him from time to time. It is since emphatically confirmed by an expert on the spot. The official French bandmaster at Papeëte, Tahiti, is a thorough and enthusiastic musician. He has been married to a native woman for twenty years, and never, he assures me, has he during all that time been able to extract from his wife's memory one air or harmony genuinely indigenous, although he has tried over and over again, both with her and her relatives. His opinion is of great weight, and he has deliberately come to the conclusion that there neither is, nor ever was, such a thing as Tahitian harmony, much less melody. One well-known Tahitian air, which delights hearers with its quaint harmonious vocal and instrumental parts, is often sung and played, and is always passed off as the genuine article. It was composed by an Englishman. The charming music performed in the French-Protestant native church at Papeete, with its queer fugues and intervals, and the additional appearance of genuineness caused by the fact that it has never been notated, but is transmitted by ear from choir to choir, from generation to generation of young native voices, is simply a mélange of French and English missionary hymn tunes and men-o'-war men's songs. Tahitian dancing, this expert goes on to explain, consists of wriggling and shivering the limbs, especially the legs and feet, very quickly, and in time with musical noises. His final word on the subject is that Tahitian music was intended for the legs, not for the ear. Below is the nearest approach to indigenous airs that he has been able to discover and put on paper. 1 A great authority on Melanesian matters gives interesting samples of savage music notated by himself, and states, "Tous les peuples civilisées ou sauvages de l'Oceanie aiment passionément la musique." With all due deference to Rienzi, I prefer to agree with Mr. Whitcombe of Rotumah, and with the French bandmaster of Tahiti. CLE CHAPTER VI. SAMOA "Seeing larger constellations, burning mellow moons and happy skies, LEARING the Vavau Sounds and the island of Nuipapa, where a landslip marks the site of "Mariner's Cave" with the submarine entrance, so celebrated in Tongan legend,1 we get another long stretch of ocean, N.N.E., carrying the south-east trade winds towards the Samoan Group, and nearer and nearer to the blazing sun. At long intervals, like trig stations in the sea, we pass island after island, some close enough to distinguish the contour of the land, and perchance trees and huts, others so far away that we only think we see them. "Just under that patch of cloud on the starboard quarter," says the obliging officer on the watch, handing me his glass-"can't you see it ?" I say "Yes," of course, but I am blest if I do. In fact, staring hard, I imagine I see islands all over the horizon. My old idea-I do not know where I got it from; from Robinson Crusoe ?—perhaps from a poet sitting in an armchair in England, a man who may be sick when on the open sea and can't bear the thought of lands so far apart, or from a travelling missionary on the war path for subscriptions. delusion-that, when I had "Burst the links of habit, there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the sea, My old Seeing larger constellations, burning mellow moons and happy skies, I would be all day steaming in and out of narrow passages that wind between high islands and low coral reefs of dazzling white, where, A modern writer has the audacity to repeat Mariner's famous cave legend as "a pretty story told to him by a Mr. B. !" 2 Were it not that I am often asked by very intelligent people about the "white" coral reefs, I would think it a work of supererogation to explain that coral reefs are like most other sea rocks, of a dingy, very dark green colour. The white coral of the drawing-room is bleached in the following way :-It is buried in the sand until the insects are thereby killed; then it is laid on the sand and exposed to sun, wind, and rain, which bleach it a dazzling white. The dead coral is light-coloured, the live coral is dark-coloured when first exposed to the air. sheltered from rough seas and gales, the lazy crew fend off the feathery leaves of cocoa palms, and keep rude bunches of bananas from knocking down the funnel, all the while that naked natives run along the beach-has now fully exploded. After all, I believe it is the geographers that are to blame. Why do they stick so many South Sea islands close together on their maps, just as if they dropped "groups from a pepper caster? In the morning light of the third day the high land of Upobe shows up. We steam round the eastern end of the island, and by a wide entrance gap in the long low reef pass into the harbour of Apia. Inland we see a ridge of mountains, among them Tofua, 3200 feet high, sloping gradually down to low lands that skirt the placid shores. Greenish white over dark green, the early morning mist and cloud lie on the tall tops of the cocoanut trees, which crowd toward the beach because they love the soft sea air. A brow of the mountain, 1219 feet high, juts forward from the range, and almost frowns in its abruptness over the white town of Apia, which nestles between its foot and the harbour. I need not describe Samoa, or its people, its laws and prospects at great length. I shall just lightly sketch what a passing visitor sees, for, being in touch with the world through the 'Frisco-Australasian mail steamers calling there both going and coming, Samoa is easy of access from Australia and America. On this account, and also through the political interest excited by the joint protectorate of England, Germany, and America, and by the offer of the New Zealand Government to administer the group, it is much better known than Tonga. It will some day be a favourite winter residence for New Zealanders who desire to avoid our colder winter. They will find their way to Apia, because it is distant only five days' steaming from Auckland; this time will probably be reduced to four days when the proposed faster 'Frisco mail service is started. Apia lies open to the north, and when a hurricane suddenly rises from that quarter or from the north-west, and sends enormous waves over the reef to dash upon the shore, its roadstead becomes a perfect ship trap. In ordinary weather the bay is smooth as glass; then the natural breakwater of reefs, broken only by the deep-water entrance in the centre, shelters the little jetties which dot the line of beach, and which serve for landing goods in lighters and passengers in watermen's boats. A scene of never-ending peace it would appear now, were it not for the startling-looking wrecks of men-of-war that lie stranded all around us. Driven ashore in the great hurricane of 1889, when H.M.S. Calliope, through using Westport (N. Z.) coal, was |