Mr. Sydney Greenbie,
New York, U.S.A.
Dear Sir:
Your letter of 26th March has been forwarded to me from Samoa. I relinquished the Administration when Civil Government was established there.
The Chief whose funeral you saw was TAMASESE, a son of the late King Tamasese.... MATAAFA, the son of King Mataafa, died in the influenza epidemic in 1918 and I dug his grave with my own hands, everyone working hard to avoid a pestilence.
The Chief TAMASESE was made much of by the Germans when they were in Samoa, was taken a trip to Berlin but was not allowed to visit England. He remained pro-German to the end; one of the few Samoans who did so.
On his death-bed Tamasese remembered a promise made to his deceased father (he said the spirit of his father appeared to him and reproached him) that he would bring the late King's bones to the family burying place and he could not die in peace until this was done. I was approached in the matter and at once sent a Government launch with the family party to get the bones, and they were put in a coffin and buried in the family ground. This done, Tamasese passed away in peace in a very short time.
You are probably aware that when Tamasese's body was lying in state the hair was sprinkled with gold dust and a German crown made of white flowers was placed on the coffin. The widow had a Samoan house built alongside the tomb on the Mulinuu peninsula and lived in it for some months in spite of the stench which came from the tomb. She died in the influenza epidemic in 1918, having in the meantime named one of the native Samoan judges.
I am sorry the information I can give you is so meagre, but I have not my records here as yet.
Yours faithfully,
Robert Logan,
Colonel.
Weycroft,
Axminster,
Devon, England,
13th July, 1921.