SAVAGE ISLAND.
Savage Island : an Account of a Sojourn in Niue and Tonga. By Basil Thomson, Governor of Dartmoor. (J. Murray. is. 61.)— Mr. Thomson has accustomed us to look for readable work at his hands, and Savage Island is not disappointing. It is a pleasant account of the island which alone in Polynesia knows how to work, and which in 1900 was formally received under British pro- tection, Mr. Thomson playing the chief part in the pretty little game, as it. was in this instance. The Colony of New Zealand annexed Nita in about six months time, and thus was averted the difficulty of the Protectorate. Mr. Thomson as usual gives us some pleasant character-sketches, carefully collected folk-lore, a few fragments of folk-sou, and native letters. Mr. Thomson has seen Tonga in three phases,—under the dietat orship of Mr. Baker in 1886, when Minister of King George in 1891, and in 1900, when. leaving it under a then nominal British Protectorate, Mr. Thom- son observes : "The scattered group has been under one King a s long as tradition runs ; its people have played a notable part in the history of the Pacific as navigators, conquerors, and colonists ; and I for one should be grieved if the last native State in the Pacific should pass away."
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