Islands in the Blue Pacific

Islands in the Blue Pacific. BY WM. A. MOODY, PRESIDENT OF THE SAMOAN MISSION.

To one accustomed to the climate and conditions which prevail throughout the valleys of the Rocky Mountains, where most of the Latter-day Saints are located, it is difficult to think, logically, of

DRYING COCOANUTS. Typical Tongan Home in the South Pacific.

the life and conditions as they exist in the south seas. I recently visited the Friendly Islands, which are a branch of the Samoan Mission. When the Friendly Islands, commonly known as Tonga, are mentioned, one might hesitate a moment to recall their location, and if he were to consult a map, he would find a few little, appar-

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ently insignificant dots, lying to the south, in about the same lati- tude as the Sandwich Islands lie to the north, and between longi- tudes 170 and 180 West of Greenwich. After one takes the long sea voyage from Vancouver, via Honolulu, Fiji and Samoa to Tonga, he finds more than a hundred beautiful little islands protrud- ing in picturesque confer above the surface of the blue Pacific, all

covered with a profusion of wild and varied vegetation. But the most beautiful and at the same time the most useful of all trees, is the tall, though slender cocoanut, which lifts its stately head from fifty to eighty feet in the air, and shakes its feathery fronds in the breeze, while it seems to laugh at the foreigner who fain would rob it of its precious fruit. These islands were once so densely populated, according to tradition, that a public notice, or other information issued by the king, had but to be shouted from his residence, and the refrain would be caught up and shouted from one to another until it had resounded to the uttermost parts of the islands, and thus, in a few minutes, all would be notified. The habit of shouting public in- formation still prevails, to a degree, especially when the ship comes in; for the arrival of the ship is a red letter occasion for the Tongans. The present population of Tonga is only about twenty thou- sand, and yet Tonga has the distinction of being the only independ- ent kingdom now left in the Pacific, and is under the protection of Great Britain. King George Tubou II, is sovereign of the Tongan group. He is a man of very striking appearance, only a little

more than thirty years old, stands six feet four inches in height, and would probably tip the scales at three hundred pounds. He was educated abroad, speaks English fluently, and is very fond of music, being gifted in that direction. In fact, the whole Tongan race love music, and many of them read music readily, having given more attention to the learning of music than to other de- partments of learning. The native Tongan has a brown complexion, approximating a coffee-color, is large in stature, muscular and well proportioned.

He is proud, lives in luxury, and has but little to do. The Tongan men carefully protect their women from drudgery, and all the honors of chieftainship are equally shared by both sexes.