Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/26

 were the only passengers present; the others were ashore looking at postal cards. The dance will be given at the approaching San Francisco exposition, a speculator having arranged already for a Samoan village. I am certain I saw three hundred natives on board during our stay at Pago Pago. When I went down to the barber shop to get shaved before dinner, I found the room packed with native women looking at the barber's wares. A ship barber operates a little store, and his wares include toilet articles, clothing, medicines, confectionery, plug tobacco, etc. I don't know that the Samoan women chew plug tobacco, but I saw a good many of them smoking. By-the-way, the barber on the "Sonoma" was barber on the "Siberia" when I went to Japan several years ago.

The afternoon we left Honolulu a new passenger came aboard, and I saw him first in the smoking-room. He was very plain, and I thought it my duty to be nice to him. He was agreeable enough, but not much disposed to talk. Later I learned that he is a member of the British Parliament, and that he has twenty-eight pieces of luggage. He is traveling with a doctor, and woman nurse, as he is not well. Ship gossip is to the effect that he is a son of Sir John Lister, a noted Englishman who has done much in a scientific way. Listerine was named for Sir John Lister. I do not see many talk to the British celebrity, except his doctor. His nurse has been seasick ever since coming on board, and she cannot be of much use to her employer. The man sits almost opposite me at the table, and I am satisfied that if anyone should look at him steadily, he