Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

486 AUSTRALASIA.and American dealers, and next to their mother tongue, the natives are mostfamiliar with English, originally introdiiced by the Protestant missionaries.The orange, first planted here by Cook, has become the chief agricultural resourceof the Archipelago, while the guava, introduced in 1813, now runs wild, coveringthe slopes of the mountains with impenetrable thickets. The cotton, coffee, andsugar plantations of Afiuiaono and other districts have proved an utter failuresince the disjjersiou of the 4,000 Chinese contract labourers employed by thePig'.217.— Papeete.Scale 1 : .W.OOO.I^ ^t-320 Feet .andupw.aias.speculators. About a thousand of these have settled down as pcttj' dealers andgardeners.About 50,000 acres, or one-fifth of the large island, are estimated to be availablefor plantations. All these lands Ij'ing on the seaboard or on the first slopesof the hills, are easily accessible by the highway, 115 miles long, which winds ina double circuit round the twin islands of Great and Little Tahiti. But at thesouth-east extremity of the latter this romantic route is interrupted by precipices,and here the surf, driven by the trade winds through a large opening in thefringing reefs, has to be crossed in frail outriggers. The western part of GreatTahiti, between Papeete and the plantations, will soon be reached by a railwayfrom the capital. A little fort has been erected on the isthmus of Taravao, whichconnects both islands, and which is the most convenient site for the centre ofadministration. Fort P/iacfoii, in this southern district, is far more sjsacious and