Samoa Under the Sailing Gods

III

III

I had taken with me on this trip to Apia my interpreter—or "talking-man"—a young Samoan chief of some standing. On our return to Savaii he told me quite naturally and in no spirit of bravado that the natives of the house where he had been staying at the back of the town were drunk for three days over Christmas. This was the first I had heard of drinking among the Samoans; but undoubtedly around the town it was now becoming not uncommon.