y and smelling-salts. After discharge, he returned upon
a visit of gratitude; and it was observed, that instead of coming
straight to the door, he went and stood long under his umbrella on that
spot of ground where his mat had been stretched and he had endured pain
so many months. Similar visits were the rule, I believe without
exception; and the grateful patients loaded Mrs. de Coetlogon with gifts
which (had that been possible in Polynesia) she would willingly have
declined, for they were often of value to the givers.

The tissue of my story is one of rapacity, intrigue, and the triumphs
of temper; the hospital at the consulate stands out almost alone as an
episode of human beauty, and I dwell on it with satisfaction. But it was
not regarded at the time with universal favour; and even to-day its
institution is thought by many to have been impolitic. It was opened, it
stood open, for the wounded of either party. As a matter of fact it was
never used but by the Mataafas, and the Tamaseses were cared for
exclusively by German doctors. In the progressive decivilisation of the
town, these duties of humanity became thus a ground of quarrel. When the
Mataafa hurt were first brought together after the battle of Matautu,
and some more or less amateur surgeons were dressing wounds on a green
by the wayside, one from the German consulate went by in the road. "Why
don't you let the dogs die?" he asked. "Go to hell," was the rejoinder.
Such were the amenities of Apia. But Becker reserved for himself the
extreme expression of this spirit. On November 7th hostilities began
again between the Samoan armies, and an inconclusive skirmish sent a
fresh crop of wounded to the de Coetlogons. Next door to the consulate,
some native houses and a chapel (now ruinous) stood on a green. Chapel
and houses were certainly Samoan, but the ground was under a land-claim
of the German firm; and de Coetlogon wrote to Becker requesting
permission (in case it should prove necessary) to use these structures
for his wounded. Before an answer came, the hospital was startled by the
appearance of a case of gangrene, and the patient was hastily removed
into the chapel. A rebel laid on German ground--here was an atrocity!
The day before his own relief, November 11th, Becker ordered the man's
instant removal. By his aggressive carriage and singular mixture of
violence and cunning, he had already largely brought about the fall of
Brandeis, and forced into an attitu