ad and Island Glass, and
Kirkwall, and Cape Wrath, and the Wells of the Pentland Firth; I could
have wept.

Now for politics. I am much less alarmed; I believe the _malo_ (= _raj_,
government) will collapse and cease like an overlain infant, without a
shot fired. They have now been months here on their big salaries--and
Cedercrantz, whom I specially like as a man, has done nearly nothing,
and the Baron, who is well-meaning, has done worse. They have these
large salaries, and they have all the taxes; they have made scarce a
foot of road; they have not given a single native a position--all to
white men; they have scarce laid out a penny on Apia, and scarce a penny
on the King; they have forgot they were in Samoa, or that such a thing
as Samoans existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief
Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have
an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has
none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent
subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their _malo_. It is
damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "_Wainiu_,"
when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief
Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve his mind. I showed
my way of thought to his guest, Count Wachtmeister, whom I have sent to
you with a letter--he will tell you all the news. Well, the Chief
Justice stayed, but they said he was to leave yesterday. I had intended
to go down, and see and warn him! But the President's house had come up
in the meanwhile, and I let them go to their doom, which I am only
anxious to see swiftly and (if it may be) bloodlessly fall.

Thus I have in a way withdrawn my unrewarded loyalty. Lloyd is down
to-day with Moors to call on Mataafa; the news of the excursion made a
considerable row in Apia, and both the German and the English consuls
besought Lloyd not to go. But he stuck to his purpose, and with my
approval. It's a poor thing if people are to give up a pleasure party
for a _malo_ that has never done anything for us but draw taxes, and is
going to go pop, and leave us at the mercy of the identical Mataafa,
whom I have not visited for more than a year, and who is probably
furious.

The sense of my helplessness here has been rather bitter; I feel it
wretched to see this dance of folly and injustice and unconscious
rapacity go forward from day to day, and to be im