A little boy brought a basket of chilli peppers I wanted to carry on board with me. There were no vegetables to be had, as the Chinaman's garden, the only one in Samoa, had been washed away by a freshet. At half past three we returned to the _Janet_, where Doctor Steubel, the German consul-general, Baron von Pritzfritz, captain of the German man-of-war lying in Apia harbour, and another German whose name I forget paid us a visit. We talked a few moments and drank a glass of champagne; then the whistle sounded, our friends bade us good-bye, and at about four we steamed out. Our little house in the bush was visible to the naked eye from the deck of the steamer.
_3d._--At about three o'clock we sighted an island known by various names--Swayne's Island, Quiros, or Olesenga--a small, round, low island surrounding a triangular brackish lagoon like an ornamental lake in a park. It is inhabited by a half-caste man known as King Jennings, his family, and about eighty people from different islands. The original Jennings was an American who married a Samoan wife. He left Samoa in a huff after having built a man-of-war for the government, for which payment was refused. As the motive power of the ship came from wooden paddle-wheels, turned with a crank by hand, it is hardly surprising that the complaint of her extreme slowness and the great labour involved in working her should have been brought forward as reasons for non-payment. She had a complete armament of great guns and all the equipments of a proper man-of-war. Jennings, in a fury of indignation and disappointment, shook the dust of Samoa off his feet, and with his wife and family set up a little kingdom of his own in Quiros. Here he blew out a passage through the reef, built two schooners of island wood, floated them off with barrels, and sold them to the German firm at Samoa.
A flag was hoisted on Quiros, the stars and stripes, with what appeared to be a dove in the field. We asked with some curiosity what the dove indicated. They told us that a night-bird came and cried about the settlement for months; this was supposed to bode sickness; so to propitiate the ill-omened bird it was added to the flag.
There is a good road on the island, excellent houses, a church, and a schoolhouse containing an imported half-caste schoolmaster. From a tall building used for storing copra men were already laying a temporary wooden track down to the landing for the copra trucks to run upon. This busy scene was brought to an end by Mr. Henderson's information that he would not take in cargo until our return voyage. This is a rich, low island with plenty of soil, and is said to bring in a very comfortable revenue, which might be still larger did King Jennings care to make it so.