A.—3b

10

has been exercised any casualties have resulted to shipping. The settlement, which has the appearance of a long straggling village, extends along the water's edge, and consists of about 200 houses, the property of Europeans, including the large establishment of the Messrs. Godeffroy, the German, English, and American Consulates, a fraternity of French Boman Catholic priests, a school conducted by the Sisters of Mercy, an English mission, half a dozen large stores and some retail shops, six or seven public-houses, a billiard saloon, a bakery, two smithies, and two steam cotton gins. The trade of the port is very considerable. It has not been unusual for several years past to see as many as six or seven large vessels loading in the harbour at one time. Their freights are, however, not the product of Upolu alone, but are collected in small vessels and brought there, as to a central depot, from the other islands of the Navigator group, from some more distant as Nieue, Manihiki, Tokerau, the Ellis group, Uvea Fortuna, and elsewhere. Tho bulk of these cargoes consists of dried cocoa-nut, and the trade is chiefly in the hands of Messrs. Godeffroy ; but another German firm, Messrs. Hedemann, Euge, and Co., have lately established themselves at Apia in the same line. There are also other articles of export —cotton, fungus, ginger, arrowroot, pearl shell, and beche-de-mer. Some of these products are indigenous, others are obtained elsewhere by small vessels belonging to the port of Apia. Besides the permanent residents, there is a large floating population of mariners and traders continually on the move between Apia and the neighbouring groups of islands, especially the vast archipelago which extends between the Navigators and the Eallicks, and which is commonly spoken of under the general denomination of " Kingsmills." Many guano ships also visit Apia on their way to or from Maldon Island, or the stations of the American Guano Company which are still nearer to Samoa, to wit Baker's, Enderbury's, McKean's, Howland's, and others known as the Phoenix Group. This American Guano Company have professed, according to statements published some years back, to own fourteen islands in that vicinity ; but to some of those they pretend to claim, they have no right whatever ; they are not acquainted with the precise locality of some; and others have no actual existence, although laid down upon the charts. I may here remark that if the guano trade be really a profitable one, which I imagine it to be from the amount of capital invested in it, here is a wide field for its prosecution, inasmuch as between the equator and the tenth parallel of latitude, and in a line between Tokerau and Nukuhiva, are several islands apparently covered with this valuable deposit, and not only unclaimed by men of any nation, but either not mentioned at all upon the charts or laid down at long distances from their true position. Such are the islands of Eoggewein, Peregrino, and Dudosa, all of which do actually exist, though nowhere near the positions ascribed to them on the charts; and they would long before now have become known as dangerous obstructions to navigation, were it not for the fact that vessels have seldom had occasion to traverse that part of the ocean in which they are. The population of the whole Samoan group is commonly estimated at about 40,000, of which onehalf reside upon Upolu, which includes Manono, a small island attached to it by a coral reef at its S.W. extremity. This Manono is only about five miles in circumference —an isle rocky and conical, rising in a sort of terrace, covered in every available spot with villages and cultivations. Notwithstanding its limited area, the chiefs of Manono have been regarded from old time as entitled to the greatest amount •of consideration accorded to any in the Samoan group; not, perhaps, from their greater bravery (as they boast), but from the peculiar conformation of their island and that of Apolima, which they also possess, which form a sort of impregnable natural fortress wherein during former ages they resisted successfully the piratical incursions of the Tongese and others. The natural resources of the island of Upolu are very great. The temperature of the Navigator Isles is so mild, that although within 15° of the equator, Europeans are enabled to perform, at all seasons of the year, all manner of outdoor work without inconvenience or detriment to their constitutions. The great age to which the ancient beachcombers (that is to say, Europeans who half a century ago deserted from ships at these islands, or, having escaped from durance vile in the penal settlements of Australia, made themselves a home upon them) have usually arrived, is a proof of the adaptability of the climate to the European constitution. There is evidence enough of this in the fact that smiths, carpenters, timber cutters, and men engaged in various outdoor hard labour, pursue their occupations without inconvenience. Thus wood-sawyers (Englishmen) toil in their sawpits at all times of the year alike, from dawn till dark, without shade of any kind to their sawpits. They cut the same number of feet as they have been wont to do in Australia during a day's work; they enjoy robust health, and do not complain of tho climate or its temperature. It appears as though all the valuable vegetable products of the tropics would flourish upon Upolu. Cotton succeeds well, and has run wild in all tho sea-coast lands —unfortunately, it would seem; for, being of tho kidney species, it prevents the Sea Island from being propagated to advantage, as the bees and other insects carrying tho pollen of the wild cotton flowers, inoculate the Sea Island and cause it to become coarse. Large tracts of sugar-cane and maize are cultivated by the Germans; they have also planted coffee with great success, and rice of a kind enormously prolific, which is grown upon elevated plateaux without irrigation, it being of a species not requiring to be flooded at any time with water. Whence they obtained the seed I have not heard, but I imagine from South America. Legumes and cereals of the temperate zone have been planted successfully by the Germans, and notably by the French priests, some of whom have been now resident on Upolu for nearly thirty years, and have acclimatised many useful plants and trees. Cabbages, cauliflowers, peas, all kinds of beans, carrots, and asparagus, cucumbers, and melons of every kind, with the pot-herbs of Europe, are to be seen in their gardens, and of the most luxuriant growth. Potatoes, however, turn to komotes in the second season in the low lands, and onions do not exceed a grape shot in magnitude, though there is reason to believe that both these vegetables would grow very well upon the level summits of the high mountain lands. Barley and the various kinds of millet produce abundant crops, and English grass mixed with clover takes ready hold of the ground and spreads rapidly. Among the products more especially suited to the climate and local conditions of Samoa, as proved from experiment, may be enumerated cotton, coffee, sugar, tamarinds, tobacco, indigo, Vanilla rice, cinnamon (a tree analogous to which is found indigenous), true nutmegs, ginger, arrowroot, and the