Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/30

 on a vacation. Judge Dwyer has been in Pago Pago five years. When he arrived, he found a king ruling over the island of Manua, but he managed to amicably dispose of His Majesty by making him a district judge. The king lived in a five-room house, and Judge Dwyer says he was a man of intelligence, and ruled justly, but he abdicated quietly, and, as district judge, did all he could for his people for a salary of $25 a month. The king died a year or two ago, but left a daughter, now twenty years old, who will be married shortly to a white clerk in a store at Pago Pago. The clerk gave Judge Dwyer $50 with which to buy a wedding ring in Sydney, and the judge says I may help select it. I have never before been on equally intimate terms with royalty The Samoan men believe it beneath their dignity to be annoyed by anything a woman does, so there are almost no quarrels among them on account of jealousy. But if a Samoan woman becomes jealous of another woman, trouble may be expected promptly The natives have no income except from the sale of copra, which is the dried meat of the cocoanut. Traders formerly robbed them unmercifully, so the United States Government now attends to the selling of copra, without expense to the natives. The income from this source amounts to $20 per inhabitant per year In going into Pago Pago, we saw a great many churches; every village seemed to have at least two. Judge Dwyer says there are too many churches in the islands. Many of the preachers are natives, and much of the money obtained from copra is sent away to missionary societies, for evangelistic work in other communities.