58 Fish Stories 



bush rush clear, dancing streams, with deep pools for the 

 green sesele or mountain bass, and white waterfalls for the 

 playground of laughing girls. All along, the shores are 

 awave with tall palms, and on the gray barrier reef, the blue 

 sea is awash with white breakers. In the water and on the 

 shore everywhere are the joyous people, shining like clean, 

 oiled, varnished leather, straight and strong as Greeks, sim- 

 ple as children, happy, affectionate, irresponsible and 

 human — such men as there were when the world was 

 young. 



There in the South Seas lies Tutuila. Four thousand 

 miles to the southwest of the Golden Gate of California, 

 *' the second place to the left as you leave San Francisco,'* 

 to borrow Stevenson's droll definition, Honolulu lying mid- 

 way, there you will find the green islands of Samoa. Vol- 

 canoes make the mountains and gorges and solid land of 

 these islands; two hundred inches of rain a year, and an 

 ardent tropic sun, make its wonderful forests and bush and 

 graceful palms ; the " coral insect " makes its white shore- 

 line and cruel reefs, while copra makes its enduring smell 

 and its shifting civilization. And about it all, is the abiding 

 presence of the ocean. 



From every vantage point one sees the blue water meet 

 the blue sky; ever in one's ears is the low growl of the 

 repulsed waters breaking on the guarding reefs; in every 

 direction is it ocean — wide away to the world ! 



There are four principal islands in the Samoan group, 

 besides six islets. The largest island lies to the west, the 

 others, progressively smaller and, geologically, progres- 

 sively older, to the eastward. The first is Savaii, forty-five 

 miles long and thirty miles wide, the primitive creating vol- 

 canoes not yet cold, their rugged sides overrun with liana- 

 bound forests, as yet impassable to man. Next comes 

 Upolu, forty miles by fifteen, richest in coacoanuts and in 

 arable land ; its town, Apia, the principal one in the islands ; 

 its green mountain, Vaea, with the glossy farm of Vailima 



