The Friendly Islands, though a British Protectorate, and, as regards all matters in which European interests are involved, under the jurisdiction of the High Commissioner of the Pacific, still have a native king and Parliament. The inhabitants are Christians, and are in a sense the most school-taught people in the Pacific. They seem to delight especially in mathematics and music, while shorthand is their usual method of writing. Tonga was the last of the independent kingdoms to come under European control. It was left to us as the result of our negotiations with Germany, at the end of the nineteenth century, and is now practically an integral part of our Empire in the Pacific. During the fifty years before we assumed control, it had made rather remarkable progress, under its native ruler, King George Tubou I., in the adoption, or perhaps the imitation, of Western ideas. This was largely due to the Wesleyan missionaries, and especially to the work of one missionary who occupied the post of Prime Minister. We will now land and pay a call on the father of the present 4 king. He receives us in civilised fashion on the veranda of his house, but we notice that chairs are provided only for the guests; the rest sit on the ground in native fashion. A bowl of _kava_ is brewed for us by pounding, squeezing and straining out the juice of a root of a plant belonging to the family of the pepper-worts. It is the native substitute for alcohol, the use of which by any but white people is strictly forbidden in Tonga. Without _kava_ drinking, no social ceremony is considered complete, even to-day; and it has played an important part in the political and religious gatherings of the past. Let us now look round the island. It is only about thirty miles (2) long and ten wide, shaped rather like the human foot, with two bays running far inland in the broadest part. The streets and the sea front of Nukualofa are mostly covered with short grass, and the town is partly hidden in the groves of coconut palms. It is the same all over the island. In the drier season we can follow broad grass tracks, for the most part running round the island; on both sides of us is a dense growth of palms, bananas, and tropical trees, such as we see in the picture before us. 5 Everything is moist and green and flat; yet, in Tonga Tabu, as in all the islands of this particular group, except Eua, we find no rivers, since the island is merely a block of coral rock, with a thin covering of rich soil, raised a few feet above the level of the sea. It is a form of coral island very common in this part of the Pacific.