but inland are extensive swamps, carefully planted with the water-taro (colocasia). The island is full of relics of a vanished civilization-old embankments and terraces, sites of ancient cultivation, stone-paved roads; paes or ancient platforms of stone, faced with huge circular quartz wheels, set up at their sides; enormous council lodges of quaint design, with bold, high, and projecting gables, and lofty carven pillars. Walls of ancient fish ponds and stone weirs fill the lagoon between the reef and the shore, making navigation a difficult matter. There are some 8,000 natives on Yap-kindly, industrious, and generally peaceable folk, very dark in color, and speaking a quaint and barbarous dialect, much akin to that of the Pelews, yet with a certain family likeness to the isles farther eastward, where the Polynesian infiltration appears to have been fairly strong. The fruits of the soil are as follows: Sweet potatoes, yams, of which there is a great variety; taro (lak), mammee apples or pawpaws, pineapples, bananas (pao), sugar cane (maquil), breadfruit (thau), and the tropical almond (Terminalia catappa). Copra is largely exported, mostly through the German traders, who have spent a vast amount of money and labor here for many years past. A varnish nut (adhidh) grows here, which should give good results. The principal timber tree is the tamanu, fetau or kamani of South Sea Islands, the Callophyllum of botanists; the Yap natives call it "voi." Tomil Harbor is the place of the European settlement, the seat of the Spanish governor of the western Carolines. There is a garrison of some 100 soldiers, with probably some 150 political prisoners, captured in the late Philippine uprising. Tomil would be a good coaling station. Yap is rich in beautiful scenery, the groves of bamboo, croton, cocoanut, and areca palm being most impressive. Huge iguanas are found in the bush, and the nights are brilliant with fireflies (kirrikir). Bird life, however, is somewhat scarce, and there are but few cattle and horses on the island.

The Uluthi, or Mackensie, group lies a little to the northward of Yap. Mokomok or Arrowroot Island is the chief port and trading place. There is a great trade in copra here. The longitude is 145° 58' 24'" east, and latitude 10° 6' north. The natives, since ancient times, are subject to Yap, and come down about February each year to pay tribute to the chiefs of Tomil and Gochepa. They are peaceful, industrious, and law-abiding, a great contrast to the people of Pulawat or Enderly farther to the eastward, who have an ill name as merciless and treacherous pirates throughout the length and breadth of the Carolines.

The Uleai natives are better, but not quite trustworthy either. Raur, the trading depot of this group, lies in 150° 9′ 54′′ east longitude. Much copra is produced, and turtle-shell and bèche de mer (pelipel) are collected. There are about 800 natives in this group. The language is Malayan mixed with Polynesian. The people of Olimarao, Lamotrek, and Satawal have similar traditions, customs, and language. These islanders were intrepid navigators in olden days, guiding their way fearlessly by a most accurate knowledge of the stars and currents. When the Spanish conquered the Mariannes, about 1560, a great number of the Chamorros, or aboriginal people, fled to Uleai and Lamotrek, to avoid forcible conversion and slavery. According to Kotzebue, the Uleai folk and their neighbors assemble at Lamotrek every year in February, with eighteen or twenty great canoes, sailing thence to Guam, a distance of some 500 miles, in about three days. They stay until April or May and then return, fearing the southwest monsoon.

The Hall group, or Namonuito, and the group to the south, of which Pulawat and Pulo-Suk are the chief islands, are only to be visited with considerable precaution. It would be well for a man-of-war to visit here and warn the petty chiefs against piratical forays or cutting off peaceful trading vessels in their lagoons. The Spanish have taken little or no notice of several treacherous murders committed of late years, and seem disposed to let things still go on in the same haphazard fashion,

The next group eastward is called Ruk, or T'ruk, from the name of the tallest basaltic island in the chain (Ruk means "highland" or "lofty"). The group consists of some seventy islands lying in the midst of the great lagoon of Hogolen, which name is also applied by some to the whole group. The lagoon is 210 kilometers (130.48 miles) round, and there is a fine depth of water and good anchorage for vessels of large draft. There is a great annual output of copra. Pearl shell, turtleshell, and bèche de mer are very abundant. The well-known island preparation of "taik," a red cosmetic, is made here. There are thirty Japanese traders established in the group, and the German trading firm of Jaluit sends many vessels to fill with copra. The group has a population of some 10,000. Each island has its petty rajah, whom they call, in the various Caroline dialects, tamon, tamol, samon, samol, samal, or chamero. There has been a certain amount of civil war here of late, much to the prejudice of local industries. The Spanish have not kept a firm enough hand on the people. The principal island of Ruk lies in 158° 1' east longitude and 7° 18′ 30′′ north latitude.

The natives, both of Ruk and the neighboring group of the Mortlocks, have the curious custom, remarked in the Visayas of the Philippines, the Peruvian Indians, and the Taringa-Roroa aborigines of Easter Island, of piercing the lower lobe of the ear and forcing it to grow downwards in a huge, unsightly flap. The Mortlock language is the Lingua Franca of the central Carolines. Here is found a very large Polynesian admixture. The Island of Losap, some 80 miles east of Ruk, has an ill reputation of late. It was colonized by a roving band of pirates from Chokach or Jekoits on the Penapé coast, and is said to have all the old savage customs. The Mortlocks consist of three groups. Lukunor lagoon, containing eighteen islands, is surrounded by a reef 54 miles in circuit; the harbor, Port Chamisso, being in 160° 10′ 24′′ east longitude and 5° 20′′ north latitude. The second Mortlock group is Satoan. The lagoon contains sixty well-populated islands. It is in 159° 58" east longitude and 5° 17" north latitude. The third is Etal, comprising eighteen low coral islets surrounded by a reef some 20 miles in circuit, and situated in 160° I' east longitude and 5° 33′ north latitude. The population of the whole group is some 2,000. The products are copra and bèche de mer. The Germans take great pains to develop industry here. Of remarkable interest to philologists is the occurrence of a pure Polynesian dialect, apparently an antique form of Samoan, upon two islets named Greenwich and Kap-in-Mailang, otherwise called Nuku-Oro, lying to the south southeast of Port Chamisso. The Spanish call them Pescadores. The inhabitants, numbering some 500, are honest, cheerful, and industrious. The situation is 161° 3′ east longitude and 1° 6' north latitude.

We now come to the far eastern groups in the great chain, where the one hundred and seventieth north parallel divides the Spanish possessions from those of Germany. The most important is that of Seniavina, Bonabe, or Ponapé, which includes the Ant and Pakin islands and the large island of Ponapé (in native, "Panu-Pei," or the Land of the Holy Places), so called from the remarkable relics of ancient civilization found near Metalanim Harbor, on the east coast. It is situated between north parallels 6° 43′ and 7° 6' and meridians 163° 55′ and 164° 32′ east longitude. The Island of Ponapé occupies 440,000 square kilometers (170,324 square miles). It is surrounded by an extensive reef, shutting in a wide lagoon studded on the north and southwest with many small islets. The country is occupied by five wei, or tribes, under their hereditary chiefs: U to the north, under their Ichipau or titular king, a great friend of the English-speaking folk; Metalanim to the east, ruled by their Ichipau, King Paul, a gloomy, morose old man, a great hater of the "macha puotopuot," or white faces, and the promoter of all the late troubles and acts of bad faith in the tribe; Kiti, to the south and southwest, under the rule of the Nanamareki, King Rocha, a good friend to the white men; Henry Nanapei, of

Ronkiti, is also an influential man in the tribe. The Spanish governor very sensibly tried to make this enlightened man the chief authority over all the tribes. He is a man of good education and great influence for good, and has greatly developed local industries in Kiti. The territory of Chokach or Jekoits, in the northwest, embraces the lofty island of that name; also Mount Paliker and the valley of the Palang River on the mainland. The Pakin Islands, with their cocoanut groves, are also a dependency of the Prince of Chokach. The last and the least of the tribes is that of Not, under the chief Lap-in-Not. The people live near the embouchure of the Pillapenchakola Creek, where it runs into Asuncion Bay in the north. On Asuncion Bay is the little Spanish colony of Santiago, with its slenderly garrisoned blockhouse and walled fort. The most important islets off the Ponapé coast on the north are Langar, where the Germans have a trading station; Parram, Tapak, and the two dependencies of the Ichipau of U. Mutok, at the mouth of the Kiti River, in the south, has a good harbor, and was formerly much visited by whalers. Near Metalanim Harbor, on the east, close to the Ichipau's Island of Tomun and the Sugar Loaf Peak, overlooking the bay, is a great artificial breakwater, nearly 3 miles long, inclosing some fifty walled islets, separated one from another by a network of shallow canals-a regular Micronesian Venice. The place is called Nan-Matal, or the Place of the Waterways. On two of the islands— Nan-Tauach and Pankatara—are high walls inclosing an ancient sanctuary, where excavations made by us in 1896 brought to light a large number of stone and shell weapons and other relics of the past. The walls on Nan-Tauach inclose a double parallelogram, the outer measuring some 220 by 180 yards. The height varies from 40 to 20 feet; the thickness from 12 to 16 feet. Some of the basaltic prisms are of immense size and weight. The construction is alternately lengthwise and crosswise, like that of a log fence. The natives look upon these precincts with superstitious awe, and can hardly be persuaded to go near them at night. It was in the neighborhood of these ruins that the Spanish had two days' hard fighting, in 1890, to capture the fortified stockade of Ketam, on the Chapalap River, at the head of the bay. A little northeast of the King's Isle of Tomun is a peculiar island named Mutakaloch, where the basalt takes a cellular form. On the northeast border of U and Metalanim is the picturesque Island of Aru, close to the harbor of Oa, with its intricate and tortuous entrance, where the Spanish won a hard-earned victory over the Metalanim insurgents on the 20th of September, 1890. Port Lot, the residence of a local chief, David Lumpoi, a great scoundrel and deserving of no trust whatever, was a place of visit for the New England and New Bedford whalers. The water supply here is poor, provisions are ridiculously dear, and the natives of this particular district for the most part notorious rogues and thieves. Port Mutok, at the mouth of the Kiti River, is good for wood and water; provisions are cheap and the natives honest and well disposed. Henry Nanapei, of Ronkiti, King Rocha of Kiti, his nephew Nan-aua, the Nan-keron of Mutok, and others have set the Kiti natives a noble example of fair dealing. The harbor of Ronkiti is some 15 miles to the west of Mutok. Henry Nanapei is the harbor master here. The entrance is in 6° 48′ north latitude and 164° 19' east longitude. There are plenty of pigs and fowls; yams, cocoanuts, bananas, and other tropical fruits may be procured here at moderate prices. Nanapei has planted the beautiful valley with cocoanuts and bananas. There is a well-attended Protestant mission school.

A useful measure would be the distribution of seeds to the more enlightened chiefs of districts, and they might be encouraged in draining the morasses, opening up proper roads, and keeping clear the water ways and passages in the great surrounding belt of mangrove scrub. The interior needs opening up, and the dense mountain jungle and forest thinning out with axe and sawmill.

The late history of British Fiji seems to show very well how a great island can

be opened up to trade and industry by keeping native chiefs of known character and capacity in authority; not by treating the chiefs as children and paying them monthly salaries to keep them in good humor, as the Spanish have done. It should not be forgotten that there is an ancient tribal jealousy between Kiti and Metalanim, the two most populous tribes, and that there is a very substantial ill will between Chokach and Metalanim, on account of a piece of thoughtless insolence and braggadocio shown by a party of King Paul's braves, who landed on the island while the men were away fishing and helped themselves liberally to other people's property, badly scaring the women and children.

The chief products of Ponapé are copra, turtle-shell, and ivory nuts. The last is the fruit of the och, an elegant palm resembling a sago palm, used for manufacturing buttons. Another valuable economic tree, the "ais," is found bearing a large, circular, reddish-brown nut, which makes good varnish. Sponges are obtained on the Paliker coast, near Palang, on the west, and bèche de mer of good quality is found on the outer reefs off the Kiti and Metalanim coasts. The forests inland and salt marshes below are fairly rich in timber trees and wood useful for ornamental work. There are plenty of pigs (“puik”) and dogs (“kiti”), some of them tailless, the latter much esteemed for food by the folk of Metalanim. On Mutok there are goats, and in the Ronkiti Valley Nanapei grazes some cattle. The rivers are full of fish. There are eels of gigantic size and greatly dreaded by the natives, who will not eat their flesh. A venomous green snake, “macho," is found occasionally in the salt marshes. There are several sea snakes and sea eels, some very beautifully colored. The sea is full of all manner of quaint, bizarre, and gorgeous forms of marine life. There are many vegetable treasures in the bush, possessing very valuable medicinal properties. The pineapple, mango, sugar cane, and several sorts of bananas and plantains, as well as yams and taro, grow abundantly. Breadfruit grows also in great magnificence, especially on the upper coast.

Further east from Ponapé are the Mokil (or Duperrey), the Pingelap (or McCaskill), and the Kusaie groups—the last of the Spanish dominions in Micronesia. Here I think I can not do better than call attention to an extract from the Hongkong Telegraph, containing a description of my late cruise in these out-of-the-way

seas.

In conclusion, I would like to express the opinion that a great deal may be done with the islands of Kusaie and Ponapé, both of which deserve the name of the garden of Micronesia. Ruk and the Mortlocks, Yap and the Pelews also demand notice.

Mokil is properly a group of three low islands-Urak, Manton, and Kálaplying close together in a lagoon of no great extent. Manton is rounded in outline like a boomerang or horseshoe; Urak and Kálap are longer and crescent shaped. Kálap and Manton are inhabited, the former containing the main settlement, surrounded with yam and taro patches. Urak is one wild-palm grove, full of pigs and wild fowl, and is often visited from the main settlement. Between Manton and Urak a narrow boat passage leads up to Kálap beach, across a strip of flat reef almost dry at low tides, studded with numerous masses of honeycombed

limestone rock. Close by are two large blocks. Tradition says the Ant, or demigods in the form of a pair of frigate birds, brought them from the eastward. These were the mythical ancestors of the Mokil people.

The Mokil folk, numbering some 200, probably have a strong Marshall Island admixture, like their Pingelap neighbors. Many of their words are an obsolete form of Ponapéan; but nowadays the modern Ponapéan is everywhere spoken, introduced by the American missionaries and native teachers from their former station on the larger island. The natives are Christianized; cocoanut toddy is tabooed, and all use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco strictly forbidden. The king, or icho, lives on Kálap and is a friendly old gentleman; but, like nearly all converted natives, has a keen eye for business. The chief trader on the island is John Higgins, a capital boatbuilder and carpenter, the son of a Massachusetts man, afterwards murdered upon Pingelap by a Gilbert Islander from Arorai. He leads as quiet and industrious a life as any Norfork or Pitcairn Island settler. There is no supply of running water; but there is a heavy annual rainfall, which the natives make the most of by digging numerous shallow pits and wells. A peculiar species of jack fruit is cultivated, along with abundance of bananas and taro (Arum, sp.) of two kinds. The palm groves yield an abundant supply of green drinking nuts, and much copra is made from the kernels of the older ones. The lagoon teems with fine fish, the most esteemed of which are a species of mullet, the bonito, and the flying fish. The Mokil canoes are built of seasoned breadfruit wood, fitted with a long, solid, and heavy outrigger, curving boldly upwards bow and stern, recalling somewhat the Yap canoes, without, however, the curious fish-tail ornamentation on the figureheads fore and aft. Their yi, or sails, like the old-fashioned ones of Ponapé (called I), are wide and triangular, formed of parallel rows of pandanus leaves neatly sewn together. The usual littoral shrubs common on low coral islands flourish here, amongst them two medicinal in quality, the ramak and sisin (known in Ponapé as the inot and titin). The bitter, fleshy leaves of the former in decoction are a fine tonic and febrifuge, whilst the pounded bark of the latter is said to be a good application for sores and wounds. The quaint whorls of giant screw pines (P. edulis), with their huge, orange-red, rough pineapples and long, sword-shaped, prickly-edged leaves, fringe the shore, and the air is filled with the subtle perfume of the delicate white blossoms of the tree gardenia (Pur.).

After a stroll in the woods, a bath in one of the water holes, and a hearty meal of fried flying fish and taro, it is time to leave. Towards evening, with a good load of copra and some of the Urak porkers, and seven or eight native passengers on board, we set sail for Pingelap, which lies some 60 miles to the southward. Next day nothing but dismal and dirty weather and heavy seas. A powerful odor of copra permeates the ship from stem to stern, which must be extremely delicious to those who are accustomed to it. Everything is hot, damp, muggy, and uncomfortable. Hosts of lively beetles are on the warpath below, and up above there is a dark drizzle, hardly a breath of wind stirring, and the great cradle of the deep is rocking us to and fro in something more than a motherly fashion. So the long, dreary afternoon wears itself slowly away. Late in the evening of the next day, after a steady struggle with a strong northwest current, we catch a glimpse of the lights of the Pingelap canoe parties fishing out on the reef. Next morning early we are anchored near the beach, and numerous folk have already boarded us, clamoring for an extended credit system, hugely excited the while at the prospect of handling and fingering, and perhaps even purchasing, the much-coveted foreign goods. Voices, a regular Babel, are raised, some in solemn argument and serious questioning, some rippling into light jests, chaff, and repartee, some melting into those coaxing, pleading, and wheedling accents wherewith the natives so often reach the soft spot in the white trader's heart. However, by and by business is somehow No. 216

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