226 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



white flowers with yellow petals, which are used by the women 

 as bouquet-holders, and which emit an almost too powerful 

 perfume resembling that of the hyacinth. 



Cattle thrive well in Samoa, as in Fiji, and many of the 

 natives possess horses on which they ride about from town to 

 town. 



The following jottings of the memoranda of my short resi- 

 dence in Samoa will perhaps add a personal interest to the 

 preceding particulars. 



I had seen something of the exquisite beauty of the scenery 

 of the South Pacific islands before my visit to Samoa, but 

 certainly I was not prepared for the glorious sight that met 

 my eyes as I entered the harbour of Apia. The Bay of Naples, 

 lovely as it is, cannot in my humble opinion be compared with 

 it. The harbour of Apia, Samoa, is a vast semicircular ex- 

 panse of the purest blue water water so transparent that you 

 can look over the ship's side and distinctly see the variegated 

 colours of the coral grottoes fathoms below, and notice the bright- 

 hued fish darting here and there in shoals. Protecting this 

 smooth-water anchorage is the coral reef, which stretches from 

 point to point, with just a break large enough to allow ships to 

 enter with comparative ease. On this reef the surf breaks 

 often as high as the foreyard. On one side is the hilly head- 

 land of Mulinunu, on the other the sandy point of Matautu. 

 As I entered, the bay was alive with dug-outs and outriggers, 

 manned or ' womanned ' as the case might be. As a back- 

 ground, there is the white coralline sand of the beach, fringed 

 with the stately cocoa palms, while the coo of the pigeon and 

 the all but too powerful aromatic scents of many flowers com- 

 pel the acquiescence of the other senses to the dogma of that 

 of vision, that this place is Nature at her best, God's creation 

 in its earthly perfection. 



