LIFE AT SAMOA

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2283, 17 October 1914, Page 8

LIFE AT SAMOA

THE TROOPS IN GOOD HEALTH. A letter from a member of the Expeditionary Force in Samoa throws some interesting sidelights on the life New Zealaiiders are leading there. The jotter states that _tho excitement was intense on the arrival at Apia of the Tofua and Navua, and for the first time the men realised the meaning of the expression "like, getting lettere from home." "I don't know what happened to the cooks," says the writer, "but they made it a sort of Christmas Day in camp, and put on a. beautiful dinner of bully beef stew, with potatoes, onions, and marrow, and followed it up with preserved apricots and apples, with condensed milk. Doesn't that make your mouth water? "After dinner the mails were distributed, and they've not finished yet. What excitement I I got fourteen letters, and some photos, _m'agaaines, and' papers, so I'm not doing so badly." Centipedes have been causing trouble, and men have been bitten, with painful results. The centipede, the letter states, is about eight inches in length and three-quarters of an inch in width, "for all the world like a miniature Chinese dragon." "This is the rainy season, and we have had somo beautiful showers'. We were fortunate in being in a German school. The poor beggars in the tents havo been flooded out twice. It was funny to see them in bathing trunks digging channels 'to get the water away. The health is all right, barring'a slight eye'trouble, l .nothing sen-, ous," which /nearly." eveVybne in the camp has had., It is said to bo caused by the sun. • ■ ■ . . . '.'The natives are. all very friendly, and are now selling their fruit at a reasonable ■ price. IVo can get threo or four dozen beautiful bananas for a mark (Is.), and in some cases they give them to us. I have not seen.any English money for ages. They, pay us iu German paper money and coin.