The Berlin convention had long closed its sittings; the text of the Act had been long in our hands; commissioners were announced to right the wrongs of the land question, and two high officials, a chief justice and a president, to guide policy and administer law in Samoa.

Their coming was expected with an impatience, with a childishness of trust, that can hardly be exaggerated.
Months passed, these angel-deliverers still delayed to arrive, and the impatience of the natives became changed to an ominous irritation.

They have had much experience of being deceived, and they began to think they were deceived again.

A sudden crop of superstitious stories buzzed about the islands.

Rivers had come down red; unknown fishes had been taken on the reef and found to be marked with menacing runes; a headless lizard crawled among chiefs in council; the gods of Upolu and Savaii made war by night, they swam the straits to battle, and, defaced by dreadful wounds, they had besieged the house of a medical missionary.