[?]onga, 90 Years Ago

[?] E Seventh

[?] Mmandment, And

By J. D. Whitcombe

[ERE is an extract from a book, long out of print, which gives a little glimpse of the Tonga a century ago. The book, New aland and the South Sea Islands, R. H. Mead, was published in 10 Mead compiled it from his other's journals, kept while serv l as a lieutenant in HM Ships racao and Esk some years earlier, fore he was killed in an accident, the age of 27.

Fhe date is October 27, 1866. HMS k had anchored off Nukualofa.

Fhe Consul, Captain Jones, VC, me on board and was saluted. At If-past ten, O— S— and I landed shoot ducks. King George was -ay at Lifuka, but Mr. Moss, who s got spliced, did the honours m 3 absence of his Chief.

Since we were here in the Curacao, al by jury has been instituted, d severity of some of the laws ainst immorality have been re ced, adultery alone being now nal.

By Moss’s advice, we walked along e beach to Mafoga, a village about nile distant, where Father Lamage, the Roman Catholic Mission, pro ied us with a couple of native ides and a canoe. Twenty mutes’ walk through the bush DUght us to the edge of the ?oon.

I bagged seven ducks and five tier marsh and water birds. More er, two more wounded ducks made od their escape. Not such bad ort, considering that it was nearly pm before we began shooting, (wards dusk we saw many flying xes. The lagoon is full of fish, rich rose on every side of us— me of them three or four feet ig.

On inquiry for Charley Maafu, the mgan Adonis, whose acquaintance * made in the Curacao, we found at he is stopping with his father, aafu Senior, at Vanua Balavu, the mgan Colony in Fiji. We heard '0 little stories of this gay young ntleman.

A plot had been discovered to ke his father’s life; but the old def, with singular moderation, ared the lives of the conspirators, id sentenced them only to banish ent to different islands, for which irpose he embarked them all on s schooner.

Just before weighing, the old mtleman went on shore for some iing; and the son improved the ;casion by informing the plotters lat, though his father’s leniency ad spared their lives, they were it going to get off quite so cheap 5 they expected. He forthwith reduced a “cat” and gave them

a sound flogging all round.

On another occasion, having been convicted of a breach of the Seventh Commandment, this lad was sentenced to hard labour on the road, of which he was bound to complete a certain portion daily. By eventide his task was always done —until its very regularity awakened suspicion and, a watch having been set, he was discovered sitting coolly smoking his pipe in the shade of a tree, while a score or so of his lady-loves, past and present, were hard at work doing his allotted task on the road all their common jealousies having been overpowered by their sympathy for the object of their affections.

If Mr. Charlie Lawrie of Rabaul, New Guinea, left Sydney on Orion in mid-May for an extended holiday in the United Kingdom.