unhappy victim. In nine
cases out of ten there was no way of cutting it out, and the poor
creature died in agony.

The Samoans are an agricultural rather than a manufacturing people. In
addition to their own individual wants, their hospitable custom in
supplying, without money and without stint, the wants of visitors from
all parts of the group, was a great drain on their plantations. The
fact that a party of natives could travel from one end of the group to
the other without a penny of expense for food and lodging, was an
encouragement to pleasure excursions, friendly visits, and all sorts
of travelling. Hardly a day passed without there being some strangers
in the "guest house" of the village, to be provided for by a
contribution from every family in the place. After meeting fully,
however, all home wants, large quantities of yams, taro, and bananas,
with pigs and poultry, were still to spare, and were sold to the ships
which called for water and supplies.

CHAPTER XVI.

GOVERNMENT AND LAWS.

A hurried glance, from a European stand-point, has caused many passing
visitors to conclude that the Samoans had nothing whatever in the
shape of government or laws. In sailing along the coast of any island
of the group, you can hardly discern anything but one uninterrupted
mass of bush and vegetation, from the beach to the top of the
mountains; but, on landing, and minutely inspecting place after place,
you find villages, plantations, roads, and boundary walls, in all
directions along the coast. It is the same with their political
aspect. It is not until you have landed, lived among the people, and
for years closely inspected their movements, that you can form a
correct opinion of the exact state of affairs. To any one acquainted
with the aborigines of various parts of the world, and especially
those of the Papuan groups in Western Polynesia, the simple fact that
the Samoans have had but one dialect, and free intercourse with each
other all over the group, is proof positive that there must have long
existed there _some_ system of government.

A good deal of order was maintained by the union of two things, viz.
_civil power_ and _superstitious fear_.

I. As to the first of these, their government had, and still has, more
of the patriarchal and democratic in it, than of the monarchical. Take
a village, containing a population, say, of three to five hundred, and
there will probably be found there from ten to twenty