FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 341 
were going to pieces on the shore, one a steamer, the other a 
sailing ship. 
There were no formalities about going ashore, and we were 
towed in rowboats by a small tug. 
Mr. and Mrs. Welch, Mrs. Stoner and I took a delightful 
twenty-mile auto drive around the Island. The road lay along 
the shore for the most part, in the dense shade of palms and 
other tropical trees. We noticed between the road and the sea- 
beach numerous graves made of cement with tops like the slop- 
ing roofs of houses, and with a small shed roofed with corru- 
gated iron over each. It looked as though every family had its 
private cemetery in its yard, and the effect was rather gruesome. 
The native houses were much like those of tropical islands 
everywhere, light frames, wattled walls and thatched roofs; but 
were often quite picturesque and comfortable looking. The 
whites had better houses, usually of wood and with wide cool 
verandas. It was Sunday and we passed several churches, usual- 
ly of the Congregational faith, and groups of people dressed in 
their Sunday best. The children were quite pretty, often beauti- 
ful, and the young men and women often strikingly handsome; 
but they seemed given to too much avoirdupois in middle age, 
and beyond that they quickly became aged and lost all their 
good looks. 
Returning to the town we looked in on some of the curio 
stores, which are open on steamer day even if it is Sunday, 
where there are all sorts of fancy mats, hats, fans, shell work, 
picture post-cards ete., to tempt the traveler. I took a number 
of photographs myself during the ride and about the town and 
among other things I ‘‘shot’’ a large pile of coconuts whose 
meats furnish the ‘‘copra’’ of commerce used mainly for the ex- 
traction of oil, and form the principle article of export from 
those Islands. The Cook Island group is now a dependency of 
New Zealand and Sir Maui Pomare, of Wellington, is the official 
administrator. He is a Maori gentleman and tradition says that 
Rarontonga is one of the Islands from which his ancestors came ; 
and so by a strange turn of fate a descendant of one of these 
refuges from Rarontonga now rules that island which has become 
a dependency of the new world discovered by the wanderers of 
something like six centuries ago. 
After writing some letters to New Zealand friends and putting 
