There may be other ways, although I cannot see them; but not even malevolence, not even stupidity, can deny that this is one. It seems, indeed, so obvious, and sure, and easy, that men look about with amazement and suspicion, seeking some hidden motive why it should not be adopted. To Laupepa's opposition, as shown in the case of the Lauati scheme, no dweller in Samoa will give weight, for they know him to be as putty in the hands of his advisers. It may be right, it may be wrong, but we are many of us driven to the conclusion that the stumbling-block is Fangalii, and that the memorial of that affair shadows appropriately the house of a king who reigns in right of it. If this be all, it should not trouble us long. Germany has shown she can be generous; it now remains for her only to forget a natural but certainly ill-grounded prejudice, and allow to him, who was sole king before the plenipotentiaries assembled, and who would be sole king to-morrow if the Berlin Act could be rescinded, a fitting share of rule. The future of Samoa should lie thus in the hands of a single man, on whom the eyes of Europe are already fixed. Great concerns press on his attention; the Samoan group, in his view, is but as a grain of dust; and the country where he reigns has bled on too many august scenes of victory to remember for ever a blundering skirmish in the plantation of Vailele. It is to him--to the sovereign of the wise Stuebel and the loyal Brandeis,--that I make my appeal. _May_ 25, 1892. ISLAND NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS TO THREE OLD SHIPMATES AMONG THE ISLANDS HARRY HENDERSON BEN HIRD JACK BUCKLAND THEIR FRIEND R. L. S. THE BEACH OF FALESA (BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A SOUTH SEA TRADER) THE BEACH OF FALESA CHAPTER I A SOUTH SEA BRIDAL I saw that island first when it was neither night nor morning. The moon was to the west, setting, but still broad and bright. To the east, and right amidships of the dawn, which was all pink, the day-star sparkled like a diamond. The land breeze blew in our faces, and smelt strong of wild lime and vanilla: other things besides, but these were the most plain; and the chill of it set me sneezing. I should say I had been for years on a low island near the line, living for the most part solitary among natives. Here was a fresh experience: even the tongue would be quite strange to me; and the look of these woods and mountains, and the rare smell of them, renewed my blood. The captain blew out the binnacle lamp. "There!" said he, "there goes a bit of smoke, Mr. Wiltshire, behind the break of the reef. That's Falesa, where your station is, the last village to the east; nobody lives to windward--I don't know why. Take my glass, and you can make the houses out." I took the glass; and the shores leaped nearer, and I saw the tangle of the woods and the breach of the surf, and the brown roofs and the black insides of houses peeped among the trees.