COOK ISLANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9830, 27 May 1895, Page 5

COOK ISLANDS.

[FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Rabotonga, May 15. The native schooner Takitumu, from Auckland, put in her appearance on the 23rd April, after giving a good deal of anxiety from her being so long overdue. It appears that she called at Rurutu, an island of the Austral Group, about 500 miles to the eastward of Rarotonga, and spent some days there. The natives of Rurutu and Rarotonga are closely allied, and it was a Rurutu man who designed the Takitumu and superintended her building. I suppose that accounts tor her going so much out of the way to visit the island. Coffee-picking is keeping all hand's closely occupied, and we shall apparently have a good crop in spite of prognostications to the contrary. This picking is a great event. Chiefs and their people work together, and make a holiday. They go out on stated days, and it will take weeks before the picking is over. Added to the picking is the squeezing of the pulp from the berry, to be followed by washing and drying the berry to prepare it for being husked by machinery. You would see, therefore, that the coffee season is a busy ono. There are machines for pulping, but tho Maoris prefer as a rule saving the small cost, and doing it themselves by hand. The present coffee trees are entirely wild and uncultivated. They are never pruned, except so far as breaking the branches in picking may be called by the name. The time will come when coffee is planted regularly, as in other countries. The trees will be kept within six or seven feat in height. Now they are of ben 20 feet. Then the picking of tho berry will bo easy, and the coffee crop of the Cook Islands increased six or eight-fold. The natives begin to see this, and some of them are planting. But it will take time to make thorn see the virtue of pruning. The law to keep animals from trespassing is being well upheld. The good effects are already to be seen in the plantations of kumeraa and other food along the roadsides, unfenced vet safe and prospering. Some cry out for a fencing Act here as in other countries, but it would be a serious bar to cultivation. Animals are and always will be a secondary consideration in these islands, and the owners can fence them in if they wish. At present they are answerable for any damage which trespassing animals cause, whether the land be fenced or not.

_ The hillsides are beginning to blaze with ripening oranges, and next month this fruib will be in full crop. Coffee-picking bakes precedence for the time as being much more profitable, and the oranges have to wait. I am sorry to say that Miss Ardill, who has been teaching the native children at the London Missionary Society's school since ib was begun in Arorangi, is so ill that she has removed to Dr. Caldwell's house in order to have regular medical aid. The school holidays luckily come in good time, and the parents are glad bo have their children to help in the coffee-picking. Miss Ardill has so many frieuds among both Europeans and natives thab we all feel anxious for her recovery. Fortunately Miss Large was transferred about three months ago from Samoa to the new school hero at Nikao, so that Miss Ardoll's illness will nob close the school even if she should nob be ablo to resume duty, as we hope she will when the holidays end. Thero has been bo much dry weather thab we welcomed heartily a downpour or two of rain a few days ago. Chickon pock has been prevalent, and influenza of a mild character. The weather is cool and pleaBant, bub more rain will be acceptable. A vessel from Penrhyn Island reports the death of two pearl divers there, torn so seriously by sharks that they lived only ashorb time after getting ashore. The divingdresses have been taken from thab island to anotherto Manihiki, I believeafter clearing oub a large quantity of shell from the deeper parts of the lagoon inaccessible to ordinary divert; The Queen of Raiatoa and her people are still here. They express much surprise ab the cablegram in the Herald which states that men-of-war are being sent from France to revenge outrages by the natives at Huaheine and Raiatea, and thab they are to bombard the latter island. No outrages of any kind, they say, have ever been, or can be, charged against them, and they believe there must be some mistake. As bo bombarding, they say thab has been tried before, and as they gob into sheltered valleys did nob do any harm except in the destruction of cocoanut and other trees. The news to them is incomprehensible. They do nob wanb bo be French. They would like to be English. Thab bhey have always said, and still say. Bub as to outrages they deny that anything has ever been done to which the term can be in the least degree applied. Wo are near to Tahiti, but really hear leas from those islands than you probably do in Auckland. I do nob know if you have heard of the increased import duties on all goods landed—nob French— the French islands. This ought to throw more trade into Auckland, as ib is difficult to supply many things from bond, and also expensive. The Customs duties in all the French Oceanio colonies are levied by virtue of an Acb of the French Parliament in Paris. The colonies are treated as part of France, and therefore no French produobs pay duty at all. There is, however, an octroi, or inland duty levied in addition by the local governmenb in Tahiti. The two together make a heavy impost on goods from other places than France. On French goods the octroi alone has bo be paid. In spite of this, it is a curious fact that in Tahiti the imports for their own use are largely from California and Germany, while their provisions come from New Zealand. The trade is also in the hands of California and Hamburg merchants, and always has been so. Frenchmen don't seem to care bo operate so far from home.

The French schooner Gironde, jusb in from Tahiti, reports the sale to the Atui riatlvos of tho schooner Lavina, which has been delivered to them in Tahiti. She is a line schooner, California-built, of about 65 tons, and will of course be put under the Cook Islands flag on her arrival in Rarotonga.