to reply that the martial law business had in the meanwhile come right; that the English and American consular courts stood open for ordinary cases and that in different conversations with Captain Hand, “who has always maintained friendly intercourse with the German authorities,” it had been repeatedly explained that only the supply of weapons and ammunition, or similar aid and support, was to come under German martial law.  Was it weapons or ammunition that Fletcher had supplied?  But it is unfair to criticise these wrigglings of an unfortunate in a false position.

In a despatch of the 23rd, which has not been printed, Knappe had told his story:  how he had declared war, subjected foreigners to martial law, and been received with a counter-proclamation by the English consul; and how (in an interview with Mataafa chiefs at the plantation house of Motuotua, of which I cannot find the date) he had demanded the cession of arms and of ringleaders for punishment, and proposed to assume the government of the islands.  On February 12th he received Bismarck’s answer:  “You had no right to take foreigners from the jurisdiction of their consuls.  The protest of your English colleague is grounded.  In disputes which may arise from this cause you will find yourself in the wrong.  The demand formulated by you, as to the assumption of the government of Samoa by Germany, lay outside of your instructions and of our design.  Take it immediately back.  If your telegram is here rightly understood, I cannot call your conduct good.”  It must be a hard heart that does not sympathise with Knappe in the hour when he received this document.  Yet it may be said that his troubles were still in the beginning.  Men had contended against him, and he had not prevailed; he was now to be at war with the elements, and find his name identified with an immense disaster.

One more date, however, must be given first.  It was on February 27th that Fritze formally announced martial law to be suspended, and himself to have relinquished the control of the police.

CHAPTER X—­THE HURRICANE

March 1889

The so-called harbour of Apia is formed in part by a recess of the coast-line at Matautu, in part by the slim peninsula of Mulinuu, and in part by the fresh waters of the Mulivai and Vaisingano.  The barrier reef—­that singular breakwater that makes so much of the circuit of Pacific islands—­is carried far to sea at Matautu and Mulinuu; inside of these two horns it runs sharply landward, and between them it is burst or dissolved by the fresh water.  The shape of the enclosed anchorage may be compared to a high-shouldered jar or bottle with a funnel mouth.  Its sides are almost everywhere of coral; for the reef not only bounds it to seaward and forms the neck and mouth, but skirting about the beach, it forms the bottom also.  As in the bottle of commerce, the bottom is re-entrant, and the shore-reef runs