Next day, I went around the village making photographs, p240 and going in and out of the natives' grass huts. In one place I found a tattooer working on a boy; and he asked to tattoo me, but to his great disappointment, I refused.
With the trader as interpreter, Jack made the king understand that we wanted to buy curios. The king sent runners to collect the entire village, whom he told to be on hand next day with things they wanted to sell. And next day Jack and Mrs. London and I stood in the centre of several hundred natives, buying mats and war clubs and tapa cloth; and I was lucky enough to secure a big, bushy grass fan, with which a native had been busy keeping the flies off the king. It has the king's name on it, and it is now reposing in the midst of the other things I brought home with me from the South Seas.
We lay anchored off the island of Au several days, while, in company with the king and queen, we were shown over the island by Captain Young. The day we prepared to leave, the king and queen gave us presents—one of the most valuable of these an extra fine piece of tapa cloth, which I still retain.
The day we left Au, the king and queen came off to the Snark and had dinner with us. Wada did gloriously, cooking for royalty, and Nakata was more polite than ever; and as we heaved anchor that afternoon, the boat bearing the king and queen circled the Snark three times, its occupants singing "Tofa-Mai-Feleni," the native song of farewell. p241
Tui-Manua is the descendant of a long line of the most powerful South Sea Island kings. His father's authority stretched for thousands of miles around, and whatever he said took precedence over anything said by any of the lesser kings within this boundary. So it is rather humiliating to the present king to have to bow down to another power stronger than he. He is afflicted by a peculiar disease that is wasting his life away; and ere long we will hear of his death. The last of the true royalty of the South Seas will have passed from earth. I have met members of many of the South Sea royal families since then, but none deserved the name of king so well as did Tui-Manua. p242
CHAPTER X
THE SAMOAN GROUP
The Manua Islands are only ninety miles from the island of Tutuila. This latter island is sometimes called Pago-Pago, after the village of Pago-Pago, which is on the southeast coast, and where the United States coaling station is situated. Either name is correct.
We were all of one night in sailing from the Manuas to Tutuila, and were calmed off the opening of Pago-Pago Bay for several hours in the morning. Then I set the engines in motion, and for a couple of hours we threaded up the narrow bay until it opened out into the prettiest land-locked harbour I have ever seen. Mountains were on every side. The village of Pago-Pago is set on the shores and up the mountainsides, with Governor Moore's residence on the highest point in the bay.
We sailed past the battleship Annapolis, the same ship that had given us such a pleasant reception in Papeete, Tahiti, one month before. We were expected, and the jackies and officers and the men stationed ashore were on the decks and lined up on the beach. The band, composed of Samoan (native) musicians, stood around the big flag-pole on the beach and played national airs while the flag was dipped in salute. It was a great day for us, and a p243 great day for the Annapolis, when the Snark came in the bay. Just imagine three hundred Americans away down here on a little island in the centre of the South Seas, seeing no one from home for months and months! Sometimes even a year goes by with no American visitors. The Snark had been expected for weeks, and the minute we were sighted a boat-load of officers came aboard with invitations for everyone on the yacht.