sails of the Southern Belle had
hardly more than appeared over the horizon, when people began to wake up
and realize that stagnation had too long held them in its thrall.
Satterlee was not at all the ordinary kind of sea captain, to which the
Beach (as Apia always alluded to itself) was more than well acquainted.
Gin had no attractions for Captain Satterlee, nor did he surround
himself with dusky impropriety. He played a straight social game, and
lived up to the rules, even to party calls, and finger bowls on his
cabin table. He was a tall, thin American of about forty-five, with
floorwalker manners, grayish mutton-chop whiskers, and a roving eye. The
general verdict of Apia was that he was "very superior." His superiority
was apparent in his gentlemanly baldness, his openwork socks, his
well-turned references to current events, his kindly and indulgent
attitude toward all things Samoan. He deplored the rivalry of the three
contending nationalities, German, English, and American, whose official
representatives quarreled fiercely among themselves and mismanaged the
affairs of this unfortunate little South Sea kingdom, and whose
unofficial representatives sold guns and cartridges indiscriminately to
the warring native factions. Satterlee let it be inferred that the role
of peacemaker had informally settled upon himself.

"In a little place everybody ought to pull together," he would say, his
bland tolerance falling like balm from heaven, and he would clinch the
remark by passing round forty-cent cigars.

The _Southern Belle_ was a showy little vessel of about ninety tons,
with the usual trade room in the after part of the ship, where the
captain himself would wait on you behind a counter, and sell you
anything from a bottle of trade scent to a keg of dynamite. He never was
so charming as when engaged in this exchange of commodities for coin,
and it accorded so piquantly with his evident superiority that the
purchaser had a pleasant sense of doing business with a gentleman.

"Of course, I might run her as a yacht, and play the heavy swell," he
would remark. "But, candidly, I like this kind of thing; it puts me on a
level with the others, you know; and then it's handy for buying
supplies, and keeping one in touch with the people." With this he would
give you such a warming smile, and perhaps throw in free a handful of
fishhooks, or a packet of safety matches, or a toothbrush. Indeed, apart
from this invariable prodigality