NEUTRAL TONGA. 311 



men are supplied with arms (i.e., a musket and bayonet), and 

 are required to attend drill twice a week. The musketry 

 instructors are generally Europeans of experience, and the 

 other European servants of the Government, excluding those 

 holding very high office, are the King's private secretary, a 

 land-surveyor, a surgeon, and many skilled mechanics. 



The German Government have a treaty with King George, 

 and I believe that a permanent treaty with Her Majesty has 

 been ratified. 



In connection with Germany, it may be mentioned that 

 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, the Tongan 

 King issued a solemn proclamation of neutrality ! Whether 

 the ' inspired press ' of France and Germany have continued 

 ever since to denounce the 'perfidious selfishness' of this 

 South Sea Group I do not know. 



As in the case of Samoa, the trade of Tonga is or was practi- 

 cally a monopoly of the Hamburg house of Godeffroy, who here, 

 as elsewhere, mainly confine their attentions to copra. Coffee, 

 arrowroot, and tapioca are not forgotten, and of these there 

 are, or were some two years ago, very successful plantations. 



The masi, or tappa-tree, is extensively cultivated in Tonga. 

 It is propagated by cuttings, 2 feet or 3 feet apart in planta- 

 tions. It is allowed to grow from 10 to 15 feet high, when it 

 is about the thickness of a gun-barrel. The fibres growing 

 wild in the Friendly Islands are as numerous as those in Fiji. 

 One of the most useful of the raw materials to be met with in 

 the Pacific can be obtained from the stalks of the puraJca plant, 

 a gigantic species of arum, of which the leaves are as much as 

 6 feet long by 4 feet in width, and the root sometimes as large 

 as a five-gallon keg. From this fibre some beautiful fabrics 

 are made ; a sample of it was many years ago sent home here 

 and made into a bonnet, and presented to the Queen. An 



