A.—6

8

phyllum). These grow to an amazing size. I have seen them sft. in diameter. The natives select this wood for their canoes, stools, pillows, bowls, and other articles, which are wrought with immense labour out of the solid mass. It has been used by us in shipbuilding ; and as it is durable, and holds a nail with great tenacity, it is very valuable for that purpose. Its value is further enhanced by the circumstance that iron lasts much longer in the tamanu than in any other wood. We have also made furniture of it; it has a veiny and beautiful grain, and is susceptible of a high polish. In the hands of European cabinetmakers it would vie with some of our most admired woods. This might become an important article of commerce." :;: The amai, or miro, is also susceptible of a high polish, is easily worked, and makes beautiful furniture. The tou (Cordia) also makes beautiful furniture. The toi is blood-red towards the heart and like satin-wood in the outer parts. The toa (Gasuarina) is very hard, and is useful for sheaves of blocks, cogs in sugar-mill machinery, &c. The natives make their clubs and spears from this tree. Several of the trees produce very valuable gums and dyes. The candlenut-tree (Aleurites triloba) abounds in the mountains, and, as its leaves are nearly white, they form a most agreeable contrast to the dark-green foliage of the other trees among which it is interspersed. It bears a nut, about the size of a walnut, which is used as a substitute for a candle. Having stripped off the shell, the natives perforate the kernel, and string a number of these on a rib of the cocoanut leaflet, and then light them. By burning large quantities of this nut in a curiously constructed oven the natives obtain a fine lamp-black, with which they paint their canoes, idols, and drums, and print various devices upon their ornamental garments. They also use the colouring thus obtained in tattooing their skin. Besides this, the tuitui furnishes a gum with which they varnish the cloth made from the bark of the breadfruit-tree, thus rendering it more impervious and durable. From its inner bark a juice is produced, which is a valuable substitute for paint-oil, and when mixed with lampblack, or with the dye from the Gasuarina and other trees, it becomes so permanent that it never washes off. Finding that the cocoanut-oil when mixed with paint did not dry, we extracted an oil from candlenut which answered the purpose much better. Of the breadfruit-tree I need not write, as most people know that it is everything to the natives—their house, their food, their clothing. This, and the cocoanut-tree, affords an ample and admirable provision for any tropical people. Cocoanut matting is natural cloth, woven in the loom of Nature with a regularity which gives it the appearance of being the product of human ingenuity. All our modern ideas of cloth-weaving were, no doubt, taken from the matting which so admirably supports the giant leaves of the cocoanut-tree. The following is a list of works upon the Pacific that I find in my library, other than those I have already mentioned. The reader should consult some of these writers if he desires to post himself up in the minutiae of Island history —their ethnology, botany, fauna, and flora, &c. There are numerous works besides these to be consulted, but Ido not happen to possess them. The following works are chiefly the standard works upon the Islands. Many works have been since written by late travellers of more or less utility : " Cook's Voyages, 1768-1780"; "Polynesian Besearcb.es," Ellis; "Voyages dv Grand Ocean," Moerenhout; "Mission in Western Polynesia," Murray; "Voyages and Travels," Tyerman and Bennet; " Nouvelle-Caledonie," Brainne; "Fiji and the Fijians," W 7 illiams and Calvert; "Mission Life in the Pacific," Buzacott; " Pitcairn Island," Brodie; "The Missionaries' Eecord," G. Pritchard; "Work and Adventure in New Guinea," Chalmers and Gill; " Through Atolls and Islands in the Great South Seas," Moss ; " The King and People of Fiji," Waterhouse ; " Gems from the Coral Islands," Gill; " Savage Life in Polynesia," Gill; " Codification dcs Actes dv Gouvernement dans les Etablissements Francais de l'Oceanie et le Protectorat dcs lies de la Societe et Dependances," 1867; "Acts of Fijian Government under King Cakobau," 1873. Appendix A contains a record of historical events that have happened in the South Seas from 1872 to 1889. Appendix B contains a list of murders of our sailors and traders in the Pacific Islands generally, from 1875 to 1885. This great loss of life would never have happened had proper trading stations been established. Appendix D contains a list of the islands and possessions belonging to the different foreign Powers, as well as lam able to settle their international rights. There has been such a hoisting and lowering of flags upon these islands that I do not think the nations themselves quite know what they do or do not own. Poor Samoa, however, has for half a century nearly been the very theatre of these international struggles. • Coleman Phillips. Wairarapa, Wellington, New Zealand, 19th June, 1894.

APPENDICES, APPENDIX A. List op HistoeicAl Events connected with and happening in the South Sea Islands and New Guinea from 1872 to 1889, being an Addendum to my paper upon the " Civilisation of the Pacific," read before the Boyal Colonial Institute, March. 1876, a copy of which paper will be found in the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute " for that year.

* Williams,