Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/148

124 Apia consists of a long and rather straggling village, stretched along the shore of a crescent-shaped bay; like most of these South Sea island ports, it is concealed by the cocoa palms and other trees peculiar to the tropics, and many of the houses are so well covered by the verdure that the visitor cannot make out their position until he is close upon them.

Back of the town, which contains two or three hundred stores and residences, the horizon is filled with richly green hills, which rise one upon the other to a height of nearly five thousand feet. Streams come trickling down from these hills, and there is one water-fall visible from the harbor large enough to make a well-defined stipple of white against the rich green of the mountains that surround it. Frank and Fred immediately suggested a walk to the water-fall, but their enthusiasm was checked by Doctor Bronson, who thought there would be enough in Apia to amuse them at least for that day.

Hardly was the anchor fixed in the mud before a boat was lowered and the Pera's party went on shore. Doctor Bronson and the youths proceeded to the American consulate, while Colonel Bush and Doctor Macalister went to call upon the representative of their country. After the official formalities were over they strolled about the town, and in a short time Frank and Fred had familiarized themselves with a considerable amount of the history of Samoa, as we have ascertained by a perusal of their journals.

"Apia isn't much of a place," said Frank, "but what it lacks in numbers it makes up in variety. Among the residents there are Americans, Englishmen, Germans, French, and several other nationalities, the Germans being most numerous and controlling the best of the trade. Then there is a fair sprinkling of men whose nationality is open to question, and whom any respectable country would not be anxious to