248 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE CARNEGIE 



accompaniment. Each "verse" is begun by a melancholy high- 

 pitched voice in the gathering, and everyone joins in a chorus in 

 which the rhythm is accentuated by general clapping of hands or 

 thumping of floor-mats. 



The most spectacular part of the program is the "knife-dance," 

 performed by one or two of the young men. They step out into 

 the circle, tattoed limbs glistening with coconut-oil, ankles trimmed 

 with leaves, heads adorned with flowers, and their necks surrounded 

 with a string of boar's tusks. The appalling head-knife gyrates 

 dangerously, as it is juggled from hand to hand. 



These dances display to best advantage the handsome, cafe- 

 au-lait bodies of the young Samoan men and girls, kept so trim 

 in youth by work in the hillside plantations, and fishing on the 

 reefs. Unfortunately, as they assume the more sedentary duties 

 of chieftainship or motherhood, they quickly become obese. 



Before leaving port we held a reception on board for the naval 

 officers and their families. We took this opportunity for demon- 

 strating some of the equipment, including a pilot-balloon flight. 



But on April 5, the time had come for us to move on to Apia 

 in British Samoa, where long days of magnetic and electric ob- 

 servations on shore awaited us. Leaving the exquisite harbor of 

 Pago Pago in mid-afternoon allowed us to skirt the southern and 

 western coasts during sunset. Between us and the irregular 

 peaks of Tutuila lay a jagged coast on which the thundering surf 

 filled the air with salt-spray. Great blow-holes spouted forth 

 their columns of water as the long rolling swells swept in. Here 

 and there an indentation disclosed a fishing- village on the beach, 

 where a Samoan long-boat was being cautiously eased out of the 

 troubled waters of the cove by its twenty or more oars, laden with 

 taro and bananas for the city-dwellers of Pago Pago. Looking 

 across our port bow we could just distinguish the rounded outline 

 of the island of Upolu, on which Apia stands. The two islands 

 are only some forty miles apart, so that by dawn we were standing- 

 by outside the port awaiting the pilot. 



After the usual calls had been made, the party turned to on the 

 various duties assigned them. Arrangements were made at the 

 Apia Magnetic Observatory for comparisons of the electric and 



