and determined resistance, and in one instance wiped out two companies
of troops and their officers. A few years ago, however, the entire
archipelago passed into the hands of Germany--Spain accepting a monetary
compensation for parting with territory that never belonged to her--and
at the present time these once valorous and warlike savages are learning
the ways of civilisation and--as might be expected--rapidly diminishing
in numbers.

*****

After ridding ourselves of the dogs we pressed steadily onward and
upward, till we no longer heard the hum of the surf beating upon the
barrier reef, and then when the sun was almost overhead we emerged from
the deep, darkened aisles of the silent forest into a small cleared
space on the summit of a spur and saw displayed before us one of the
loveliest panoramas in the universe. For of all the many beautiful
island gems which lie upon the blue bosom of the North Pacific, there
is none that exceeds in beauty and fertility the Isle of Ascension, as
Ponape is sometimes called--that being the name used by the Spaniards.

Three thousand feet below we could see for many miles the trend of the
coast north and south. Within the wavering line of roaring white surf,
which marked the barrier reef, lay the quiet green waters of the narrow
lagoon encompassing the whole of this part of Ponape, studded with many
small islands--some rocky and precipitous, some so low-lying and so
thickly palm-clad that they, seemed, with their girdles of shining
beach, to be but floating gardens of verdure, so soft and ephemeral
that even the gentle breath of the rising trade wind at early morn would
cause them to vanish like some desert mirage.

To the southward was the small, land-locked harbour of Roan Kiti, whose
gleaming waters were as yet undisturbed by the faintest ripple, and the
two American whaleships and my own vessel which floated on its placid
bosom, lay so still and quiet, that one could have thought them to be
abandoned by their crews were it not that one of the whalers began to
loose and dry sails, for it had rained heavily during the night. These
two ships were from New Bedford, and they had put into the little
harbour to wood and water, and give their sea-worn crews a fortnight's
rest ere they sailed northward away from the bright isles of the Pacific
to the cold, wintry seas of the Siberian coast and the Kurile Islands,
where they would cruise for "bowhead" whales, before returning home to