THE 8AM0AN ISLANDS 421 



practicall}' abandoned. Coffee, it is believed, will yet be cultivated 

 with success. Cocoa thrives, and the plantations are being largely in- 

 creased. The commercial interests of Germany are generally conceded 

 to be greater than those either of Great Britain or the United States, 

 and for that reason perhaps it is well that Upolu and Savaii should 

 fall to her. These are almost exclusively in the hands of one house, 

 with headquarters at Hamburg, known familiarly at Apia as " the 

 Firm,'' which succeeded the older South Sea house of Godeffroy & Son, 

 and which exports to Euro|)e and America, in specially chartered 

 shijys, the principal product — copra, the dried meat of the cocoanut 

 tree. The copra gathered b}'- the natives, as well as that sold l)y them 

 to merchants not of German nationality, becomes ultimately the prop- 

 erty of this house, a statement sometimes disputed because, as the 

 copra is shipped in British bottoms and frequently billed to British 

 ports, it is somewhat difficult to ascertain with absolute accuracy to 

 the credit of which nation its production and exportation are due. 



The inhabitants of the islands are of Polynesian stock and are 

 clearly related to the natives of both Hawaii and New Zealand, but, 

 unlike them, do not seem to be threatened with rapid extermination. 

 Their number is not definitely known, because all data upon the sub- 

 ject have been gathered from approximate estimates and not from 

 official sources. The last general effort to take a census for the group, 

 made a dozen years ago, resulted in fixing the total i)opulation at 

 35,000, and the general belief among the missionaries is that dur- 

 ing the present decade it has decreased to 32,000. An epidemic 

 of measles, Avhich caused the death of some thousand ])ersons and 

 which is parth' responsible fortius decrease, was not prevalent, how- 

 ever, on Tutuila, and that island, with Manua, may at the ])resent 

 time contain, in round numbers, 5,000 natives. Tlie comparative 

 isolation of these two, separated fron:i theirwestern sisters, Upolu and 

 Savaii, Ijy 40 miles of rougli ocean, not merely makes it difficult 

 for disease to S])read to them, but cuts off their inliabitants from a 

 close connection with the political life of their fellovv-Samoans. Dur- 

 ing the last war none of them was the scene of battle, and had not 

 their warriors been carried in Jiritish and American men-of-war to 

 Ui)olu to assist the Tanu party, it may be doubted whether they would 

 have broken the peace. Manua maintains a government independ- 

 ent of that which directs tiie afiairs of the other islands, and does not 

 take i)art in the quarrels of rival chiefs or in general in Samoan mat- 

 ters, altiiough on the occasion of the bestowal of the highest title, 



