Identifier: glimpseofislesof00whee (find matches)
Title: A glimpse of the isles of the Pacific
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Wheeler, William Webb, 1845- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: (St. Joseph, Mo., Hardman press)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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and. Theyhave several books printed in their Samoan language, andthree or four newspapers. One of them is a weekly,printed under direction and at the expense of our UnitedStates Government, and distributed free, intended toeducate the people. About thirty years ago, the Catholicsestablished a mission here, and later the WesleyanMethodists and the Mormons. These last three have madesome progress, but nine-tenths of the natives are stilladherents of the first church—that is, the Congregational.It is an error for the last three Mission Societies to makean effort here, when the field is well supplied, andeffectively, by the London missions. We went to church on Sunday, February 24th, andheard the Post Chaplain, Mr. Frazier, from Richmond,Virginia, preach a very good sermon. For much of this informatfon, we are indebted toUnited States Judge Gurr, who dispenses justice over theIsland. He is a very pleasant gentleman, a native ofTasmania, Australia, has lived here twenty-four years, is 21
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married to a native Samoan woman, and they have twointeresting children, a daughter eleven years of age, and ason nine. The Judge invited the whole ships passengersout to a picnic on his plantation, about three miles fromthe harbor. Our Captain accepted and took us all in oneof the ships boats, towed by a small gasoline launch.When we arrived at our landing place, the water for abouttwo hundred yards was too shallow for the boats to cometo shore. The ladies were carried ashore on the backs ofnative boatmen, and the men took off shoes and stockings,rolled up their trousers and waded ashore, where we weremet by Judge Gurr, his wife, and three native girls, one ofwhom was the daughter of a Samoan Chief, and by herown right a reigning belle. They led the way through theplantation, which is thickly covered with sugar cane,cocoa-nut, banana and bread-fruit trees, and many otherkinds of trees, among them being the cocoa beantree, the first we have seen of this tree. The cocoa-beansgrow in po

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