370 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



and guano. Sugar, vanilla, yams, and arrowroot, are all culti- 

 vated in Tahiti, and three mills for the former have been 

 established in the island ; while I learn from a French official 

 source that it is estimated there are 3,000,000 of cocoa-nut 

 trees, and 125,000 orange trees. 



Tahiti thus at present enjoys a considerable trade, which of 

 course might be almost indefinitely increased. 



In addition to numerous San Francisco schooners and 

 traders from Fiji, Sydney, and Auckland, the firm of Messrs. 

 Tandonnet of Bordeaux send six ships a year to the island, 

 and each month a schooner leaves with the mails for San 

 Francisco. 



CHAPTER XLI. 



IS NOTHING TO BE DONE ? 



THESE are my notes on Coral Lands. I plead guilty to the 

 charge that throughout the whole of the preceding pages there 

 has been a marked commercial tone. To put it very plainly, 

 I ask the race which speaks the English language to consider 

 the South Sea Island question. I regret I cannot appeal to 

 them on the grounds of a common religion, our ' unhappy 

 divisions ' would put me out of court ; but I can do so both 

 in the name of humanity and commerce. 



Commerce, rightly understood, has a very noble side. It is 

 a truism to say so, but generally speaking the South Pacific is 

 ignorant of the fact. The majority of the islanders of Poly- 

 nesia have learned little good and much evil from ' commercial 

 men,' whose operations have been more akin to those of high- 

 way robbers than anything else. 



