LIFE IN THE SOUTH-SEA ISLANDS. 209 



goes are visited by hurricanes, but they are apparently less violent than 

 those of the West Indies and come rarely. 



Tonga is trying a constitutional experiment on its own account. 

 Mr. Baker, an ex-Wesleyan missionary, has drawn up a constitution to 

 which the venerable King George, who was over ninety years old at 

 the time of my visit, but was as vigorous as most men of sixty, has 

 given his approval. There is a cabinet of which the ex-missionary is 

 the head, a parliament, and a constitutional sovereign. There is also 

 a regular judicial establishment. Great Britain has entered into treaty 

 relations with Tonga, and has even accorded a limited jurisdiction 

 over British subjects to Tongan courts. Englishmen in the South Seas 

 are fond of laughing at the Tongan polity. But it is to the credit of 

 the new state that its public expenditure is small, that it has been for 

 years perfectly orderly, and that there are in the group probably five 

 times as many miles of carriage-road as there are in our colony of 

 Feejee. There are many Tongans still living who saw the first horse 

 brought to their own particular island, and thought that it was a large 

 kind of pig. There are hundreds of horses in the archipelago now, 

 and most Tongans are fearless horsemen. They are also capital 

 cricketers, which they owe to the good sense of that very able man, 

 the Rev. Mr. Moulton, who is, or was till lately, at the head of the 

 Wesleyan Mission. Mr. Moulton has founded an admirable college. 

 The scholars receive an education equal to that given in the colonies. 

 I was present at one of the public examinations, and among other sur- 

 prises heard the first canto of the "Paradise Lost" recited in the 

 native tongue. Most of the Tongans are Wesleyans, but there is also 

 a Roman Catholic mission in the country, and a moderate number of 

 the natives belong to that church. 



All Pacific-Islanders, even many of the Melanesian cannibals, are 

 distinguished by a remarkable refinement of external manners. The 

 Polynesians excel all others ; and, probably, no people in the world 

 surpass the Tongans and Samoans in grace and dignity of deportment. 

 The latter races are highly ceremonious, and great observers of eti- 

 quette. In Tonga at a kava party, where an infusion of the root of 

 the Piper methysticum is drunk, the order of precedence is as strictly 

 observed as it would be at a European state banquet. In Samoa the 

 kava root is chewed by young ladies before being placed in the bowl. 

 In Tonga it is invariably pounded on a lap-stone. Connoisseurs assert 

 that the beverage is never so good as when the root has been chewed. 

 I never quite got over my repugnance to that method of preparing it, 

 and only drank of it sparingly and to avoid giving offense when out 

 of Tonga. Even in Tonga I felt little inclination to indulge in it 

 freely, possibly because I retain my youthful dislike to rhubarb and 

 magnesia, the flavor of which that of kava closely resembles. 



To one who has cruised much among the small islands of the Pa- 

 cific, and who has grown familiar with the monotonous landscapes of 



TOL. XXX. — 14 



