53° 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Natives of Kambara Island, Fiji. 



mop-like heads of hair, broad noses, and full li])s betoken Papuan an- 

 cestry of remote African origin, and probably the earliest inhabitants 

 were of purer Negroid blood than those of the present, for there has 

 been a constant admixture with the Polynesians, who, being good navi- 

 gators, have peopled the remote islands of the outer Pacific. For ages 

 this admixure has been checked through the practice of the Fijians of 

 killing and eating strangers who were stranded upon their shores, and 

 it is interesting to see that it is only in the small islands of the Lau 

 group of the Fiji archipelago that a decided mingling of the Papuan 

 and Polynesian elements is observed. These Lau islands are set one 

 after another, like the leeward isles of the West Indies, in a long 

 sweeping crescent along the eastern edge of the archipelago, and are only 

 about 270 miles west of Tonga, hence the Tongans, under their great 

 chief Maafu, overran them, killing the men and capturing the women, 



