The traveller who makes a hurried trip in an excursion steamer through the Cook, Society, Samoan, or Tongan Islands has but little opportunity of seeing anything of the social life of the natives, or getting either fishing or shooting; for it is but rarely that the vessel remains for more than forty-eight hours at any of the ports visited.  Personally, if I wanted to have an enjoyable cruise among the various island groups in the South Pacific I should avoid the “excursion” steamer as I would the plague.  In the first place, one sees next to nothing for his passage money if he fatuously takes a ticket in either Sydney or New Zealand for “a round trip to Tonga, Samoa, Tahiti, and back.”  Certainly, he will enjoy the sea voyage, for in the Australasian winter months the weather in the South Seas is never very hot, and cloudless skies and a smooth sea may almost be relied upon from April until the end of July.  At such places as Nukualofa, the little capital of the Tonga Islands, an excursion steamer will remain for perhaps forty hours; at Apia, in Samoa, forty-eight hours; and at Papeite, the capital of the French island of Tahiti, forty-eight hours.  At the two latter places the traveller will be charmed by the lovely scenery, and disgusted by the squalid appearance of the natives; for within the last ten years great changes have occurred, and the native communities inhabiting the island ports, such as Apia and Papeite, have degenerated into the veriest loafers, spongers, and thieves.  The appearance of a strange European in any of the environs of Apia is the signal for an onslaught of beggars of all ages and both sexes, who will pester his life out for tobacco; if he says he does not smoke, they say a sixpence will do as well.  If he refuses he is pretty sure to be insulted by some half-naked ruffian, and will be glad to get back to the ship or to the refuge of an hotel.  And yet, away from the contaminating influences of the town the white stranger will meet with politeness and respect wherever he goes—­particularly if he is an Englishman—­and will at once note the pleasing difference in the manners of the natives.  Yet it must now be remembered that Samoa—­with the exception of the beautiful island of Tutuila—­is German territory, and German officials are none too effusive to Englishmen or Americans—­in Samoa.

But if any one wants to spend an enjoyable time in the South Seas let him avoid the “excursion ship” and go there in a trading steamer.  There are several of these now sailing out of Australasian ports, and there is a choice of groups to visit.  If a four months’ voyage is not too long, a passage may be obtained in a small, but fairly fast and comfortable boat of 600 tons sailing from Sydney, which visits over forty islands in her cruise from Niue or Savage Island, ten days’ steam from Sydney, to Jaluit in the Marshall Islands.  But this particular cruise I would not recommend to any one in search of a variety of beautiful scenery, for nearly all