A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in SamoaStevenson, Robert Louis
History
A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Samoan Islands -- History
Presently a man on horse-back made his appearance on the opposite beach
of Fangalii. Klein and the natives distinctly saw him signal with a
lantern; which is the more strange, as the horseman (Captain Hufnagel,
plantation manager of Vailele) had never a lantern to signal with. The
praam kept in. Many men in white were seen to stand up, step overboard,
and wade to shore. At the same time the eye of panic descried a
breastwork of "foreign stone" (brick) upon the beach. Samoans are
prepared to-day to swear to its existence, I believe conscientiously,
although no such thing was ever made or ever intended in that place. The
hour is doubtful. "It was the hour when the streak of dawn is seen, the
hour known in the warfare of heathen times as the hour of the night
attack," says the Mataafa official account. A native whom I met on the
field declared it was at cock-crow. Captain Hufnagel, on the other hand,
is sure it was long before the day. It was dark at least, and the moon
down. Darkness made the Samoans bold; uncertainty as to the composition
and purpose of the landing-party made them desperate. Fire was opened on
the Germans, one of whom was here killed. The Germans returned it, and
effected a lodgment on the beach; and the skirmish died again to silence.
It was at this time, if not earlier, that Klein returned to Apia.
Here, then, were Spengler and the ninety men of the praam, landed on the
beach in no very enviable posture, the woods in front filled with
unnumbered enemies, but for the time successful. Meanwhile, Jaeckel and
the boats had gone outside the reef, and were to land on the other side
of the Vailele promontory, at Sunga, by the buildings of the plantation.
It was Hufnagel's part to go and meet them. His way led straight into
the woods and through the midst of the Samoans, who had but now ceased
firing. He went in the saddle and at a foot's pace, feeling speed and
concealment to be equally helpless, and that if he were to fall at all,
he had best fall with dignity. Not a shot was fired at him; no effort
made to arrest him on his errand. As he went, he spoke and even jested
with the Samoans, and they answered in good part. One fellow was
leaping, yelling, and tossing his axe in the air, after the way of an
excited islander. "_Faimalosi_! go it!" said Hufnagel, and the fellow
laughed and redoubled his exertions. As soon as the boats entered the
lagoon, fire was again opened from the woods. The fifty blue-jackets
jumped overboard, hove down the boats to be a shield, and dragged them
towards the landing-place. In this way, their rations, and (what was
more unfortunate) some of their miserable provision of forty rounds got
wetted; but the men came to shore and garrisoned the plantation house
without a casualty. Meanwhile the sound of the firing from Sunga
immediately renewed the hostilities at Fangalii. The civilians on shore
decided that Spengler must be at once guided to the house, and Haideln,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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