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LOYALTY ISLANDS.

South and westerly from the New Hebrides we come to the Loyalty Islands, said to have been discovered by Captain Cook in 1774. The group is "about 60 miles east of New Caledonia, consisting of Uvea or Uea (the northernmost), Lifu, Toka, and several small islands, and Mare or Neugone. They are coral islands, of comparatively recent elevation, and in no place rise more than 250 feet above the sea. Lifu, the largest, is about 50 miles in length by 25 in breadth. Enough of its rocky surface is covered with a thin coating of soil to enable the natives to grow yams, taro, bananas, etc., for their support; cotton thrives well, and has even been exported in small quantities, but there is no space available for its cultivation on any considerable scale. Fresh water, rising and falling with the tide, is found in certain large caverns, and, in fact, by sinking to the sea-level, a supply may be obtained in any part of the island. The population, about seven thousand, is on the decrease. The island called Neugone by the natives, and Mare by the inhabitants. of the Isle of Pines, is about eighty miles in circumference, and contains about six thousand souls. Uvea, the most recent part of the group, consists of a circle of about twenty islets, inclosing a lagoon twenty miles. in width; the largest is about thirty miles in length, and in some places three miles wide, and the next largest is about twelve miles in length. The inhabitants, numbering about twenty-five hundred, export considerable quantities of cocoanut-oil. The Loyalty Islanders are classed as Melanesian; the several islands have each its separate language, and in Uvea the one tribe uses a Samoan, and the other a New Hebridean form

the atolls, ranging from a few hundred yards wide only, in some places, to several miles in others, and the habit of the natives of flocking or swarming from one island to another, or to particular localities on one island. This occurs sometimes twice in a year, and arises from the fact that nature, in her products, is not always equally prolific; and the natives migrate from point to point, for the means of sustenance.

AS MARINERS.

The Marshall islanders are the best and most skillful navigators in the Pacific. Their voyages, sometimes of many months' duration, in great canoes, sailing with outriggers to windward, well provisioned and depending on the skies for fresh water, help to show how the Pacific was colonized. They have a sort of chart, mede, of small sticks tied together, representing the position of islands and the direction of the winds and currents. They have also wonderful weapons, the blades of which are edged with sharks' teeth, and a defensive armor of braided sennit, also peculiar to the islands. In hollowing out their canoes they use a large adze, made from the Tradacue gigas, formerly used in the Carolines, probably by the older builder race.

LANGUAGES OF MICRONESIA.

The languages of Micronesia, though gramatically alike, differ widely in their vocabularies. The religious myths are identifiable with the Polynesian; but a belief in the gods proper is overshadowed by a general deification of ancestors, who are supposed from time to time to occupy certain blocks of

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coral, set up near the family dwelling, and surrounded by circles of smaller ones. These stones are. annointed with oil and worshiped with prayer and offerings, and are also used for purposes of divining, in which, and in various omens, there is a general belief. In the Marshall group, in place of these stones, certain palm-trees are similarly enclosed. The spirits, also, are believed to inhabit the forms of certain birds or fishes, which are tabu, as food to the family; but they will help to catch these for others. All this closely recalls the Kauwari, or the ancestral images of New Guinea.

FLORA AND FAUNA.

The flora of the Gilbert and Marshall groups is of the usual oceanic character, with close Indo-Malay affinities. It is much poorer than that of the Carolines, with their Mollucca and Philippine elements, and this again is surpassed by that of the Ladrones. In the Gilberts, the scattered woods of the cocoanut and pandanus have little undergrowth, while the South Marshalls being within the belt of constant precipitation, have a dense growth of low trees and shrubs, with here and there a tropical luxuriance unusual in atolls.

The pandanus grows wild and profusely, and is of exceptional importance, being the chief staple food, so that the cocoanut, which however flourishes chiefly in the Gilberts, is used mainly to produce oil for exportation. The bread-fruit grows chiefly in the South Marshalls. The taro arum cordifolium and others is cultivated laboriously, deep trenches being cut in the solid rock for its cultivation. Various veg

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