36 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



answered "I was born a chief and a chief I will die." Nevertheless 

 he was finally forced into yielding to the demands of the white men. 

 Thus Maaf u " the Christian " would doubtless have conquered Mbau and 

 become king of all Fiji had not Thakombau in 1858 signed a deed of 

 cession granting his possessions to Great Britain. The British consul, 

 William Pritchard, Esq., and a warship came to his aid, and Maafu 

 was checked; and although the negotiations with England came to 

 nought, the increasing immigration of Europeans to Fiji made native 

 warfare more and more infrequent. Maafu had to content himself 

 with only a partial realization of his ambition and in 1882 he died a 

 disappointed man. Had he commenced his operations five years sooner, 

 he would have become the conquerer of Fiji. It was the hand of Great 

 Britain, not that of the missionaries, that had checked his blood stained 

 career. 



The affair which caused Thakombau most serious trouble appears 

 to have been one of those extortions which have been so frequently 

 perpetrated by a " civilized " upon a simple people. On July 4, 1849, 

 the residence of a whiter trader named Williams, then serving as United 

 States consul in Fiji, was burned and the natives stole some of the fur- 

 niture and stores while the house was in flames. Thakombau does not 

 appear to have been personally responsible for the firing of the house, 

 but the natives of Mbau in which the incident occurred were subject to 

 him, and Williams demanded from Thakombau about $3,000 as in- 

 demnity. Upon the king's refusing to pay, the consul's demands were 

 gradually increased and other claimants appeared, so that finally, having 

 secured the cooperation of the United States government, the sum of 

 $45,000 was demanded. Utterly unable to meet this "indemnity," 

 harassed at home, and threatened from abroad, it seemed to simple 

 Thakombau an intervention of Providenece when certain money-lenders 

 from Australia offered to pay the claim of the United States in con- 

 sideration of the deeding to them of 200,000 acres of the best land 

 in Fiji. It may well be imagined that only for a brief moment was 

 his kingly head allowed to rest in peace. Poor Thakombau, and with 

 him all Fiji, had indeed fallen "into the hands of the Jews," and it 

 was a happy moment when, on October 10, 1874, he signed a document 

 which read, " We, King of Fiji, together with other high chiefs of Fiji, 

 hereby give our country, Fiji, unreservedy to her Britannic Majesty, 

 Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. And we trust and repose fully 

 in her that she will rule Fiji justly and affectionately, that we may 

 continue to live in peace and prosperity." Never was the confidence of 

 a poor and degraded people better requited by a rich and civilized one, 

 for a strong, and generous hand had come to rule in Fiji and the light 

 of a happier day dawned upon the oppressed. Sir Arthur Gordon 

 (afterwards Lord Stanmore) was the first British governor. He had 



