned to fall back on this position, in the case of an alert.  So that he who had set forth, a day or so before, to disarm the Mataafas in the open field, now found his resources scarce adequate to garrison the buildings of the firm.  But Knappe seemed unteachable by fate.  It is probable he thought he had

   “Already waded in so deep,
   Returning were as tedious as go o’er”;

it is certain that he continued, on the scene of his defeat and in the midst of his weakness, to bluster and menace like a conqueror.  Active war, which he lacked the means of attempting, was continually threatened.  On the 22nd he sought the aid of his brother consuls to maintain the neutral territory against Mataafa; and at the same time, as though meditating instant deeds of prowess, refused to be bound by it himself.  This singular proposition was of course refused:  Blacklock remarking that he had no fear of the natives, if these were let alone; de Coetlogon refusing in the circumstances to recognise any neutral territory at all.  In vain Knappe amended and baited his proposal with the offer of forty-eight or ninety-six hours’ notice, according as his objective should be near or within the boundary of the Eleele Sa.  It was rejected; and he learned that he must accept war with all its consequences—­and not that which he desired—­war with the immunities of peace.

This monstrous exigence illustrates the man’s frame of mind.  It has been still further illuminated in the German white-book by printing alongside of his despatches those of the unimpassioned Fritze.  On January 8th the consulate was destroyed by fire.  Knappe says it was the work of incendiaries, “without doubt”; Fritze admits that “everything seems to show” it was an accident.  “Tamasese’s people fit to bear arms,” writes Knappe, “are certainly for the moment equal to Mataafa’s,” though restrained from battle by the lack of ammunition.  “As for Tamasese,” says Fritze of the same date, “he is now but a phantom—­dient er nur als Gespenst.  His party, for practical purposes, is no longer large.  They pretend ammunition to be lacking, but what they lack most is good-will.  Captain Brandeis, whose influence is now small, declares they can no longer sustain a serious engagement, and is himself in the intention of leaving Samoa by the