native coast of Scotland would scarce be dignified with the mark of
an anchor in the chart; but in the favouredclimate of Samoa, and

with the mechanical regularity of the winds in the Pacific, it
forms, for ten or eleven months out of the twelve, a safe if hardly

a commodious port. The ill-found island traders ride there with
their insufficient moorings the year through, and discharge, and

are loaded, without apprehension. Of danger, when it comes, the
glass gives timelywarning; and that any modern warship, furnished

with the power of steam, should have been lost in Apia, belongs not
so much to nautical as to political history.

The weather throughout all that winter (the turbulent summer of the
islands) was unusually fine, and the circumstance had been

commented on as providential, when so many Samoans were lying on
their weapons in the bush. By February it began to break in

occasional gales. On February 10th a German brigantine was driven
ashore. On the 14th the same misfortunebefell an American

brigantine and a schooner. On both these days, and again on the
7th March, the men-of-war must steam to their anchors. And it was

in this last month, the most dangerous of the twelve, that man's
animosities crowded that indentation of the reef with costly,

populous, and vulnerable ships.
I have shown, perhaps already at too great a length, how violently

passion ran upon the spot; how high this series of blunders and
mishaps had heated the resentment of the Germans against all other

nationalities and of all other nationalities against the Germans.
But there was one country beyond the borders of Samoa where the

question had aroused a scarce less angry sentiment. The breach of
the Washington Congress, the evidence of Sewall before a sub-

committee on foreign relations, the proposal to try Klein before a
military court, and the rags of Captain Hamilton's flag, had

combined to stir the people of the States to an unwonted fervour.
Germany was for the time the abhorred of nations. Germans in

America publicly disowned the country of their birth. In Honolulu,
so near the scene of action, German and American young men fell to

blows in the street. In the same city, from no traceable source,
and upon no possible authority, there arose a rumour of tragic news

to arrive by the next occasion, that the NIPSIC had opened fire on
the ADLER, and the ADLER had sunk her on the first reply.

Punctually on the day appointed, the news came; and the two
nations, instead of being plunged into war, could only mingle tears

over the loss of heroes.
By the second week in March three American ships were in Apia bay,

- the NIPSIC, the VANDALIA, and the TRENTON, carrying the flag of
Rear-Admiral Kimberley; three German, - the ADLER, the EBER, and

the OLGA; and one British, - the CALLIOPE, Captain Kane. Six
merchant-men, ranging from twenty-five up to five hundred tons, and

a number of small craft, further encumbered the anchorage. Its
capacity is estimated by Captain Kane at four large ships; and the

latest arrivals, the VANDALIA and TRENTON, were in consequence
excluded, and lay without in the passage. Of the seven war-ships,

the seaworthiness of two was questionable: the TRENTON'S, from an
original defect in her construction, often reported, never remedied

- her hawse-pipes leading in on the berth-deck; the EBER'S, from an
injury to her screw in the blow of February 14th. In this

overcrowding of ships in an open entry of the reef, even the eye of
the landsman could spy danger; and Captain-Lieutenant Wallis of the

EBER openly blamed and lamented, not many hours before the
catastrophe, their helplessposture. Temper once more triumphed.

The army of Mataafa still hung imminent behind the town; the German
quarter was still daily garrisoned with fifty sailors from the

squadron; what was yet more influential, Germany and the States, at
least in Apia bay, were on the brink of war, viewed each other with

looks of hatred, and scarce observed the letter of civility. On
the day of the admiral's arrival, Knappe failed to call on him, and

on the morrow called on him while he was on shore. The slight was
remarked and resented, and the two squadrons clung more obstinately

to their dangerous station.
On the 15th the barometer fell to 29.11 in. by 2 P.M. This was the

moment when every sail in port should have escaped. Kimberley, who
flew the only broad pennant, should certainly have led the way: he

clung, instead, to his moorings, and the Germans doggedly followed
his example: semi-belligerents, daring each other and the violence

of heaven. Kane, less immediately involved, was led in error by
the report of residents and a fallacious rise in the glass; he

stayed with the others, a misjudgment that was like to cost him
dear. All were moored, as is the custom in Apia, with two anchors

practically east and west, clear hawse to the north, and a kedge
astern. Topmasts were struck, and the ships made snug. The night

closed black, with sheets of rain. By midnight it blew a gale; and
by the morning watch, a tempest. Through what remained of

darkness, the captains impatiently expected day, doubtful if they
were dragging, steaming gingerly to their moorings, and afraid to

steam too much.
Day came about six, and presented to those on shore a seizing and

terrific spectacle. In the pressure of the squalls the bay was
obscured as if by midnight, but between them a great part of it was

clearly if darklyvisible amid driving mist and rain. The wind
blew into the harbour mouth. Naval authorities describe it as of

hurricane force. It had, however, few or none of the effects on
shore suggested by that ominous word, and was successfully

withstood by trees and buildings. The agitation of the sea, on the
other hand, surpassed experience and description. Seas that might

have awakened surprise and terror in the midst of the Atlantic
ranged bodily and (it seemed to observers) almost without

diminution into the belly of that flask-shaped harbour; and the
war-ships were alternately buried from view in the trough, or seen

standing on end against the breast of billows.
The TRENTON at daylight still maintained her position in the neck

of the bottle. But five of the remaining ships tossed, already
close to the bottom, in a perilous and helpless crowd; threatening

ruin to each other as they tossed; threatened with a common and
imminentdestruction on the reefs. Three had been already in

collision: the OLGA was injured in the quarter, the ADLER had lost
her bowsprit; the NIPSIC had lost her smoke-stack, and was making

steam with difficulty, maintaining her fire with barrels of pork,
and the smoke and sparks pouring along the level of the deck. For

the seventh war-ship the day had come too late; the EBER had
finished her last cruise; she was to be seen no more save by the

eyes of divers. A coral reef is not only an instrument of
destruction, but a place of sepulchre; the submarine cliff is

profoundly undercut, and presents the mouth of a huge antre in
which the bodies of men and the hulls of ships are alike hurled

down and buried. The EBER had dragged anchors with the rest; her
injured screw disabled her from steaming vigorously up; and a

little before day she had struck the front of the coral, come off,
struck again, and gone down stern foremost, oversetting as she

went, into the gaping hollow of the reef. Of her whole complement
of nearly eighty, four souls were cast alive on the beach; and the

bodies of the remainder were, by the voluminous outpouring of the
flooded streams, scoured at last from the harbour, and strewed

naked on the seaboard of the island.
Five ships were immediately menaced with the same destruction. The

EBER vanished - the four poor survivors on shore - read a dreadful
commentary on their danger; which was swelled out of all proportion

by the violence of their own movements as they leaped and fell
among the billows. By seven the NIPSIC was so fortunate as to

avoid the reef and beach upon a space of sand; where she was
immediately deserted by her crew, with the assistance of Samoans,

not without loss of life. By about eight it was the turn of the
ADLER. She was close down upon the reef; doomed herself, it might

yet be possible to save a portion of her crew; and for this end
Captain Fritze placed his reliance on the very hugeness of the seas

that threatened him. The moment was watched for with the anxiety
of despair, but the coolness of disciplined courage. As she rose

on the fatal wave, her moorings were simultaneously slipped; she