Note 7 — Chapter V · BOAT TRANSIT TO LEONE—SPOUTING CAVES—COUNCIL OF WAR—SKETCH OF SAMOAN HISTORY—NIGHT DANCES.

The struggle lasted for some time. Finally, Malietoa again got the upper hand, and was acknowledged king by the foreign Powers, General Bartlett, U.S., being his prime minister. In August 1879, the Hon. Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, Commissioner for the Western Pacific, arrived at Apia, and concluded a treaty with the king and Government of Samoa, declaring perpetual peace and friendship between the people of their respective isles. The Samoans ceded to Britain the right to establish a naval station and coaling depot, as had previously been granted by treaty both to Germany and America. On the 8th November 1880 King Malietoa died. He was barely forty years of age, and a man greatly loved by all his own people. Probably but for the disturbing presence of the meddling whites, he might still be reigning over a happy and prosperous people. As it is, the country is once more in a state of anarchy; and the good bishop, whose heart yearned for the peace and prosperity of the people, has himself passed away to the world where all is peace.