tastiques, the native company sitting round and beating time with their hands, whilst some of the girls kept up a most melodious tune in capital time. When this performance was over, there were some songs sung in chorus by the young ladies, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. I do not know what they were about, for at that time I did not know a word of the language; but I fancy they were humorous and broadly personal, for there was much laughter, and I cannot help thinking that we were the subjects of it. Then a pack of cards was produced, and the natives played a very curious game, which Coé very kindly tried to teach me ; but I fear she found me a very stupid pupil, and my mistakes caused a great deal of fun, and I found I had very soon gambled away all my tobacco. I was then escorted to my boat by most of the company, and I came to the conclusion that of all the goodtempered, harmless, childlike people I have ever had the good fortune to meet, the Samoans bear the palm.

A few days later the Catholics were keeping the feast of Easter, and it was certainly very strange to listen (in what the great majority of English people would consider one of the 'cannibal islands) to the soft voices of some hundred of the natives joining in the grand old hymn of paschal time, ‘O filii et filiæ.'

Though it will be seen by what I have said that the Samoans are in a comparatively very advanced stage of civilisation, it would be rash to counsel Englishmen or others to invest money in land there until the group obtains the protection of the British flag. That a large majority of the natives would enthusiastically welcome annexation, and that sooner or later it will be forced by British immigration from Fiji on the Imperial Government, I have not the least doubt.

CHAPTER XXVII.

GODEFFROY AND CO., THE SOUTH SEA KINGS.

THE firm of Godeffroy of Hamburg has been in existence for about a century. Until about 1857 they maintained a fleet of vessels, many of which traded in the Indian Sea, under the direction of an agent established at Cochin, while others made regular voyages to the Spanish main, Valparaiso being their rendezvous. At Cochin they maintained a large cocoa-nut oilpressing establishment. At Valparaiso their captains took instructions from a general agent, whose subordinates resided at Coquimbo, Valdivia, Takuano, Guayaquil, San José de Guatemala, and elsewhere. Their trade was chiefly in saltpetre, copper, and cochineal.

At this time it was usual for Tahitian traders to dispose of their produce at Valparaiso, and to return to the Society Islands with cargoes of flour for the use of the French garrison. The attention of Mr. Anselm, the local agent of Messrs. Godeffroy, was attracted to their operations, and he decided on visiting the islands. When there, he at once saw the great profits made by Messrs. Hort Brothers and Mr. John Brander, both in cocoa-nut oil and pearl-shell, and he established an agency in the Tuamotu Group. Messrs. Hort and Brander had separately branch establishments in the Samoan Archipelago, which they used as an intermediate station between Tahiti and Sydney. Anselm, following their example, removed there, and, under instructions from his principals in Hamburg, made it the headquarters of their operations in the Pacific. Mr. Anselm was lost at sea, but the establishment he founded flourished and soon assumed large proportions. To use Mr.

Sterndale's words: By the exercise of tact, and a show of liberality among the natives, he and his successor, Mr. Theodore Weber, in great measure swallowed up the trade of the Samoan Group, and in a manner thrust both Hort and Brander off their own ground.'

In 1872 the establishment of the Godeffroys at Apia consisted of a superintendent, a cashier, eleven clerks, a harbourmaster, two engineers, ten carpenters, two coopers, four plantation managers, a surgeon, and a land-surveyor. These were the permanent establishment, and were all Europeans, and, naturally enough, mostly Germans. In addition there were numerous supernumeraries of all nationalities, among whom may be counted half-breeds, Portuguese, and Chinamen. They generally employed, as plantation labourers, about 400 Polynesians, imported from the Savage and Line Islands. Their property at that time, and it has immensely increased since then, comprised a commodious harbour, a building-yard for small vessels, three plantations containing an aggregate of about 400 acres under cultivation, and something like 25,000 acres of purchased land, of which it may be truthfully said that the greater proportion is not to be surpassed in fertility in any part of the tropics. Mr. Sterndale says: 'It was bought at a low rate, not upon an average exceeding 75 cents per acre, and paid for chiefly in ammunition, arms, or such articles of barter as are most in vogue among semi-barbarous people.' In September, 1879, about 4500 acres were under cotton cultivation, and 1000 Polynesian labourers were employed.

The land consists chiefly of alluvial valleys of astonishing richness and elevated plateaux of fertile volcanic soil, covered in many large tracts with valuable timber. Large streams intersect the estates, and these are not only made available for floating down logs, but afford water-power for driving mills.

One-third of the estate comprises ancient cultivations abandoned in consequence of civil wars.

During the progress of these internecine disturbances, Messrs. Godeffroy possessed exceptional advantages in dealing with the natives, as they had a manufactory of arms at Liége, in Belgium (the 'Birmingham of the Netherlands'), by means of which they could supply the instruments of fraternal murder—or war, if the term is to be preferred-at a cheap rate, with a reasonable profit.'

Messrs. Godeffroy gradually abandoned the Tuamotus, and other islands claimed as dependencies of France, partly for the reason that about 1867, mother-of-pearl commanded an unusually low price; but more in consequence of their determination to strike out new channels for themselves. With this view they pushed their agencies southward to the Friendly Archipelago, including Nieuè or Savage Island, Fortuna and Wallis Island, northward throughout the whole range of the Kingsmills and the isles in their vicinity, that is to say, the Tokalau, Ellis, and Gilbert Groups. Then they approached the Marshall Group, and so got to the Carolines, and as far as Yap, a great island at the entrance of the Luzon Sea, where they purchased 3000 acres of land, and established a large depôt, intended to be an intermediate station between their trading-post at Samoa and their old-established agencies at Cochin and China. A glance at a chart of the Pacific will show the extent of their operations, Samoa being in 169° W., and Yap, one of the Pelew Islands, in 134° 21' E. In fact, they had an agent in every productive island inhabited by natives sufficiently well-disposed to permit a white man to reside among them.

In 1873, the Godeffroys maintained agents in the following islands to the north of the Samoan Group:

The Union Group (or Tokelau), which consists of three islands, Takafao, Nukunono, and Oatafu.

The Ellis Group, Nukufetau, which is the property of Messrs. Godeffroy, they having purchased it from the natives. It has an excellent harbour, and is the only island of the archipelago, extending between the Navigators and the Carolines, which contains any deposit of pearl oyster; but the quality is very inferior, the shell being small, and the pearls of little value.

Oaitapu and St. Augustine.

The Tarawau or Gilbert Group, commonly spoken of as the Kingsmills; Arorai, Tamana, Peru, Onotoa, Nukunau, Tapetuia Nonoiti, Maiana, Tarawa, Apiang, Marakei, Makiu, and Puturitari. This includes all the Kingsmills, with the exception of Apemama, Kuria, and Aranuka, which belonged to the King Tem Baiteke, who for years would not allow any Europeans to settle on his islands. While in the Pacific I heard that the great Hamburg monopoly had an agent there, but of this I am doubtful.

In the Marshall Group: Ebon, Jaluit, Namerick, Mille, and Awe.

In the Carolines: Strong Island, Ascension, and Yap, and also in the Palaos or Pelew Group.

And in Western Polynesia, in New Britain and New Ireland, and also in the New Hebrides.

We have so far traced the scope of the operations of this gigantic establishment before the flash-in-the-pan prosperity of Berlin tempted them to speculations which had such unfavourable results. Let me now quote from the New Zealand bluebook (printed, by authority, at Wellington in 1874) the statements of their employé, Mr. Sterndale, explaining what was their modus operandi. These are Mr. Sterndale's words :