We rounded the south-east point of Upolu next day, running in so close to the shore that we could see the natives walking on the beaches. Saw a whaleboat, manned by islanders and steered by a white man, shoot through an opening in the reef opposite Flupata. For him we tarried not, in spite of a signal, running in as we were with the wind dead aft, and at four o'clock in the afternoon anchored in Apia harbour, opposite the American consulate.
The scenery around Apia harbour is beauteous beyond description. Spacious bays unfold themselves as you approach, each revealing the silvery white-sanded beach fringed with cocoa-palms; stretching afar towards the hills lies undulating forest land chequered with the white houses of the planters. The harbour itself consists of a horseshoe bay, extending from Matautu to Mullinu Point. Fronting the passage a mountain rears its summit cloud-enwrapped and half-hidden, narrow paths wind through deep gorges, amid which you catch here and there the sheen of a mountain-torrent. On the south the land heads in a graceful sweep to leeward, until lost in the all-enveloping sea-mists of the tropics, while the straggling town, white-walled, reed-roofed, peeps through a dark-green grove of the bananas and cocoa-palms which fringe the beach.
At this precise period I paid but little attention to the beauties of Apia, for in a canoe paddled by a Samoan boy sat my friend George. I hailed him; what a look of joy and surprise rippled over his dark countenance as he recognised me! With a few strokes of the paddle the canoe shot alongside and he sprang on deck.
"I knew you would come," he said; "I boarded every ship that put in here since I landed. Going to live here?"
"I think so, George! I have some money and trade with me; if I get a chance I'll start somewhere in Samoa."
He was delighted, and said I would make plenty of money by and by. He wouldn't hear of my going to an hotel. I must come with him. He had a Samoan wife at Lellepa, a village about a mile from Apia on the Matautu side.
It was dark when we landed. As we walked towards his home George pointed out a house standing back from the beach, which, he said, belonged to Captain Hayston.
That personage had just left Samoa, and was now cruising in the Line Islands, where he had a number of traders. He was expected back in two months. A short time before I arrived, the American gunboat Narraganset had suddenly put in an appearance in Apia where Hayston's brig was lying. Her anchor had barely sounded bottom, before an armed boat's crew left her side, boarded, took Hayston prisoner, and kept possession of the Leonora.
There was wild excitement that day in Apia. Many of the residents had a strong liking for Hayston and expressed sympathy for him. Others, particularly the German element, were jubilant, and expressed a hope that he would be taken to America in irons.
The captain of the Narraganset then notified his seizure to the foreign consuls, and solicited evidence regarding alleged acts of piracy and kidnapping. During this time Hayston was, so the Americans stated, in close confinement on board the man-of-war, but it was the general opinion that he was treated more as a guest than a prisoner. The trial came on at the stated time, but resulted in his acquittal. Either the witnesses were unreliable or afraid of vengeance, for nothing of a criminal nature could be elicited from them. Hayston was then conducted back to his brig, and in half-an-hour he had "dressed ship" in honour of the event. The next act was to give his crew liberty—when those bright particular stars sallied forth on shore, all more or less drunk, in company with the blue jackets from the man-of-war, and immediately set about "painting the town red," and looking for the witnesses who had testified against their commander. On the next night Hayston gave a ball to the officers, and, doubtless, from that time felt his position secure, as far as danger from warships of his own country was concerned.