ports and imports between
the United States and the various African countries.

FOR COLLATERAL READING AND REFERENCE

Statesman's Year-Book.

Commercial Africa--pp. 3679 and following.

From a cyclopaedia read the following topics: Ivory, Suez Canal,
Gibraltar, Livingstone, Diamonds, Canary Islands.

CHAPTER XXXIV

OCEANIA

Oceania, the island division of the world, includes Australasia and the
great groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the larger islands
are regions of great productivity; others are important as
coaling-stations; still others have positions of great strategic value.

When it is considered that more than half the people in the world live
on the slopes of the Pacific Ocean, and that they depend on the
metal-working and manufacturing people of the Atlantic slopes for
clothing and commodities, it is apparent that the commerce of the
Pacific Ocean must reach enormous proportions.

For this reason the various island groups of Oceania have been acquired
by Europeans, and from the moment of their occupation their commercial
development began. The great majority of these groups are within the
limits of the sago-palm, bread-fruit, cocoanut, and banana, and these
yield not only the food-stuffs of the native people, but the export
products as well. Copra, or dried cocoanut meat, is the general export.
It is marketed in Marseille, London, and San Francisco. Sago is prepared
from the pith of a species of palm. Considerable quantities are also
exported, and it is used as a table delicacy. The banana is the
food-stuff upon which many millions of people must depend. In spite of
their small aggregate area, the food-producing power of these islands is
very great.[83]

On account of its central position, Honolulu, the capital and chief
port of Hawaii, is the most important mid-ocean station of the Pacific.
It is almost in the direct line of traffic between the Pacific ports of
the United States and Canada on the one hand, and those of Australia,
Japan and China on the other. It is also in the route of vessels that
may hereafter use the American isthmian canal in going between European
and Asian ports.

In the cultivation of export products native Malay labor is almost
always employed, inasmuch as Europeans cannot bear out-of-door labor in
the tropics. The natives are generally known as "Kanakas," and there is
not a little illicit traffic in their labor. Chinese and Japanese
coolies are