DIED AGED 90.

Western Star, 1 March 1938, Page 3

DIED AGED 90.

SAW STIRRING DAYS.. ONCE SAVED TEN SAILORS. 1889 HURRICANE RECALLED. APIA, February 12. When, in 1935, the German cruiser Karlsruhe called at Apia, there took plaoe a service of remembrance for the German sailors who perished during the 1889 hurricane. ' At this ceremony there was presented to the Commander of the German warship a small, inoffensive looking oid man, whose sparkling black eyes betrayed the Portuguese blood in his veins. Ho was Manuel Silva, who had once been highly by the American and German Governments for the saving of ten lives of American and German sailors during the catastrophe in Apia harbour. Quietly and unobtrusively as he has lived, Manuel Silva died on February 6, He had worked up to the time of his death on his small plantation in spite of his ripe old age of 90’ years.

CHIEF’S DAUGHTER Manuel Silva lived in Samoa through stimng times and saw many changes. His father, a Portuguese sailor on a whaling ship, called during the ’forties of last century at Falealili, on the south coast of Upolo Island, jumped lii s ship, and went to the Samoan village of Lotofaga. There he married a Samoan girl, the daughter of a local chief. Of thi s marriage Manuel Silva was born. A s a young boy Manuel went to Apia and worked for the German firm of Godeffroy’s, of Hamburg, who had in 1854 started in busines s in Apia. As a sailor on Godeffroy’s batrquenli ms young Manuel roamed not only through every corner of the South Seas, but ail over the world. He saw Europe, San Francisco, Valparaiso. ’The year of the Francp-Prussian War, 1870, found Manuel in Hamburg. The same year hi s firm of Godeffrey* went bankrupt and wa. s taken over by the D.H. 'and P.G., the “long handle firm,” and Manuel Silva continued to work for the new owners in Apia in charge of a labour gang. He went on boat'd the firm’s ship only occasionally, but served as guide, pilot and interpreter during the visits of German warships during the ’seventies.

During the disastrous hurricane of March 16, 1889, Manuel Silva was captain ip charge of the small cutter Va'ilele in Apia harbour, and his ship by cutting the mast was the only one which managed to ride out the hurricane. Manuel, in spite of the danger to himself and his ship, succeeded in saving ten- American and German sai lor s drifting past tlr© Vailele, and Ids courageous deed was publicly acknowledged by the American arid German admirals.

EXPERT DIVER. .Manuel Silva wa s the oldest member of the local-born community of Euro-pean-Samoan descent, probably one of the first children born in Samoa of such a marriage. Silva was also an expert diver, and performed many divjng feats, for warships and merchant ships in need of his services. In the wi]d old beachcombing days it was Silva’s privilege to supply the rop© for. the hangman at the numerous executions of murderers. For over 50 years, until the time of the World War, Manuel Silva continued to work for the D.H. and P.G. a s overseer and in other capacities, and he left the service of the firm which had been taken over by the New Zealand Government only in 1926. Since then the old man worked, quietly on liis small place and seldom appeared in public. The present generation had forgotten his existence, but the “old-timers” well remembered that Manuel Silva had once played an important part in Samoa’s chequered history and was a living reminder of those remote and mysterious “good old' times.”