Samoa and its Story/8
FOR THE TOURIST
The visitor to Samoa to-day will find life in these well-favored islands very pleasant once he has become accustomed to the climate. Samoa is not a savage land, in spite of its fighting race, and everywhere in the group the traveller finds a warm weleome. Apia is a comfortable town, with many of the luxuries of much larger places; and the steamers which trade there from New Zealand and Sydney are specially fitted for the requirements of tropical travel. There is much of interest for the sightseers in all the islands of the group, but in Upolu above all. The many fine plantations around Apia, with their beautiful homes, are reached by good driving roads, and the motor-car speeds easily along these grand avenues shaded by bending palms and lofty tropic fruit trees. The great pilgrimage is of course that to Stevenson’s old home, and to his last resting-place on Vaea Mountain; Vailima is less than an hour’s drive from Apia town. Another place which no visitor misses is the famous Papa-se’ea, or Sliding Rock, where the merry bathers go flying down a waterfall into a cool deep pool. Other drives are inland to the Valley where the mysterious ancient stone ruins called “Le Fale o Le Fe’e,” or “The House of the Octopus,” a kind of Samoan Stonehenge; to the plantations where the cacao bean is grown and cured, and to many native villages, all interesting because of their primitive construction and their extremely beautiful surroundings. One excursion of special charm is inland to Lake Lanutoo, This is a beautiful secluded crystal forest water tarn, of which a poetic legend is told:—
A chief named Ata was killed in battle; he was the chief of Faleata, in the Tuamasanga (Apia) district. His brother Too took it so much to heart that he went away inland, scooped out a great hollow and filled it with his tears; and this was the origin of Lanu-too, which means “The lake of Too.”
And there is no want of amusement in Apia and its surroundings, for it is always easy to arrange a Siva, or native dance; there are horse-races on the Apia course; it is seldom too hot for cricket and tennis, and he who has not seen a Samoan native cricket match, more particularly a women’s match, often a whole village a-side, has a new and highly diverting entertainment yet to sample.