Old Samoan Days. 
191 
ourselves cross-legged on the ground and eat in 
thorough native fashion. Our entertainers sit 
each one behind a guest, and with a fue (or fly- 
flap) brush away the flies. Never a word is 
spoken by any of them except in a whisper ; 
the young unmarried girls devote themselves to 
Mrs. and Miss Hollister, and leave us to be 
waited upon by the older women. This is in¬ 
tended as a special mark of respect to us ; 
for to receive attention and consideration from 
elderly people in Samoa is looked upon as a 
graceful compliment. 
Our meal finished, we fill and light our 
pipes, and “ lay around loose,” as the doctor 
calls it, to watch the first shadows of sunset 
close round the little village. Darkness comes 
on very quickly in these latitudes , and soon 
from every house the evening fires send fitful 
flashes of light through their interwoven sides. 
The wild-eyed, Italian-looking boy takes a tappa 
mallet and strikes a long wooden cylinder 
standing out in the gravelled village square. It 
is the signal for evening prayer ; and then, ere 
the rolling echoes of this primitive substitute for 
a church bell have ceased to reverberate adown 
the gloom-enshrouded forest, the women and 
