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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 78

A Hundred Palm-Clad Isles

A Hundred Palm-Clad Isles.

The Tongan archipelago consists of three islands—Tongatabu, Haapai, and Vaand about 100 smaller ones, including [unclear: volcano] of Tofua, and comprising [unclear: ontlying] islands of Niuafon (famed size of its cocoanirts, and as the [unclear: bital] of the Malau, a bird remark-laying an egg out of all proportion Tafnhi (sometimes called Bos-and Niuatobutabu (Keppels) to the Nrlstaart to the south. Many islands are mere banks of sand or giving roothold to a few palms, and all are a dead level, o the few [unclear: islands], Vavau, at the northern end of is justly celebrated for its beauty ovely land-locked harbour, one the best the Southern Pacific. All of islands are clothed with rich tropical feathered with waving cocoa-plams and upon ally of them the jaded after rest might easily be conten, rest of his days—" the world forgetting, by the world forgot." For Tonga is one of the few places which remain absolutely cut off from the outside world, save for the monthly service provided by the Union Company and occasional sailing craft. There is no cable, and there-is no newspaper. Another steamship company, the Weir line, did a few months ago make a bid for a share of the trade, of which the Union Company has for so long had a monopoly, but though it received very encouraging support the company, for some reason, retired all of a sudden from this particular preserve of the Union Company.