If Robert Louis Stevenson had clapped eyes on Samoa a little earlier he wouldn't have dickered around in the clammy highlands for so long. The islands are so idyllic they're almost a cartoon version of a writer's hideaway - palm-fringed beaches, booming white surf, and lush rainforests wreathed in a background mist of clouds. It's enough to make a Hollywood location scout's heart go ka-boom. Then there's the beachcomber lifestyle where time is a hazy concept and life is so laid-back it's only a heartbeat away from being comatose.

But the history of Samoa has not always been so relaxed. Over the years it's been visited by trading ships bringing disease, massacres and exploitation; it's been a bolt hole for the homeless riffraff of the seas - ex-whalers, escaped convicts, bawdy traders, dipsomaniac sailors, and pirates retiring from the business; it's been carved up by arrogant European powers seeking a political toehold in the Pacific arena; and it's suffered God's glory boys bringing Bibles and everlastin' perdition. That the sunny and easy-going nature of the Samoans should survive all this is a triumph of optimism over experience.