STRUNG loosely out, west by north along and across the parallel of 14° south latitude. and between 168° and 173° west longitude, there lies in the Western Pacific Ocean a volcanic chain of four main islands and a number of lesser subjacent islets. The chain, or group, is new collectively known by its native name, Samoa.

Westernmost sits Savaii, the largest and most lofty island of the four, fifty miles long and twenty-five across at its broadest, in shape a rough rhomboid humping itself to a great central height. On Savaii has been considerable recent and much remote volcanic activity, so that the greater part of the surface of this island is unsuited for habitation. And though larger it is neither so fertile nor so populous as Upolu, next east of it and the principal island of the group. Upolu is a high ridge forty-five miles long and at its greatest width some thirteen miles, on the northern side of which, about midway of its length, is Apia, the natural capital of to Samoa. These two, Savaii and Upolu, and the smaller islands adjoining, notably the inhabited islets of Manono and Apolima lying between them, comprise the territory of German or Western Samoa, now in British military occupation.

Nearly forty miles to the eastward of Upolu and a little south lies American Samoa, the first and main island of which is Tutuila, stretching east and west eighteen miles. Here on its southern side is Pago Pago, the sole real harbour of the group which the United States Government has improved by the establishment of a naval station. Further east is the little group known as Manu'a, comprising the islands of Tau, Ofu and Olosega, and. still further east and again a little south, the small uninhabited and unimportant Rose Island.

All the islands are of volcanic origin and formation, with the exception of Rose Island which is a coral atoll, and all the main islands are high. In Upolu mountains rise to three thousand feet, in Savaii to over four thousand feet. Dark forests richly clothe the ridges to their summits, for there is a plentiful rainfall throughout the group; the more lively green of cocoanut cultivation as abundantly covers the lower planes. The slopes of all are thus luxuriantly wooded, except those portions of Savaii where more recent lava flows have scarred long and broad avenues to the sea. Seaward. many parts of the islands, and especially of Upolu. are surrounded by coral reefs enclosing shallow lagoons that form good fishing grounds for the natives and safe and pleasant waterways for their canoes and boats of passage.

Within the group have dwelt, for so long that their foreign origin was one hundred years ago quite unknown to them, a handsome branch of the pleasant peoples of Eastern and Central Polynesia. Of light reddish-brown colour, with straight hair and pleasing features, well-framed and stately, the Samoans have for the main part yet preserved the native beauty and amiability of their race. To those who have dwelt in their midst they appear essentially material, yet fond of extending as of receiving courtesy and even flattery; childlike, but by no means devoid of deceit; hospitable indeed, but supplicatory, for they are polite communists: free, yet rarely viciously immoral. If admiration of them is tinged with a certain disappointment, affection surely remains. The whole of the native population now lives on or near the coast; the mountains, save where plantations mark the lower slopes, are all in their forest vestments. Roads or tracks follow the shore line of the three larger islands. In Upolu, and in parts of Savaii, the wayfarer may pass through village after village, often with but little break between, and there will be unfolded before him brown-thatch, mushroom-shaped houses bowered in banana groves and clumps of bread-fruit, screw-pine and lowering cocoanut palm, with many a dainty glimpse beyond of reef and sea. Except in the hottest hours of the day the natives are abroad in pleasant, sensible discharge of their daily duties, and from each busy group there is always some gay remark, some kindly invitation or greeting, for the passer-by. Nearly every village now has, close to shore and track, its washing and bathing pools. stone-lined, where cool hill-springs gurgle up---and these are lively centres of gossip and flirtation.

The latitude of the group postulates tropical climes and tropical warmth. Yet the heat of Samoa is not equatorial and the air, while generally relaxing and moisture-laden, is tempered by high lands and by fairly constant breezes from the surrounding was. Hurricanes, the scourge of much of the Pacific, are here unknown, though severe northerly gales are to be expected, generally without disappointment, in the late months of the wet and boisterous summer season. Few who are of European descent will prefer the climate of Samoa above that of the more temperate zones; there is, it may be said, little natural comfort for the normal European who must take constant precaution against small tropical sickness and inconvenience, particularly during the first half-year of residence and always and more particularly where his women-folk and children are concerned; yet the climate, for low latitudes, is not unhealthy and malaria and severer fevers are unknown. Venemous snakes do not exist; the centipede and the scorpion are there, but one hardly ever bean of their bites; and the chief troubler of mankind is the persistent mosquito with his train of filarial disorders. Agricultural work is impossible for whites, prolonged sedentary employment injurious. Clearly the islands, small, mountainous, tropical; are unsuited for extensive European settlement. And yet it is a noticeable feat that Europeans who have made lengthy stay rarely retire from the group, it is thought from choice as well as from force of circumstances. The islands are said to take hold of a man, softly and so that he does not care. Certain it is that the climate forbids to Europeans for more than a few years the continued exercise and enjoyment of mental and physical vigour. Excessive use of alcohol, mental or physical strain as well as mental or physical neglect, but hasten the process, and, if persisted in, are provocative of neurasthenia and a general weakening of the powers. It becomes in the end easier to talk about things than to do them - to talk lightly and with repeated phrase, even to the extent of deceiving oneself; and the European is then no longer fitted for the life he has come from - but he will have broken himself into the islands ....

The normal population of Western Samoa consists approximately of 500 whites, 1,000 half and other castes, and 36,000 natives; that of Eastern or American Samoa of some 180 whites, 300 half and other castes, and 7,500 natives. The fertile portions of the group are largely under cultivation and are capable in places of extension and of supporting a considerably larger native population. As is the case in many other South Sea groups native cultivations are mostly of cocoanut, but also and extensively of banana, breadfruit, yam and tam; the European plantations consist in the main of cocoanut, cocoa and rubber. The Samoan in his own surroundings makes an indifferent hired man, and in consequence indentured Chinese and Melanesian plantation labour has been introduced into Upolu and to a small extent on Savaii. In August 1914 there were some 2,200 Chinese labourers, mostly on Upolu. The number as been reduced by repatriations to 1520. The Melanesians number 600, mostly Solomon Islanders. and are employed upon the extensive plantations of the Deutsche Handels und Plantagen Gesellschaft of Hamburg and in lighterage work in the roadstead of Apia.

Except for the naval station at Pago Pago the group is easily self-supporting. The total animal trade, imports and exports, of the whole group rarely exceeds in value half a million pounds sterling, and ninety per cent of this comes from Western Samoa.

The capital, Apia, is a straggling yet busy little port and centre of trade and government, built along the shore road of a wide, reef-bound bay that affords a good anchorage in the steady trade winds, but is a danger spot for ships during northerly summer gales. The future trade of the port appears to be in the hands of the half-castes, among whom are now numbered some of the leading merchants of the town. The name, Apia, is that of a native village forming but a small part of a town which carries a total and varied population of some thousands and embraces many villages. Trading stores - for there is still no specialisation in shops - and government buildings flank the beach; behind are widespread suburbs and native settlements. Minor industries are beginning to make their appearance. Outside Apia the country and its people rest quietly in a golden warmth and sunshine, and the outer trader lazes his days away. “The people of Apia" said an old chief of Upolu once to the writer “are restless and wicked.” That is as may be. The steamer passenger who sees from the deck of his vessel what appears to he a drowsy little South Sea town will on landing behold much activity in motor and horse traffic and no little coming and going of many nationalities.

This then is the present setting of the stage on which the events of the chronicle that follows have taken place. Not so bijou as Tonga, far less important than Fiji, Samoa forms a small entity, self-existing yet having much in common with both, as they have with all the tropical islands of the Pacific. Much that is preposterous has been said and written of Samoa, as of other spots where life may differ somewhat from the usual standards. It can at once be admitted, in truth and without any obloquy, that it is not a great place, that it probably never will be. But the little country and its kindly native people, as easy as any in the world to control, deserve in the future a fuller measure of sympathetic understanding and of quiet equitable government than was, as the diligent reader may discover, for long their portion in the past.