XHE 



NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Vol. XI NOVEMBER, 1900 No. U 



THE SAMOAN ISLANDS 



B}^ Edwin V. Morgan, 



Sufvdary to the Samoan Commission 



The arrangements for the disposition of the Samoan Islands entered 

 into between the governments of Great Britain, Germany, and the 

 United States may be considered as removing from the international 

 chess-board these small islands which for twenty-five j^ears have been 

 the pawns of the three protecting powers. Whether our European 

 partners are satisfied with their share of the division, their geograph- 

 ical societies and foreign offices alone are in a position to say. The 

 balance sheet of a ledger which states the value of an interchange of 

 territory in Africa and the South Pacific must necessarily wait many 

 years before it can be struck. \Vhatever the final conclusion may be, 

 the United States has wisely decided that the share that has come to 

 her is the share, and the only share, which she desires, since without 

 assuming fresh responsibilities, either for defense or for government, 

 she has secured an entrepot and a naval base unique in the Pacific. 



Samoa, called by former geographers the Navigators Islands, fronj 

 the skill in navigation shown by its inhabitants, consists of four i)rin- 

 cipal bits of land lying in the South Pacific between lGi)° and 17o° 

 west longitude and 13° and 15° south latitude, nearly midway be- 

 tween New Zealand and Hawaii. The number of islands in the group 

 may, by counting the smallei", be increased to 11, or even 14, but only 

 Savaii, Ui)olu, Tutuila, and the three usually included under the gen- 

 eral term Manua, with Manono and Apolima, are important. All 

 are verdure-clad and inhal)ited, and in a[)pearance and shai>e resem- 

 ble immense green hats, the interior representing the crown being 

 mountainous, while the l)rim or shore is covered with cocoanut paJms, 

 breadfruit, banana, and other tropical trees, which furnish the native 



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