118 UPOLU — M ANONO — SAVA1I. 



matting had been placed for them to enter. As the fish were 

 gradually enclosed by the mat, and the tide fell, the scene became 

 an animated one. Men, women, and boys, to the number of two or 

 three hundred, were eagerly engaged in picking up or catching 

 the stragglers as they were seen leaping up ; the whole area seemed 

 alive with fish, jumping in every direction, some over the heads of the 

 natives, and thus escaping, while others leaped into hand-nets. About 

 a canoe-load was caught, comprising thirty different kinds of fish, 

 some of which were six or eight pounds in weight, but the majority 

 were smaller. The haul was considered an unsuccessful one, which 

 was attributed to some misunderstanding and mismanagement among 

 the natives, by which a large stone fell on the net, and allowed many 

 of the fish to escape. 



Savaii is the most western island of the Samoan Group, and is also 

 the largest, being forty miles in length and twenty in breadth. It is 

 not, however, as populous, or as important, as several of the others. 

 It differs from any of the others in its appearance, for its shore is low, 

 and the ascent thence to the centre is gradual, except where the cones 

 of a few extinct craters are seen. In the middle of the island a peak 

 rises, which is almost continually enveloped in clouds, and is the 

 highest land in the group. On account of these clouds, angles coiild 

 not be taken for determining its height accurately, but it certainly 

 exceeds four thousand feet. 



The interior of the island is rarely entered, even by natives, and 

 has never been penetrated by strangers. The only settlements are 

 upon the shore, along which the natives always journey, and there 

 are no paths across it. 



Another marked difference between Savaii and the other large 

 islands, is the want of any permanent streams, a circumstance which 

 may be explained, notwithstanding the frequency of rain, by the 

 porous nature of the rock (vesicular lava) of which it is chiefly 

 composed. Water, however, gushes out near the shore in copious 

 springs, and when heavy and continual rains have occurred, streams 

 are formed in the ravines, but these soon disappear after the rains 

 have ceased. 



The coral reef attached to this island is interrupted to the south 

 and west, where the surf beats full upon the rocky shore. There 

 are, in consequence, but few places where boats can land, and only 

 one harbour for ships, that of Mataatua; even this is unsafe from 

 November to February, when the northwesterly gales prevail. 



