He was left in peace from 11th October till November 6th. But his
adversary is not wholly to be blamed for this delay, which depended upon
island etiquette. His Savaii contingent had not yet come in, and to have
moved again without waiting for them would have been surely to offend,
perhaps to lose them. With the month of November they began to arrive:
on the 2nd twenty boats, on the 3rd twenty-nine, on the 5th seventeen. On
the 6th the position Mataafa had so long occupied on the skirts of Apia
was deserted; all that day and night his force kept streaming eastward to
Laulii; and on the 7th the siege of Lotoanuu was opened with a brisk
skirmish.

Each side built forts, facing across the gorge of a brook. An endless
fusillade and shouting maintained the spirit of the warriors; and at
night, even if the firing slackened, the pickets continued to exchange
from either side volleys of songs and pungent pleasantries. Nearer
hostilities were rendered difficult by the nature of the ground, where
men must thread dense bush and clamber on the face of precipices. Apia
was near enough; a man, if he had a dollar or two, could walk in before a
battle and array himself in silk or velvet. Casualties were not common;
there was nothing to cast gloom upon the camps, and no more danger than
was required to give a spice to the perpetual firing. For the young
warriors it was a period of admirable enjoyment. But the anxiety of
Mataafa must have been great and growing. His force was now
considerable. It was scarce likely he should ever have more. That he
should be long able to supply them with ammunition seemed incredible; at
the rates then or soon after current, hundreds of pounds sterling might
be easily blown into the air by the skirmishers in the course of a few
days. And in the meanwhile, on the mountain opposite, his outnumbered
adversary held his ground unshaken.