Suppose one got money, all got money. You,-suppose one got money-lock him up in chest. No good. Kanaka all'e same a' one!' This principle they carry so far that none of them will eat any thing in sight of others without offering it all round. I have seen one of them break a biscuit, which had been given him, into five parts, at a time when I knew he was on a very short allowance, as there was but little to eat on the beach."

When Mr Dana returned to Harvard to complete his course, let us hope his history marks were raised, and that he in due time learned that Francis Drake never entered San Francisco bay, that Cortés never was in that section of the world, and that no Jesuits, nor any other order of friars except the Franciscans, ever established a mission in Alta California. It is well to travel, to observe, to learn, to report, but Cambridge had better schoolmasters than California in the year 1835, and no doubt Mr Dana made use of them after the publication of his matchless little book.

The voyages of the Russians from north-eastern Asia began by order of the tsar Alexis in 1648, in seven kotches, or small decked boats, sent in search of the mouth of the Anadir, and of which Simon Deshnef gives an account. The Kurile islands were first seen from this direction in 1706, and ten years later was made the first voyage from Okhotsk to Kamchatka, an account of which is given in Müller's Voyages. In 1727 Vitus Bering coasted northward from Kamchatka far enough to satisfy himself that Asia and America were not united. Other expeditions surveyed the coast about this time, by land and sea, in which the shore of America was described, and the strait mapped by Mikhoil Goozdef.

The voyage of Vitus Bering, resulting in the discovery and occupation by Russians of northwesternmost America, was made by order of the empress Elizabeth in 1740. Following the swarming of the promyshleniki over the islands and main land of Alaska, the more immediate result of Bering's explorations were several Russian voyages of discovery, among them the expedition of Korovin in 1762, from the mouth of the Kamchatka river to Umnak island; the voyage of Glottof to Unalaska and Kadiak; the voyage of Lieutenant Synd in 1764; the government expedition to Unalaska under Krenitzin, and the surveying expedition of Zaïkof to Copper

island, not to mention the adventures of Benyovski, Delarof, Pribylof, Shelikof, and others, mostly for furs.

Among the European powers first officially to visit and observe what Russia was doing in this quarter was Spain, Juan Perez appearing in the ship Santiago, under instructions from Revilla Gigedo in 1774, the Sonora, Bodega y Cuadra commander, coming to Alaska the following year. England put in an appearance in the person of Captain Cook, and after him came the Frenchmen La Perouse and Marchand; more Englishmen, as Meares and Portlock and Dixon; other Spaniards-Martinez, Haro, and Fidalgo with other scientific and commercial expeditions like those of Vancouver and Billings, not to mention the colonization, mission, and fur-hunting efforts of the Russians themselves in the persons of Shelikof, Baranof, and Konovalof. Meanwhile were accomplished the organization of the Russian American Fur company, the founding of Sitka, the settlement of Yakutat bay, and the later visits of Krusenstern, Lisiansky, Rezanof, Golovin, Astor's ship Enterprise, and Kotzebue.

Attention has been frequently drawn to the facility with which railway and telegraph lines can be carried across. Bering strait. An expedition was sent out in 1865 under the auspices of the Union Telegraph company for the survey and construction of a telegraph line to Sitka, and thence to the continent of Asia. After two years of effort and an expenditure of $3,000,000 the enterprise was abandoned, chiefly owing to the successful laying of the Atlantic cable in the meantime.

CHAPTER XXII

SOUTH SEA ISLES

THE islands of the south Pacific are many, and have many names, both as groups and individually, though some have none at all, and indeed are not worth naming. There are Micronesia, or little islands'; Polynesia, or many islands'; Melanesia, another many islands'; and Gilbert and Philip, and Caroline and Marianne, and Solomon, and the rest, not to mention those having true names, as Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and Tokelan.

Speaking generally, the terms Polynesia, and South sea islands, signify those innumerable clusters lying mostly south of the equator, and altogether south of north latitude 10°. Conspicuous among them are Tahiti, called by Captain Cook Otaheite, 108 miles in circumference, in the form of two peninsulas united by an isthmus, with a population early in the century of 10,000; the Society islands, population 20,000; the Marquesas, Navigators, Friendly, Fiji, and other groups. The Fiji islands are a valuable permanent possession of England's, favorable to extensive plantations of the most varied tropical products, which like those of Mauritius find a ready market at Australia and New Zealand, as well as in more distant parts. The South sea isles are many of them of coral, and round each coral isle is a coral reef, one or two miles distant from the shore, against which the waves perpetually play, rising into an aqueous wall ten or fifteen feet above the reef, and forming a most beautiful border. Within the circle the water is still and transparent, so that the bottom, paved with coral of every shape and hue, with the sportive fishes, is plainly visible. In most cases there is a gateway through which ships may enter the sparkling arena, and approach the island. The islands are overspread for the most part with a rich soil, with high mountains covered with verdure, and luxu

riant valleys equal to any Persian paradise. The air is hot and humid, enervating to Europeans but satisfying to the natives. Whirlwinds, hurricanes, and other destructive storms are frequent, uprooting trees and demolishing dwellings; but trees quickly grow again, and houses if sufficiently humble may be reconstructed. The rainy season is from December to March, during which the water and lightning play mad pranks.

Vegetable life abounds. The trees are many, some of them remarkable for size, beauty, or usefulness. The foliage of the undergrowth is luxuriant and mostly evergreen, while fruits and flowers are everywhere. A fine timber tree is the apape, rearing to a height of fifty feet a straight and branchless trunk of salmon-color, two or three feet thick, and crowned by a tuft of pale green leaves. The tamanu is more like mahogany; the hutu resembles the magnolia; while the aoa is not unlike the banian. These more particularly on the lower levels. In the mountains the candle-nut is conspicuous, its white leaves lighting up the dark rich foliage of the forest. It is the nut, however, and not the leaves which constitutes the candle, being about the size of a walnut, and with the shell removed and strung on the rib of a cocoanut leaf, is used as a candle. A fine lamp-black is also made from the nut, which is used in painting canoes.

Several foreign plants, fruit-trees and others, were introduced to these islands by usurpers and navigators. Thus to the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch the islands are indebted for the pineapple, fig, citron, and coffee plants, while Cook, Bligh, and Vancouver brought the vine, the orange, lime, and others. Native plants are many and prolific, as the vi, a bright yellow plum; the mape, a kind of chestnut. From the auti, or paper mulberry, is made cloth; the taro is an esculent root, prepared for eating like the bread-fruit; the yam is indigenous; sweet-potatoes are carefully cultivated; the banana is highly prized, as is also arrow-root, though the care of the latter involves too much labor for the indolent natives.

To the South sea islander the bread-fruit tree is the most useful, as indeed it is among the most beautiful of plants. Its height is usually fifty or sixty feet, with a trunk two or three feet in diameter; leaves of glossy dark green, indented like a fig-leaf, and more than a foot long; fruit oval, and six

inches thick. It is covered with a rough rind, at first of a pea-green, then brown, and when fully ripe of a rich yellow; it grows either singly or in clusters of two or three, at the end of the branch, to which it is attached by a short thick stalk. Several hundred of these clusters sometimes grow on a single tree, in beautiful and harmonious contrast with the surroundings. There are two or three crops a year. The fruit is never eaten uncooked; it is usually baked in an oven of heated stones, and eaten as bread. The tree is to the South sea islander what the pulque plant is to the Mexican, except that the one furnishes bread while the other gives drink; the trunk of the bread-fruit tree makes good timber, the wood being in color dark and rich, and of tough fibre. As there are many varieties of the tree, the wood is put to various uses, being good for building, for furniture, canoes, implements; in fact for all purposes. From the bark of the young branches is made cloth, while from the bark of the trunk exudes a gum with which leaks in canoes are stopped. Cloth is also made from the inner bark of the Chinese mulberry and the fig tree.

The cocoanut, next to the bread-fruit tree, is the most valuable plant of the South sea. A cylindrical trunk three or four feet in diameter and tapering to the top, composed of small tubes enclosed in rough bark, rises erect without a branch to a height of 60 or 70 feet, and is topped with long green leaves and bunches of fruit. It flourishes under almost any circumstances, on a barren strand, in a marsh, or on the sun-beaten mountain side, but is by no means averse to the fertile valleys. Mats, baskets, bonnets, and screens are made of the stalks of the leaves, which are sometimes fifteen feet long.

Early voyagers suffered severely from hunger thirst and sickness in navigating these waters, being mostly strange to them, and such islands as bring relief being often wide apart, and their existence or whereabouts not known. Scurvy, that dire dread of the sailor, which nothing but green food will keep away or cure, caused thousands thus to perish. Navarrete says that Quiros and some other captains distilled fresh from salt water on a scale sufficiently large for the requirements of the crew; but if done at all the way of it was not known to many.

Before the English came the Spaniards had seen and named Tahiti and Sagittaria, and the New Hebrides of Cook they