500 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TEAVEL 



GO feet above the sea. Although purely coralline, the 

 soil is remarkably fertile, though not very deep. The 

 products are chiefly copra, sugar, cotton, coffee, and 

 arrowroot, of which the first-named is the most import- 

 ant export. The trade is mostly in the hands of the 

 Germans, but lately the English have settled in some 

 numbers. The total value of the exports in 1888 

 surpassed £66,000. In the southern part of the island 

 there is a remarkable monument, consisting of two per- 

 pendicular rectangular blocks of stone of great height, 

 deeply morticed to support a large slab across the top, 

 which at one time was surmounted in the middle by a 

 large bowl of the same material. Its history is entirely 

 unknown. A figure of this most interesting monument 

 is here given. Bearing in mind the numerous other stone 

 monuments scattered widely over the islands of the 

 Pacific, from the Carolines to Easter Island, it may be 

 safely concluded that some race, with a different, if not a 

 higher civilisation, preceded that which now exists. 



The Tonga group suffer from a somewhat unhealthy 

 climate, the rains being excessive, while both earthquakes 

 and hurricanes are frequent. In October, 1885, a violent 

 submarine volcanic eruption took place about 48 miles 

 N.N.W. of Niukalofa, resulting in the emergence of an 

 island nearly three miles in length by one in width. 



4. The Samoa or Navigators' Islands. 



North of Tonga some 350 miles is situated the Samoa 

 group, first discovered by Bougainville in 1768, and 

 called by him the Isles des Navigateurs ; and visited nine- 

 teen years later by La Perouse, who lost here by massacre 

 De Langle, commandant of the Astrolabe, and eleven others. 

 By the Treaty of Berlin of 1889 the autonomy of the 



