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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZIN 



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Photograph from Mrs. Rosamond Dodson Rhone 



COOPERATION IN CANOE-MAKING 



All the men turn out on Nauru for canoe-making. The felled tree is dragged to the 

 beach, where it is trimmed and barked, to the accompaniment of shouting and singing. It is 

 floated to the village and beached; then the 'experienced canoe-maker hollows and shapes it 

 with a stone adze. 



lander standing on a broken arch of Lon- 

 don Bridge — who visited the island just 

 before the Germans took possession, 

 found the natives all armed and involved 

 in deadly feuds. He counted nine kinds 

 of rifles of English and American make, 

 besides several cannon. There were then 

 ten white traders living near each other 

 along the beach and some of their half- 

 caste descendants are there today. 



When Germany took over the islands 

 she gave the natives a certain number of 

 days to give up their arms. They gener- 

 ally obeyed, but a few threw theirs into 

 the caves which underlie the island, 

 where they are found from time to time 

 by exploring parties. 



GOOD ROADS CREDITED TO GERMANY 



There are two things to the Germans' 

 credit in the Pacific : They built roads 

 and they taught the natives to make 

 copra. 



The native method of making coconut 

 oil was to rely upon the sun's heat to ex- 

 tract it from the broken up or shredded 

 meats, and to finish the process by put- 



ting the shredded coconut into a bag 

 made of the canvas-like stipules of the 

 coconut leaf and placing it under a 

 clumsy press which was merely a timber, 

 one end of which was thrust into a notch 

 in a tree trunk, while upon the free end 

 the weight of several persons was 

 thrown. 



This was work, and the South Sea 

 islander does not take kindly to work. 

 He has made coconut oil for his own use 

 in this manner from the time "when the 

 memory of man runneth not to the con- 

 trary," but he could not be persuaded to 

 make it commercially. 



Copra is easily made and stored. The 

 meat of the ripe coconut is broken into 

 pieces and dried in the sun just long 

 enough to extract the moisture ; then it is 

 bagged and ready for sale. 



In the South Seas copra is a magic 

 word. For this the Pacific trader dares 

 the malaria and savages of the Solomons 

 and the New Hebrides, and the teeth of 

 the coral reefs. The trade store and 

 copra shed stand on the beach of every 

 coral isle, and when a steamer or 



