SAMOA TO-DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11892, 29 December 1916, Page 6

SAMOA TO-DAY.

gliirTof urn. (TE !'AN Ain " Now Zealand Herald.") For forty-eight hoMrs alter leaving Vfivau, which is in the Tongan group, you glide through a restful sea that is sim-kiasod and stained with the blue of tho tropics. fn the sritokeroom on board, the "bridge school''' goes it.s four "royal" and the "rheumatic" from New Zer.land on health 'trip stamps up and down between the chairs thumping his chest and taking huge gulps of oaone, blended with Havana, htmes, while on the corner settee tho; lank, bespectacled persons read, "Let-! ters from Yailima." Conversation, be-; tweon tho long, cool drinks, is of Samoa —Stevenson's Samoa—and hours before the hazy blue crest of Savaii lifts above the violet sea. one'B environment is a shroud of ghostly, browneyed girls dancing in the sunlight, palm trees, beach-combers, and smiles. Apia sprawls along the reef front a whito town set in a mass of tropical greenery. High hills rise up at tho back, so high that their summits are generally mist capped. 'lhe New Zealand garrison controls the town, and there is ail air of activity and bustle about tho sunny spot that is foreign to the tropics. Motor-cars chuff along the white, glaring streets; petrolpropelled lorries handle the commerce Lime- haired natives flit about offering curios for sale and bhie-trouser&d Chinamen handle boxes and baggage under the eyes of a stalwart, khakiolad Samoan. Awav from the ' beach one passes houses banked with ferns and flowers; little huts with love and a sowing machine, and little else but dogs and babies. There are the ing palms of picture and story , there are the wonderful bananas with leases 10ft long shrouding the fruit beneath, gorgeous flambuoynnt trees ablaze with rermillion flowers roofing over the roadway and the fiery, golden sunhg spilling torrents of flame through t e thickest leafage and bleaching the dust to a dazzling white. Jt, is all JflrjV tropical. A river, the Taisigano, flows through the town- It is a deep, s * looking strip of water, and so clear and perfect is the reflection of the ferns and palms on its bank that yon imagine vou are looking at a cylinder of gn en f-Tv. In the Pacific, homo of the loins caters, there is not a spot to '"be Hazy in like the banks of the Vaisigano flowing through Apia. HOUSES AND MATS. The Samoan keeps an open house, literally and figuratively. Tiio hut is open on all sides, and the mat curtains are seldom let down except in stormy weather. Vou may stroll in a 113 hour of the day or night and rest, ea<-s drink kava, or swap notes of the latest/ scandal on the beach. The root of the house is thatched with cane leavts. For sidings, or doors, they have screens of woven palms, which are fastened b\ coeoanut fibre, and may be raised or lowered according to the temperature. The floor is made ot broken coral and covered with mats, while the ceiling is bread fruit tree arched and bound with sinnet instead of nails. On the cross rafters is stowed the family wealth ot tapa cloth, mats and bottles of cocoanut oil. _ . | Mats are money in Samoa. A Samoan's wealth is not houses or land or pigs. He doesn't show you the. kitchen garden or Aunt Mary's portrait in the family album, but,mats— mats woven from pandanus fibre or coeoanutleaves. The price varies from shillings to pounds, as they are coarse or fine. A mat is valued, not by its size, weightor colour, but by the time and energy that has been put into its weaving. THE OLD AND THE NEW. Tourist guide books and island poetry are deceivers. Time was when romance, the romance ef sunshine, sea and palm grove cloaked Samoa. But in 1916 Samoa is just a bit mundane and a . trifle on the sordid side. If the old, ; gin-soaking " beach-comber " of Louis i Beeke's time became suddenly resurI rected, the juniper berry juice would be as acid in his mouth, and the brown j maids dancing in the sunshine a _ myth. He would be very lonesome. Gin and girls there are, mayhap, but the casual person never sees the one and prefers whisky with Iced soda to the other. No: times on the beach have changed. Losa Samoa swaggers along the promenade in the latest of Sydney or 'Frisco creations. She speaks English, and is as shy at flirting eyes as her white sister. The smell of benzine from the ! motor-cars has killed the perfum£ of | the frangipanni, and the hotels are as modern as the dispensary at the corners of your city streets. Bells and bugles have crowded out the picturesque " lali" as a means of rousing the people. You won't find a gambling den in the whole of Samoa, and even pearl oysters, that used to grow on the reef in front of the nost office, have gone. The only relic familiar to a ghostly beach-comber i* the hones of the German gunboat AcUer. cast ashore in a hurricane at the time TV estport coal raised steam pressure in the Calliope and received its world-uid a advertisement . . the wrecked gunboat and the flies.