amoan town, no
fixed times for meals. You are expected to eat much and often. During
the day there will be continuous arrivals of people bringing baskets of
provisions as presents, which are formally presented--with a speech. The
speech has to be responded to, and the bringers of the presents treated
politely, as long as they remain, and they remain until their
curiosity--and avarice--is satisfied. A return present must be sent on
the following day; for although Samoans designate every present of food
or anything else made to a party of visitors as an "alofa"--_i.e.,_ a
gift of love--this is but a hollow conventionalism, it being the
time-honoured custom of the country to always give a _quid pro quo_ for
whatever has been received. Yet it must not be imagined that they are a
selfish people; if the recipients of an "alofa" of food are too poor to
respond otherwise than by a profusion of thanks, the donors of the
"alofa" are satisfied--it would be a disgrace for their village to be
spoken of as having treated guests meanly.

After evening service--conducted on week-days in each house by the head
of the family--another meal is served. Then either lamps or a fire of
coconut-shells is lit, and there is a great making of _sului_, or
cigarettes of strong tobacco rolled in dry banana leaf, and there is
much merry jostling and shoving among the young lads and girls for a
seat on the matted floor, to hear the white people talk. A dance is sure
to be suggested, and presently the _fale po-ula,_ or dance-house, is lit
up in preparation, as the dancers, male and female, hurry away to adorn
themselves. Much has been said about the impropriety of Samoa dancing by
travellers who have only witnessed the degrading and indecent
exhibitions, given on a large scale by the loafing class of natives who
inhabit Apia and its immediate vicinity. The natives are an adaptive
race, and suit their manners to their company, and there are always
numbers of sponging men and _paumotu_ (beach-women) ready to pander to
the tastes of low whites who are willing to witness a lewd dance. But in
most villages, situated away from the contaminating influences of the
principal port, a native _siva_, or dance, is well worth witnessing, and
the accompanying singing is very melodious. It is, however, true, that
on important occasions, such as the marriage of a great chief, &c., that
the dancing, decorous enough in the earlier stages of the evening,
degenerates under