--is now no
longer possible. More than a hundred years ago, and following closely on
the heels of Cook, an irregular invasion of adventurers began to swarm
about the isles of the Pacific. The seven sleepers of Polynesia stand,
still but half aroused, in the midst of the century of competition. And
the island races, comparable to a shopful of crockery launched upon the
stream of time, now fall to make their desperate voyage among pots of
brass and adamant.

Apia, the port and mart, is the seat of the political sickness of Samoa.
At the foot of a peaked, woody mountain, the coast makes a deep indent,
roughly semicircular. In front the barrier reef is broken by the fresh
water of the streams; if the swell be from the north, it enters almost
without diminution; and the war-ships roll dizzily at their moorings, and
along the fringing coral which follows the configuration of the beach,
the surf breaks with a continuous uproar. In wild weather, as the world
knows, the roads are untenable. Along the whole shore, which is
everywhere green and level and overlooked by inland mountain-tops, the
town lies drawn out in strings and clusters. The western horn is
Mulinuu, the eastern, Matautu; and from one to the other of these
extremes, I ask the reader to walk. He will find more of the history of
Samoa spread before his eyes in that excursion, than has yet been
collected in the blue-books or the white-books of the world. Mulinuu
(where the walk is to begin) is a flat, wind-swept promontory, planted
with palms, backed against a swamp of mangroves, and occupied by a rather
miserable village. The reader is informed that this is the proper
residence of the Samoan kings; he will be the more surprised to observe a
board set up, and to read that this historic village is the property of
the German firm. But these boards, which are among the commonest
features of the landscape, may be rather taken to imply that the claim
has been disputed. A little farther east he skirts the stores, offices,
and barracks of the firm itself. Thence he will pass through Matafele,
the one really town-like portion of this long string of villages, by
German bars and stores and the German consulate; and reach the Catholic
mission and cathedral standing by the mouth of a small river. The bridge
which crosses here (bridge of Mulivai) is a frontier; behind is Matafele;
beyond, Apia proper; behind, Germans are supreme; beyond, with but few
exceptions, all