Off Savai’i, Kotzebue also made a brief stop, noting only one incident among the exchanges that took place. One man, from his canoe, seemed to offer a pig. A bag was handed down to him containing European gifts. When the bag was hauled up, there was no pig inside but a dog instead. Kotzebue thought he was being cheated. But here again, it is possible that the man thought it wiser to use a Tahitian form of gift (dog meat was considered a delicacy in Tahiti, but not in Samoa). Or indeed, as on the first day, this may have been a fale aitu kind of joke. The evidence is too scanty to allow us to draw any firm conclusions.

So ended the last visit to Samoa of a round-the-world scientific expedition of ‘discovery’. The next expeditions to call at Samoa, although still pursuing scientific studies, would also have a military aspect, in whole or in part (Dumont d’Urville, Wilkes). Besides these organised and heavily armed expeditions, another kind of visit was to become frequent and would have a lasting impact: the commercial vessels of the merchants and the whalers had already begun penetrating Samoan waters.