Louis Becke - The Ebbing Of The Tide

“ Matou te nau e faafetai ”—we wished that instead of four verses there had been ten.

“Can you tell us, Lester,” said one of the strangers to our host, “the meaning of the last words?—they came out so clearly that I believe I’ve caught them,” and to our surprise he sang the last line—

Ia matou moe tau ia te oe.

“Well, now, I don’t know if I can. Samoan hymns puzzle me; you see the language used in addressing the Deity is vastly different to that used ordinarily, but I take it that the words you so correctly repeated mean, ‘Let us sleep in peace with Thee.’ Curious people these Samoans,” he muttered, more to himself than for us: “soon be as hypocritical as the average white man. ‘Let us sleep in peace with Thee,’ and that fellow (the chief), his two brothers, and about a paddockful of young Samoan bucks haven’t slept at all for this two weeks. All the night is spent in counting cartridges, melting lead for bullets, and cleaning their arms, only knocking off for a drink of kava. Well, I suppose,” he continued, turning to us, “they’re all itching to fight, and as soon as the U.S.S. Resacca leaves Apia they’ll commence in earnest, and us poor devils of traders will be left here doing nothing and cursing this infernal love of fighting, which is inborn with Samoans and a part of their natural cussedness which, if the Creator hadn’t given it to them, would have put many a dollar into my pocket.”

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The Shenandoah, in 1866.