“Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin: his control Stops with thy shores: upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed; nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.” During the fall of 1888, no little interest centered in one of the little inland groups of the Pacific. In 1887, German officers in the Samoan group conceived that the king, Malietoa, was so prejudiced toward their interests that he should be deposed. So without much ceremony they laid hands upon and carried him into exile, placing him on an island some thousands of miles distant. There seems no reason to doubt that Germany’s ultimate design was to formally occupy the islands. It is the old story of the civilized man’s dealings with the savage; of the man who has ten talents, obtaining the property of the man with one. Methods have changed somewhat, however, since the day when our pilgrim fathers kindly relieved the Red man of such encumbrances as he had in the way of real estate, and established quit-claim deeds and perfect titles in their flint-lock muskets. It is not now considered “good form,” as it was in the days of olden Spanish America, to declare one’s self Marquis of this or Duke de that, with several thousands of Indians as slaves or tributaries, without consulting them. The modern method is that of the European guide who attaches himself to your person willy-nilly, in order that he rifle your pockets as the need of his divers imaginary services. It is a less expensive method, and none the less sure. So the colonizers of our day kindly establish a “protectorate” over Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth, however, fully understands the process, as some civilized races have found to their cost. The Samoans were in high dudgeon at the action of Germany: and when the foreigners coolly proceeded, without consulting the wishes of the natives, to select and establish a new king, whom they thought would be favorable to their own interests, open hostility resulted. The Samoans had no way to bring back their former king, Malietoa; but they promptly deposed the creature of the Germans, Tamasese, and chose instead Mataafa, a relative and personal representative of their exiled king. The few American residents and frequenters of the islands approved this, deeming the act of the Germans one of unjustifiable aggression. Civil war resulted. At the outset, Tamasese’s strong personal following, and the fear of German interference, gave him a very large party. But in the half-dozen fierce battles that were fought he was decidedly worsted, and, forced to flee from the capital, Apia, he shut himself up in a native fortress eight miles distant.