Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/207

Rh is a general similarity of the groups to each other, though they may differ greatly in detail.

Frank and Fred regretted that they could not visit the Friendly, or Tonga, Islands, the first destination of the Pera, but they consoled themselves by reading what they could find on the subject. They learned that the Tonga group was discovered by Tasman and visited by Cook, who gave the isles the name of Friendly, on account of the apparently amiable disposition of the inhabitants. They have a population of about twenty-five thousand, and are farther advanced in civilization than their neighbors of Feejee or Samoa. The Wesleyan missionaries have converted them to Christianity; many of them can speak English, and have learned reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, and on the whole stand high in the scale of education. The products of the Tonga Islands are similar to those of the Feejees, and the group is also subject to hurricanes, which are often very destructive.

The principal island is Tongataboo, which is low and level, of coral formation, and about twenty miles long by twelve broad. Here the King resides, and here, too, is the principal mission station, the King being an earnest Christian, and a regularly ordained preacher in the pulpit. He wears European clothes, has European furniture in his house, employs an Englishman as his private secretary, and altogether is quite a civilized gentleman. He has caused good roads to be made around and across the island, and in other ways has made his little kingdom know the advantages of the lands beyond the seas.