"As at Tahiti and in the other islands, it has been necessary to import laborers from elsewhere to work the plantations, as the Samoans are not fond of exerting themselves any more than are those of the Society group. Thus far most of the laborers have been imported by the Germans, and they come from all the islands where the German vessels trade. The Polynesian Land Company and the American Land Company have also made some importations of the same sort, but up to the present time they have not equalled the Germans.
"While walking in the outskirts of the town we were thirsty, and asked the native boy who accompanied us where we could find some water to drink. He immediately suggested cocoanut-milk, and on our acquiescing he hailed a boy who was lounging under a cocoanut-tree close by, and said something to him in Samoan.
"Immediately the second boy took a small piece of rope which had been twisted out of cocoa fibre, and prepared to ascend one of the trees. By means of this rope and his hands and feet he went up about as quickly as we could have ascended a staircase of the same height, and threw down several nuts, with which we quenched our thirst. Any one who has been in the tropics knows how refreshing is the milk of the green cocoanut when he is weary and thirsty.
CRABS EATING COCOANUTS.
"We saw some crabs feeding on cocoanuts, which are about the last thing in the world you would suppose a crab could eat. Perhaps you'll laugh and be incredulous, but they really do eat cocoanuts, and get the meat out without any assistance. Cocoanuts are their principal food, but they do not refuse other fruits, such as figs, candle-nuts, and nutmegs. This is the way they do it:
"The crab climbs a tree and pushes down a ripe cocoanut, which is easily detached, and he shows a great deal of sagacity in selecting only the ripe nuts. Then he comes down to the ground and tears the husk from the nut, and he always begins at the end where the eye-holes are. If the tree is a sloping one, and there are rocks underneath, he climbs up again, carrying the nut with him, and drops it on a rock, where it will be broken. If the situation is not favorable for this performance, he digs into the eye-holes until he makes an entrance sufficiently large to admit his pincers, with which he withdraws the meat.