'It is to be regretted that the clause for steam communication between Fiji and Tonga was at the request of the King struck out. It was feared that the state of their finances would not justify such a step yet. But the visit of his Excellency the Governor to Tonga is regarded in the most satisfactory light; in fact, hailed by all the people, from the King downwards, "as the beginning of a new epoch of good." The King said one day in an assembly, "His Excellency's visit has already begun to have fruit, and I believe our children will be thankful to the Queen of England for sending so true a chief to visit us and instruct us; but then," he said, "what else but good and help have we ever received from England ?" "

The German Government have a treaty with King George, and, I believe, the permanent treaty with her Majesty, referred to by Mr. Wilkinson, has been ratified.

In connection with Germany, it may be mentioned that when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, the Tongan King issued a solemn proclamation of neutrality! Whether the 'inspired press' of France and Germany have continued ever since to denounce theperfidious selfishness' of this South Sea Group I do not know.

As in the case of Samoa, the trade of Tonga is practically a monopoly of the Hamburg house of Godeffroy, who here, as elsewhere, mainly confine their attentions to copra. Coffee, arrowroot, and tapioca are not forgotten, and of these there are, or were some two years ago, very successful plantations.

A few statistics of Tonga produce imported into Levuka, Fiji, for the purpose of re-exportation to Europe (nearly all of it went to Germany), will demonstrate that the Tongan indirect trade in Fiji was anything but contemptible in the year 1878. The Tongan copra amounted to 1808 tons, or £27,120; candle-nuts, 117 tons, or £1175; and cotton to the amount of 10 tons, 84 bags in seed, or £350.

The masi, or tappa-tree, is extensively cultivated in Tonga. It is propagated by cuttings, two feet or three feet apart in plantations. It is allowed to grow from ten to fifteen feet high, when it is about the thickness of a gun-barrel. The fibres growing wild in the Friendly Islands are as numerous as those in Fiji. One of the most beautiful of the raw materials to be met with in the Pacific can be obtained from the stalks of the puraka plant, a gigantic species of arum, of which the leaves are as much as six feet long by four feet in width, and the root sometimes as large as a five-gallon keg. From this fibre some beautiful fabrics are made; a sample of it was many years ago sent home here and made into a bonnet, and presented to the Queen. An endeavour was made at the time to introduce it in the London market, but it now seems to be forgotten.

In the Friendly Islands, as well as in all the neighbouring groups, great quantities of the ti, or dragontree, are found. The root when cooked contains a most extraordinary quantity of saccharine matter ; indeed, it seems as if it had been boiled in syrup. Rum is distilled from it in the Friendly Islands, as

well as from the sugar-cane. What applies, however, to Fiji applies also to Tonga for the most part, and a repetition of the riches of the Pacific groups is unnecessary. Some fine day my countrymen will understand and appreciate them. Until quite recently

we have had an incurable preference for investments in the loans of South American republics, or for lending our money at high rates of interest to the sick man' by the Bosphorus.

CHAPTER XV.

JACKSON OF 'FRISCO.

THE characters and histories of some of the better class of white adventurers who roam from island to island in the wide Pacific, now trading at one place and settling down for a time only to move away when the first opportunity offers, are subjects of the greatest interest. The lives of all these men are even more decidedly romantic than those of the beachcombers, and if it were possible to collect a faithful record of their adventures, they would make a volume which for interesting matter would have no rival in the circulating libraries. I have given a sketch of what is known of Bully Hayes,' but the 'inside track of that gentleman is, I fear, lost for ever to the world. Perhaps, after all, if it were published, no lasting good would come of it, for the daily news papers are constantly telling us that the cheap editions of lives of highwaymen often induce weakminded youths to emulate the deeds of Dick Turpin and Claude Duval, with the after-result of their learning a little of the interior economy of one of her Majesty's gaols. The well-wishers of Polynesia are

not remarkably anxious for a duplicate Captain Hayes, still less for the feeble efforts of would-be imitators of that deceased mariner's career. 'Blackbirders' are pretty nearly extinct, and even the comparatively harmless beachcomber is doomed; but some of the wanderers in the great South Sea are of a different stamp from either of these classes. They are gentlemen of the Robinson Crusoe order, who have taken an extraordinary interest in the islands, and though eking out a hard-earned living by cruising around generally in their own small craft, have by no means abetted in the demoralisation of the natives. It would be absurd to pretend that there are many of these men in the Pacific, but there are a few, and it is just as well to show the silver lining to the very dark cloud with which unprincipled white traders have cursed the Southern Sea. To any one who has studied life in Polynesia, the influence of San Francisco must be apparent. It is certainly a very far cry from Tahiti to the City of the Golden Gate, but the three-masted centre-board schooners which hail from California do a regular trade with the Society and other islands, and are now pushing their cargoes of Oregon lumber (the 'red wood' as it is called) into Fiji and Samoa. There can be no doubt that Mr. J. B. M. Stewart and others influenced a great deal of this trade, and that following in the wake of purely commercial speculation a certain number of enterprising men, natives of or residents in California, have at any rate come down from the Pacific slope of the States to the clusters of islands which perhaps are all that remain of a huge continent coupling Asia