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To Judge H. F. Ayson, Resident Commissioner, I am grateful for liis always ready assistance and guidance. To the Resident Agents —E. J. Dyer, of Mauke ; W. H. Scott, of Atiu ; Ariki Tou, of Mitiaro ; and Captain Vellenoweth, of Aitutaki —I return my sincere thanks for their cordial assistance and for their hospitality. At Aitutaki I spent the pleasantest week I have had in the Pacific. At Mangaia we were entertained and assisted by Mr. and Mrs. MacGruther, the first the teacher and the second the nurse for that island. On Aitutaki, Miss Walsh, the Government nurse, cheerfully helped us survey for present disease conditions. Dr. J. P. Donald, the Acting Chief Medical Officer, put himself at our disposal, with his knowledge of the Group and its disease conditions. He and Mrs. Donald made us very much at home with them during most of our visit. Matron Sisley opened her hospital for our treatments and experiments, and aided us with her long experience of disease in the Group. Other officials and the trading community gave us freely their advice and support. The trip could not have been made in twice the time but for the good fortune we had in making a stock-taking trip in a schooner of the Cook Islands Trading Company. Especially we thank our good friends, Messrs. Campbell, McLeod, Bunting, and Drury Low, of this organization —not forgetting Captain Andy Thompson, of the good ship " Tagua," on which we spent many happy days. The trip would have been much harder were it not for these gentlemen. The charge is made that low-grade mentalities recount their travels as a series of gastronomic episodes. At so great a risk, I must mention the unforgettable sucking-pigs, fowls, fish, yams and taro, and Mitiaro eels, all prepared Native style, which punctuated our almost daily progress in Mangaia, Mauke, Mitiaro, Atiu, and Aitutaki, and were the evidences of the hospitality of the chiefs and people and their esteem of our efforts. PART I.—GENERAL SURVEY. 1. Histoky of the Cook Islands. Traditional History. Tradition, which among the Polynesians is in general as accurate as our own of a corresponding period, tells an interesting story of their discovery and conquest of the Cooks. Karika, a famous warrior from Samoa, while on a voyage of discovery, met Tangiia, a famous warrior of Tahiti, on a similar expedition. He invited Tangiia to a battle to see which might be the greater warrior. Tangiia was somewhat of a diplomat, and, fearing that Karika would gain the day, he temporized, saying, " Here we are in the open sea with no one to witness our prowess. Whoever gains the day will not get due credit for his victory when he returns. Would it not be better for us to join canoes and proceed together, awaiting a more favoured time ? " This appealed to Karika as good sense, and they joined forces, proceeding till they reached the Cook Islands. Meantime the two parties had become good friends, and Tangiia, the diplomat, had made his position good by marrying Karika's daughter. Together they conquered the island, and divided it in this manner: The two canoes started from a known given point on one side of the island, and sailed in opposite directions to a point where they met on the other side of the island. A line joining these two points marked the dividing boundary of the two parties. And to-day on the island still remain the people of Tangiia and the people of Karika. Prom Rarotonga the descendants of these people spread out in a conquering wave over the other islands. Their descendants emigrated to New Zealand and conquered the autochthones there. But the line of the Maori ancestors can still be clearly traced back through the Cook Islands to their Samoan or Tahitian ancestors and beyond. And when one of them returns to these groups his history is known, and his position in the great racial family is recognized, and his career and that of his descendants is watched with the pride that one gives to a close relative. Also it is true that the petty jealousies of the early canoes are still live issues that crop up from time t r 'me even in this day. Modern History. The Cook Islands consist of a series of widely scattered islands, commonly known as the Lower and Northern Cooks. The former islands, which consist of Rarotonga, Mangaia, Aitutaki, Mauke, Mitiaro, Atiu, and Manuae (or Hervey Island), were discovered by Captain Cook in 1777 ; and the first island he touched at —Manuae—was named by the great navigator " Hervey Island " in honour of Captain Hervey, R.N., at that time the First Lord of the British Admiralty. Subsequently this group of islands has been more commonly known by the name of their discoverer, Captain Cook. Curiously enough, the largest and most important one of the group —Rarotonga —as well as the smaller islands of Mauke and Mitiaro, escaped the untiring researches of Captain Cook, and were not discovered until 1823, when the Rev. John Williams, of the London Missionary Society, was successful in locating them as the result of information and sailing directions supplied by some of his converts to Christianity in the other islands of the Group. There is, however, also a local tradition in Rarotonga that the island was visited by the mutineers of the " Bounty " after they had put Commander Bligh and his unfortunate companions adrift off the Tongan Group and before they located themselves on Pitcairn Island. The Northern Cook Group consists of a chain of scattered islets lying from three hundred to nine hundred miles north of Rarotonga. They are the islands of Palmerston, Suwarrow, Penrhyn, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Pukapuka, and Nassau. The present health report does not include them. Christianity took a strong hold in the Group under the direction of the representatives of the London Missionary Society, whose headquarters were in the neighbouring Society Group, and for