224 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



ings, stalking majestically to the front, he stands leaning on a 

 staff about six feet long, with his fly-flap over his shoulder, 

 and pours forth a perfect torrent of eloquence for hours. 



In many respects parts of the Samoan Group are even more 

 fertile than Fiji. Cotton succeeds well, and has run wild in 

 all the sea-coast lands ; but this is all of the kidney variety, 

 and it thus prevents the Sea Island cotton from being propa- 

 gated to advantage, as the bees and other insects carrying the 

 pollen of the wild-cotton flowers inoculate that of the Sea 

 Island, and cause it to become coarse. Large tracts of sugar- 

 cane and maize are cultivated by the Germans, who have also 

 planted coffee and rice of a kind enormously prolific, which is 

 grown upon the elevated plateaux without irrigation, it being 

 of a species not requiring to be flooded at any time. The 

 seed is said to have come from South America, but I am not 

 certain as to this. Vegetables and cereals of the temperate zone 

 do better in Samoa than in Fiji, and the Catholic missionaries 

 have been very successful in their cultivation. Cabbages, 

 cauliflowers, peas, beans, carrots, asparagus, cucumbers, and 

 melons of every kind, with all the pot-herbs of Europe, are to 

 be seen growing luxuriantly in the gardens of the Catholic 

 clergy. Potatoes, as in Fiji, turn to komotes (or watery) in 

 the second season in the low lands, and onions do not exceed 

 grape-shot in size, though there is reason to believe that 

 both these vegetables would grow very well upon the level 

 summits of the high mountain lands. Barley, and the various 

 kinds of millet, produce abundant crops, and English grass 

 mixed with clover takes ready hold of the ground, and spreads 

 rapidly. The products, however, more especially suited to 

 the climate and local conditions of Samoa are cotton, coffee, 

 sugar, tamarinds, tobacco, indigo, vanilla, rice, cinnamon (a 

 tree analogous to which is a native of Samoa), nutmegs, ginger, 



