the Trenton’s quarters, first from one side, then from the other, and losing at the same time two of her own cables.  Captain von Ehrhardt instantly slipped the remainder of his moorings, and setting fore and aft canvas, and going full steam ahead, succeeded in beaching his ship in Matautu; whither Knappe, recalled by this new disaster, had returned.  The berth was perhaps the best in the harbour, and von Ehrhardt signalled that ship and crew were in security.

The Trenton, guided apparently by an under-tow or eddy from the discharge of the Vaisingano, followed in the course of the Nipsic and Vandalia, and skirted south-eastward along the front of the shore reef, which her keel was at times almost touching.  Hitherto she had brought disaster to her foes; now she was bringing it to friends.  She had already proved the ruin of the Olga, the one ship that had rid out the hurricane in safety; now she beheld across her course the submerged Vandalia, the tops filled with exhausted seamen.  Happily the approach of the Trenton was gradual, and the time employed to advantage.  Rockets and lines were thrown into the tops of the friendly wreck; the approach of danger was transformed into a means of safety; and before the ships struck, the men from the Vandalia’s main and mizzen masts, which went immediately by the board in the collision, were already mustered on the Trenton’s decks.  Those from the foremast were next rescued; and the flagship settled gradually into a position alongside her neighbour, against which she beat all night with violence.  Out of the crew of the Vandalia forty-three had perished; of the four hundred and fifty on board the Trenton, only one.

The night of the 16th was still notable for a howling tempest and extraordinary floods of rain.  It was feared the wreck could scarce continue to endure the breaching of the seas; among the Germans, the fate of those on board the Adler awoke keen anxiety; and Knappe, on the beach of Matautu, and the other officers of his consulate on that of Matafele, watched all night.  The morning of the 17th displayed a scene of devastation rarely equalled:  the Adler high and dry, the Olga and Nipsic beached, the Trenton partly piled on the Vandalia and herself sunk to the gun-deck; no sail afloat; and the beach heaped high with the debris of ships and the wreck of mountain forests.  Already, before the day, Seumanu, the chief of Apia, had gallantly ventured forth by boat through the subsiding fury of the seas, and had succeeded in communicating with the admiral; already, or as soon after as the dawn permitted, rescue lines were rigged, and the survivors were with difficulty and danger begun to be brought to shore.  And soon the cheerful spirit of the admiral added a new feature to the scene.  Surrounded as he was by the crews of two wrecked ships, he paraded the band of the Trenton, and the bay was suddenly enlivened with the strains of “Hail Columbia.”