An overview of the people, lifestyle, and traditions of Samoa, as well tourism and other economic changes on the Samoan islands.

Life is strange and worrying for a cadet who arrives in the Pacific in the colonial service. And the testy resident commissioner, who had been expecting an experienced man, soon shows his disapproval.

An American drifter comes to a remote Polynesian island controlled by a Puritanical missionary and turns the social life of the island upside-down.