Kava is the national drink. It is made from the roots of a shrub belonging to the pepper family. The root is ground between stones and then soaked in water. After a while it is pounded and rubbed until all the milky juice is squeezed out of it. When "extra-fine" kava is wanted, young girls chew the root until it has become pulpy. After standing a day or two it is strained and is then ready to be drunk. It is a cooling and refreshing drink, but if taken too freely is apt to tangle one's legs uncomfortably. On account of its delightful climate and beautiful scenery, Samoa is one of the most attractive places in the world in which to live. Back in the mountains, a few miles from Apia, Robert Louis Stevenson spent the last few years of his life, and his body is buried on the top of the mountain near by. Stevenson was greatly beloved by the natives, and after his death he was mourned by them as one of their very best friends. Of all the islands in the South Pacific Ocean, the Fiji group is the most important. All told there are more than two hundred islands, but scarcely one-third of them are inhabited, or even habitable. Two of them are large. One, Viti Levu, is about the size of Connecticut; the other, Vanua Levu, is about two-thirds the size of that State. The famous Dutch sailor Abel Janszoon Tasman, whose name is remembered in Tasmania, saw the larger islands in 1643. About one hundred and thirty years later Captain Cook called at Viti Levu and found himself in the midst of a great cannibal feast. In 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes, in charge of a United States expedition, explored them; shortly afterward they became a possession of Great Britain. The larger islands are great domes of lava built up by volcanic eruptions; many of the smaller ones are coral formations, and all are fringed with coral reefs. Dense forests of tropical vegetation cover the larger islands. Cocoanut and other palms are everywhere to be found. A species of pine, much like the kauri pine of New Zealand, grows on the larger islands. Among the forest trees are also several kinds of tree-ferns and a tree-nettle. When the pointed leaves of the latter prick the skin they sting the flesh as badly as does a wasp. The English have done well by both the islands and the islanders. They have made the islands yield a good yearly profit to the government itself, but they have also made the natives industrious and contented. When the first British settlements were made in Fiji, the islanders were in a most degraded condition. They did no work except to grow a few yams, bananas, and breadfruit. Their chief employment was war, and this was carried on, not for conquest, but to capture as many as possible. A few captives were held as slaves, but most of them were fattened--to be killed and eaten at the royal feasts. [Illustration: Native canoe, Fiji Islands]